Podcast appearances and mentions of scott colby

Join Dr. Rachel Geller and Cat Lady Justin in this heartfelt episode of The Kitty Boss as they welcome special guest Scott Colby from the Golden Whiskers podcast. Scott shares his personal journey as a devoted Cat Dad, focusing on the challenges and joys of caring for aging cats. Together, they dive into important topics such as bereavement, grieving, and loss, providing valuable insights for anyone navigating the emotional landscape of pet care. Whether you're caring for a senior cat or reflecting on the bonds we share with our furry friends, this episode is filled with compassionate advice and heartwarming stories. Tune in to learn how to honor and support your feline companions through all stages of their lives!

For a couple of releases, we had more than one fan offer to discuss it and that is the case today, we have two Scotts (with a special asset to one of them) discussion Springsteen on Broadway, In this episode of Set Lusting Bruce, host Jesse Jackson welcomes journalist and Springsteen enthusiast Scott Colby @the_scolby. Scott shares his memorable experience attending 'Springsteen on Broadway' and how it significantly impacted his life and writing career. They discuss various elements of the show, including the unique setlist, emotional storytelling, and the profound influence of Bruce Springsteen. Scott also talks about his background and his works, including a national bestseller and a novel inspired by Springsteen's music. The conversation delves into the themes of dedication, perseverance, and the power of storytelling, making it an inspiring listen for fans and writers alike. Support the show here - buymeacoffee.com/setlustingbruce  Find more about Scott here - https://coachcolby.me/ 00:00 Introduction to 30 for 30: Springsteen Edition 01:01 Meet Scott Colby: Journalist and Springsteen Fan 01:24 Springsteen on Broadway: A Dream Come True 03:17 The Journey to Broadway: Ticket Trials and Triumphs 05:54 The Broadway Experience: A Night to Remember 07:46 Inspiration from Springsteen: A Writer's Epiphany 13:25 Broadway Reflections: Emotional Impact and Favorite Songs 20:26 Powerful Moments and Personal Reflections 21:37 New Songs and Netflix Experience 22:31 A Memorable Weekend in New York 23:36 Bruce Springsteen's Origin Stories 27:03 Writing and Inspirations 30:40 Editorials and Opinions 33:59 The Mary Question and Final Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gratitude is the foundation of a happy working environment in all sectors, including healthcare. Scott Colby explains how the power of gratitude can transform our professional lives, with Jim Cagliostro.   Episode Introduction  Scott explores why gratitude is a form of self-care, why it's good business to implement a gratitude practice, and the impact of workplace loneliness. He also reveals the reason that 79% of workers leave their jobs, the transformative power of a handwritten note and how 36 questions can build long-lasting connections.   Show Topics   Lessons from Guatemala for healthcare leaders Gratitude is a form of self-care The power of handwritten notes  Treat people like humans, not transactions Loneliness causes disconnections in the workplace How 36 questions build relationships    06:09 Lessons from Guatemala for healthcare leaders Scott said that work is often a reason people are unhealthy in the US,  ‘'From my perspective, what I see is workers are overwhelmed, they're stressed, they have things to get done. I think in the US I think specifically we have a put your head down and get the work done no matter what the expense is. And often I think it's at the expense of the employee, the team member, the healthcare worker. And so I think that's a mentality. It's like, "Hey, we need to get the job done no matter what. And if it takes working long hours, if it takes not getting to take a lunch break or taking any type of break, we just have to get it done." And sometimes I think people feel like the work environment is not conducive to taking care of our own personal wellbeing. And then sometimes I know for people, they have challenges just asking for help. That was a big difference in Guatemala. Now keep in mind, I was there for a short period of time, but the community came out to welcome us. And the other thing I didn't share is they were getting their hands dirty alongside the volunteers and actually did a lot of the work, but not at the expense of their health. They did it alongside of each other and like, "Hey, we have a common goal to build a new classroom and we're going to do it as a community, but at the same time, we're going to welcome strangers, we're going to play soccer, we're going to be in the outdoors and take breaks." And I just think it's a different mindset here where we work, and I know specifically as I still do some individual health coaching with clients who are looking to lose weight and improve their sleep and lower their stress. No matter what industry they're in, it seems like work is a big reason that they're unhealthy. And it stinks because as an employee, if we're unhealthy, we're not going to do our best at work.''   10:18 Gratitude is a form of self-care Scott explained why having a gratitude practice is beneficial for physical and mental well-being. ‘'I believe it's essential that we have our own gratitude practice first before we even bring it into the work environment. Well, I'll give an analogy, and most people probably have heard of this, is to, when you're on an airplane before they take off, they're reading the safety instructions, put that oxygen mask on yourself before you help other people around you. So just imagine if you don't put that oxygen mask on yourself and you pass out, you can't help anybody else. And so I believe if we're feeling down and depressed and negative and then our work says, "Hey, we're going to start implementing gratitude." Well, we're not going to be full participants because we don't feel good ourselves, we're feeling mentally, maybe physically sick. And so gratitude is a form of self-care. So the studies show that if you have a consistent and regular gratitude practice, you will feel more optimistic, you're going to be more positive, your stress is going to be less, you might have more energy, sleep better. Whole host of benefits to practice personal gratitude. So I feel like that needs to be in place so that you are kind of more fit and more strong to give it out to other people when you start implementing that at work.''   13:54 The power of handwritten notes Scott said handwritten notes are a simple but powerful way to express appreciation in the workplace.  ‘'Now, the reason I like handwritten notes so much is if you think about the way we live our lives currently, we're in a rush, we're getting messages from everywhere, like social media, text, email, and probably 100 other ways that I didn't name. And even if we're getting a thank you, which sometimes we don't, they're often just quick text messages like thank you. And they're usually for things that we did or for gift giving. Think about how would you feel if all of a sudden at work you received a handwritten note from a coworker who took the time to actually buy a card, get an envelope, mail it to your home, and write a heartfelt message of how they feel about you and what they appreciate about you. Not even looking about, "Hey, you're doing a great job" or "Thank you for filling in for me when I had to miss a day." But just like, "Hey, here's what I love about you as a person. You're funny. You make me laugh every day." If you got that from a coworker or a boss and it came into your mail, which we know most mail is bills and ads, and you're getting this envelope and it's a handwritten envelope and you open it up and you're like, wow. If that's from a coworker or boss and they just pour their heart out to you, you're going to be like, "I feel really good. This person really cares about me as a human being" and it's going to change your attitude in the workplace. So you are going to want to do a better job and probably be more productive and you're happier overall and maybe want to stick around the workplace and not quit your job. And so I think that's why gratitude can be shown in many different ways at work, but I think handwritten notes is one of the most powerful ways that you could do so.''   18:20 Treat people like humans, not transactions Scott shared an anecdote to illustrate the importance of leading with gratitude.  ‘'And so I consider leading with gratitude, especially whether you're a one man company or you have a whole organization with hundreds of people as treating other people. And so I know we've talked about how we treat our coworkers, but let's say how we treat our patients, our residents, our clients, treating them like humans and not like a transaction. So got a couple good examples for you based from my own personal life. When I lived in Denver, I had two cats, one of them named Nomar and Nomar had to get two teeth pulled one morning. And so as our pets are getting surgery and whatever is going on with them, we get nervous, we're anxious. So that morning I went to my favorite coffee shop called Fluid, and Fluid is a company and organization, they serve coffee, but they really got to know me over the years as a person. They knew that I had two cats. They knew I took a trip to Guatemala. Well, that morning I told the barista Coley, "Hey, my cat was getting two teeth pulled." This is very coincidental, but she had a cat getting teeth pulled that day as well. She just did something simple. She said, "Your coffee is on the house." And that made me smile. It took my mind off my cat for a few minutes, and it wasn't a company saying, "Hey, we need to milk this transaction and make sure we get money out of you." It was like, "Hey, Scott is anxious today. How can we put a smile on his face for a few minutes?" And so that stuck with me. And then later on that day when the vet office called me in to pick up Nomar, they said he did a good job. It's easy just to have, "Here's your cat. Pay us $1000." While that did happen, what they also did was they gave me a certificate, and the certificate was for Nomar, and they called it a Certificate of Bravery. And they said, "Nomar was a brave boy today." And it may sound corny, but if anybody praises our pets for those pet lovers out there, we just love that company. And so this vet did something very simple. They made a certificate of bravery for Nomar, and that just made my day.''   23:40 Loneliness causes disconnections in the workplace  Scott said helping people make connections and build friendships at work boosts engagement and productivity.  ‘'One eye-opening statistic, it's not talked about, I think as much as maybe appreciation or workplace wellbeing, although it's part of it, is loneliness in the workplace. And so a statistic that came out a few years ago is 61% of employees feel lonely at work, they feel disconnected. And again, that's going to hurt engagement and productivity, and you're not going to want to stay there longer. On the other hand, 70% of employees in a survey said that having a friend at work is the number one critical factor to workplace happiness, which I love saying that. So I think one of the things I would really invest in is creating these deeper connections in the workplace and even friendships. I know maybe we don't talk about that much. Creating a friend at work. …. the jobs that I had when I had friends at work and we maybe did things together or we got to know each other on a more personal level, that made work more fun. It made it more tolerable, even if there were things about the job I didn't like, and then you have a second thought about quitting your job because "Hey, I don't want to leave a job that I have friends at." So there are different ways that you can create these human connections at work, such as writing handwritten notes or taking a break with them outside and sharing a laugh or sharing a meal together.''   30:30 How 36 questions build relationships Scott said research by psychologist Arthur Aaron showed the positive impact of getting to know your coworkers. ‘'Arthur Aaron was a research psychologist decades ago. He wanted to answer this question, how can we in a laboratory setting create instant intimacy between strangers? So what he did, he got a large group of people, brought them into his laboratory, and what he had done, he created, after some trial and error, he had created a list of 36 questions. They started out more general and then got more intimate, and he paired people up. Mind you, these people were strangers and they just took turns back and forth asking each other these questions. Just imagine if you're in a room with some other person, maybe a coworker that you don't know very well, and that you ask each other these 36 questions. By the end of that, you're going to be like, gosh, I know this person a lot better now. I know their likes, dislikes, what they're going through. And so what Arthur Aaron found out is I think it was 57% of the people in the group that were strangers wanted to hang out with their partner again in some other setting after the research project was over. So they got to know the person enough that they wanted to hang out together after the fact. And then two people from the study, one pair actually got married and invited everybody from the study. So really asking these kind of open-ended questions like what is one word that describes how you're feeling about life right now?    Connect with Lisa Miller on LinkedIn Connect with Jim Cagliostro on LinkedIn Connect with Scott Colby on LinkedIn Check out VIE Healthcare and SpendMend    You'll also hear:    How a trip to Guatemala inspired Scott's personal gratitude journey. ‘'I started to kind of examine my life, like why am I complaining all the time? Why am I focusing on the things that I don't have instead of being grateful for my life and what I do have?'' Why stepping back is important in the working environment: ‘'The thing about pushing yourself so hard is it leads to illness, whether it's physical illness, emotional exhaustion, mental breakdowns…. studies actually show that when we can take breaks and step away for a few minutes, we'll come back to our work more recharged and more productive.'' The importance of valuing people in the workplace: ‘'… 79% of the people that answered the survey said they left their job in large part because they didn't feel appreciated in the workplace…it's one thing to recognize you for your work, but it's another thing to feel appreciated as a human being...'' Alternative questions to ask when "How are you today?" isn't enough: ‘'…the standard answer is, "I'm fine." When in reality we probably have 50 other emotions that aren't fine that we could have expressed, but we're not comfortable expressing them …'' Leadership tips: Understanding that business is personal ‘'…get to know people on that level, and I think that's going to make a big difference in your organization.''   What To Do Next:   Subscribe to The Economics of Healthcare and receive a special report on 15 Effective Cost Savings Strategies.   There are three ways to work with VIE Healthcare:   Benchmark a vendor contract – either an existing contract or a new agreement. We can support your team with their cost savings initiatives to add resources and expertise. We set a bold cost savings goal and work together to achieve it.  VIE can perform a cost savings opportunity assessment. We dig deep into all of your spend and uncover unique areas of cost savings.    If you are interested in learning more, the quickest way to get your questions answered is to speak with Lisa Miller at lmiller@spendmend.com or directly at 732-319-5700.

Frustrated with the generic, paint-by-numbers state of modern fantasy writing, Scott Colby is working hard to give the genre the kick in the pants it so desperately needs. Shouldn't stories about people and creatures with the power to magically change the world around them be creative, funny, and kind of weird? Scott thinks so.   Website: http://www.deviantmagic.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/ColbyKnowsBest Music by Jam Hansley Edited/Produced by Calista Muncy Buy our books: www.4horsemenpublications.com All Social media: @Drinkingwithauthors

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. My name is Scott Colby. From Say It With Gratitude, it is just a few days before Christmas. I know a lot of times this time of year we're getting together with family and sometimes we don't get along with family members. Maybe we haven't spoken to them, uh, in a little while, and it may be difficult to kind of face them in person. And sometimes you have to be the one. Kind of starts the conversation. So what I would just kind of encourage you to think about is that you never know when. is when will be the last time you have the opportunity to speak to that person. Um, and I know a lot of times looking back, we have regrets about things. Maybe we didn't get to say something that we would like to say to the person or tell them how much we love them. So again, I know it's difficult to sometimes resolve conflicts and start that conversation. Oftentimes we want them. Start the conversation. Uh, and so this has been one of the most difficult things for me too. So how do you, how do you start the conversation with somebody when you think you're in the right and they're in the wrong? And that's our ego talking. Um, so I'm still working on this personally. I know it's not easy, but I would just encourage you to think like, Hey, this may be the last time. You get to speak to that person. You never know. Um, if you're not ready to face them and have a conversation. Uh, and this doesn't have to be during the holiday season. I'm just bringing that up because we are close to Christmas, but this can happen anytime of the year. I would encourage you to try this step instead, if this resonates with you more, uh, write down three things that you like about the person. So even if you're having a conflict, even if you've had arguments and you don't see eye to. , there are some things that you love and appreciate about the other person, especially if they're family members. So write down three three's just kind of arbitrary. Maybe there's more, maybe there's less. But think about what you love, what you appreciate about that person. Write that down. And remember the good in the other person that could help you kinda maybe get the ball rolling to resolve a conflict that you and the other person has had. So anyway, this a little bit deeper of a daily gratitude minute, but I know during holiday season it's challenging for a lot of us. I just wanted to bring this topic up. Hope this helps you. If you have any questions, you can always email me, Scott Scott Colby dot. I'm Scott Colby with the Daily Gratitude Minute, and I hope you have an amazing day.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. My name is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. My tip for you today and my encouragement is to show appreciation to local businesses. You know, running a small business is not easy, especially in this day and age. There's lots of businesses popping up both online and brick and mortar, but I want you to consider showing some appreciation for a local business that you do. Business with, you know, so one that comes to my mind is my veterinarian. I take my cat Mia in to see her, uh, any ti anywhere between once a month and once every three months. So here are a few ways you can show appreciation to your local business. So perfect examples. Just writing a handwritten thank you note. That's an easy one to do, but not. Businesses receive notes from their patients or their clients or their customers. I know I recently wrote my vet a handwritten note. She thanked me for it the next time I went in there, uh, for an appointment for my cat. So they really appreciate it if they're acknowledged, if a local business is acknowledged for their hard work that makes their day. Another thing that you could do is just post about them on social media and tag them. So I'll often take a picture with my cat being treated by the vet and I'll post it on Facebook and I'll give them a lot of love that shows that you care about them as well, and it gives that business some exposure. And then finally, another thing that you could do is to write a five star review. Businesses thrive on reviews because let's face it, when we, as the customer or their patient are looking for, Uh, a new service, like a new mechanic, a new coffee shop, a new restaurant, a new veterinarian. We read reviews and a lot of times we make our buying decisions based on reviews. So show your local businesses love. Leave a five star review. It'll make their day. So there you have it. Just a few ways to show appreciation to your local business. Go out and take my advice. Hope you, uh, actually do that. Uh, if you want some other tips on how to live in gratitude and how to actually run a business by using gratitude to build relationships. I've got a really cool toolkit, uh, gratitude toolkit.com, lots of different tips and strategies that you could do to better your life and to better your professional career. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. My name is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. I wanted to share with you one of my other interests besides gratitude, and that's hiking. You may not know it, but I'm a hiking guide. I'm also a fitness professional, fitness coach. I help people get in shape. Now, if you think about it, hiking has very similar benefits to gratitude. They both can help your mental wellbeing, and so I love helping people get out in nature and going for a hike. I think it can do a lot for you, not only physically but mentally. Just like I mentioned, I take groups out on hikes. One of my goals in the next year is to help more people get out in nature and hike. I've got a couple things. Uh, on the horizon. Some have already gotten started that I just wanted to share with you. I've got a YouTube channel called the grateful hiker.com, the grateful hiker.com. It's got a few different things, some videos on how to get in shape for hiking. I'll be doing a lot more of those in the upcoming years. It's got some hiking tips and some even, uh, just kind of like vlog style videos of me going on a hike here in the Smoky Mountains, which is near where I live. . And then the other thing that I have going on for next year is helping people get in shape to hike. So if you go to the website, SOFA to summit, S O F A T O S U M M I T, sofa, two summit.com, I've got some free leg exercises and leg workout. that you can download. Uh, and once you download those, you'll be on my email list to get more emails on getting in shape to, to climb mountains and to go for hikes. So I wanted to just offer that to you if you want to, if you're interested in, in getting in shape. And you, your summit doesn't have to be the top of a mountain. uh, it certainly is not everybody's cup of tea. Maybe your summit is you want to be able to walk to, to the end of the driveway, walk around the block, or be able to play with your kids or grandkids. That could be your summit. These exercises and workout will get you in shape for whatever your summit is. I'm designing. In my head to get people in shape to hike a mountain. But again, everybody's mountain is different. So go to sofa to summit.com and download those. And one of my goals coming up in the next couple of weeks is to put together a free 30 day sofa to Summit challenge, a free 30 day sofa to summit challenge, which will be a daily. kind of work out for you to do over the next 30 days. There's gonna be some rest and kind of recovery days, so don't worry you're not gonna do 30 days of intense working out. But if you desire to get in shape, uh, for either a real mountain or just, uh, whatever your summit is. Um, again, go to sofa to summit.com, download the free workouts that I have available now, and then you're gonna be put on the list to get notified when that 30 day challenge will begin. So hope that helps you. Um, if you have any questions, of course, you can email me, Scott Scott colby.com. . I am Scott Colby with Say It With the Gratitude, and this has been your daily gratitude minute. Thank you so much for listening. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. My name is Scott Colby. From Say It With Gratitude. You know, as we wind down the year, it is, uh, almost the end of 2022, as I record this and a lot of people are spending the holidays with friends and family members, I thought about like, how can we approach the end of the year with positivity in our heads instead of. Remembering maybe the bad that came your way this year. So I took five questions from the Grateful Deck and. I want to tell you what these questions are in hopes that you maybe use one or all of these questions during your family dinners, uh, during the holidays. I think these are great questions to wrap up the year as a way to reflect the good in our lives. In this year before we turn the calendar into, into the next year. So, uh, first question, and again, this is, I'm recording this at the end of 2022. So what was your favorite memory of 2022 or just what was your favorite memory this year? Second question. What are you grateful for today that you didn't have until this year? Number three, tell me about a challenge you had this year and a positive that you took away. . Number four, what is the kindest thing somebody did for you this year? And number five, what excites you about life right now? So imagine reflecting on the good that came your way this year instead of focusing on the bad. Hope this helps. Now again, this comes from the Grateful Deck, which is my card game of 120 questions just like you. that stimulate meaningful conversations. You can buy the actual physical copy of the deck over at my website. Say it with gratitude.com. Say it with gratitude.com. If you just want the downloadable version, it is free. You can download it over@gratitudetoolkit.com. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. We are less than a week from Christmas. It's a time of year that is very joyful for many people. But I also wanna remind you that it is a challenging time of year for a lot of us, and so it's. Reminder that we all experience this time of year differently. For some people, it's a time of joy getting together with friends and family. For other people, it's a stressful time. Uh, it's a time that we may be grieving, maybe suffering loss, maybe depressed, sad, anxious, whatever the case may be. Not everybody experiences the holidays the same, so just wanted to remind you to be. Uh, I guess extra kind this holiday season. Give people grace, uh, acknowledge them, make people feel good. Um, it's a great time of year to. So appreciation to people in your life that are meaningful to you. Make people smile, uh, because again, for many of us, we, uh, are looking for reasons to smile during the holidays, and we don't have that. So if you can go out every your way. And make somebody feel good this holiday season, why not do that? I'm Scott Colby from Saint With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Saint With Gratitude. It is middle of December. Just wanted to express appreciation for this time of year. I know this time of year is challenging for some people. Um, and I, I love this time of year as a chance to reflect on my life, but also, , see what direction I want ahead in the, in the coming year. So I usually take a couple weeks starting now to just see where I want my business and my personal life to go in the coming year. Not do too much work, actually do a lot of journaling, a lot of reflecting, a lot of brainstorming and thinking and getting together. With other people that are meaningful in my life. And, uh, it's just a chance to, Hey, how can we start fresh for the next year and really design our life the way we want? So I just want to express appreciation for this time of year. I love it. What do you like about December as you head into the new year? Would love to hear from you. Feel free to email me@scottscottcolby.com. Otherwise, thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next time.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude today. December 17th is a special day. It's my best friend, Lori's birthday. Happy birthday Lori. Hope you have a wonderful day. Just want to say a few, kind words about Lori. You know, we've been friends for, a better part of 10 years, a little bit over 10 years now. And she's. Probably the most loyal friend I've ever had. She's an amazing woman. She just cares about all of humanity. She's somebody who's dependable, somebody who is courageous, somebody that you can count on. She's somebody that speaks up for what she believes in and believes in in. and, just you couldn't ask for a better friend. So I am just really grateful to have her in my life. She's helped me tremendously professionally, but even better, she's helped me personally be a better human. And for that, I thank you, Lori. Again, happy birthday. Hope it's a wonderful. And cheers to many more years of friendship together. I'm Scott Colby with Say With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. Yesterday I delivered a virtual gratitude workshop to a company and we were talking about connection in the workplace. One statistic says that 61% of employees are lonely and underperforming. And I think it's important to note that loneliness is not the absence of people. It's the absence of connection. So if you think about it, you know, you could be married, you could have children, and you could be lonely if there's not meaningful connection between you and your family members. You could work for a company where you work closely with a group of people. It could be up, you know, over a hundred people, and you can still feel lonely if there's an absence of meaningful connect. So whether we're talking about the workplace or we're talking about your home, loneliness has become a problem. I think it's gotten worse during the pandemic, and it doesn't matter if you are surrounded by people, if there's no connection there. So I really want you to take this message to heart. How do you create meaningful connections? One way, which I've talked about a lot, is to ask meaningful questions. , and that's one of the reasons I created the Grateful Deck so that we could start having deeper conversations and we need to create that space and invite. People to share what they are feeling. A lot of times at work, we don't share our feelings. We check our emotions at the door when we get to work, right? And we can have all these feelings of depression, overwhelm, stress, and anxiety, and our coworkers may never even know that if that's the case, that person that has all those emotions is gonna feel lonely. They're not gonna do a very good job. They're not gonna feel good. and that's gonna cost the company money. So think about how you can create a deeper connection at work. If you go to gratitude toolkit.com, gratitude toolkit.com, you can download all 120 questions from the Grateful Deck and start using it at work or even at home, and create these closer bonds. Team members so that they feel like they belong and that they're heard and that you acknowledge them. So hope that helps. Go to gratitude toolkit.com, download the questions. If I can help in any way, send me an email, Scott Scott colby.com. This has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Thank you so much for listening. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. My name is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. . Yesterday I was in a virtual meeting and we were playing a few rounds of the Grateful Deck, which is my card deck with 120 questions to start meaningful conversations. We each took a turn to answer a question, and the question I got was, Tell me about one of your happiest moments. So, I love this question because it reminds us of the good in our lives, and, and we can recall a memory that we had that perhaps put a smile on my face. So my answer to this question was back in 2003, it was the day after the 4th of July. , that's when I adopted my cat's, Nomar and Mia. Now, Nomar is no longer with us. He passed away at the, uh, in, um, August of 2019, right before I moved to Tennessee. But back in 2003, I was living in Dallas at the time. I had never owned a pet before, but I knew, um, from my, uh, had a relationship with a girl. got a cat and I loved that cat, so I figured, hey, one day I'll get a cat. And so my sister was visiting me in Dallas and we went to the mall to do some clothes shopping and the S P C A was there, and you know, when. There's S P C A A rescue. I love to just look, you know, I'll look at the cats and the kittens and the dogs and the puppies. Well, sure enough, I picked up one of the cats. I forget which kitten I picked up first. Uh, and I was talking it over with my sister and. Before you knew it, I had decided to adopt a kitten. And Jill, my sister, had suggested that I think about getting two. She had had a cat at the time, uh, just one cat and she always kind of wished she had had two cats because whenever she left town, her cat was alone and she felt bad and would have liked for her cat to have the company of another. So I actually ended up going clothes shopping at the mall as my intention. And I came home that day with two kittens, uh, Nomar and Mia and uh, Mia, who is still around. She will be 20 in April. Uh, both of those cats have put a lot of smiles on my faces, brings a lot of joy to my heart, and I just really have. Memories of the day. I adopted both of them. They were really young, so they weren't from the same litter, but they were from, from the same rescue about two weeks apart. So we kind of pegged Mia's birthday as April 10th, 20 or 2003, and Nomar as April 27th, which is also my birthday, 2003. So he was just slightly younger and uh, just got, I've gotten to experience the. Of being a pet owner for the last 19 and a half years. Those of you who have a dog or a cat or uh, any pet, you know what I'm talking about, they. Bring a lot of happiness and joy to our lives. One quick thing before I sign off, so this was a question from the Grateful Deck. I encourage you perhaps to take that question and get a group of people. Maybe it's your family on Christmas morning. Maybe you have a group of friends or even at work to start a meeting. You can. Learn a lot about some, somebody that you may not know by just answering that specific question. If you want to download all 120 questions, I've got a, of course you could buy the physical version, but if you want this for free, I've got the downloadable version. You can go to gratitude toolkit.com. Gratitude toolkit.com. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been your daily gratitude minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. I had a conversation with my friend Terry yesterday. Now Terry just moved from Colorado to England. He runs running camps, uh, at least he did in Colorado. And we had partnered, uh, doing some adventure trips where we would lead groups of people doing. Various adventure activities, including hiking. He was asking me how my hiking business and speaking business was going, and I said one of my goals is to lead companies, you know, teams in organizations to come together and get outta their comfort zone and climb a mountain together. And I told Terry, you know, imagine some people sit in the same uh, office and maybe next to each. For 3, 4, 5 years, and they don't really know the people that they work with on a personal level. And I hypothesized to Terry that I bet after bringing a team together and climbing a mountain, let's say it takes five to eight hours, that that team would know each other better, more intimately than potentially. working together, sitting next to each other over the last three to five years. Now this is hypothetical. Some organizations do a really good job, uh, integrating their teams and getting to know each other on a deeper level. But for many companies, you go into work, you put your head down, you do your job, you don't really. Personal or meaningful conversations with your coworkers. You're just all about business. And the research shows that that isn't the most effective way to build a team. So when you get outside of your comfort zone and get out and do something like climb a mountain, you can foster better communication, improved creative thinking, improved critical thinking. the ability to resolve conflicts better and our overall stronger team oriented foundation. So that's one of my goals in 2023 is to put together hiking programs like these for organizations. If this is something that you. And your company may be interested in at least exploring, we could chat about it. Just send me an email@scottscottcolby.com. Would love to have a conversation on what this might look like for you. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this is Ben, the daily gratitude minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. Okay. Today's gratitude tip. This is for businesses, especially if you have an actual store location or it can set up outta market, and that's to offer free goodies. Um, so what I mean by this, I'll just give you a couple examples. Trader Joe's, uh, which is a grocery store chain, they always have complimentary coffee in the front of the store. This freebie lets the store showcase different types of coffee that they carry, and meanwhile, shoppers get a chance to try before they buy and have a warming cup of Joe while browsing the aisles. Or it's just a way to show gratitude towards. Customers offer something for free like coffee. I know in uh, Denver, when I lived in Denver, there was a cookie company called Marsha's. Cookies and they were always at farmer's markets and they would set up, uh, their table and have free samples of cookies. I would try the samples and then I would buy the cookies. So not only was it goodwill given away free samples of cookies, but at actually increased, I would imagine an increased sales as well, at least for me. Uh, and then this past weekend I was at a holiday market in Johnson City, up in northeast t. , same thing. There was a, a booth that sold some pretty good quality chocolate, uh, like different types of chocolate bark. I actually sampled their dark chocolate peppermint bark and I was hooked and bought a package of that. So when you can give away samples, um, you can increase sales or increase, uh, the time that. Customers are in your store shopping and it just creates a goodwill, good conversation starter as well. One last thing. So this was tip number nine in my book, the Grateful Entrepreneur. If you want a free downloadable copy of the Grateful Entrepreneur, you can go to this website, gratitude toolkit.com. Gratitude toolkit.com. I will send you a free sample of the book, excuse me, a free download of the book, not a sample. The entire book as well as some other gratitude goodies. So just go to gratitude toolkit.com and you can download it. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. My name is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude The other day I mentioned that a friend and colleague of mine interviewed me to express appreciation. About another friend and colleague of ours in the fitness industry, just how awesome a person she is. So I said some really nice words about her and my friend who did the interview. He's interviewing a bunch of people, he's editing it and putting together a nice video montage to gift our mutual friend. I want to point out, there's actually a service that can do this as well. So if you're interested in doing something like this in your business to express appreciation to somebody, could be a client, could be a coworker, it could be anything. There's a service called tribute and you can find it over@tribute.co. And it makes it simple to create a group video gift that you can give on any important occasion. . Once you start a video project with Tribute, they'll give you a link that you can send to the people that you want to have in the video. They can record just some nice words, and then tribute, the software will put together the montage. It's a really awesome service. I've used it, uh, when my sister, she used to work for me and my business, uh, when she left, and this was when I was doing my video, uh, my fitness coaching program. when she left and, and was no longer working for me anymore, I put together a video montage using tribute. Had a lot of my fit for photos members, say some nice words about my sister Jill. And it was just a cool way to express appreciation to her for the work that she had done, uh, while working, uh, with my company. So again, tribute.co. If you want to put together a video montage. For somebody expressing some nice words about them, I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. My name is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. I was talking to a friend of mine on the phone the other day and he needed some advice on sending handwritten notes and buying gifts for. Some of his clients and customers now, he had read my book, the Grateful Entrepreneur, which has some tips talking about this, but he couldn't remember what I had said, so I gave him a few pieces of advice that I wanted to share with you. Number one, when it comes to writing handwritten notes, he was curious, is it okay to put business cards in there? And I. You don't do that. Um, that signals that you're writing a handwritten note, almost like you're trying to get more business. When you put in your business card in there, make it a completely personal, um, relationship and appreciation. So leave the business card out. I wouldn't put it in there. Make it like you're writing a handwritten note to a friend if you're writing. A handwritten note to a friend or even a family member, you would not put a business card in there, so don't do that for your clients and customers as well. Okay, so when it comes to gifts, what makes a good gift and what PO possibly could make a bad gift? Well, despite that, this being a very popular gift, food items and wine. That sometimes, uh, could be a red flag. And here's why. Let's say you get a bottle of wine as a gift to one of your clients, and I certainly have, so I'm not, uh, saying that I've never done this. But what if they are a recovering alcoholic and you don't know that? Tour. What if you give them a gift of like cookies and they're gluten free because they have a gluten allergy? So I got this tip, actually I didn't make this up from, uh, John Roland who wrote the book, Giftology. So highly recommend you read that book. And he suggests don't get gifts that are consumables where you're drinking wine or uh, excuse me, where you're gifting wine or possibly a food item because you just don't know. What the person's situation is in terms of allergies or, or being, um, uh, off of alcohol. number two, and again, this, I got this from John Roland. Uh, he suggests you don't put your business logo on the gift. And I know a lot of people do this, and this, again, is really a promotional item if you do that. And that's not really a personal heartfelt gift. He gave kind of an extreme but funny example, like if you were giving a gift of. Towels, uh, to a bride and groom at a wedding, you would not put your logo on the towels, right? You would put, uh, possibly have their names inscribed on the towels. So when you are doing a gift for a client and customers don't put your logo on it and maybe even go as far as. If, depending on what the gift is, scripting their name on the gift, that shows a really nice personal touch. Um, also make it more heartfelt by learning more about your customer and clients and what their, their likes are, what their hobbies are, uh, and also even if you know something about their family members and then gifting them something around that. So, um, imagine. If your client has a cat like I do, and you got them a gift of their cat's face on a pair of socks, somebody gave me, uh, that gift and it was very meaningful. So something like that is gonna have a lot more meaning than just like a Starbucks gift card. So see if you can learn about what their likes are, if they have any pets, if they have any kids, if they have, uh, a spouse, if they're. and possibly get a gift that the whole family can even enjoy in you. So imagine if you have a, a client that's important to you and you got a gift that their spouse and kids love, that's gonna go a long way, uh, in cultivating that relationship with a client. So hope this helps. Uh, again, you can. Find out more about strategies like this in my book, the Grateful Entrepreneur. I sell it on Amazon, but if you want a free copy of the downloadable version, you can go to gratitude toolkit.com. Gratitude toolkit.com, and download it for free. And then the other book that I reference, Giftology by John Ruland. I highly recommend that's a great book in learning how to gift to your clients. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. My name is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. A couple days ago I was asked to participate in a pretty unique project. A friend and colleague of mine, Eric, uh, he asked to interview me just for a few minutes about another friend of mine and a colleague. In the fitness industry, Alicia, and the interview was all about appreciating Alicia, you know, what I, I appreciate about her, how she's helped me over the years, whether in my business or or personal life, and just really reflecting, um, about what the type of person Alicia is and. How she just cares for all of humanity, whether it's humans or animals. And so it allowed me to reflect and say some really nice words about Alicia. So what Eric is doing is he's interviewing a lot of Alicia's colleagues and friends, and even family members. Uh, to express appreciation to her, and he's putting together one big appreciation video that he's going to gift her. So this is a present for Alicia. I thought it's a really cool thing to do, basically, uh, a video montage of everything that we love about Alicia and who she is as a person. So really unique way to express appreciation to somebody to get a bunch of people together and collaborate on this, uh, montage video. Something that you could do to somebody important in your life, whether personally or somebody professionally. What a great way to show a tribute to somebody that you care for. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. I often have people that I'm speaking to, like in at a conference or for an organization, I'll often have the audience members write a thank you card, which is definitely good practice. Right? It's kind of a lost. But the cool thing about writing thank you notes is not only does the recipient benefit, because obviously they're receiving words of praise and and appreciation, but the person that writes the card feels more grateful to, they benefit as well. In fact, science backs it up. When you write a handwritten note, you become happier. There's actually a cool video on YouTube, um, and you can look it up. It's called an Experiment in Gratitude, the Science of Happiness and the study, um, had participants write a thank you note and then call the person that they wrote the note to and read the note to them. And the conclusions from the, um, from the study showed that. when you actually read your note to the recipient, you became even more happier than when you just wrote the note. Uh, so there's actually a deep emotional bond that can connect two people, not only when you write a note to that other person, but when you actually read them, most likely it'll lead to tears. And the study on YouTube, uh, in this video also showed that the person that came into the study. The least happy actually had the biggest jump in happiness. So if you're feeling down or anxious or just stressed writing that thank you note and then reading it to the recipient is gonna do wonders for your mood. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute cheer.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. You know, when I give my keynote to companies and at conferences on creating a happy workplace by increasing human connection and leading with gratitude, I recount my time in Guatemala, specifically when I first arrived in Guatemala and when I had to say my. And the bottom line is when I arrived in Guatemala, they made me feel completely welcome. They, uh, loved us with open arms. By us, I mean, the volunteers and I, they made us feel welcome and like we were a part of their family or part of the community immediately. And then by the end, when it was time to say our goodbyes us volunteers, we didn't want. We had felt, um, so ingrained in their community, we had a lot of fun. We got our work done, and I talked to companies about making your team feel the exact same way. When somebody is new to your company, you can welcome them with open arms and then you want to create a team that doesn't wanna leave. Right? Turnover is the biggest, um, one of the biggest costs that companies. There are lots of turnover, people leaving. You have to train new employees. It's hard to find good, good help sometimes, especially in this day and age. So how can we create an environment that welcomes our team as they come in and makes them not want to say goodbye? That's the ultimate goal. That will save your company a lot of money in the long run. And you could do that several different ways, but two best ways I know of is to increase that human connect. feel, make people feel like they, uh, you know, belong to something. Uh, and also to appreciate your team in a meaningful way. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude. On yesterday's episode, I talked about an online event that I went to Sunday evening called Thank You Live and all about appreciating people in our lives in 2022 and, uh, appreciating the things that we accomplished in 2022 looking. Before we look forward to 2023. Another cool thing that we did, two things. One, we wrote a card or a note to somebody in our lives that made a difference in 2022. And one thing that Blake, the leader of the program, Suggested that we do is that we start our card with a prompt without you. So imagine you're writing an appreciation note to somebody else and you lead off by saying without you. Now, this is something that I teach, uh, companies to do when they're writing handwritten notes to their customers or their team members, or really anybody in their lives. A secret here. I actually stole it from Blake. I learned it last year, and I love that prompt. So without you think about leading off your appreciation notes or your gratitude thank you notes with those words. Without you, what would your life look like without that person? But the other cool thing that we did on Sunday evening, we wrote, Ourselves a thank you note. That's right. We wrote a note to ourselves, appreciating us, thanking us for things that we did in 2022, or maybe ways that we persevered, things that we overcome. So I had never written a handwritten note to myself, and it's great because we often think about the things that we didn't do, but think about writing your. A note in 2022, thanking yourself for certain things that you did or experiences that you went to, or obstacles that you overcome. Hope this helps you, uh, enjoy and have a great end to your 2022 as we look forward into 2023. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute cheer.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. Last night I participated in an online event called Thank You Live, hosted by Blake Fly. His mission is to do this event every year for 55 years. So this was number seven, I believe he does it every December. and there's several things I like about it, but I'm gonna focus on one thing. It's one of the first things we did. Uh, we, he had us reflect on our year, you know, when December comes and it's almost time to turn the calendar into the new year. I know for me personally, I know for many people we focus on what we want to accomplish the following. That is great, but we don't tend to reflect on the things that we're proud of, that we accomplished during the past year. So what Blake had us do was write down every month of the year, of course, January through December, and he had us write down something that we accomplished, something that we are we're proud of for each month, and it could be multiple. So you might be wondering like, Hey, how I can't remember what I did in February. I can't even remember what I had for lunch yesterday. That is true. So Blake gives some hints on how to remember, uh, things. And the thing that worked for me, uh, the best was looking at my pictures. So I just went to my online photo album and Google, and I looked at all my pictures for January. and that reminded me of something that I accomplished. Did the same thing for February, March, April, all the way throughout the year. So that helped me remember all that I had done, and that's not the only way you could do it. He suggested you could also look at your calendar. Um, sometimes that reminds you of what you did, uh, during the year, maybe even social media photos. And look, search for those by month. Um, anyway, so I encourage you to go through this. Reflect on what you did this past year. Celebrate your accomplishments, see what you're proud of, and that'll help you feel good and and focus on what you want your next year to look like. Uh, one last thing before I sign off. I've got some really cool tools to help you live in more gratitude, both, uh, personally and professionally. Uh, you can go to gratitude toolkit.com and download some goodies there. They're all free. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. Recently, I've been working on my mindset and more specifically the language that I use just so I can be more positive day to day. You know, I think our minds tend to be more negative as humans. That's only natural, so it can take some work to think positive thoughts and. That's one way gratitude comes into play that can help you be more positive naturally, but also just watching your language. So I've been looking at my language specifically around money and having a more of a positive mindset. I tend to, you know, when things are expensive in the grocery store or the gas prices rise, then I'll say something like, Hey, this is, this is expensive, or this is crazy. Why is this cost So, and that doesn't do any good, right. That that's a negative money mindset. So in terms of what you can do to have more positive mindset, not specifically towards money, cuz that's something I'm working on personally. It may not be something that you're interested in, but, so just in general, uh, I got this from a book that I've read called Life is Good. So The Life is Good Book, life is Good, is a, is a world renowned brand, but they have a book out and I remember. Chapter on gratitude. They said, replace the words I have to with, I get to. And so I was just thinking about that yesterday, replacing the words like, I have to pay my bills with, I get to pay my bills. Not everybody gets to pay a heating bill, right? If we're homeless or, you know, other circumstances we might not have that, that, uh, going for in our lives. Perhaps we can't afford, uh, a gas bill and we don't have the means to do so. I have the means to do so. So when I think about it, and maybe this is something a takeaway for you, replace the words, have to with, get to and watch, just how that changes your perspective on what's going on in your life. I get to go to my job. I get to pay my bills, I get to buy grocer. That's awesome to be able to, to be able to afford those things and have those means in your life. Just remember, not everybody is as fortunate as us. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. You know, as I recently have been updating my keynote presentation about leading with gratitude to, in order to create a happier workplace, I came across a word that I never heard before. I'm sure it's a made up word, but I liked it and it's, the word is phubber. And so I ask people on my keynote, are you a, are you a Phubber? And it's the combination of the word phone and snubber. It's somebody who ignores a person they're with and gives attention to their cell phone. So we've all probably done it before. We've all probably had it done to us before. It doesn't feel very good. I know I've done it. plenty of times. It's not something I'm proud of. I want to do it less, but just kind of just picture two people at a restaurant sitting down to a meal or having coffee together and one person's talking and the other person is on their phone. That person that's on their phone is a phubber. They're paying more attention to their cell phone and, and giving the impress. that whatever's going on on their cell phone is more important than the person, the human being across from them. And the problem with that, the person that's being phubbed, that's being ignored, feels rejected. They feel excluded, and they feel not important. So I wanna encourage you to practice not being a phubber to put that phone away, or don't even bring it with you when. Having a conversation with another person. When you're connecting with somebody, when you're listening, be present, show them that you care and create that connection. The relationship will deepen and that's a, a sign that you appreciate that person when you listen to what they have to say. So that's my tip for today. Hope that helps. If you want more tips on how to use gratitude in your business, in your personal life, I've got a whole gratitude toolkit. You can go to gratitude. toolkit.com and download all my freebies. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. I'm still in Spokane, Washington as I record this, but headed back, uh, to Tennessee. Uh, this afternoon I, I'll get in about midnight, but I was at a coffee shop here in Spokane that I've been to several times, and a gentleman walked in, um, and he was using a cane, uh, having trouble walking a little. But he said hello to the baristas and they wished him a happy birthday. So he was obviously a regular there. They knew today was his birthday and I just, something little like that saying happy birthday to somebody can make their day. I'm sure it made him feel special. I actually struck up a conversation with him a little bit, uh, for about five minutes. Um, just told him I was, you know, outta town. I wished him a happy birthday since I had over. That today was his special day and he was telling me, um, how he had suffered a stroke but having, having a little bit of trouble speaking and walking, but wished him a wonderful day and weekend. And, uh, I'm hoping he gets hundreds of messages today on his birthday. But something simple that a company can do is wish their customers a happy birthday. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute cheer.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. I recently finished a book called the Mr Thank You Project by John Israel. I've mentioned this book a couple times before and it details John's journey of writing five thank you cards a day for an entire year, and I'm blown away that he was so consistent and completed his mission. And as you could imagine, it sometimes became difficult to think about who he should write the cards to. You know, that's a lot of cards, over a thousand cards to write. So he ended up starting to write some cards to some people he didn't know. And I want to share with you a great example. So John went to. Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, and I'm actually in Spokane right now. I just gave a keynote presentation this morning, so this reminded me of his story. John's a big Gonzaga basketball fan, and in 2017 they lost in the NCAA tournament in the finals. And as you can imagine, John and all Gonzaga fans were completely sad and depressed about the final result. So he said the game ended at about 9:00 PM and he still had his five cards to write for that day. But the last thing he wanted to do, especially because he was feeling so low in the moment, was to write these cards. Well, as John was trying to figure out who to write the cards. , he suddenly had an idea. You see, he thought about the Gonzaga basketball team that year, and yes, they did lose the championship game, but they also went further in the tournament than any other previous time. This was the furthest they had gone in the tournament. . And so in reality, it was a time for celebration, so John flipped his attitude and said, what if we celebrate the year that they had, forget about being depressed, that they lost a championship game? Let's celebrate and give thanks. To going further than any other Gonzaga team had in history. So he, he ended up writing a thank you note to every single player on the team. He looked up their statistics, what were their best games, and he recalled those best games in his card. He wrote to the coaches and he said, Flipping that attitude changed his mood 180 degrees from one of being sad and depressed and down because of that heartbreaking defeat to now one of joy and celebration on what an incredible season the Gonzaga basketball players had given John and all the other fans. So, great message on how you can take something negative and just by changing your. Looking for the good. Turn it, turning it in into something positive. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude as I record this audio, I am in Spokane, Washington here to deliver a keynote talk on gratitude in the workplace at a conference. And I flew in, uh, to Spokane today, and there was a snowy day. And there were some delays not getting into the airport, but actually once we landed, we had to sit on the plane for an hour and 15 minutes because they weren't able to plow yet. And there was another plane at our gate and they couldn't get out. They had to de-ice that plane. So we were delayed getting to the gate. Uh, and it was a little bit frustrating. I mean, I didn't make a big deal out. It, but Delta, the airline I was on sent an email a couple of hours later, which I loved. I was gonna read it to you. It says, hello Scott. We know spending additional time on board your flight after arriving wasn't what you planned today. We encountered a delay getting the aircraft into the gate after landing. This wasn't the experience you wanted to have. We wanted you to have with us, and I'm truly sorry for any inconvenience this may have. I've deposited 5,000 bonus miles into your account. We appreciate your business and this is not intended to put a value on your experience, but as part of our apology for the inconvenience, so I actually love that it was Delta owning up to something they couldn't control cuz it was weather related, but they were just doing something. Treating us passengers as rural human beings and not transactional. So something I talk about a lot and it was really cool for Delta to put that into action. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. My name is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. You know, one of the things I talk about in my keynote is how human connection has gone down quite a bit over the last 10, 20 years. And an example I'll give is the way we used to get music back in like the eighties and the nineties versus the way we get our music now. So let me give an example. When I was growing up again in the eighties and nineties, there was a record store called Tower Records. It was all over the country. They sold CDs, DVDs, videos, and my mom would drop my brother and off there, my brother and I off at the record store for a couple of hours. I would get the latest classic rock CDs that I wanted. My brother would take a few hours to go through every classical music. CD that there was looking for a rare recording of something and it got me thinking. How we used to get music back then is radically different from how we get music now, and we used to have to interact with human beings back then when we were looking for music. So listen to this example, we might ask a friend for an album recommendation. That's human connection point number one. Then we would drive to the record store, like Tower Records where our mom would drive us there. We would ask a store employee if they have it. So that's human connection. Point number two, we would grab the album stand in the checkout line. We might talk to another customer next to us in line about their music taste. That's human connection point number. We'd purchased the album from the store clerk, human connection point number four, and we'd head to a friend's house to enjoy the album. Human connection, point number five. That rarely happens anymore nowadays. How do we get our music? We get our music digitally. We don't have to leave our home. We don't even have to leave our sofa. In fact, we can just say, you know, Alexa, play this song, and our AI device will play whatever song we want them to. Or we go to a Spotify, Pandora, whatever that looks like for you. So in this day and age, human connection has really decreased. Um, and we really have to be conscious about that and be proactive in finding ways, touchpoints, where we can connect to other human beings because that's only going to help us. Cuz as we connect to more humans and have these deep, meaningful relationships, our happiness increase. Hope this helps you. If you have any comments, please don't hesitate to email me@scottscottcolby.com. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. When I work with organizations on gratitude in the workplace and developing more meaningful connections, one activity I have. The groups do is to break up in pairs. So you're with a partner and you're thinking about the one word that describes how you're feeling about life right now, and you're sharing that word with your partner. Then to take it a little bit further, you're thinking about why you chose that. and share that with your partner. So imagine you're in a group of two. You're telling your partner, what word describes how you feel about life right now? It could be anything. It could be a negative word, a positive word. Be truthful and honest and open. So it could be overwhelming or stressed or joyful or anxious or cheerful, whatever word that is. And then open up and explain to your partner why you chose that word. Then your partner does the same. , we do this unplug. So we leave our phones behind or we turn them off so we can give our partner our undivided attention. Imagine what type of connection this brings to you and one of your coworker. You're giving them full attention, so you're very present in the moment. That is a sign of gratitude. Listening shows your partner that you care about them. It deepens a relationship. It shows you that you value what they have to. Many times at work, and this is why we do this activity many times at work, we leave our emotions at the door. We check our emotions at the door. When we step into our office, whether it's a virtual office or a physical building, The problem with that is many times we have things going on in our lives, right? And our coworkers never know how we're feeling, and this can affect our work. If we're dealing with things at home, it can affect our work, but even more so, With our coworkers not even knowing how we're feeling, because we don't bring it into the workplace. We have a sense of loneliness. When we're lonely at work, we're underperforming. We're not in as engaged and think of loneliness as a, a lack of connection. So how do you create more meaningful, deeper connections at work? You do activities like this, you partner. And you share. How are you feeling about life right now, and why do you feel that way? That goes much further than just asking a coworker, how are you today? Fine. How are you? Fine. That doesn't get you anywhere. So start asking these meaningful questions to create deeper connections at work. You'll create. Deeper bonds, a sense of belonging, and you'll actually create some friendships at work. This will lead to a happier, more productive workplace that's going to contain people, employees that want to stick around a lot longer. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. Today I was practicing my keynote talk, which is, uh, creating a happy workplace by developing meaningful connections and leading with gratitude. Um, and I was just kind of reminded about how important it is to. have a happy workplace. And one of the big benefits besides creating a team or having a team that wants to stick around longer, so you know, they're not, uh, looking at switching jobs, which forces a company to. Hire new peoples. Turnover is a huge cost to companies. But the other cool thing about having a happy workplace by having a team that feels connected and appreciated is they will recruit people to join your company, your organization. So if you do have any job openings, which sometimes, especially in this day and age, these positions are tough to fill. Imagine having a team. Ready and willing to recruit for you because they're so happy. You know, if you have happy employees, they're going to want to have their friends and people that they know work for the company as well, so they will actively recruit for your team. So that's just another benefit of having a happy workplace. So not only a, a group of employees that stick around longer. But also they will actively recruit for you should you have openings in your organization. So just another reason to have a happy workplace, and you do that again by appreciating your team and having meaningful connections amongst employees. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. I often talk about starting your day with a morning routine, which may include expressing gratitude, but what about gratitude? In the evening, I think it might be a good idea. You know, a lot of us go to bed and we have anxious thoughts. We're worried about the future. We're thinking about things that happened to us in the past and that, uh, can affect our sleep. Many of us don't have an evening routine, or at nighttime we're doing things like scrolling social media. And watching the news, this can put negative thoughts into her head right before bed, and that can't help. you have a good night's sleep. So what if you instead planted some seeds of gratitude in your head right before bed? It could be anything. Things that we've talked about before, keeping a gratitude journal before bed where you're writing down, uh, maybe good things that happened to you during the day or just things that you're grateful for in life. Maybe write a handwritten note before bed each evening. Um, that could be another thing that you could do or, or just think about the things that you have in your life, um, that are good. Uh, and you don't even have to write. Things down. You could just have these as thoughts in your mind. There's even gratitude themed meditations that you could do. So you can look those up online on YouTube or any of the various meditation apps that are out there. So my, um, hope for you is that maybe if you are. Already doing something in the evening, like watching the news that maybe you have a change of heart and you look at planting some seeds of gratitude in your mind right before bed. See what difference that makes in the quality of your sleep. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude and this has been the Daily Gratitude minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. I just got back today from my Thanksgiving holiday where I spent it in Virginia with my family and I wanted to give special gratitude today to my pet sitter. My cat sitter Bailey. She watched Mia while I was. and I'm just so appreciative of her. You know, Mia is 19 and a half years old. She has health challenges, she's got arthritis, she has kidney disease, so it's really hard for me to leave her. Um, but I feel confident with Bailey. Bailey comes in. She sends me pictures every time she's here. Bailey is actually a vet student at the University of Tennessee, so I love that she has veterinary experience and with M as health challenges, I feel really comfortable having Bailey come over and watch Mia Bailey also comes over three days a week, even when I'm in town. To give Mia fluids for her kidney disease. So, uh, Bailey just give me a lot of peace of mind. Um, and because of her, I was able to enjoy my Thanksgiving break at my parents' house without worry. So, Bailey, I really appreciate you. Thank you so much for being so, um, uh, just really good with Mia and taking great care of her. So what about you? Do you have anybody that you are grateful for specifically today? Let me know, or better yet, let that person know. Maybe even think about writing them a handwritten note. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

 Welcome back to the daily gratitude minute. This is Scott Colby from say it with gratitude. You know, I started the daily gratitude minute, three years ago. It was Thanksgiving day, November 28th, 2019. And the idea was to record a daily audio. That was about a minute long. Sometimes it goes two or three minutes. Now I have not been successful at doing this daily, but here we are three years later, this is episode three 90. So it's been inconsistent, but it's pretty darn good, right? To still be doing this three years later. So today I want to share a message that I shared with you three years ago. Today's the day after Thanksgiving here in the U S so it is Friday and it's known as black Friday. Black Friday has been regarded as the beginning of America's Christmas shopping season. And it's a day where many stores offer highly promoted sales and open very early, such as, as midnight, or may even start their sales at sometimes on Thanksgiving day. This day has also been known for customers waiting in long lines for stores to open. I'm not sure if they do that any more, but traditionally this went on for years. Customers, we're hoping to get the best deals and even a time where there's a lot of pushing and shoving. If you can believe it or not. Imagine just kind of elbowing out people next to you. Trying to get a good deal. Especially a lot of times there's a limited number of a sale item. Flat screen TV is one that comes to mind. It's definitely not a day where people seem grateful for what they already have. And in fact, a pretty funny, but true quote I've seen going around says black Friday, because only in America, people trample others for sales. Exactly one day after being thankful for what they already have. It's funny, but it's sad because it's true. Now I love one of the big retailers here in the U S that has taken a stand against black Friday. And that's R E I. Five or about eight years ago. I think it is now. REI is chief customer officer Ben steel, joined colleagues at a table, brainstorming black Friday campaign ideas. When a novel idea came to his head. What if they just closed up shop altogether. So that's what they did. REI is not open on black Friday the day after Thanksgiving. One of the biggest shopping days of the year. And as Ben steel put it, people thought we were crazy. Retailers were saying, why the heck would you give up one of the busiest shopping days of the year?  And to be really transparent steel didn't know if it would actually work, but he wanted to focus on his employees. Ultimately the risk paid off in the REI team found that much to their surprise. The mass of anti shopping effort in campaign seemed to resonate for both customers and retail workers who had grown weary of black Friday. Imagine working these long hours the day after Thanksgiving, and sometimes on Thanksgiving day. So what had initially been intended as a galvanizing moment for REI employees? Has evolved to, into a larger cultural movement. REI uses this hashtag called opt outside, encouraging people to forego long lines. And big box department stores on black Friday and had outdoors instead. You know, I love that because I love the outdoors. So I want to encourage you to do the same head outside today. Get out into nature, use it as a time to get some peace and quiet time to spend. With people that you love and a time to really reflect and think about all you have and all that you're grateful for. I'm Scott Colby with say it with gratitude. And this has been your daily gratitude minute. Cheers.

 Welcome back to the daily gratitude minute. This is Scott Colby from say it with gratitude. Today is Thanksgiving day in the United States. I don't want to wish everybody who is celebrating a very happy Thanksgiving. I am fortunate and grateful to be spending Thanksgiving with some family members. My parents. I'm at my parents' home in Smith mountain lake in Virginia. And you know, for about 20 years, I didn't spend Thanksgiving with my family. I lived for 11 years in Dallas for nine years in Denver. And I always chose to spend Christmas time with my family and. It's expensive to fly home twice within a month. So I usually just stay put for Thanksgiving. Uh, but now I'm blessed to live in Knoxville, Tennessee. And it's only about a four and a half hour drive to my parents' house. So I'll be celebrating Thanksgiving with my mom and dad, Jim and Gloria. And then also my sister, Jill. Her husband, Dennis, their dog biscuit. He can't leave out. And then my nephew, who I'm really excited to see. His name is Benjamin. He is a freshman at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. Uh, so my, his parents, my brother and his wife, they live out in Northern California. So, uh, Benjamin decided instead of flying all the way out to California from Pittsburgh, kind of a, an expensive flight. He decided to make the Trek to my parents' house in Virginia. So I haven't seen him in five years. Uh, the last time I saw him was in 2017, when we all got together to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. Interesting fact. So Benjamin goes to Carnegie Mellon. I was actually accepted there for college. I didn't go there, but his dad, my brother, Chris went and got his, uh, PhD at Carnegie Mellon. So pretty cool that Benjamin's going to the same. College that my, that his dad. Got his PhD. And then we also wanted to just express gratitude towards my family. You know, there, I'm very lucky to have them in my life. Uh, have supportive siblings and parents, very loving. Um, You know, whenever I'm in need. Uh, if I'm struggling in some area of my life, relationships or loss of a pet. Uh, financially business wise, I've got a supportive family that I can turn to. Anytime I want for emotional support or other types of support, visit them could stay with them. Um, and it's been that way for a long time. Uh, just growing up. Uh, had a very good, um, upbringing and that's carried on into adulthood. So I'm definitely grateful for my family. You know, not everybody has a supportive family. Um, but whoever you're spending the day with whether you're celebrating Thanksgiving or you don't celebrate Thanksgiving, cause you're in a different country, whoever you're spending the day with on Thursday here. Let's. Give them some extra gratitude. Show some love, give a hug, flash a smile, write a thank you note. We could all use more of that in our world right now. And, uh, I just hope that you can spend. This day with some loved  ones. I'm Scott Colby with say it with gratitude. And this has been the daily gratitude minute. Cheers.

 Welcome back to the daily gratitude minute. This is Scott Colby from say it with gratitude. I often talk about gratitude in the workplace. And when I do, I like to emphasize that gratitude in the workplace starts with you. I think it's important to have a personal gratitude practice first. Before you can spread it to others. And the reason I say that, so think about the benefits of gratitude, right. And having a gratitude practice. The research shows. There's a multitude of benefits. A couple of them being be more positive. You have less anxiety, less stress, more. Optimism. So think about if you're living in an attitude of. Uh, not being grateful and complaining and being down and being anxious and overwhelmed and stressed. So you're not your best. How can you be expected to lift other people up with gratitude? If you're feeling so low yourself. So I don't think you can effectively have a gratitude practice at work where you're appreciating other people. If you were feeling bad yourself. So that's why I think it's important that gratitude starts with you and that you have your own gratitude practice. First self gratitude, right? And thinking about all the things that you appreciate in your life so that you can live a more optimistic, positive. And uplifting. Day by day life. So what are ways you can live a more gratitude? I'm not going to go into too much detail here in this episode, but find a way to express gratitude on a consistent basis that resonates with you. Maybe it's journaling. Maybe it's writing handwritten notes. Could be keeping a gratitude jar, could be making gratitude videos for other people or gratitude phone calls. Could be doing an act of kindness or volunteering in your community. Whatever that looks like for you doing on a consistent basis. Watch to see how your attitude and mood change. And when you're uplifted by yourself, gratitude practice, you can begin to uplift others in the workplace with gratitude as well. Hope this helps. If you want some more ideas on implementing gratitude at work, go to my free toolkit@gratitudetoolkit.com. Got a lot of goodies for you to download I'm Scott Colby with say it with gratitude. And this has been the daily gratitude minute. Cheers.

In this podcast, I'm interviewing Scott Colby - a motivational speaker and health coach. We're going to be talking all about gratitude this week, as it's the week of Thanksgiving! After an eye-opening experience in Guatemala, during which Scott witnessed firsthand the power of gratitude even in poor living conditions, he launched Say It With Gratitude, which helps companies grow their business by having gratitude as a core value. In addition to delivering his message of gratitude around the world, Scott promotes the power of thank you notes, leads gratitude adventures in the wilderness, and developed The Grateful Deck, a card game consisting of questions that spark meaningful conversations. One of his main focuses right now is helping hospitals, nursing facilities, and other healthcare institutions create a happy workplace by leading with gratitude. It truly was such an honor to chat with him about how we can infuse a little more gratitude into our daily lives. I hope you take a lot from this episode and apply any nuggets of wisdom in your own life as we move into this holiday season. :) CONNECT WITH SCOTT COLBY: Website: www.sayitwithgratitude.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/sayitwithgratitude?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scottcolby CONNECT WITH NURSE COACH SHAWNE: Follow me on social media, visit my website, learn about my programs, and schedule a free Discovery Session with me! - www.alignwellco.com/links NURSE COACHES CORNER: Nurse Coach Tech Mastery Membership - www.alignwellco.com/membership Free Nurse Coach Tech Support Group - www.facebook.com/groups/nursecoachtechsupport Become a Transformative Nurse Coach! - https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=12341112&calendarID=7041974

Welcome back to the daily gratitude minute. This is Scott Colby with say it with gratitude. Last week. I'm one of the episodes. I talked about a book that I was reading. I just started it. It's called the Mr. Thank you project. And it's about John Israel who had a goal to write five. Thank you cards a day for one year, 365 straight days, which is incredible. What a mission. And one of the first groups of people that he wrote to, he was on an airplane and decided to write to the pilots. And he got to thinking like, Hey, what, what should I say in the card? What am I grateful for? And. He thought a little harder. And then he thought about like how these pilots. When they're flying across the country, like most weeks out of the year, they're away from their family. But what they're doing is they're oftentimes helping the passengers. See their families. And when John thought about this, gosh, gosh, it's helping so many people, you know, spend holidays with their families or other events with their families. While they're away from their families. What a noble thing to do in this world? What a noble profession. As well. You know, when flights are delayed or canceled, sometimes the pilots. They face the brunt of a passenger's frustration. So that's other things to be grateful for. So when you really think about what pilots go through and the, uh, dedication to their work. We have a lot to be grateful to pilot. So John wrote a, I think on this particular flight. You know, there's pilot and copilot, and he had a second leg of his flight. So he wrote to four pilots on one day. And I think he asked like one of the pilots who had been. A pilot for, I think 22 years. If he had ever gotten a thank you card before and in 22 years of being a pilot that pilot never had. So an incredible mission. Uh, that pilots do John express gratitude towards them. And, uh, yeah, I can't wait to finish his book. I'll bring you more episodes. Of the daily gratitude minute that cover other lessons learned from the book. Mr. Thank you.  I'm Scott Colby with say it with gratitude. And this has been the daily gratitude minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the daily gratitude minute. This is Scott Colby from say it with gratitude. You know, one of my favorite things to say is find what makes you happy and do more of it. We often get caught up in our to-do list. Right. I know. I certainly do. I usually focus on work more than having fun. Or we sometimes spend our days reacting and responding to things such as emails, social media posts, and text messages. I do that as well. This goes on day after day, week after weekend month after month. But when was the last time you stopped and took some time to notice how you feel. Now more than ever. It's important to stop and take some time for our mental health. So this week, I want you to do this. Take out a journal or a piece of paper and write down all the things that make you feel happier. Then create some space in your schedule to actually enjoy these things. Guilt free. It can be anything I can nature connecting with a friend. Being around animals. Having a cup of coffee, just relaxing or volunteering with kids. Now the key is to not just be aware of what makes you happy, but actually taking action and finding time to do them. You deserve to feel good. So make quality time for yourself. I'm Scott Colby would say it with gratitude. And this has been the daily gratitude.  Cheers.

In 2014 Scott Colby took a trip to Guatemala to help build schools with Hug It Forward that would change his life forever. The people had very little, yet they had a joyous and grateful attitude. Learning about the positive benefits gratitude can have on people, such as more happiness and optimism, Scott decided he wanted to create a gratitude movement called Say It With Gratitude. He created thank you notes with artwork from the children of Guatemala. He went on to write a book called the Grateful Entrepreneur, emphasizing the need for more gratitude in the workplace. We talk about how gratitude can bolster your business and bring more joy to your life.

Welcome back to the daily gratitude minute. This is Scott Colby with say it with gratitude. I've got a gratitude tip from my book, the grateful entrepreneur, how you can show your customers. Uh, just that you care about them as human beings and not just as a transaction. And that's to offer sympathy. You know, how many businesses send out sympathy cards when a family member of a customer or employee passes away? Practically none. Your business should do so. Send a heartfelt handwritten sympathy card. When your customers lose loved ones. Sometimes it's not easy to know what to say in a card. Right? So I've got a couple suggestions of the wording suggested by a woman named Florence. Isaacs could be really simple. Here's a couple of examples. Dear Janet. I'm so sorry to hear about your mother's passing. You are in my thoughts and prayers at this time of sadness. I send my deepest condolences. Follow that with your signature. Here's one more option, dear Janet. I just heard about your mother's death. I'm so sorry for your loss. Please accept my heartfelt sympathy. Again, simply sign your name. Such brief notes are both powerful and appropriate.  I personally also send sympathy cards when a customer loses a pet because our furry friends or families too, and clients will truly appreciate that gesture. I'm Scott Colby with Say It with gratitude, and this has been the daily gratitude. Cheers.

Welcome back to the daily gratitude minute. This is Scott Colby from say it with gratitude. So this afternoon, I ran a virtual workshop for some employees, uh, from a small company based out of Northern Virginia. And I tried an activity that I only tried once before I learned this one from Chad little field who owns a business called we and me. He facilitates connection. Activities and events as well. And he calls this activity breakout blackout. So the group I was with was virtual. So we were all on zoom. And so if you're not familiar, a breakout is when you're on a virtual meeting using a platform like zoom and you break out in the smaller groups in a separate room. Well in the breakout blackout, you're in a virtual room by yourself. Yep. That's right. You're in your own virtual breakout room. So, what do you do in there? Well, it depends on the purpose of the meeting, et cetera, but of course I facilitate gratitude and connection workshops. So, what I did was I had the participant search for an interesting or surprising fact about gratitude. They each had three minutes to find a unique fact about gratitude and then share it with the rest of the group. So everybody got into their own breakout room yet they were by themselves, which is perfect for the introvert among us. They found an interesting fact about gratitude and when they returned to the main room, Uh, everybody typed what they found and the chat, and some people shared verbally. It was awesome. And I learned a couple things about gratitude that I didn't know. Such as people are less likely to express gratitude at work than anywhere else. And gratitude is good for your cholesterol. Just want to pass this along in case it's useful for your next virtual meeting. I am Scott Colby with say it with gratitude. And this has been the daily gratitude minute. Cheers.  

 Welcome back to the daily gratitude minute. This is Scott Colby from say it with gratitude. In my book, the grateful entrepreneur, I gave a tip for businesses. If they wanted to stand out from their competition and that's to send out cards on weird holidays. Now it's. Not that common for businesses to send out cards as it is, you know, many businesses don't send out. Thank you cards. But I think if there's one time, a business does a pretty good job. Sending out cards it's during the Christmas holidays. Well, if you could imagine the average, person's getting lots and lots of cards during the Christmas And those don't really stand out. So, what I recommend is that you send cards on other types of holidays, such as Groundhog's day St. Patrick's day, 4th of July. Thanksgiving is a good one too, which is coming up. Uh, since it's a holiday specifically to express gratitude. Now when I was doing research for my book. I found an example of a company that was doing this well and was getting a great return on their investment. Joe, John Bachmann, who owns Bachman's auto care in Illinois for eight years, at least at the time of the article that I read. He had spent an average of $1,858 per year on thank you cards for his entire customer base. So almost $2,000 he was spending on. Writing and mailing. Thank you cards. Now that seems like a lot, right? Well, John has consistently seen between a 35,040 5,000 return on his yearly. Thanksgiving and Christmas and July card. So those are the two times during the year he sent out Thanksgiving and Christmas in July and his customers weren't getting cards from anybody else during that time. So he was able to stand out from his competition. He initially tried sending out cards during Christmas and was not getting a good. ROI return on his investment. So he changed his plan. Started to send out cards twice a year during the weird, not very common times to do that and his results skyrocketed. So. Really cool idea. It's not too late to get your cards out for Thanksgiving, get those cards out. And if you don't get Out for Thanksgiving this year. Think of the next time. That there's a weird holiday, so not Christmas, but maybe Groundhog's day that you start to send out cards to your customers and your clients. One last thing. If you want to download a digital copy of my book, the grateful entrepreneur for free. Go to gratitude, toolkit.com.  And you can enter in your email and i'll send you a digital copy of the entire book i'm scott colby with say it with gratitude and this has been the daily gratitude minute cheers

Welcome back to the daily gratitude minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. I want to give you a quick connection tip that you can. Use at work now I didn't make this up. There's a book I recently read called connectable all about creating connections and belonging. And the workplace and the authors have come out with a connection deck, which are 30 challenges that you can do to. Build connection in the workplace. And so one of the challenges in the connection deck is asked for advice. So they say, if you want to earn someone's trust and empathy, which is important at work, right. Ask them for advice. So they say share a small decision or minor problem with somebody at work to get their advice, pulling someone into your day prompts, connection, and allows others to demonstrate empathy. As an example. I'm trying to make a decision about X, Y, N, Z. If you were me, what would you do? So, if you want to strengthen your connections at work. Build somebody's trust and empathy, then ask them for their advice.  I'm scott colby with say it with gratitude and this has been the daily gratitude minute cheers

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. My name is Scott Colby from Say with Gratitude. I just started reading a book called Mr. Thank You, by John Israel. I've known John for a few years. Mainly online, I guess only online. We've chatted, we've done a Zoom call together. Uh, but he wrote this book a few years ago and I'm surprised that I'm just now reading it. But it tells of his journey and lessons learned from. Writing five handwritten notes. So he wrote five thank you cards every day for a year. Now, that's incredible to me because I sometimes give myself a challenge of writing one thank you card a day for 30 days, and I struggle. So I'm interested in knowing how he did it and how he kept himself accountable and going. I know one of the things he did, cuz I'm still at the beginning of the book, but he outlined some rules up front that he must follow and I wanted to share four rules with you. Number one, all notes about must be handwritten so he can't copy and paste an email and send it out to a bunch of people. These need to be handwritten notes. Number two, every day, five cards must be written and every morning starts at zero. So in other words, he can't save. For the entire week, let's say on Sunday and write 35 cards, he needs to write five notes every single day. Rule three, a maximum of three cards count per individual. So in other words, he can't write 365 cards to his wife. He could only write to his wife or any one individual three times throughout the year. So he has to come up with a lot of different people to write notes to. And number four, this is really interest. if he writes less than five thank you cards in a day, he needs to donate $1,000 to charity. So imagine such a big kind of penalty, kind of, I mean, you're donating to charity, but it is a penalty in that it's a thousand bucks out of your pocket any day he forgets to write or doesn't write five handwritten notes that's gonna keep him accountable. When he first put together rule four, he was going to donate a hundred dollars to. If he wrote less than five notes in a day, and his business coach at the time said, I don't think that's a big enough penalty. And he asked him, Would you have donated a hundred, 200 or 200 bucks to charity anyway this year? And John said, Yes. He said, We need to make that rule even more strict. And they came up with donating a thousand dollars to charity for any day that. misses his five thank you notes. Incredibly powerful tool to keep yourself accountable. So I'm just at the beginning stages of this book. I can't wait to dig into it. It's again, it's Mr. Thank You by John Israel. I'll do another gratitude minute, um, once I finish the book and share with you my big takeaways. If you've read it, would love to hear from you. You can always send me a DM on Instagram over at Scott Colby dot. I'm Scott Colby with Sat With Gratitude and this has been your daily gratitude minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude. I often talk about listening as a form of gratitude, but only if you're present. So what do I mean by that? Well, oftentimes when somebody is talking to us, we're doing other things. We're checking our phones, we're thinking about our emails, we're thinking about what we need to do during the. notifications come up and we look at those instead of paying attention to the person who's talking to us. This sometimes happens in meetings, just one-on-one conversations, even at meals or just having a cup of coffee with a friend. So the issue with this is if you're checking your phone when somebody's talking to you, how do you think that person. They don't feel cared for. They don't feel listened to, They don't probably feel understood, they don't feel valued. But if you can do away with all the external noise and be in the moment with the person that's having the conversation with you, and even don't even get out your phone, even put that phone. So the study's been shown that even if your phone's on the table and you're not using it, the level and the quality of conversation goes down just by the mere presence of having your cell phone on the table. So don't even bring it out. Leave it in your bag, leave it at home, leave it in your car. Be fully present with somebody that's having the conversation with you. That way you can be a better listener. They're gonna feel cared for, valued, and. And that is a form of gratitude. That's a great gift that you can give somebody else. The act and art of listening seems to be harder to do these days, but practice it without your phone than being fully present. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude. Yesterday I mentioned a nonprofit here in Knoxville, Tennessee called Send Senior Citizens Love their mission. Is to keep the connections alive for senior citizens at risk, for isolation and loneliness by collecting handwritten notes and delivering them to seniors all across the country. Seniors who are at risk of being lonely, they're in hospitals, they're in nursing homes, and I wanted to give a suggestion on how your organization could do. While helping your team bond and build deeper connections with one another, it's simply this once a week or once a month, or even just one time, your team can pledge to come together. Let's say at a, at a lunchtime, you come together and your right handwritten notes that go to seniors who are in hospitals battling loneliness. So just think about. It's a Thursday, it's noon. It's when you usually have lunch. You come together as a team. Everybody's got their lunch, their food. You're writing handwritten notes for a good cause. You're bonding over the act of writing handwritten notes, but you're also getting to know each other on your team personally. You're getting to ask your team members questions. You're learning their hobbies, learning about their families, what they like, what they don't like, what they're struggling with, some successes or good things happening in their life, all while bonding over the act of writing handwritten notes for a good cause for senior citizens who are lonely. So doing this can bring your team together. Number one, you're bonding over the act of writing handwritten. But specifically these handwritten notes are going for a good cause. So you're also bonding and coming closer together by doing something for good. What a powerful way to build connection amongst your team. When you have connection like this, your team will be more engaged. They'll be more productive. They're gonna wanna stick around a lot. So give this a try and let me note Nephew specifically want to write cards for my friend's nonprofit. Send Senior Citizens Love. You can go on their website, send senior citizens love.org and contact them or get ahold of me@scottscottcolby.com and I'll put you in touch with Ashley, who's the founder of the nonprofit. I'm Scott Colby with Sat With Gratitude and this has been The Daily Gratitude Minute cheer.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby. With Sat With Gratitude. I want to briefly talk about, uh, a woman's nonprofit here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Now, I met her online through a kind of a local Facebook group here in Knoxville, and I was intrigued when I learned what she was doing. She has a non-profit, well, first of all, her name is Ashley Lynch. Ashley has a nonprofit called Send Senior Citizens Love Send, Senior Citizens Love, uh, and her mission is to end isolation and loneliness among seniors. Of course, I love that mission. Her inspiration was kind of fairly recently. Both of her grandparents passed away. And she had noticed they were a little bit isolated and lonely, um, I think in the hospital. And she realized there's other seniors that are lonely in hospitals and nursing centers. So she wanted to do something to make them feel less lonely. So what she does is she actually collects handwritten notes from people all around the world that she delivers to senior citizens in hospitals and rehab. So, you know, I've talked about the way that handwritten notes can connect people together and help you feel cared about and less lonely. And that's her mission. And she does this for certain population, senior citizens, and I just love it. You can actually write notes and send it to Ashley's nonprofit organization and she'll get it to a senior citizen. In a hospital or a rehab center, so it's really cool what she's doing. You can check out more information about her nonprofit at Send senior citizens love.org. Send senior citizens love.org if you, um, want to connect with her. Kind of personally, just let me know. You can shoot me an email to scott@scottcolby.com and I'll connect you with her, or you can just contact her through her website. Again, I love her mission of ending isolation and loneliness among seniors. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby from Say It With Gratitude. When I talk about gratitude in the workplace, one of the things I like to mention and encourage is for you to be specific with your gratitude, especially when you are expressing appreciation for somebody at work. So what I mean by that is instead of just saying, Thank you or good job. Be specific about what you appreciate about that person, and I would encourage you not to even tie it to performance. So a great example of this recently actually happened to me. One of the things that I do besides talk about gratitude, I'm a health and fitness coach for a company called Metabolic Living, and there were six coaches and one of them recently, uh, decided to leave her position with the. And before she left, she took a moment to express appreciation to all of the other coaches. So for me, she said a few nice words. And then she ended by saying, Three of my most favorite things about you are your calm presence, your heart for all of humanity, your creativity and spirit of exploration. So she was expressing what she loved about. And that meant so much more than just saying, Hey, you know, great job as a coach of these last three years that we've been working together. So when you are expressing gratitude to a team member, be very specific and tell that team member what you love about them. I'm Scott Colby with Say It With Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

Welcome back to the Daily Gratitude Minute. This is Scott Colby. I want to talk a little bit about. Workplace wellness. Now, a Surgeon General's report that just came out declared that toxic workplaces can be harmful to a person's mental health due to factors like long hours, chronic stress, and being underpaid. Now, that's pretty obvious. The report highlights that 76% of workers in the US have at least one symptom of a mental health condition. While up to 84% of people said their workplaces contributed to mental health issues, these numbers are incredibly high. The surgeon general outlined five essentials that would help workplaces support well. These include protection from harm, connection, and community opportunity for growth matter at work and work life harmony. Now, all these are important. My eyes are drawn to connection and community because it's something that I talk about in my keynotes when I'm speaking at conferences and in into organizations. So how can you have more connection and community in the workplace? Well, lots of ways you could do that, but something I talk about is just asking meaningful question to spark meaningful conversations. Really to help you get to know your coworkers on a more intimate level so that you can have a deeper relationship, possibly even friendship. Friendships at work have been shown to. Correlated with happiness in the workplace. So how do you ask questions or know what questions to ask? Well, I designed the Grateful Deck, which is 120 questions to spark meaningful conversations. You could do use these questions in the workplace. I just drew one at random so you can get an idea of what one of the questions is like. Um, the question says if you could spend a day off work doing one thing that you would. What would it be and why? So if you ask a coworker this question, you can get to know a little bit about one of their hobbies and why they started, um, to, to like that hobby. And that can give you some insight about this person. So, uh, if you want to download all 120 questions digitally, you can go to gratitude toolkit.com, put in your email address, and I'll send you all 120 questions in the Grateful Deck. These questions are great for. Perhaps starting a meeting, or maybe you can pull a coworker from work and go through a few of the questions and just go back and forth and create a bond between you and one of your coworkers. And if you want to purchase the physical deck that I'll mail to you, I've got 'em over at my website. Sat with gratitude.com. I'm Scott Colby from Say It with Gratitude, and this has been the Daily Gratitude Minute. Cheers.

In this episode, Founder of Say It With Gratitude, Scott Colby, talks about creating a happier workplace through gratitude. Today, Scott talks about the 5 languages of appreciation in the workplace, staying connected with handwritten notes, and how gratitude affects the bottom line. How can you infuse gratitude in the workplace? Hear about gratitude journaling, the gratitude toolkit, and get Scott's advice to his younger self, all on today's episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.   Key Takeaways “It starts with you first.” “Find out how each teammate likes to be appreciated at work, and then appreciate them in that language on a consistent basis.” “Write down one thing that you're grateful for each day.” “Almost 50% of workers choose Words of Affirmation as their first way that they like to receive appreciation at work.” “61% of all US employees are lonely.” “Start now. Do something. Compliment somebody. Flash somebody a smile. Do something different.” “Do some of this unplugged.” “Don't take things personally.”   More about Scott Colby After an eye-opening experience in Guatemala, during which Scott witnessed firsthand the power of gratitude, even in poor living conditions, he launched Say It With Gratitude, which helps companies create happy workplaces by having gratitude as a core value. In addition to delivering his message of gratitude around the world, Scott promotes the power of thank you notes, leads gratitude adventures in the wilderness, authored a book called The Grateful Entrepreneur, and developed The Grateful Deck, a card game consisting of questions that spark meaningful conversations.   Suggested Keywords Healthy, Wealthy, Smart, Gratitude, Appreciation, Connections, Affirmation, Quality Time, Service, Gifts, Touch,   Recommended Reading: The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace.   FREE Gift: Gratitude Toolkit.   To learn more, follow Scott at: Email:              scott@scottcolby.com. Website:          sayitwithgratitude.com. Facebook:       Scott Colby. Instagram:       @scottcolby.     Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website: https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                       https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927   Read the Full Transcript Here:  00:05 Welcome to the healthy, wealthy and smart podcast where healthcare meets business with your host me, Dr. Karen Litzy. And just as a reminder, the information in this podcast is for entertainment purposes only, and is not to be used as personalized medical advice. Enjoy the show. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the podcast. I am your host, Karen Litzy. And today's episode is all about gratitude. So often we talk about gratitude in the context of our personal life, which is great, there's nothing wrong with that. But today, in this episode, we challenge you to start practicing gratitude in the workplace. So to talk us through is Scott Colby. After an eye opening experience in Guatemala, during which Scott witnessed firsthand the power of gratitude even in poor living conditions. He launched say it with gratitude, which helps companies create happy workplaces by having gratitude as a core value. In addition to delivering his message of gratitude around the world. Scott promotes the power of thank you notes, leads gratitude adventures in the wilderness, authored a book called The Grateful entrepreneur and develop the grateful deck a card game consisting of questions that spark meaningful conversations. So into the in today's episode, we talk about the five languages of appreciation in the workplace. So if you are a manager, or a CEO, or you own your own practice, you're gonna want to know what those five languages are. Because that's how you're going to want to speak to your employees, how to stay connected with handwritten notes, and how gratitude gratitude affects the bottom line. So I want to give a big thank you to Scott for coming on and talking about gratitude in the workplace. And so I'm very grateful for him. Everyone enjoyed today's episode. Hey, Scott, welcome to the podcast. I'm happy to have you on today.   02:01 Hey, Karen, thank you for having me. Looking forward to a great conversation.   02:06 Yeah, it's my pleasure. And today we're going to be talking about happiness and how to create a happier workplace through gratitude. So before we get into the meat and potatoes of our conversation, can you let the listeners know a little bit more about why you came across this topic? Why this is like your expertise. So go ahead and give the listeners a little bit more backstory, if   02:31 you will? Yeah, certainly. So back in 2014, I took a trip to Guatemala, I was there to build schools with an nonprofit called hug it forward. And we were building schools out of plastic bottles. And one of my first memories of that volunteer experience, it was about a week long experience was I was riding a bus with 25 other volunteers. And we pulled up to the site. In a community called Chinook stay in Guatemala, we pulled up to the site where we were going to be volunteering, and I didn't know really what to expect. And I looked out the window of the bus. And it looked like the entire community had come out to greet us. And there was people of all ages, kids and parents and grandparents. And as I stepped off the bus with the other volunteers, the community had formed two lines. And we walked in between the two lines of people. And we felt like rock stars, or at least I did, walking down the red carpet, there were people waving the American flag, there was music blaring over the loudspeaker, just they were hugging us and just had smiles all over their faces. And I really learned that they were just being grateful for the volunteers that we had taken time out of our schedule to take that trek to Guatemala. And the other thing that I learned over my week long experience there in genetics day, was that the community had very little, very little clean water. They don't have the smartphones and the internet that we take for granted very little food, cramped living conditions. But they had community they had each other. And again, they had gratitude and appreciation for just other human beings. And as I thought to myself, when I got back, I was living in Denver at the time, when I thought to myself, after I return home, like cash, like how am I living my life, I'm living a life filled with complaining, thinking about all the things that I don't have. And in stark contrast to just what I experienced, and also looking at my life and other people around me, are always on our phones and we're always have our head buried in screens, and we're anxious and we're overwhelmed and we're not making deep connect actions anymore. It seemed like so that was kind of the first start that I had in my head, that, hey, I wanted to do something different in my life to make, to really live in gratitude, and to live with an attitude that I learned from the community and nginx de Guatemala. And then also, I think, and we'll probably get to this a little bit later in the conversation, just my experience in the corporate world of, yeah, you know, I've had jobs where I don't feel appreciated in the workplace and how much of an impact that made to my to my happiness, we spend a lot of time at work. And if you're not happy with your job, and a lot of that is not feeling valued or not feeling listened to that can really impact your your mood and your attitude. And really, whether you want to stay with a company or not. So kind of putting all that together that led me to start a brand called, say with gratitude. And it started with thank you cards, and now it's morphed into where I speak on the topic of workplace gratitude.   06:05 And you alluded to this, but I want to dive right in. So how does this translate into the workplace? How does that action of gratitude, that feeling of being appreciated? How do you translate that into a corporate setting, or, in my case, I'm a physical therapist, so maybe into a healthcare setting where people right now are really stressed out and burnt out. And, you know, and carrying a lot of student debt, and empathetic loads, and everything else? So how do you infuse gratitude? What are your recommendations? Yeah, and   06:46 that's a lot. And I, I'm glad you brought that up, I actually just came back from Wisconsin, where I was speaking at a healthcare conference on this very topic. I'm a big believer that it starts with you first. So start with the person before we can maybe bring it into the workplace, because we need that. We need to have that right attitude. It's hard to it's hard to spread gratitude around the workplace, if you're feeling, let's say, depressed and overwhelmed and stressed. So what can you do to start your own personal gratitude practice? I also have a health and fitness background. So I love that you're in, in physical therapy. And yeah, so I, I always talked about the analogy of, you know, when you're on an airplane, and they're given the safety instructions, if the oxygen mask comes down, please put it on yourself first, before helping others. And I talked about that, because if you're passed out, how are you going to help other people, but we can maybe not literally get passed out. But we can have the feeling of like, Hey, I just can't do it anymore. So I think we have to take care of ourselves first with self care. And there's a lot of different ways you could practice self care, but for this conversation, what how can you practice gratitude, and help you feel better gratitudes got that kind of magical powers that it can help you be more optimistic, feel less stress, more energy and things like that. So where do we begin here? There's various ways to practice gratitude. Probably the one that people maybe, you know, they think of when they think of the term gratitude, just keeping a gratitude journal and writing down what you're grateful for. I've got a tip there, though. I know a lot of people that do do that just kind of go through the motions. And then you don't really feel that difference. Like if you're just saying like, Hey, I'm grateful for my cat Oliver, which we now know as parents cat's name. I'm grateful for all of her my health and my job. And then you turn the page and you fill out the gratitude the next day. What does that actually mean? It probably is not going to get you into a frame of mind where you're living in gratitude. So we're, I suggest people take it further is if you're writing down, you're grateful for somebody or some something in your life. Follow that up. By writing down why you're grateful for those things, or that person, what is it about that person that you appreciate that you love? And then I take it even deeper and I teach people think about what your life would look like without that person? Or that that thing without that job without your teammate? What would life look like then? And then when you do that, you say what, why and what would your life look like without then it creates a more emotional response. So I'll have people do this in my breakout sessions. And that's usually the hears, people have tears because they start to think, oh my gosh, my life without this person, I couldn't even imagine it. So I think that is one way to start a personal gratitude practice. So you're actually like, Okay, you're, you're reminding yourself of the good in your life. And then what does that mean for work and work, we could talk about two different things. One is like, leading with gratitude, which, in a sense, I take that to mean creating a culture of gratitude and kindness. So in healthcare, trading, treating your patients, like real people, and that have a heart and not just transactional. So I like to, you know, give examples, so people can really think about what this might look like in the real world. So I my favorite coffee shop in Denver, when I lived, there was a coffee shop called fluid. They, they got to know me by asking questions. I went there on a regular basis. So it wasn't just like, hey, here's your coffee, give us money. It was people that took the time to get to know me a perfect example. There was one day when one of my other cats we had talked about cats before we hit record. My other cat, Nomar who who's not with us anymore. He was having two teeth pulled. And so I was a little bit anxious and the barista the manager there, she asked me like, hey, you know what's wrong? I told her, her cat was having a tooth pulled that day as well, just coincidentally, and she just said here, your coffee is on the house today. And it was just just a little thing. But something like that can go a long way. Chewy. Speaking of animals, they're a company that sells pet food and pet accessories to pet owners. I know a lot of pet owners will get their food from chewy on an auto order subscription basis, they automatically send the food every month, and they take money out of your credit card. So there's a lot of stories, but it goes like this. A lot of times when a pet owners, dog dies, let's say or a cat dies, and they'll call you and say hey, please stop my shipment, my dog has passed away. Chewy, of course will express sympathy. And then they'll say, okay, all those unopened bags that you may still have, we will refund your money for all of that. Don't send the food back, we will, we would love for you to donate that food to a local shelter. And then a lot of times in a few days, sympathy flowers and a sympathy card will show up on the doorstep in just as a as an expression of condolences. So chewy is a company that leads with gratitude. So they're not saying like, we need your money back or we need the food back or we can't send these flowers because it costs too much. They're treating their customers like human beings that have a heart.   13:06 And then we've got appreciation in the workplace in the sense of all right, we need to appreciate our teammates, right? There's an interesting statistic. This is kind of a old statistic, Karen, but it's still relevant and maybe worse today. 79% of people in a research study a few years ago said that they left their job, in part because they didn't feel appreciated at work. So it wasn't like, hey, we need more money. Or we need to be you know, get promoted. It was really just not feeling valued, not feeling heard or listened to and not feeling like they mattered. So that's why I like to talk about Okay, starting with yourself first and then spreading it to other people like your customers or patients but also your team. And a great book is the five languages of appreciation at work. It's kind of a follow up book to the five love languages, which is was a popular book that talked about relationships, personal relationships, and we all have a preferred way that we like to receive love. We also have a preferred way that we like to receive appreciation at work. And the languages are the same five languages as the original five love languages book. So think of things like words of affirmation, quality, time, acts of service, tangible gifts and physical touch. We all have a way that we like to be shown appreciation at work usually follows one of those five. And so basically the idea here is find out how your each teammate likes to be appreciated at work, and then appreciate them in that language on a consistent basis. So somebody likes words of affirmation. So you want to appreciate that person, by affirming them with words that can be written, it can be verbal, the idea is to do it consistently. Be very specific. Don't always make it tied to performance. Maybe make it you know, give them a shout out on why you like them, kind of like we talked about earlier, when we write down like, Why do you like somebody's work? Somebody that is loves words of affirmation will love hearing good things about them? So yeah, so that's just kind of a basic rundown. I know, that was a long answer. But I think it's important to, to get all three of those in personal gratitude, leading with gratitude, and then spreading appreciation to your team. Yeah,   15:46 that's three, kind of an easy framework for people to follow. And circling back to that gratitude list or gratitude journal. I used to keep one and then I did it. And then I did and now you know, it kind of goes in cycles. Do you have any advice for people on how to be consistent. And as a follow up, I think it's important for people to know that it doesn't always have to be really big things. I remember when I started, the coach that I was working with was saying, Well, you know, it doesn't always have to be big, grand things. It could be like, I'm grateful that I have an umbrella because it was raining today, or I'm grateful I have a warm jacket, because it's 30 degrees today. So it doesn't have to always be a person or an animal or a relationship.   16:39 Yeah, yeah. Great point. You want to keep it simple, right. So don't get overwhelmed. So I love your point there. So my first thought to your question was, you know, you've mentioned that you weren't super consistent with your gratitude journaling. I know, I'm not I'm actually not either. You know, I'm seen as gratitude guy. But gratitude journaling never has been something that I've been consistent at. So what I do want to I'll give a tip on how to be consistent. But before I do that, I do want to encourage the listeners to find something gratitude related that you do enjoy doing. So maybe your thing isn't keeping a gratitude journal, but maybe like complimenting somebody. So that is a sign of gratitude. Or a way to show somebody gratitude. Gratitude could be just sending a quick video to somebody. So maybe like, I'm not really much with written but I'll send them a video or an audio. And that could be your thing, or writing handwritten notes, could be your thing. But in terms of if you did want to start with gratitude journaling, and trying to figure out a way to be consistent with that right off the bat, you could do some things that can help you form a new habit, much like forming a new habit to exercise or something like that. setting yourself up for success. So breaking down the habit into the smallest thing possible. So maybe you just write down one word each day instead of trying to form an entire sentence. So that could be a way to break it down in a small, small miniscule habit. But also think about something that you're already doing, and stacking this habit on that and creating a trigger point. So suppose you make coffee every single day. And that's kind of a routine you're already in. So maybe you leave your gratitude journal by your coffee pot or your coffee maker, and just have that next to it as a reminder that oh, yeah, because a lot of times not keeping a habit is just we forget about doing it. So create a way that you will remember to do the habit by having something that you already do be that trigger that reminder, right.   19:02 So your habit, habit stacking.   19:05 Exactly, yeah, habit stacking. Yep. So you've heard of that. If you're doing something like if you're doing something like writing a handwritten note, I've tried to do like, writing handwritten notes every day, which I've been successful at for a while. That is a little bit more involved. But what I could do is think about the night before who I want to write the note to find the address, get the envelope out, get the card out, get the pen out, get the stamp out and put it all out. So I'm actually see it and everything's not like hidden away in a drawer. So make things visible. So I think yeah, those are my best advice to find something that you like doing so it might not be a gratitude journal. Once you find it breaking down in the smallest component possible. So it's one word versus a list of 10 things and then finally have it stack you know, do Do it while you're doing something that you already do every single day anyway.   20:05 Got it? Yeah, much easier makes it much more digestible than like, well, I don't know if I can write the journal and then write the why. And gosh, take me 30 minutes. And do I have time for this? And yeah, so that makes a lot of sense. And I can also, I should also say, like, you can do it on your phone, too, like the notes section of your phone? Yeah. Yeah. You know. So that's, that's a possibility as well. So if you have like, a commute after work, where you're not driving, you can, you can like make that a habit at the end of your day to just throw something into your phone or something like that.   20:42 Yeah, I got one more. Yeah, it's similar to a gratitude journal to gratitude jar, which is huge. It's just take any jar. And you can just cut out slips of paper and just write down one thing that you're grateful for. Each day in the paper, maybe you have a family, and you get the whole family involved. And I like this idea. Because the jar can be visible. And it's fun. It's almost fun to watch the stacks of the slips of paper grow in the jar tilde, Giorgio stuffed, filled with gratitude, then you could pick a day, Thanksgiving Day, New Year's Day, maybe go and bring your family together, you sit in a room, on the sofa in the living room, and you go through like hay who said they were grateful for you know, chocolate, and then somebody raises their hand. That was me. And then you said, then you can go into more of the Hey, why did you pick chocolate? What is it about it? And then you can have these amazing conversations as a family. Or you could even do something like this at work as well.   21:50 Yeah, I was just thinking that if you have, you know, maybe a smaller to medium size, like a small company, or I know a lot of physical therapy offices. They don't have hundreds and hundreds of people in the same office. So this is something that's actually like, doable. You know, because I think if you had like, if you're in an office with like, 300, people, like it might be a little overwhelming. But most, I think healthcare offices, you know, if you have 20 people, I think that would be like quite a bit. So if you're in a smaller office, it's a great way to stay connected with your co workers. And another way of staying connected is and you'd mentioned this here, and there are handwritten notes. So how do you incorporate handwritten notes in the workplace? And are you only doing this if you're the boss?   22:44 Yes, I so handwritten notes I love it's how I started my company, say with gratitude, I, I had kids draw pictures. And I turned them into thank you cards that I sold to individuals and companies. But I love handwritten notes because it provides a connection point between you and the recipient of the note. So it's a way to not only appreciate somebody but actually connect to them on a deeper level. So whereas you know, writing in a gratitude journal, you might be the only one that sees that a handwritten note to people can see it or maybe even more in the workplace. You can use it a couple of different ways. One could be if you start to learn, who in your company likes words of affirmation, right, we talked about the five languages of appreciation. If you find out who likes words of affirmation, then you can make it a point to write a handwritten note to those people and know it doesn't need to only be the boss. I think if you're creating a culture of gratitude, I think everybody should be involved. If you're trying to figure out like, hey, I want to start this gratitude at work thing, not sure where to start, handwritten notes, I think can be a great place to start before you kind of fine tune your your appreciation, tools that you want to use. The kind of latest research shows from the authors of the five languages of appreciation and workplace that almost 50% of workers choose words of affirmation as their first way that they like to receive appreciation at work. So it's a great place to start. Of course also, you can easily write handwritten notes to your, your your patients to appreciate them. We talked about appreciating your customers patients, more is more than just a transaction, like make them feel good. And there's a company that I interviewed the HR had a few years ago, I love what they do every week, like once a week, they would, as a team, they would get together at lunchtime for about an hour. And they would write handwritten notes to their customers. And I liked it two reasons. One, they were expressing gratitude to their team, or excuse me, to their customers, but to they were bonding over the act of writing gratitude notes as a company. So just imagine there's a few people in a room, they're grabbing lunch, they're writing notes, they were being creative, they were putting stickers on the notes. And they were able to kind of chat with their the co workers on a level that they don't normally do, because they're normally just focused on work. So they got to know their team, on a deeper level, just having these conversations as they were writing note to their customers. So it could be a great way to, to bring your team together to just bonding over the act of writing handwritten notes.   26:02 And here's the question that I think a lot of business owners are going to want to know. And you may, you may have an idea of what I'm going to ask here. But what does this do for the bottom line of a company? So you're spending this time you're bringing in people from your company? How does does this improve the bottom line? Will this help the company make more money?   26:28 Yep. So that one statistic that I mentioned that 79% of people left a job because they didn't feel appreciated at work? Turnover finding new workers as a high cost of business for a company. So anyway, the Yeah, the the research is showing that. Doing things like infusing gratitude at work, appreciating your team, connecting with them on a more deeper level. So a lot of people feel disconnected at work, because they've got a lot of emotional stuff, you know, in their lives are overwhelmed or stressed. But when they get to work, they don't chat about any of that. So there's a lot of research now that shows workplace loneliness is high. Six, up to 61% of all US employees are lonely. So lonely workers and workers that don't feel appreciated, they're disengaged, they're not as productive. They're calling in sick, they're stress. They're thinking about leaving their job, or they're actually leaving their job. And connecting with a team and showing appreciation to your team can change all of I don't know that there's actually hard numbers that are out there yet, but just know that there are studies have shown there's productivity increases, turnover decreases, sick days decreased. So all of this leads to companies that can actually save more money.   28:10 Yeah, no, I understand that. Yeah, that makes sense. But I had to ask that question, you know, because people are going to be like, Well, this sounds great. But what's it gonna do? Yeah, it's   28:20 the biggest probably, you know, obstacle in doing something like this, because a lot of businesses are like, well, you know, I know if I spend, you know, $100 on Facebook ads, I'm gonna get this exactly. Yeah. Right, and $1 for dollar return. And for something that's more of a soft skill like this, you might not exactly have that data, but just know that there's a lot of money being lost due to low productivity and high turnover. Yeah. And with appreciation and connecting can really solve a lot of this. Yeah,   28:56 no, that makes perfect sense. And now, before we wrap things up, I want you to one more time. Yes. Do you mind repeating the five languages of appreciation in the workplace?   29:06 Yeah, the five languages of appreciation are words of affirmation. Quality time. So that's the second, the one that second most popular quality time. So two people basically, spending time together like you and I are acts of service. So that could be like helping somebody with a time sensitive project. Tangible gifts. So that could be somebody that actually likes to receive a gift. And that's how they like to be appreciated. The thing is, they're the best you can make the gift. It doesn't have to be expensive, but the more personal, you can make it the better. So a gift of a pair of socks with my cat's face on them is better than handing me a Starbucks gift card because somebody that knows I'd like my cats has done their homework and that would be a really meaningful gift to me. And then physical touches the last one That's not seen very much in the workplace that's like, you know, high five pat on the shoulder for obvious reasons. Yeah, yep. Yeah, that one is usually not somebody's primary way they like to receive appreciation. So the first four are the ones that most things, you need to focus on those four languages. Right,   30:19 right. And speaking of gifts, you actually have a free gift for our listeners. So it's gratitude. toolkit.com. Can you talk a little bit more about that?   30:28 Yeah, that's really a toolkit with a bunch of goodies. So what'd you get there? I wrote a book called The Grateful entrepreneur, which I know you mentioned in the intro, that you get a digital copy of that book, that's all about creating meaningful relationships at work. I've got something else that I created called the grateful deck, which is 120 questions to start meaningful conversations, great to use to start meetings at work to just get to know your team a little bit better. And then I've also got 47 ways to practice personal gratitude, and 29 ways to use gratitude to grow your business. So that's all in this all digital downloads in the gratitude toolkit.   31:15 Perfect. And that's awesome. So if you want to go a little bit deeper into what we've spoken about today, then you're going to want to check out that gratitude toolkit. And again, it's www dot gratitude toolkit. All one word.com. All right. So is there anything that we didn't touch upon that you want to hit on? Or is there something that you want the listeners to their big takeaway here?   31:43 Yeah, big takeaway, I think, is just to start now, do something, compliment somebody flash somebody a smile, do something different. If you want to go a little bit deeper than that, write a handwritten note. And do those three, do the three things that I talked about in the journal, do it for your note? Who do you appreciate? Why do you appreciate them? What would your life look like if they weren't in your life and read that note to them, it's even more powerful than just handed it to them is to read it to them, the connection will be amazing. And the one thing one thing that we didn't hit on, that's kind of near and dear to my heart. Do some of this unplugged. So don't you know if somebody is talking to you Don't be on your phones, pay attention to them. That's a form of gratitude, a form of connecting is just listening. So I if you want to start a gratitude practice, think about doing this, like write your note without like, put your phone in a different room, you'll be more engaged. And you're going to think more clearly. So yeah, that's a I think a good good takeaway for that for the audience. Yeah,   32:55 that's great. I love it. And now, I have one more question. It's a question I asked everyone. Okay. That's knowing where you are now in your life. And in your career? What advice would you give to your younger self?   33:07 Oh, that's a great question. Lots of advice. I could give my younger self. So I was thinking about this, I would say, and this is I was trying to think of what am I still working on? Because and there's a lot but I was I'm gonna go with don't take things personally. So good. Something I still work out. I don't think I'll ever be like completely perfect with that. But yeah, if I could give my younger self that advice. Because I do take things personally, I'm sensitive. If somebody you know, I could have 100 compliments, and one naysayer, and I'm focused on that naysayer, I think it's human nature. And I take it personally, but but I think like, we don't know, like, at least for me, personally, I know I'm doing good in the world. And I'm changing lives. And I need to not be sensitive and not read social media sometimes and take that own advice of unplugged right and just hanging out with the people that I love. And I know that love me and, and, and really, I think just continue to connect with other human beings in a meaningful way. Get rid of the technology. Don't let negative comments bring you down. Because then it can affect your day, your week thing that affects your performance at work that affects how you relate to your loved ones. And so yeah, so don't take things personally. Advice that I would give my younger self but I would also continue to take that in my older self.   34:54 Yeah, I love it. That's so good. And now where can people find you? Where can they connect with you,   34:59 too? your main website is saved with gratitude.com you can always email me Scott at Scott colby.com. And then even on Facebook, my most probably active social media platform at Scott Colby.   35:13 Perfect. And we'll have links to all of this over at the podcast at podcast at healthy, wealthy smart.com. So you can always hit up the podcast website, and one click will take you to all of Scott's info. So Scott, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing with us how to have gratitude and how to infuse that into our workplace in our jobs. So thanks so much. Thank you, Karen. My pleasure. Anytime and everyone. Thanks so much for listening. Have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy and smart. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to leave us your questions and comments at podcast dot healthy, wealthy smart.com