If you've ever worked me before, you probably heard me say things like when you feel good, you perform good when you feel good, you perform good when you feel like beep. You perform like beep, hey welcome back to the podcast uh, just so excited to have this conversation with you guys today, um. I probably like many of you have a library full of full of leather books that was that movie uh ron, burgundy right. No, my library is full of uh the great books of personal psychology, how the brain works business, certainly a lot of novels.

Definitely a lot of books, uh biographies stories of uh people that have inspired me over the years, and i also have you can imagine this. A bunch of old audio cassette programs - yes, this might be of interest to you. What, if i told you that my dad right, you know who my dad is. He won a five or ten thousand dollar um franchise, essentially to sell earl, nightingale nightingale conant products, and he did it with a strange bet, which i should sell tell some time the story.

I should get my dad on the podcast and actually make him tell that story that would be super fun uh, but this crazy cat giles kavanaugh uh basically sold him. His first like i want to say it was a record called the strangest secret by a guy named earl nightingale. Imagine imagine listening to a record to get yourself fired up in the morning right, just looking at my team that are all like. Basically, under 35 years old, he sold him this record, my dad was so inspired by it.

He went on to sell records to every person that he knew and, of course he would just send the sale back to giles and fast version is. He was so successful at it became one of the top sales people in the country and he didn't even work for the company. Earl nightingale, the founder of the company, ended up challenging him to see if he could do it again and if he did he'd get the franchise for free. Of course he crushed the goal got the franchise for free and i want to say in around 1991 he gave me that franchise and all that meant was.

I could just buy all the sales training, motivational, audio cassette programs from night gale conant for basically 50 cents on the dollar, and i did i never actually used it to sell their products. I just it just turbo charged my ability to bring in as much content as possible. So i was looking at my library and a few days ago, specifically one of the audio programs that i pulled up and - and you know had to like dust off the dust uh was from someone that i was so inspired by his name - is stuart wilde. Stewart passed away, stewart wilde and the audio program for a lot of my longtime friends, you'll.

Remember yes, the 33 steps to the infant itself. Arguably, when i look back over the the course of my life, when i think about um, cassette programs or books that changed my life, certainly you've got to say, think and grow rich right. How to you know, win friends and influence people uh tony robbins, 30 days to personal power, big shout out to him a million years ago and and without a shout out of a doubt like the early days right 33. Steps of the infant itself by stuart wilde.

Really altered the way i thought about the world, how i dealt with uh issues, ways that basically improved me as a human being to have greater levels of mental toughness, and i want to talk to you about that today, because i think, as we go into the New years we go into a new decade like there's just a lot of people out there that are unhappy. There's a lot of people out there that are just you know: they're just they're, just pissed off most of the time, and they have absolutely no reason to be other than it's what they focus on all the time. So you probably saw the movie the secret right. If you're a person like myself you, you know, we get, we get moved by things that could motivate us or help us.

You know achieve more faster, be more effective. You know, create more wealth, yada yada! Well, the secret came out in like 2006.. This audio program talked about many of the same philosophies and and let's be clear, they're biblical - i mean this. This stuff goes back.

You know tens of thousands of years. If not, you know thousands and thousands of years right in 1996, stuart goes into the studio in chicago records, this legendary audio program and of course it was the first time that anybody had ever exposed me to this thing called the law of attraction right, you guys, I'm looking at my team, everybody knows the law of attraction, think about what you want and then what the secret forgot to say in that movie and it i was so upset when that movie came out. I thought it was such beep beep beep right, i'm just beeping myself with me. I thought it was such bs because they're like, if you just sit around you, think about what it is.

You want. You'll naturally attract everything and you - and i both know that is a b beep beep beep right. It is bs at its best. What does work is when you're crystal clear on what you want and you activate your reticular activating system, and you know what you want and then you work your butt off to make it happen right.

The real secret is, you got to know what you want and then you got to align your behaviors and you got to work your face off, but i'm getting ahead of myself in this program. Stewart was the first to talk to me about the law of attraction and and he he said it the same way that everybody else does, which is know exactly what you want right, don't be that person that says i want to make a few more dollars this Year than i made last year, because then, if you make a dollar, you achieved your goal, you got to be crystal clear: have smart goals, etc, etc? But he said, but if you really want to activate the law of attraction, if you really want to be a beacon for good things, to attract great customers to attract great teammates, to attract wonderful opportunities. If you want the things that you truly want, and you want to emotionalize it, he said the thing that activates the law of attraction, more than anything else, is being in a state of gratitude, and i remember thinking to myself. Okay gratitude.

Like all right. I remember zig ziglar talking about that stuff. It certainly made sense. I and remember it's 1996 right.

I was you know, a young guy at the time, so uh so open to these ideas and that's the very first time i thought i should take on both a gratitude, slash law of attraction. If you will discipline now, of course, since then, we've seen journals created. We've seen entire programs created uh, there's a beautiful author, uh esther hicks, who does a ton of work just on the law of attraction. So there's a lot of stuff out there and and i'm a fan of it all, and i recommend it all as long as you remember, there should be an asterisk next to every one of these.

You have to work your face off to get the goals. You can't just feel good, be grateful right. Think about the things you want and have it magically fall on your lap right. Like that's absolute bs, you got ta work, but i go back to those early days and i think about like uh, my brother matthew and i we would.

We would like call each other every morning and say: hey man, here's the five things, i'm grateful for and here's the five goals i'm working on today and there was something something about that right. Then you know, then it was like hey. Let's just take a yellow notepad, let's just write them every day, then it was like you know, eventually turned into evernote. We type it in every day, but but this discipline of of always starting your day with what are you grateful for before you look at the goals before you look at the day before you look at all the stuff, you want to get done like that.

That discipline like working out in the morning right it makes you feel good. So you go perform good, you know it and i know it right, but then, if i work out - and i take the time to write down the things that i'm grateful for and then i think about my goals i used to i used to describe it to People like um, like i, never had one as a kid. My parents, you know obviously didn't love me, but what are those things called? Were you like? It's like a slingshot right like remember like a slingshot for the people that are just listening to me. Sort of auditorily right you put that little rock inside the the y and you pull it back and you fire off to you know, hit whatever you're trying to hit well the way i looked at working out and doing my gratitudes before i thought about the things I wanted to accomplish.

It was like the more i worked out and the more grateful i got the farther back. I was able to pull that slingshot rubber band and then fired off into the day and on the days where you didn't work out the days you didn't have the gratitude. It was very obvious right, like i just knew internally, it felt like i just pulled the rubber band back a little bit and i just kind of got a little. You know, i don't know less than i wanted in terms of energy focus concentration and usually was more susceptible to upsets rejection things not going my way because i just didn't do the internal work.

So so, what's the message for you today, the message is like i really want now and in the new year for you to take on a discipline where you get grateful every day. So so i wrote down for me initially like like. I know why i do it and and look you and i were close enough right. We get, you know i do these podcasts.

I share these videos. I see you at events right and if we haven't been to an event yet please come to an event right. Um, but the bottom line is like i know for me, it makes myself talk better. It makes my focus better.

I find myself like physically, like physically i'm better when i come from a state of gratitude right. I definitely like i, i wrote this down. I make less things wrong in my life when i'm coming from a state of gratitude. You know what i mean by that.

Like you know, i i travel all the time so sometimes i i pull into a hotel and i think to myself, i'm gon na burn. My clothes after i get out of here right, like you know, tristan's laughing he's been on the road me a couple times where sometimes we're in a beautiful hotel and sometimes we're in the hotel. That is the most convenient for the event, and you want to burn your clothes afterwards right. Well, if i go into that hotel, bitching moaning whining complaining right versus like i am so grateful the fact that somebody hired me to come to this event, i'm so grateful for the fact that i was able to get on an airplane and fly here with convenience.

I'm so grateful that this is what i do for a living and i'm so grateful that tonight i get to spend the night in a hotel. That gives me tremendous contrast between all the other hotels i get to spend in and - and you may hear a little cynicism in that, but like i'll say that stuff to myself the other day, we're doing a speaking engagement right and i can't name the name of The company, but let's just say that they wanted me to talk about all these different things and and all of a sudden, by the way you start speaking at this time. They walk in at that time and they say: hey we're running like an hour behind and oh by the way, the deck that you prepared. We can't use any of that, i'm like uh, but wait a minute.

You guys asked me to talk about abc123 and the only way to demonstrate those things was through a visual that you guys sent me the actual powerpoints they're like yeah, but we can't do any of that stuff and oh by the way you don't have an hour. You have like 32 minutes look, i could have been and i was for about five seconds pretty pissed. I was like wait a minute man. I flew all the way over here.

You guys told me to do all this stuff and then i was like okay. Wait. A minute okay hold on what am i grateful for at dinner with my pal last night right, tristan r.j and my buddy. That was super great.

I acknowledged the city that i was in. I acknowledged that the people that are in the audience like i was grateful for them right and yeah. I was like i kind of feel bad for him because i had all the stuff i wanted to share and i'm only going to have like 32 minutes. But you know what i'm gon na crush that 32 minutes like when you come from a place of gratitude.

For me, i get out of the this is wrong. I'm pissed really quick, because i built up this sort of endless supply of seeing it from the other person's perspective or feeling better about it right call it empathy call it just mindset, but you know what also it is. I see the good in people more like the more gratitude i have the more i see the good in people and then the the big one ready is just i feel better about myself and if you've ever worked me before. You probably heard me say things like when you feel good.

You perform good when you feel good. You perform good when you feel like beep, you perform like beep you with me on this. You know it and i know it so. I know there's actually a pretty good chance that that someone has already turned this off because i'm like uh gratitude and yeah yeah.

I've heard all this stuff before and i'm like. Okay negative nelly. So you know what i did just for the for the one listener who's still listening, because you like me, even though you're cynical and you're pissed that i'm even talking about this, i actually went online. I did a bunch of research right and and like when you research things like gratitude.

You get like you know, happyhuman.com and you get like you know superpositivepeople.com. Instead, i found forbes psychology today harvard health and even time magazine right. So i'm not saying that they are negative or more cynical, but they're probably going to be a little more thoughtful about putting something out like none of them had like. You know, 43 reasons why you should do it.

It was like you know, five to seven um, proven psychological benefits of doing gratitudes, so i want to share with you those and then i want to share my discipline. So, let's go through it quickly, ready um. I took forbes in psychology today, right being you know, sort of my the two that actually published the same exact report. Here's what they said ready number one gratitude, opens the door to more relationships.

Well, i i'm sorry, i'm a salesperson, and you know what i found like relationships are kind of important to me new relationships, existing relationships. I want to be more attractive to people and what i wrote down is: if you want to do business right, if i'm a buyer, not the seller, right, let's say i'm the consumer. I want to do business with people that feel good about themselves. I don't want to do this, but, like i don't want an energy sucking vampire.

As my listing agent, i don't want an energy sucking vampire, as my insurance broker. I want someone that when they come in, they light up the room and they actually make me feel better, especially about doing business with them. So the number one thing that psychology today ann forbes said the discipline of gratitude. The first benefit is gratitude opens the door to more relationships.

Hello, i mean like, if you're a if you're, negative, nelly and you're still listening. First of all, thank you nelly. If you just start this discipline, you know what you're going to get more business regardless, like you, may eliminate some of that negative nelly juice and take out some little more positive stuff, and i don't mean positive woo-woo, i mean look when you feel good about your Life right people that meet you are attracted to that right. Nobody wants to work with an energy-sucking vampire number two right from forbes in psychology today.

Gratitude improves your physical health and i thought, hmm yeah. So the study goes on to basically say that people with people that come from a state of gratitude have less aches and pains, and i thought no, you know - maybe i can kind of. I can kind of question that right, but even though, like in tomorrow, i'm having a surgery for those of you that are listening. I haven't actually said this publicly, but i'm having my right hip replaced and at 12 and 14 i busted my hip had it pinned it stunned the growth, i'm half inch short on the right side, blah blah blah right.

So i've walked with a limp for as long as i can remember, and i've always had pain, but i have a high tolerance for pain and i'm that positive move forward motivated mentally tough guy, so i just keep working through it right. Well, i finally said all right enough's enough, i'm going to get my hip replaced and you know what yeah i've got days where it's achy and painy, but here's the thing when i'm doing my gratitudes when i'm staying in that state, which i do all the time You know i can just i can deal with it easier if that makes sense right. That's all i'm saying now, if you're listening to this - and you have like - i don't know - god bless you cancer, some major issue, you've read all the studies about that too. It doesn't solve cancer right, but what it does is it puts you in a state where you're more likely to get better right.

That's what it is right and i think about my wife. Who's dealt with breast cancer multiple times now. Right, knock on wood got another surgery coming up in february. If she didn't stay in a state of gratitude for her life for health, for her children for her family, for where she lives and what she does and the people that she reaches right.

You know what happens the the study goes on to say, basically grateful people by the way are more likely to take care of themselves. I thought that was an interesting part of the research that grateful people are more likely to take care of themselves. Think about it. Do you know someone as you listen to this? Do you know someone who doesn't take care of themselves like they just they just don't do anything to make themselves physically or emotionally better.

Do those people come from a state of gratitude? Are they walking around saying god? I'm so grateful for the place i live and the country i live in and the work that i do and my friends and family no there's a pretty good chance that that person is pissed off and you know, sort of mentally upset. Most of the time, you know what i mean: here's number three, you ready gratitude, improves your psychological health, so different from your physical health. The bottom line is, it improves happiness and reduces depression, it improves happiness and it reduces depression. So i was just with my buddy chris duma and chris is this great brain surgeon here in newport beach.

Actually, one of the leaders of the gamma knife surgery um we're talking about the hippocampus, which is basically right here right in your brain. These two little pieces that control your short-term memory right versus your long-term memory and fantastic to talk to someone like daniel amen, who studies it from a psychology and a psychiatrist. Standpoint versus my friend, who could cut it out right. But they both say the same thing.

Right that, if you come from a state of gratitude right, my buddy was a surgeon or daniel amen who's. One of the leading authorities of you know sort of brain health. They both say the same thing. It improves happiness and reduces depression.

You do that right. You! You stay grateful, you, you reduce depression and you increase happiness. I don't know about you, but like that. That alone, for me, validates why i do it number four.

You ready gratitude, enhances empathy and reduces aggression. It enhances empathy and reduces aggression. So i wanted to point this out that the university of kentucky did research in 2012.. Here's what they basically said, people that are grateful, are less likely to be upset from negative feedback on the job or rejection.

You know i'm a sales guy and more often than not i get no's before i get yeses and i get way more no's. Then i get yeses, so you think about it. Like the person that isn't grateful gets a no gets rejected. How do they respond versus the person that recognizes like life is a numbers game because that's just a gratitude state of mind, and you know what it's okay, i got.

Ta know no big deal, i'm gon na keep moving on hey. Thank you so much. I totally get your point of view you're a no for my services. God bless you.

It's all good right, like that's a very powerful thing for salespeople number. Five. You ready gratitude, makes you sleep better. I think that was super interesting because we all know uh and if you haven't studied the power of sleep like every athlete.

I talk to every high performer i'm talking to so you don't you don't think the trend is now amongst the most successful men, men and women i talk to who goes to bed the earliest, like that's the thing nobody's bragging about like how late we're staying up At night now we're all like i got to bed at nine, and i slept till five and my sleep score was a hundred. I actually just got a perfect 100 sleep score. It's the first time in my life and i've been tracking on that sleep app for, like i, don't know five years, it's my first perfect 100.. What do we know when you sleep? That's when your body regenerates and dr eamon talked about in his podcast after seven hours of sleep, your brain actually gets a wash that goes over it and it detoxes your brain.

All the toxins we put in our body, that's the time that it detoxes your brain right, especially for those of you that are drinking too much alcohol pay attention. So gratitude makes you sleep. Better gratitude makes you sleep better number. Six gratitude improves your self-esteem.

So then they talked about in this article. They talked about the sports psychologists right, who are all like fanatical about their athletes, right attitudes that are grateful feel better about themselves, grateful that i'm playing this sport. You know the love of basketball, the love of tennis, the love of golf. What you know i don't know cricket whatever it is that they just they love themselves.

They love what they're doing they're grateful for their life and you know what they go up and they perform better, because when you feel good, you perform better bottom line and the last one number seven gratitude increases mental strength, which, i would argue, is the number one Reason why i do it the 2006 study. I thought this was really interesting that they went back this far. They said we did a study of vietnam, vets right, specifically ones that had dealt with ptsd and they found that those that would do the discipline of gratitude. Every day it basically lessened the trauma it didn't, it didn't destroy the just lessened it.

So so you know, maybe that's not you, maybe maybe your ptsd was a bad upbringing or a really bad transaction that you that just took you out or you tried to sell your business and it didn't work out and just we we all have these sort of Life moments that are i'm not saying they're as intense as someone that's been through war, but in our own way they emotionally hit us hard gratitude, increases your mental strength and gets you get you some relief in that area. So if you've listened to me now for this long, i guess the question is: what should you do like? What should you do and i wrote down, there's there's three thoughts or call it disciplines that i'm going to recommend to you ready and and do the one. That's right for you, but do something right. So one thought is you say it out loud to a friend right, so courtney and i are gon na - be gratitude partners for the next three days.

So at 4 45 in the morning i'm going to jump out of bed, i'm going to call courtney and i'm going to go courtney. Who are you grateful for? What are you grateful for and i'm going to get her to recite she's going to say i'm grateful for this, i'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for this, and - and i know some of you like they'll, say well that sounds kind of affirmationy yeah. It certainly does it's better than you know saying you know my back hurts and you know i don't have enough money and i hate my life right.

So we know that but to say it out loud um rj in the office like rj will grab his phone and say: okay. I am grateful for this. I am great and he would shoot it on his instagram stories and then he'll tag people. So they do the same right.

So there's that act of verbally acknowledging these are the things i'm grateful for next week in the u.s is thanksgiving and, like my like, every year we go around the table, we're like hey. What are you great for? What are you grateful? What are you grateful for? I don't want to wait and do it once a year. It's a daily thing for me. It's daily number two.

You write out like in a journal right like the 10 things you're grateful for that's a good idea. That's the one i've been doing forever right. Just writing out. You know, like hey, you know, i'm just i'm grateful that it's november, it's my favorite time of the year, i'm grateful for that.

The fact that it's planning season right that it's almost tubular raza clean slate fresh start new beginning i'm grateful for all the people i worked with this year. I'm super grateful for my team right for supporting me supporting the mission right doing the best they can with everything they got. I'm so grateful for all of our coaches right that are, you know all over the world and they're working with all of our clients, and i'm so grateful for like and you can. This is the stuff that i write every day right grateful for my wife.

I'm grateful for her health, i'm grateful for my two boys. I'm grateful for my 92 year old mother-in-law that lives with us. I'm grateful for my dad for getting me. You know introduced this stuff a million years ago, right, like i write all that stuff down and the key is i don't write it like as fast as i can.

I take my time and i allow it to like. I want to feel the gratitude and i'm i'm going to be honest, like i i'm probably uh, you know if you look at the sort of scale of visual auditory, kinesthetic, etc. I'm very much a vk split, visual kinesthetic right, which is very typical for like sales people right so so i i communicate best and i experience and i learn best, both visually and kinesthetically. When i activate both those, when i sort of in my mind's eye, see the people i'm grateful for and then i feel in my heart and in my body like the gratitude i have for them right, i have this visualization that i do on mondays.

That is like, i imagine, okay, i'm waking up in the morning and i'm sitting there like this is a visualization where i'm like in my gratitudes, and i i think about all of my coaches, getting on a session with all of our clients moving them forward like, Like you know, thousands of pebbles being dropped into these very clean ponds and the ripple effect of that coach that client them calling their customers helping them, make a move. Do a loan buy. Another house sell another property. It's just like this massive.

You know disruption of all of the you know the sort of clear pond with all this positivity, like that's just a great way to start your day, you with me like for me: here's the third one, you ready, and it's the one that i like to do. The most and that's where i write out like the 10 things i'm grateful for then i write down like the three best things that happened to me. Yesterday, the three things i'm committed to today. I write out my top 10 goals right and that's where, like the origin of our gratitude, journal came from right.

It was just like every everybody was just playing around with these different ways and for me that was the best way. So here's my challenge for you. My challenge, for you is, if you, if you've done this before in the past, and you stopped start again if you've never done this before take on the challenge, do do like you know. I don't know 45 days of gratitude.

Do 90 days of gratitude right. Take on the challenge - and it's always obviously better with a little accountability. So maybe it's you and someone inside your office, maybe it's you and your spouse, i think of so many of our customers that their spouse struggles to understand. You know they see it because they live with it, but they don't really get what it's like to be a straight commissioned sales person right.

They lived through it, the highs the lows: the deal fell apart, the big checks right, but they don't really get. You know oftentimes what we're going through um. What i find is when spouses like couples do it together or, like you know, friends of mine that are divorced, that do it with their kids, like they. You know on the you know, in the car going to carpool or whatever and literally like doing affirmations like some people will say to me, including my buddy chris uh, chris doom of the brain surgeon.

One day said to me fairy you're, brainwashing, your kids and i said you're, damn straight. I am i'm like better better me than cnn fox news or spongebob you with me, like i'm all about that. So i challenge you to take it on. I challenge you to take it on.

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