Kevin Monroe

Hope Grows in Gratitude

Hope Grows in Gratitude

Kevin Monroe

Gratitude Ambassador

About Kevin Monroe

During a bout of depression in early 2018 when Kevin began to discover the true power of gratitude and embrace gratitude as a lifestyle. He realized that his early expressions of gratitude were anemic and bordered on robotic. As such, they failed to tap into the power of gratitude that neuroscientists and positive psychologists talk about.

As he adopted gratitude as a lifestyle, he began incorporating gratitude into his work. Whether that was speaking engagements, training or coaching sessions, or his podcast, he started sessions by asking people to pause and express gratitude for something.

Then, in June 2019, he was inspired to host a gratitude challenge. So he did. At first, it was in conjunction with his podcast. He hosted a 10-Day Gratitude Challenge to celebrate the 100th episode milestone. It was a tremendous success with almost 300 participants, and by the second day, a 100-person waitlist.

So, he launched a second session of the challenge. And it grew—organically and globally. By the fifth session, more than 1,000 people from 40-plus countries had participated, and by the 10th session, that number grew to over 2,000 people from more than 50 countries. Somehow, Kevin had tapped into the power of gratitude and people’s hunger for it.

He also co-created The Gratitude Challenge Card Deck, a resource that shares 52 of the creative prompts from The Gratitude Challenge for people to use to grow and guide gratitude in their life, work, or family.

His latest endeavor is 30 Days IN the Power of Gratitude, an app-based journey helping people explore and embrace the power of gratitude in a 30-day journey.

He is the founder and host of This Extraordinary Life Global Community and Podcast.

Kevin is a graduate of Gonzaga University with a Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership. He has an undergraduate degree in theology from Mercer University. He is a Fellow with Creating the Future and The Colson Center. He lives in Woodstock, Georgia, where he enjoys being a husband, father, grandfather, friend, creator, and gratitude guide.

Take home these learnings

1) Is being thankful and being grateful the same?
2) How living from a space of gratitude changes life?
3) How to practice gratitude during the dark times of your life?
4) Discovering rituals of gathering those gratitude moments on a day to day basis.

Listen to the specific part

2.00
intro

Episode Transcript:

00:03 He Kevin, thank you so much for joining us at the podcast next month Dr. Such a pleasure having you here. 00:10 Oh, it's a pleasure to join to be with you, my new my newest friend 00:17 into Chrono apps. Absolutely. Shukra. Thank you. You know what I could not wait. For the last few days I was traveling. And I was so waiting forward to this conversation. And I told you last time as well, in the first time when I read your LinkedIn profile, where you mentioned growing and guiding gratitude for organizations and individuals across the globe and generations, I so wanted to get in touch with you because should grandpa? And what do you call as Gratitude has been the driving force of my life, it has been one of those deepest values that I've learned from my mother. And I actually wanted to speak to somebody who is living that so that I can understand the anatomy of gratitude. Tell me, how did how did you realize that that attitude is something that you would like to dwell deeper, and you would like to share with the world? Yeah, 01:21 I'm so excited to be here to be in conversation with you the conversations we've had leading up to this. Thank you. And thank you, you who are joining us, thank you for being here. And I invite you this the way I like to think of podcasts, that that the three of us got off, you and me are sitting down for a conversation. So just pull up a chair with us here and join the conversation. So why I never imagined that I didn't know you could do work is gratitude. I didn't know it could be a focus of work. I found gratitude in a very dark time of life. And it was just a little over four years ago. And but if you were to ask me four and a half years ago, are you a grateful person, I think I would have pretty flippantly said Oh, of course I am. Right? Aren't we all? I mean, I was taught to be polite. My mom and dad taught me good manners. So I was always taught to say, please, thank you. You're welcome. And, Gaurav, I would, I equated that with gratitude until about four and a half years ago, or just over four years ago, now, four years and two or three months, April 17. And, you know, in this conversation, I may quote a few dates. There are a few dates that are etched in my mind and in my memory, other dates, not so much. So don't think I know all of these dates. I happen to remember these dates, April 17 2018, was a really dark day in my life. I struggled to get out of bed that morning. And I've had three bouts of depression in my adult life starting back in 2002. You know, our world changed September 11 2011. I had left a very successful career earlier that year to join a high tech startup. And then that high, high tech startup failed. September 11 2001, right after that, because our investors backed out. And then we led to this decline, and I was out of work. I had lost a lot of money. And that was the first time I went into depression. So I knew that what Winston Churchill called the Black Dog, right depression. I was familiar with it. So April 17 2018, it was there. It was knocking on my door, and I struggled to get out of bed. I had no energy. I had no excitement about life. It was just but I had a morning rhythm. Some people call it a routine. I prefer to think of it as a rhythm because I don't do things in the same order every day. But there are a set of things I do every day. And I entered into prayer. And as I entered into prayer, there was no desire to pray whatsoever. But I uttered these words Spirit, you are the source of creativity, spark creativity in me. And I was in this space I would call liminal space between being fully awake, fully asleep. I may have even not at all, but 45 minutes later, I remember jumping up erect and there was an idea that was 85 90% fully formed, to start what and even the name for it, start the extra ordinary experiment. Now, from the time I was 1314 years old, I've wanted to live an extraordinary life. But I have a bit of a problem. I'm a very ordinary guy. I'm, I'm not very athletic. I'm too tall to be a jockey too short to be a basketball player, too slow to be a baseball player. I wasn't athletic. I wasn't overly intelligent. I remember a few years ago, my friend Tiffany, business partner at the time, asked me about Mensa. 05:47 And I'm like, What's that? And she goes, That's what I thought. So I didn't know what the smart people society was called, because I wasn't of above average intelligence. But I always wanted to make I wanted it to matter that I lived, I wanted my life to make a difference. So we set out this 90 Day Program 13 weeks. And week six, we dedicated to gratitude. We call each week was called a challenge. So it started with the awareness challenge, just inviting people to be aware of the people around them where you're at what's going on around you. By week six, we got to gratitude. So this is just four years ago, and it was the first time in my life that I asked the question are being thankful and being grateful the same thing, because up to that moment, I had assumed they were. And in that moment, I realized there was a difference? And was what planted the seed that I wanted to live a grateful life. 06:47 So, so you said being thankful and being grateful are two different things. Yeah. Also, you spoke about that. You were taught good manners, saying please. Thank you. Sorry. So helping the Son, what's the connection? And how are they two different? 07:07 Okay. So, you listening, I'm wondering, do you see a difference? Right? And might you have been raised even though we could have been raised in very different cultures? Could we have been raised with very similar values? Right, to respect the elders? TO to have to say thank you. So what I realized, is so many times, thank you is an automated response pre programmed. 07:45 into you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Also, as I'm just listening to you, if somebody is giving me something, I'm saying thank you. It's too transactional in nature. 07:53 That is it. To me, that is the difference. Saying thank you can be now there are times I'm not saying that every time somebody says thank you, it's transactional. But it is very easy for saying thank you to be a transaction. And to either be a shallow transaction. I mean, imagine you're going through, you're you're at a coffee shop or a tea house, and the server presents you a cup of tea. You don't look at the server, you don't make eye contact with the server and you say, thank you. My question, is there any gratitude in that transaction? No, I don't think so. So gratitude. Gourav. Gratitude is transformational. Gratitude is always transformational. Where simply saying thanks can be transactional. For me, that's the single biggest difference if I am grateful. So a few weeks ago, I was I was in a journey of going deeper on this gratitude journey. And I sat down for breakfast, and I had a very simple breakfast that morning. I had a cup of coffee. I had a bowl of yogurt, and granola with strawberries on top. And for a moment, there was a moment that all of a sudden I thought, Huh. How many people and who are the people responsible for making this simple breakfast available to me? And I started thinking and I started trying to envision Okay, first off, we think of those four elements. So coffee, somebody planted the seeds that grew the beans, somebody picked the beans, somebody He roasted the beans somebody packaged the beans, somebody shipped the beans, somebody loaded the beans on a ship. Somebody took them off the ship. Somebody was on the ship that steer piloted the ship from point of origin Colombia, Ecuador, wherever to the United States, which is where I live, then it was loaded, offloaded the ship, put onto a truck taken to a distribution center. How many people were involved? And what if I could imagine their faces their names. Now I have friends that are our fourth and fifth generation coffee farmers from Honduras. And the coffee they now roast five miles from my house. I know when I drink a cup of Marvins blend, I now know who Marvin is the farmer that grew it. And I know who picked those beans and the process they went through? And what if we can be grateful for all of those people? Right? So that's kind of that's gratitude at a different level. Right? That's not a transactional? Yeah, thanks. 11:13 Yeah, you know, this reminds me of my encounter with shoe climb. And I remember last time when, during our conversation you mentioned, you said, I don't know if I chose gratitude or gratitude chose me. Yep. And when you said that, it stayed with me, because for the longest period of time, I've been in the space of coaching, leadership, executive life coaching. And when people ask me, Gordon, how did you get into coaching? And my response is exactly the same. I don't know if I chose coaching or coaching chose me, because I believe three things happen to you. One is when you fall in love, you can't go out of us, you you cannot go out on the street and say today, I'm going to fall in love. 11:59 And pick the person well, yeah. 12:02 Yeah. The second thing is, then you get to experience truth in your life. Some people call it spirituality and saying encountering your own truth. You cannot choose a day for yourself, you have been chosen to walk on that path. And everything is destined. The third thing is, for me, it's coaching. And I could relate to that, when you said that gratitude chose you. I still remember very vividly, I came back home, my mother was working in the kitchen. And while she was actually making good though, the process of making code is very, very simple. Given that pick up a teaspoon of code, put it in a vessel or a container, onto that, you will just pour in warm milk at a specific degree temperature. It's not too warm, not too cold, just at the optimum exact temperature. And that's what makes a lot of difference. And after some time, you will just keep that container outside for some time and then at the appropriate time, you're going to put it in the refrigerator, simple process, no rocket science. Now interestingly, while I was watching my mother, going through the entire process, she was saying about a guru. Why guru? Why guru? Why guru? She was reciting the name of her God, my God. Some people might call it Allah. Some people might call it Jesus. We call it wine. And very curious, intrigued by this process. I went to my mom. I said, Mother, that's what I used to call my mom. I said, Mother, why do disturbing why will for this such as for such a simple process? She looked at me smiled. She said good human nature, the key medical SLP Okay, maybe we'll just do that. Just so you understand. And given what she meant was she said that I don't want to be in this illusion that it's happening because of me. I'm only doing what has to be done. But the process is 14:38 taken care of by somebody else. And in that process, she told me Quito mela shook Rhonda Co. nega Nazarene. She said that's my way of expressing chakra. That's my way of expressing gratitude. 15:01 From that day onwards, I realized the importance of chakra. And I don't remember even a single day after that, where I've not expressed my deep gratitude, my deep chakra, whosoever is taking care of the world, as I said, some people might call it universe. You might call it God, nature, whatever we are convenient with. But then somebody's beyond this superficial body that I'm living in, who's working through me? And everything is happening. And I'm getting all the glory. So yeah, 15:43 yeah, so I, a word I use for what you've just described is transcendence. Right? There is an I believe it's a being but there's someone or something bigger than us beyond us. And that's what sparks gratitude, right? We recognize that what we have in life, our gifts we've received, we didn't create this for ourselves. We didn't, hey, you and I both there, even though we're 1000s of miles away. There's oxygen flowing in and out of our bodies, and there's blood throwing flowing through our veins at this moment. And neither one of us can take credit for the blood or the oxygen create, right? 16:30 Absolutely. You know, Kevin, for the benefit of people who are listening to us right now. What's your take on that? What difference does it make in one's life? When one starts to live from that space of gratitude? Once one start to live from that space of gratitude and chakra? 16:55 So gosh, I'll try to I this is not a flippant answer, I will unpack this. But I remember the time it was about 14 months ago, when we were creating my website in the the Suzy, the designer I was working with and the artists that was working, came back, and she had an image on the homepage. And that image said, gratitude changes everything. And I was like, Oh, she goes, Well, you I heard you say that. You believe that? Right? And I'm like, Well, yeah, of course I do. She goes, What aren't you willing to put it on your website? And like, well, well, yeah. But what if other people don't believe that? Right? What if that sounds like a bold, audacious claim. So cover up what I've started doing in time since then. I know. I invite people in conversations, and I just put up the statement. Gratitude changes everything. How do you respond to that? Do you go oh, that's nonsense. Do you go? Wow. I'm curious. I hope that's true. I believe it's true. Or I've experienced it as true. Wow. Okay. Yeah. So here, I so I do these January 2021, we started hosting these things we called 30 days in the power of gratitude. The very first one I'm hosting, there are five or six people from one group in the United Kingdom. And on day 28, one of them tells me 28 days into this, Gordon, he gives me permission to use his name. Gordon says, Kevin, I started as a skeptic cynic. I didn't believe any of this stop gratitude, changing everything. Yeah. But now I see it. Right. So here's what I say. Granite, what does gratitude do? Fundamentally, gratitude shifts, what we see. Right? So and as Nan said, we don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are. What we see in the world if you if you wake up and you know, in you choose whatever you want to choose today, you choose that it's going to be a bad day and you want to be grumpy, you chose that you chose that. You will have a bad day. I can guarantee it. Because that's how you've chosen to see the world today. Likewise, if you choose and you know, I don't know if this is still on my LinkedIn profile. I think it is. There was a time I'd written this. It was a conversation that I had with a woman now 1012 years ago, I met her at seven o'clock in the morning, I'm there for a project and she gets out of her car and she was one of those a little less grumpy. I mean a Little less cheerful, big, grumpy. She and she looked at me and I'm, I'm, you know, just, I'm excited to be here. She goes, Are you always like this? And I'm like, like, what? She goes, you're happy? And I'm like, Yeah, you know why? We get to choose? Yeah, we get to choose. So gratitude is this what it shifts what we see? It shifts what we see. And when, when you, Wayne Dyer, my favorite quotation from Wayne Dyer is this, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. So gratitude, gratitude, it's that filter. It's that perspective. It's, it's how we want to see the world. And when I choose to believe that the world is good, that God is good, that you use the word. So we got off, and I've had deep conversations leading up to this that's recorded, I learned that his mother passed just a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about that. And and you said that a friend of yours, you said, what, what was what was it about goddess kind? 21:22 Oh, somebody called me up and said, How you doing? How you holding up? I said, God's mankind? Got pinkeye? And my friend said, Can you still say that? I said, why wouldn't I say that? You know, this is very interesting, given as I'm listening to you. Code that heard several years back is coming. So alive in front of me, it says you can either think that life is happening to you. Or you can look at that life is happening for you, 21:55 for you. Right. 21:59 And as you were mentioned, it's your 22:01 choice, right? The same events are happening. The same events? 22:10 You know, how would you put it forward to a person who's going through some really difficult times? It could be losing a job or losing a family member? Going through some really difficult times in all directions? Yeah, how could you present that? Hey, why don't you look at things which are going really well? How could you live from a space of gratitude? If the person is not accustomed to living right that space? 22:45 So for me, it's it's inviting the person to find gratitude in the moment, not necessarily for the moment. And, and the process of what's going on, not for what's going on. So you lost your job, or you're just got a health diagnosis and, and, you know, a health scare. Those are really scary moments. But wow. You have a supportive family, you have a loving friends, you have this network of people that are surrounding you to help you get through this. That's something to be grateful for in the moment. Right. You're still alive, right? I mean, this is one of those things, you lost your job, things are really bad. Hey, I've lost jobs. I've lost I've had businesses close. I've ended up with a boatload of debt. But I still had a wife that loved me, who believed in me, children that loved me, friends that came around me, right. And I still had breath in my body. And I remember years ago, a friend of mine tweeted this to me. She did not know who said it. So we don't know the original source. But the quote was this. As long as you have a pulse, you have a purpose. 24:22 For as long as you have a pulse, you have a purpose. 24:26 Yeah. So if you're still alive, there's still hope. There's still something for you to do here today. Find it. So yeah, so here's what I think. I think there are times in life when when gratitude is easy, right? I mean, there's just there's so many blessings in life. Ya, you know, what are you grateful for? And you just you can rattle off a dozen things. And then there are times, my friend Chester Elton. At the beginning of the pandemic, he and I teamed up and we were doing this thing, and it was talking about finding your gratitude. Because there are times when life is tough the things you talked about, in those moments, gratitude is still there. But you may have to dig, to find out that thing for which you can be grateful for now. And when you find that thing for which to be grateful for, and you lean into gratitude, when life is tough. You find a little more strength to keep leaning to keep persevering. You find hope. Because here's something I learned. I didn't know this. I didn't I wasn't taught this, but hope grows in gratitude. 25:40 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, right. Yeah. A friend of mine. His name is Soren Buddha. The other day I was talking to him, and he does not believe in God. The other day I was talking to him. And I was saying, hey, how do you find so much of strength in your life? And what's your shield? You don't believe in God? What's your shield? Where do you find so much of strength? And he said, My shield is my gratitude. And while I was listening to you, Kevin, one of the wisest human beings ever walked on Earth. And we believe in India. His name is Kobe. Okay, and Gabi said, Do Kimmy Cimarron harkaway karta hai Sook maker in Nagoya, what it means is during difficult times, we all pray. We don't pray in good times. So Camilla, Jo, Cimarron, Gauri dukkha, haga Hui, if we continue to pray during good times, why would we, why would even the difficult times come to us? And I personally believe Gratitude is the best prayer. 27:03 Yeah, yes. 27:06 During the last conversation, Kevin, you spoke about a 30 Days Challenge where every day you post a question and ask people to be grateful for 30 days in a row 27:18 30 days and I'm 27:21 very curious to know what is written on those cards? What are the different challenges that you offer to people that they will focus on the good things rather than looking at the difficult phase of their life? I would love to 27:36 I'm happy to answer this. But I realized I didn't answer one of the first questions you asked me. How did I get into gratitude his work? And before we hit record, I was sharing. I'm so excited that you and I are together today. But I talked about April 17 2018 Being a dark day, June 17 2019. In my morning prayer time, I heard these four words. And it was kind of like a question mark. It was an invitation. The question was host of gratitude challenge. It wasn't a mandate, right? It wasn't thou shalt go host a gratitude challenge. And it's just like an invitation hosted gratitude challenge. I thought, well, that would be interesting. So I called a friend I said, Hey, you want to host your gratitude challenge with me? And I thought my friend would give me all kinds of pushback. How would we do that? He goes count me in. So two days later, two days later, Gaurav June 19. And I can show you the tweet because I went back and screenshot the tweet 733 In the morning, I think it was again in my morning prayer time, there was this impression, there's an artist who will join and create artwork for the gratitude challenge. And I'm like, well, that's interesting, but I don't know any artist. I really don't didn't know any. I mean, I knew some but so the thought wouldn't leave me alone. So at 733 I tweeted, just curious. Or just wondering, is there an artist willing to contribute artwork for our gratitude challenge can be computer generated or hand drawn? Respond or DM If interested, and I just let it go. Just put the request out to the universe. Let it go. Eight hours later, a friend of mine Gary Turner in the UK retweets this and tags, three people in the tweet. All three responded. The first one said I only do fine art and oils. This sounds interesting, but it's not my medium. Good luck. Second one says Oh, I do gratitude art. I'd love to do this. I happened to be starting a art show in Berlin on July 8. I like oh, that's the date. We're starting the project. So you're probably too busy. The third third person. And you can validate all of this on LinkedIn as of today, July 8 2022, that we're recording because it was three years ago today that we launched this project. The third person, her name is Cat haste. She's also from the UK. Cat. Didn't think she was an artist. I just draw sketches. But sure, I'm interested. And so Kat and I, through Twitter, and email messages created started creating these challenges. And we created cat says, how many images do you want? I'm like, How many are you willing to create? Right? I mean, here's an artist. I said, we're going to do 10 day she goes, Well, what if I do 11 images, and overall campaign image, and one for each day, I'm like, Okay, that would be amazing. And so Kat started sending me sketches. And I will show you four of the first 10 She created. And so we what we created, we saw, because in my life, Gaurav, I had, I had had a very anemic gratitude practice for years. I had a mentor years ago that told me to think of three things to be thankful for, before my feet hit the floor. When I was getting out of bed in the morning, I had three things. I pretty much said the same three things every day. I'm grateful for my wife, or I might go broad. I'm grateful for my family, grateful for our home grateful for my job. The next day, get up what are you grateful for home family job? I mean, I could do it in three seconds. And that's when I started realize that's not gratitude. That's that automation we're talking about? So we started looking for what are what are some unique ways that we could 31:54 create? So what if, what if here's my here was Pat's favorite of the original images, the highlight of your day challenge. And she created like a film strip with a spotlight shining on one of the frames. And I wrote the things that are now on the back, these would be the prompts. The highlight of your day review, the last 24 hours is if you're at the movies, identify the moment that stands out as the highlight of your day, pause and express gratitude for it. And be extra grateful if you had several highlights, like, right, you, you think of the highlight of your Danka? I don't know there was this and there was this and there was this? Wow, that's an amazing day. And that's an amazing movie. When you go to a movie, and people go, what was the best part and you go all of it. So another one, the last hour challenge, the last hour, look back at the last 60 minutes of your life. And identify specific things you're grateful for, be creative, and come up with as many things as possible. And I remember writing in the longer version of the prompt, and you just woke up in the morning you go, Gosh, what's there to be grateful for? Oh, you had a bed. You live in a house, you had heat or air conditioning, you're sheltered from the elements. You know, you have electricity. Seriously, you thought there's nothing to be grateful for I just woke up. Another one, one of my favorites. The Lifesaver challenge, the lifesaver challenge. Remember a time when you were in a jam and didn't know how you were going to get out of it? Who was that person or that group of people that reached out and threw you a lifeline or became a lifeline for you express gratitude for them. And if possible, reach out to them, send them an email, send them a text pick up the phone column say Gaurav, remember that time I'm so grateful for you. One more. I mean, so the lemonade challenge the lemonade challenge. When life gives you lemons make lemonade. Pick one of life's limits lemons past or present, and express good for express gratitude for the good that came through it or will come through it. So we created 10 of these and we're hosting this challenge. Again. I think it's so fun that we're doing this right now because it was three years ago, this exact day when we started this garage. And then then we went in I didn't think we'd ever do a second challenge. But I had had a friend that got involved and we ran this as a closed cohort. So we worked hard, we recruited 100 people, and then a friend of mine heard about it. He goes, Hey, can I put this out to my list? I have a global list of HR leaders like sure, Steve. And then that was on a Saturday on Sunday. Steve Cosby says can I put this in my blog post today? I'm like, sure. Steve from Saturday at two o'clock in the afternoon to my Monday at 12, noon, 190 additional people signed up for our challenge garage, we still our very first challenge. We had 290 People join us. And we're running this as a close cohort. Day two, we have 100 people on a waitlist. It's like, Well, what did we do? There was only one answer. We do it again. We do it again. And that's how it started growing. And that's how I ultimately it one thing led to another and, and then I started doing gratitude pretty regularly. 35:38 And this is this is so this is so meaningful, what you're talking about, because the moment you were showing me those cards, my mind was already looking for the things that I'm really grateful for my mind was already looking for those situations, those moments, those people that I was really thankful for. When you mentioned that look at the lifesavers. You know, the name that came to me was Balvinder, a friend of mine every time and I'm struck by just the McCall and he would help me get out of that. Every situation when I'm stuck at this friend of mine, Priti would help me to get out of that be it when I was in the hospital, and we were looking for people who could donate blood, I would just call her up and she would help us get people to the hospital or any other situation when I get stuck. There are friends of mine who will always be there to support me. When you said that, what are those moments during the day that I'm really grateful for it just before this conversation, I was playing with my little little one, right? I was playing with little Neil. And she would just come close to me. She will throw some something or the other at me. She will throw some prank at me. And then she would go away. What a beautiful moment. 36:59 That was a beautiful moment. Yeah. Okay, so let me let me go. Let me go a little further on this journey. So yeah, yeah, we, when we started this, we're just sending emails. And we're just asking people to respond personally. And if they wanted to post on social media, they could. Well, by the end of the week, we realized we were having problems getting emails delivered, and I went to my email service, they were really helpful. And they come back and go, Oh, your emails are being delivered. They're getting to, we had a lot of corporate people in our challenges, because I do a lot of corporate work. It's getting to the corporate server. But there's some kind of screening software, that's not delivering it to the desktop. And like, oh, emails, not the most reliable for this, what can we do differently? And we, and then it hit me, I was like, Oh, my gosh, I know of a community platform. What if we started a community online, and we post our prompts there. And then people aren't having to rely on email. It's it. There's an app version of this, right? They get it right on their phone. So we started doing that. We were seeking to solve a technology problem. Guess what we learned? Oh, my gosh, when people come together in community, just like you, when when you took this prompt, and you started talking about the highlight of your day, what if I'm not just I'm not just thinking about the highlight of my day. I'm now celebrating, Gaurav, hi highlight of his day. And Julie, the highlight of her day, and 2550 other people. And it's like, oh my gosh, I've never read this anywhere. I've not seen any research on this. But my experience over the past three years tells me this when we share gratitude with other people, it grows exponentially, right that something happens. And it's magical. It's like wow. And so we started doing those things in community. And we started growing gratitude communities, and inviting people to be part of a cohort part of a group and go through this together. And now, I'm Porsche. Porsche is one of these I've hosted. We call it 30 days in the power of gratitude, because that's what I want the experience to be to ground people to grow people deep into gratitude. Right? So we call it 30 days, Porsche signed up the very first session. I've now hosted nine of the sessions. Porsche showed up the very first one. This was February 2021, when we started this the first year of COVID, Coke Porsche last four family members to COVID are including her mother and other close friends. It had it had taken a toll on her life. She's an HR director, she had to go to work every day be on site, and go through all of those headaches and the stresses and have friends that got sick all of these things. And she was burnt out. She She just lost her joy. She she had no zeal for living. She's very much like I was on April 17 2018. And we go through 30 days, and we're together in a celebration session and I use a tool called Mentimeter. It puts up a question and it populates a word cloud, what word or phrase would you use to describe these past 30 days? And all of a sudden on the screen, I see resurrection and rebirth. Like wow, resurrection? Would the person who wrote resurrection? I've never seen anybody write Would you explain this? Would you talk about your experience and portion goes Oh, that was me. And you all know I mean, I share. I lost four friends and family members. I had no zeal for life. It was all gone. These 30 days in the power of gratitude. Guess what? It's back. It's been a resurrection and a rebirth. I found joy. I reconnected to purpose. You know, I'm excited. I'm ready to get up and go face the world. Like wow, wow. Portia. She's one of the people that has done all nine sessions of these 30 days with us. And what she says is I've now grown my family. You're not just friends. These people I do gratitude with you're part of my family. 41:52 Right mind blowing heart expanding. Off. I've got dozens of stories like that. Another one. A Latina mom, single mom of three children, paralyzed by anxiety and panic attacks. And she said they got so bad their time she'd have to pull over on the side of the road. And first responders would stop to check on her. Are you okay, Chica, I'm just having a panic attack. I just need a few minutes. I've got to reorient. So at the end, she was in our second or third coat, third cohort. And we're doing this what word or phrase would you use to describe this journey? All of a sudden I see the word tranquility on the screen. I'm like tranquility. I would somebody talked about tranquility coach because it was made. You all know I talked about the battles I have with anxiety and stress. These 30 days I went through 30 days in the power of gratitude. Not once was I paralyzed by panic or anxiety. And then, Gaurav, I felt this little nudge in the back, ask How often does this happen? No, I don't want to ask. And then I ask How often has this happened in your life that you go 30 days without? And without being paralyzed by panic? And you know the age? And how far? never it's never happened before? 43:20 Yeah, yeah. You know, given this is so moving, because when you speak to people, what space are you living from? As you mentioned that this lady mentioned that never. The other day, I was leading a program. And we were talking about chakra and this lady showed up and said, I would like to share something. He said for the last 600 plus days I've been living from this. And unknown this lady for that long. And I've never lived the life without the fear. I've never lived my life without fear. However, every time when I express gratitude, I experience oneness. And that's what I talk about that chakra is one of the fastest way to live from a space of oneness, because living from a space of separation will only breed in more fear within us. And every time and I'm living from a space of feel. I'm always threatened. What else can you expect? The reptilian brain would be so active and it's going to hijack our ability to think clearly make effective decisions, show up. For others, take care of them, forgive others, it won't be available to us. So thank you, Kevin, thank you so much for sharing what it means to live from a space of gratitude. Just curious, to more questions. All right. One is if you were to give a piece of advice to your 21 year old self, what would that be? 45:00 Everything you've been told about fear up to this point in your life, I'm sorry, not fear, failure, everything you've been told about failure is wrong. I was told to avoid failure. I was told, failure is to be avoided at all costs. The worst thing that can happen is you fail at something. Right? Yeah. The understanding I had then was failure is the opposite of success. Do you know what I know? Now? Failure is part of the pathway to success. You can't succeed without first failing. So don't fear failure. Don't resist failure. That's what I tell my father one year old 45:44 says, yeah. And the last question now, having lived a part of your life, having experiments, the extraordinary experiments in your life, what do you know for sure, with 100% surety and certainty, 46:02 the best is yet to come. 46:07 Thank you the best. 46:09 The best is yet to come. Gratitude. Hope grows in gratitude. Hope grows in gratitude. When we lean into gratitude, we are growing hope in our hearts, and hope is this belief that the best is yet to come. 46:25 The best is yet to come. Thank you so much, Kevin. Such a pleasure having you. 46:32 My pleasure. My pleasure. 46:33 Levine loved that conversation. Lots and lots of chakra to you. 46:39 Thank you, much Chrono to you as well. And thank you for introducing me to the concept because I didn't know it before I met you that it's the same thing as gratitude. Yeah. And thank you for listening you who listen. Thank you. Thank you for listening to us. And lean in to show Chrono to gratitude for your journey and let it change something in your life today.
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