Dave Braun
\nHello friends. Welcome to the HireMyVA Team and Business Building Podcast, brought to you by yoogozi.com. In this podcast, and at HireMyVA, we help you to reclaim your freedom through hiring and thriving with virtual assistants without breaking the bank, that means your bank. I’m Dave Braun, you know me, you know, Larry, you’ve heard us before. Larry, how are you doing?<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\nI am well, Handsome David.<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n00:00:28
\nAll right, well, I’m grateful for you. We’re going to talk a little bit about that, but very grateful for you. We have a blast together.<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n00:00:34
\nI’m grateful for you. I mean, it’s a good time to be saying that we’re grateful. I mean, we are recording this the week of Thanksgiving here in the US now that we’ve got some listeners from around the world, but here in the US we celebrate Thanksgiving this week. I don’t think this is going to actually air until December, but I’m glad we’re talking about gratitude right now. It’s one of those things that we do talk about regularly on here. Kind of as a passing topic, Dave, but I think it probably is good that we talk a little bit more in detail about it, because as I like to remind people, anxiety and gratitude can not live in the same space at the same time. That’s right.<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n00:01:17
\nThat’s right.<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n00:01:17
\nAnd so with that lead up. What’s our question?<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n00:01:20
\nThat is our question. What is the importance of gratitude?<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n00:01:25
\nYeah. Yeah. Well, listen, you know, I think a lot of us express gratitude by saying thank you to someone who’s who’s helped us out or has given us a gift every morning at our stand-ups with our leaders in our organization. We have to say what we’re grateful for before we talk about anything else, which I think is really good. But from a scientific perspective, though, gratitude is not just an action. It’s also a positive emotion that serves a biological purpose. That’s what I don’t think a lot of people get, but I’ve got a there’s someone in my life right now, David, you know about who’s struggling right now and the different therapist and psychiatrist that they’ve talked to keeps repeating the same thing. It doesn’t matter who it is or what industry or field they’re from or what their background or training is. They talk about the importance of gratitude because positive psychology research shows that gratitude is consistently associated with greater happiness, right?<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n00:02:28
\nAnd gratitude helps folks feel more positive emotions. It helps them relish and reflect on good experiences and improves their overall general health. It helps them deal with adversity. And here’s the thing that we forget. Gratitude also helps build strong relationships, right? And isn’t that the thing like every year when you sit around the Thanksgiving table, isn’t that really what you end up thanking people. What are you feeling grateful for? Those relationships with people? Right. So I think maybe we with that, you can add it. Obviously. That’s kind of the, I think the groundwork from which we can finish the rest of the conversation, I just want to make sure that people understand what, what the hell are you talking about?<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n00:03:12
\nYeah. And, you know, and, and in fact, it at church this last week, our former senior pastor talked about, he gave his normal Thanksgiving sermon that everybody loves. It’s the same thing for 30 years. And, oh my gosh, it’s crowded. Everybody’s there. Everybody just has so much fun because he asks questions and he asks questions to the audience and everybody shouts it out. It’s so much fun.<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n00:03:42
\nA little more huh? normal, than interactive<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n00:03:44
\nOh yeah. And he’s normally pretty interactive, but, and this one it’s really interactive. And so he was, he was talking about gratitude, but you know, one of the things that I think it does, which is so important in, in episode 75, we talked a little bit about how to speak positively to others, but gratitude helps us to just be more positive. You know, like you talked about it, releasing the hormones and all that kind of stuff. And it just causes us to have a better outlook on life, on our business, the people that we’re with and it’s, you know, and, and it, it just helps to be positive. No question about it.<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n00:04:21
\nYeah. It’s so important by the way, before I chime in here, again, might be interesting. I know people are gonna say, well, gosh, Dave, is that sermon or a message online. This might be an opportunity for you to, for you to plug. Yeah.<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n00:04:37
\nYeah. It’s at Mariners church. Just go to, I think it’s Marinerschurch.org and you’ll find it on the recorded sermon. Now this particular one, Larry though, is, I mean, there’s such a difference between, you know, we were talking in the last episode about some of the things coming up and how we’re going to be doing more stuff in person. There’s such a difference between being in vs personnel online. Right. But yeah, you can check it out at marinerschurch.org and look for the sermon on, well, every, around every Thanksgiving, right before Thanksgiving, any year, it’s pretty similar. It’s similar, you know, and the funny thing is about that. Larry, we talked about it being positive, just coming out of that sermon and, and, you know, he talked about the gratitude and how it helps us and how it’s a great thing. Everybody coming out is just laughing and they’re positive and having fun. It’s amazing what it does for you.<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n00:05:34
\nYeah. I’ve noticed that even during the deepest, darkest days of the, the pandemic, I remember the first few that we, we did, we got very intentional about this. People are waiting for each other to dial into the zoom call and the you know, there’s a lot of and tension anxiety. And then as soon as people start talking about what they’re grateful for the chuckles kick in and people are reminded, oh yeah, that was really good. I had a similar experience to that. And so the stress level goes down and you start to see energy, you start a climb in enthusiasm. I think that’s where I’ve seen events like this before. Where if you could stand outside and just listen to the people, you could just feel good about the energy. So I think that’s a really important reminder, Dave, about this. Dennis Prager talks about this and he thinks it’s a sin, or we have a moral obligation of not dumping our woes on other people. That doesn’t mean you go through life by yourself, but dumping them on strangers and proverbially kicking the dog down the street, you know, just because you’re having a bad day doesn’t mean you gotta be able to bring everyone else down. I think about, you know, it’s like one of those things like smiles are contagious. We’ve done studies on this, you know, you know that right. I’m smiling.<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n00:06:49
\nYeah. Well, yeah. I mean, how do babies react when mom and dad smile the babies smile.<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n00:06:56
\nYes. And so when you’re walking down the street and you smile at someone, they will naturally smile back. Unless they are fighting it. They had to be, they have to, be intentional. Studies have shown that you can go on, do your internet search. That’s intentionally be fighting the smile. And those are the people who really need it the most, to be honest with you, you know, I, I remember being in San Francisco and walking down the street, sometimes you just have a smile on my face and happy about how life was going. And people are like, are you homeless? Or just crazy? You know? Or because people couldn’t believe, Hey, there’s somebody who just happy.<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n00:07:39
\nSo, so Larry, wait a second. So, so you’re walking down the street, you’re smiling, you look at him and kind of say, hello, smile. And then they look at you kind strange? of<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n00:07:46
\nohhh… what?<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n00:07:48
\nYou, you didn’t after they, after they walked by, you didn’t look back and say Jack ass?<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n00:07:57
\nI try not to do that now. Now, like I’m serious about that. I have said that, but I tried it now I try to say is in my mind, sorry for your life, you know, sorry about what’s going on. You know, I was at breakfast this morning with a friend and this wait person came up to us and you know, we’re talking about business over, over coffee. And this girl, woman, her energy was so positive. It’s hard to tell how old she was. She had the mask on and everything, but just her energy was oozing out of this. And I said something to her about it. And she said, oh, I’m just grateful about, about my life. She was overflowing with a positive force in the world, you know?<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n00:08:46
\nOh my gosh. It is. And you know, when we are more positive, because we’re grateful, we’re more positive. It’s very attractive to other people.<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n00:08:53
\nOf course? Who wants to be around a gumpy puff?
\nYou become, you become a magnet. And it’s very important for your team.<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n00:09:07
\nIt’s important for everything right? life, in<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n00:09:09
\nOne of the memes that I’ve got out there, you know, for my, the stuff that we talk about is it’s about enthusiasm. You can’t light a fire with a wet match. The positivity and the enthusiasm that comes from you as a leader, as a high-achiever in your organization or in your family’s life is so important. I mean, I’ve been both of those people. Okay. I’ve been that grumpy puff. I’ve been that wet blanket. I’ve been that negative person. And I’ve been the positive force as well. I can tell you I’d much rather be here on the positive side, looking for the gratitude, being grateful and even today, I got pulled into it. There’s one or two people in my life who they’re just triggers for me, you know? And so I have to put up a boundary around that person, knowing that I can only get so close before, you know, I get singed.<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n01:10:02
\nSo I just have this awareness now about it. And so all of us, we’re on this journey of learning. I promise you. I promise you, I promise you if you get intentional about gratitude and enthusiasm in your life and just practice it for 30 days of doing a gratitude journal of intentionally looking for the positive things as you’re walking through life, you know, if you see somebody, that the examples I oftentimes use Dave, and it blows my mind, how often I see it, hold the door for somebody, you know, help somebody who’s struggling putting groceries into their car while they’re babies and sitting in the shopping cart, rolling away from the car, help them out, or they’re on a plane. I was coming back from Idaho last week. I spoke at an EO chapter and I’m literally, I’m on the inside window sheet.<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n01:10:53
\nThere’s a middle seat filled the aisle seats filled men in both of them. And this young womanhad a big bag trying to put up over her head, like literally struggling to it get up there. And all these guys just fricking sat there. How about helping out …when you get intentional about gratitude, appreciation, looking for the good things in life, serving other people, man. Things start to change. I just get so excited talking about this because I went so many years not being there. And I was that dour pessimistic person for a long time in my life. It’s better on this side. I promise you.<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n01:11:31
\nOh yeah. Oh yeah. It is. I, you know, my, I tell you all the time, my mom and I go to breakfast once a week, she’s 88 years old and you know, mentally, she’s doing great health wise she struggles a little bit to get around. So what we do is when I go and I drop her off towards the front door, she has to walk up a ramp in her walker. And a lot of times she’ll get up before I can get parked and over there, but you know what happens, Larry, every single time: when somebody sees her, they will open the door for her every single time. And of course, you know, we say, thank you and are appreciative, people do it because, you know, they want to help of course, right. But the way their eyes light up, the way they, they become enthusiastic and they say, you’re welcome. And it’s just, it’s really, really, it’s really, really cool.<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n01:12:24
\nYeah. One of the things that reminds me, because I’ve lived with anxiety a ton from time to time, my life, sometimes it’s performance anxiety. Sometimes it’s general anxiety because of what’s going on in the world or my life. And, and it sometimes feels like, you know, like when you’re driving a manual shift car, like the RPMs are really high, right. It feels like that in your brain and in your heart and your soul, it seems like when you get intentional about gratitude and looking for the little miracles in life, it’s almost like downshifting and just slowing down, you know, things start to fall into perspective more, you know, the temperature drops a little bit. And it’s just much more enjoyable. I promise you, you know, I promise you.<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n01:13:16
\nYeah. And, and, and folks were talking about this because you know, this is HireMyVA team and business building podcast. Right? So all of this stuff that we talk about every single episode relates to building your team. And, you know, we talked about this being, helping you be attractive to your team, and it’s going to rub off on your team and they’re going to be more attractive to each other and want to work together more because they’re excited enthused. and<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n01:13:43
\nWell, think about it. Have you ever worked with a leader who is always stressed out, always anxious? How has that worked out for you and the team? Not very well. Right. So if you could be more attractive to your team members, David, you’re saying the team members become more attractive, but also you become more attractive to your clients. Clients want to interact with them, right. And I just promise you it’s, it’s going to be a better work environment. Life is going to be a whole lot more fun, but I’ve made a lot of promises to you. I promise you, it won’t be easy if you’ve never done this before.<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n01:14:18
\nThat’s true.<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n01:14:20
\nAnd so you have to get intentional and I’ll share very quickly. What I’ve started doing years ago is before I started writing it down, what my spiritual mentor told me “Alright, fine, Larry, you don’t want to do it this way. Try this.” When you lay down in bed at night, before you do anything else, you know, what he wanted me to do is to have a whole evening routine, turn down the lights, putting on the music, no screen time for at least an hour before bed, you know, that kind of thing, right? Like, oh, that’s for wusses, I’m not going to do that. So do you brush your teeth before you go to bed? Yes. Okay. Start thinking then about what you’re grateful. Wash your face. What are you grateful? You have a face to wash and back then he was, he was telling me this was during the height of, of the war after 911.<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n01:15:10
\nAnd so I knew plenty of people who were coming back missing body parts, face is burned, you know, some of these people, you’ve met some friends of mine, right? And he’s like, at least you have your hands to wash your face. At least you have a face to wash, be thinking about that, you know, you said as you’re laying in bed, just start at the top of your head and go down every body apart, you know, think about every person that you’re associated with that, you know, and love. How about being grateful for those things first? And the reason he wanted me to do this is because he’s, he reminded me and you and I have seen studies on this now and any of your brain books that you and I have read, we tend to wake up the way we go to sleep. So if you had a big fight before you go to bed, you haven’t resolved that you’re going to probably wake up grumpy and on edge. If you watch full metal jacket before you go to bed, it’s not like a lullaby, right? So the point is, if you fall asleep being grateful, you’re likely, or more likely to wake up with a sense of gratitude. Like I get to go to work today. I get to do these things not that I have to.<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n01:16:20
\nWell, so many things, you know, I think it, it all comes from perspective, you know? And one of the reasons why there is so much depression these days and anxiety is because we have so many choices and it’s like, oh, should I choose that or this? And you’re always wondering, well, they have it better. So maybe I made the wrong choice, always looking at other people. So how to be more grateful? We should probably save that for another episode. Cause there’s some good techniques, like what you said, we can go into more detail and, and you know, maybe adjust our attitudes a little bit.<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n01:16:57
\nYou need an attitude adjustment.<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n01:16:59
\nI do always!<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n01:17:01
\nThe beatings will continue until the attitude improves.<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n01:17:07
\nOh, it sounds like you’ve been channeling Gary Larson of the far side, right?<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n01:17:12
\nYep.<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n01:17:13
\nAll right, everybody. Thank you for being with us today. Remember be grateful because it’s going to help you build your team and building a team is the way to reclaim your freedom. We’re here to help you with our course community and our white glove service, where we find a rockstar VA for you. So three things we’d love for you to do, and we’d really appreciate it. Number one, subscribe to this podcast. If you haven’t already done so. Either on your iPhone or Android phone and on YouTube by hitting the subscribe button and clicking on the little bell to help get reminders. Okay? Number two, give us a rating, preferably five star. And then of course I leave us a comment below the video. If you’re on YouTube, any comment, ask a question, tell us what you’re grateful for, because it’s going to help us get the word out. And then number three, go to HireMyVA.com for more information on our course and community. And of course our white glove service. Whereas remember, even without experience, you learn how to prepare for, hire, and thrive with virtual assistants. We’re helping folks. We’re excited about it. Come join us, have a blast with us, become more positive and build your team and your business.<\/p>\n
Larry Broughton
\n01:18:24
\nAnd do yourself a favor. Do the world a favor, go do something significant today. And then remember this. God bless you. God keep you, God hold you. All right my friends, go get ’em. We’ll see you.!<\/p>\n
Dave Braun
\n01:18:34
\nBye bye.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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