Yo yo yo. Welcome back to the Further your Lifestyle podcast conversations on lifestyle passions and hustles. My name's Chris, I'm your host and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you Episode 180 today and I'm super grateful for that because 180 reps that's just insane. We're so close to 200, not long now. But today's topic is actually gratitude wins. We're talking about gratitude and again this has come in from an anonymous question, which I'm super grateful for, because I'm really enjoying doing this style and it's been great I've been able to make my life so much easier in doing these. But I think they're also relevant because they play on with what I'm trying to achieve here with the podcast of Further your Lifestyle. So today's question that has come through and whoever it was from, I do appreciate it, thank you what role does gratitude play in your daily life and how has it impacted your overall happiness and wellbeing? It's a really good question. Now I'm answering this off the cuff. I haven't done any pre-planning or anything like that, because I really enjoy digging into this and really understanding what I'm thinking about it without the context or without any pre-planning. So we're going to be discussing that question or topic today, if you enjoy this episode, please subscribe, follow along the podcast, connect with me on YouTube. You can leave a comment if you enjoy this, but you can also share it. If you enjoy these episodes, please share it with someone. That would mean the absolute world to me. So we're going to get into this. We're going to roll the intro and then get straight into it. Let's do it. So I'll read out the question again what role does gratitude play in your daily life and how has it impacted your overall happiness and well-being?

To be frank, I think it's taken me a while to really appreciate gratitude, because sometimes we get so into what we're doing, we take things for granted, and it's been easier to slow down and really take a moment when apply gratitude and really just reflect Since I took a chance on myself and stepped away from the nine to five and started building out everything that I'm doing, because it's a coping mechanism, it's a way to really understand how we're progressing and are things working. But I think a lot of the time we do struggle to I'm speaking from my own experience, so not to generalize others but we tend to just do things and expect it's going to be great, expect things are just going to be, continue to work out the way they have, and when they don't, we are surprised and then we get very frustrated. I've naturally always tried to be a positive person. I think even working the corporate world, I have been told. One of my weaknesses which is also one of my strengths is I'm too nice and I need to probably be a bit more risky in terms of pushy or a bit more stand up for myself. But I am naturally a people pleaser and I always like to try to take the approach of applying empathy and trying to think maybe they've made a mistake or maybe this or maybe that, but sometimes that can be at my last, because people take advantage of that.

But for me, I think gratitude has become clearer as I've achieved something. And then I look back in hindsight. And then you look back in hindsight and you realize, oh wow, I'm very grateful for this, or I didn't realize this till now. And now, as I'm progressing very quickly in the sense of me trying to build my business, my lifestyle and everything that I want, that has to play a lot quicker. I need to be taking the moments and understand how things are going, doing a lot of more pulse checks. I do this thing called Rosethorn and Bard, where you're looking through what was the positive, what was the negative and what was an opportunity, and that really helps me understand what's working, what is working, what isn't working and why, from things not working, how that can help me grow, but also what are some of the opportunities maybe I haven't seen.

So I think gratitude when we take a moment to slow down. I believe gratitude requires us to slow down, because it's very hard to be grateful when we're running. Take a moment, reflect and understand. What are you grateful for? What are some of the things that have happened this week that has affected your mental and emotional state on a positive manner? What are these things? And then, when you understand that you can start to play back, how is that going into your greater fulfillment? How do you get more of this in your life?

Now I'm very grateful when I have opportunities, come into the business. New people reach out. They give me an opportunity. We make some money together or I'm buying off them, they're buying off me. It's very rewarding. And I'm even more grateful when they decide to choose me over someone else. And I'm also grateful when someone reaches out, leaves a comment or asks a question, because it helps give me feedback.

I'm also very grateful for the opportunities that have landed, that have just so happened to occur from the way of doing things. Sometimes that can be from our own being. But let's not get up ourselves and think that we've got it all figured out, because a lot of the time opportunities present themselves but we're only capable of seeing the value of them because we're now at an experience point where we're able to understand it and see how that is a valuable opportunity. Sometimes, if an opportunity comes too early, we might not be grateful for it because we don't see how it's important to our life not yet anyway. And I think sometimes that's why I said the hindsight is when we reflect back and we can say, if this had not occurred, I would not be here today. Therefore, I'm very grateful for it. But in the moment you were probably thinking, oh, this sucks, now I'm going to have to do this. But you didn't have a choice, so you were forced into making a decision or having to take a certain path.

A lot of people would blame the pandemic for losing their jobs or all these different things, but then because of that, they're probably better off or they've had better opportunities or they're now working somewhere else or whatever. I'm not saying that was the case for everyone, obviously, but when we understand how gratitude can help us grow and get to places where we've never been before, we will start to thrive. And I'm very grateful because every time that I've needed to make a big change in my life or needed to get somewhere or level up in the business, opportunities have always presented themselves and I'm grateful for that. And I trust that, because of forward thinking, knowing that I know this will work out, we just got to continue to play it out, continue to do the things on a daily basis and things will work out. And how does this? Looking back at the question, how has this impacted my overall happiness and well-being?

I think there's multiple parts of this. When I've done the reflection piece and seeing in hindsight, it helps me just look forward and have a better perspective and a better positive approach, and it obviously makes me feel happy because I wouldn't be here if those things had occurred. And on the same time, what about my wellbeing? I'm grateful that, for instance, I'm going for a running injury. At the moment I can't really run and that test helps you understand what you really do, appreciate what you take for granted and all those different things. My wellbeing is still up there because it helps give me a perspective of okay, maybe I need to do some different things and maybe my attachment to running was very deep and single-minded, in the sense of a bit too narrow. Therefore, broadening my opportunity to try different things to basically fill that void while I can't run because of my injury, it's probably going to be a better life-changing experience for me in the longer run. I might not know that till later, but because of my experience in the past when you've had hindsight, realizing that because of these, things worked out better, I can see that this is probably one of those moments.

As much as I have to get uncomfortable, as much as I have to now go do all these things that I haven't done before, I can appreciate that if I do this, it can only lead to better things. If I do it, it's only when we provide resistance or friction against trying to make progress in a direction whether it's our own choice or we're being forced into it that can only get better because we become better at it. So I think that's the way I play into how gratitude wins and when we show gratitude, that opens up a lot of doors as well. Because we are humans, we naturally want to feel loved, we want to feel appreciated. We have these voids to fill. So when someone is being nice to you or showing gratitude, you naturally you let your defenses down and you're more open to sharing with them, opening up with them, giving them opportunity, giving them leads, because they're being nice right, and when you're nice, things happen right. I'm smiling right now, and when you smile to other people, it opens up this overall happiness. So being grateful and showing that gratitude to other peoples, it can be contagious. It can be very rewarding with that as well. So that's really my approach on all this.

I think to further your lifestyle, you need to show gratitude, you need to have gratitude and you need to be thankful for the things that are in your daily life, but also for the things that have happened in the past. That will probably lead into also some of the better things in the future as well. But if you're not happy, if your well-being does not feel good, take a moment and just to reflect and understand how things are. What are you grateful for, what do you have? And if there's things here that you're not grateful for, you're very frustrated with and you're not happy about. How are you going to deal with them? How are you cutting them out of your life?

If there's things here not giving you the gratitude and the happiness and the excitement that you want and need and should feel, then you probably got to question what are these things that need to change? And sometimes, look, I'm myself. I don't live anyone else's life, so I can only give my own perspective and my own experience. But I guarantee there's people that are way worse than me in so many different situations whether it's running, whether it's life, whether it's financials, whether it's circumstances whatever that my problems really aren't a big issue, but they may be more grateful for them than me. And then there's people ahead of me in the same situations that I've just explained. So never assume that you've got it all and the life revolves around you, because it doesn't Take a moment, be grateful, grateful, show some gratitude and reflect on what is making you happy and what is what is thriving for your well-being.

And when was the last time you did take a moment to just reflect on what you are grateful for, and how is that playing into your mental and emotional state, because it's very hard as I said earlier, it's very hard to appreciate and take on gratitude if we're moving a million miles an hour. Slow down, smell the roses, take a moment, look around, see what you're doing and appreciate things. I still, every time I open my storage units in my business, I have to pinch myself because I'm like, how did we get here? And then, obviously a lot of hard work, but just the steps and the alignment and things showing up and things working. I am so grateful for all those things playing in my favor and hopefully they will continue to play in my favor. And that's the moments you got to really appreciate and take those moments to reflect on, because it motivates you, it helps provide confidence and it also will give you just that sense of you've got this. Keep going, keep doing it. You can do this, you can create what you want, but as soon as you forget to be grateful and become arrogant and stubborn and like you've got it all figured out, that's what will be your downfall. Appreciate being here.

Another short episode this week, just keeping it straight from the heart straight, raw and honest. As I said, I didn't plan anything for this one. If you're enjoying these types of episodes, let me know down in the comments here on the YouTube or the podcast, but if you've got a question yourself, you can reach out. I'm more than happy to try and play it into the podcast. Sometimes they don't necessarily come immediately because, like at the time of me filming this, like it's the 4th of August, this episode will probably be for the middle of September.

When you're actually hearing it. I'm weeks ahead If you don't hear it for a while. That's why Don't take it the wrong way. If you do provide me a question and I've got your contact details, like whether it's Instagram or something, I can let you know when it's scheduled as well. So appreciate you being here. Questions chuck them down. Comments chuck them down. What I will ask for you, though, is if you can share this podcast. Can you share it to someone else? Help them maybe deal with gratitude, or maybe you've resonated with this and share it to someone else that you think would resonate with them. Appreciate you being here. You have a wonderful day. Cheers you.