Transcript
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You're listening to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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In today's episode I'm sharing what I'm most grateful for and why I'm leaning even more into a daily practice of gratitude.
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So stay tuned.
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If you want to have real and powerful influence over the money and policy decisions that impact your organization and the people you serve, then you're in the right place.
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I'm Kath Patrick and I've helped dozens of progressive nonprofit leaders take their organizations to new and higher levels of impact and success by building powerful influence with the decision makers that matter.
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It is possible to get a critical mass of the money and policy decision makers in your world to be as invested in your success as you are.
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To have them seeking you out as an equal partner.
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And to have them Bringing opportunities and resources to you.
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This podcast will help you do just that.
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Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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Hey there folks.
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Welcome to the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
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I'm your host Kath Patrick.
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I'm so glad you're here for today's episode.
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Maybe this one more than usual, because I want to share some of the things that I'm feeling really thankful for right now.
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And of course, tis the season.
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It's Thanksgiving time and we're all reflecting on things that we're thankful for.
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I think that can be particularly challenging at this moment in time when we're dealing with a lot of, environmental challenges in terms of the political environment and what that's going to mean for nonprofits and for nonprofit leaders and the work ahead.
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And I think actually that it's during these times when things look most challenging and most worrisome in a lot of ways.
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That the practice of gratitude and finding gratitude is more important than ever.
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So I wanted to share some of the things that I'm feeling particularly thankful for.
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And I also want to share a little bit about the practice of gratitude.
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And how that can look and how it looks in my world and how it helps me show up in the world in a way that not only is better for the people around me, but is also I believe part of the secret to being more effective in the world.
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And Lord knows we need to be as effective as possible, because a lot is going to be asked of us in the coming couple of years.
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I'm thankful for a lot of things, but for me, when I think about gratitude and what I'm thankful for.
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It is usually the small stuff that's the most important.
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The stuff that's closest to home.
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And for me, that's the people in my life that I love and care about and who bring me joy.
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It's the critters in my life, who I love and care about and who bring me joy.
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It's those closest to us, the ones who have our back.
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Who love and support us, who help get us through the tough times and who share in the joyful times.
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And one of the things that I think is really important is to stay focused on where we can find joy.
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It's not gone.
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It just can be harder to find when we're feeling stressed and worried about the future.
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But if we don't consistently find joy, it makes it much harder to do the important work that we must do.
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But also, you know, life is more fun with joy and that's important.
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Fun is important.
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So the people and the critters who are our rock, who are our center, who keep us on track.
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Who we know are there for us no matter what.
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That's huge.
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And so I'm deeply grateful for all of the people in my life who are there for me, and for whom I am there.
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For whom I am fully present and providing support.
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We lift each other up.
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Which is a huge thing.
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Our closest circle is the center of our gratitude and what brings us joy and what gives us the strength to go out in the world.
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But one layer out from that I think is also so important, and that is the second piece of what I'm so grateful for.
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Is community, and the connection that comes with community.
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Most of us have many communities that were part of.
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There's the community you live in, literally physically.
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There are all of the chosen communities that you're part of.
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Communities that are built around shared interests, common values.
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Finding community with people who are lit up by the same things you're lit up by.
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Who find fun in things that other people would regard as torture.
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I joined a triathlon team several years ago.
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And the people I train with on that team are a very important community in my life.
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We support and lift one another up through some really challenging times.
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And one of the things that's awesome about that particular community is that if people choose to be competitive when they race, that's great.
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But for many of us it's really not about that.
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It's about pushing ourselves and supporting one another as we meet challenges that are unique to anything else that we have in our life.
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You know, I don't have lots of other people in my life who think that's a fun idea.
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It would be a pretty lonely process training for those kinds of activities.
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If I didn't have a community that was doing the same thing and providing a lot of mutual support.
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When things are going awesome we're cheering each other on, and when things are tough we're lifting each other up.
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And that to me is the absolute essence of community.
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Whether we find it in a shared activity or a shared interest.
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When we bond with other humans around a thing that we all care about and that lights us all up.
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The support and comradery and connection that happens with that is very special.
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And I don't know about you, but I find myself seeking much more of that in these more challenging times.
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And I'm really clear that my connections to all of my communities are what give me energy and strength and the recharging that I need to show up fully.
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Not just in those communities, but to show up fully in the world.
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Knowing that there are people in the world who support me as I reach to do a thing that matters to me, is a source of great strength and inspiration and power.
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So I'm incredibly thankful for all of the different communities that I'm part of that give me that strength and support and caring.
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To be in the embrace of community is a very wonderful thing.
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And.
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I'm very, very grateful for all of the communities that I'm part of that do that.
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I also believe that community is going to be one of the keys to making change in the country.
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And making change politically.
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It seems that part of what we're seeing is that the recent election and a lot of the division, it's a symptom really of, loss of community, of loss of connection certainly.
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When people don't feel connected to other people, it's much easier to other them.
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And the amount of othering that is going on is quite alarming.
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But I don't think it's irreversible.
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I think that community and connection are absolutely the answer.
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And one of the things that I find most exciting about the work we do as nonprofit leaders.
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Is that we are a key part of community.
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By definition, we are grounded in the community.
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I think sometimes we forget that for many people, for the people we serve, for the volunteers who support us, for the donors who support us.
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For all those in the community that either benefit from the work we do or who believe in it and want to help make it possible and to be part of it.
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That is a huge community.
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And there is a lot of power in that kind of community.
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There is the power of engagement.
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There's the power of connection.
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And it is much harder to demonize and to engage in othering of people when you are connected to them in some way.
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And so I think that our ability to connect people in lots of different ways is absolutely a superpower of non-profits and of nonprofit leaders.
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And I think it will be very important for us to be thinking strategically about how can we leverage the power of community and our community building ability to improve the political climate in our community.
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And to move the policy needle in the direction of helping every member of the community thrive.
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Which is what really we're all about.
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And what I actually think, for the most part, if you separate them from the political noise.
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That at their heart, most people want that too.
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And so our task is to figure out how we connect with that part of people even when they may be saying some fairly politically offensive things.
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Somewhere underneath that, if we can find the human and if we can make connection at that level, that there is something to that and something to be looked at.
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So I'm incredibly grateful for communities that help me, but also community writ large.
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And tied to that, I am especially thankful for the helpers and the organizers among us.
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Again, that describes nonprofit leaders The helpers and the organizers are the ones who build community and who build connection.
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And that is perhaps the most important work to do right now.
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It's certainly in the top several bits of work that need to be done.
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To heal some of the division and also get us all re grounded in what truly are some common values and common human desires.
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That people have been separated from.
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The organizers and the helpers are unifiers.
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They are bringers together of people and creators of community.
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And I'm deeply, deeply thankful for all of the helpers and the organizers who do this work, as we do it together.
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The last thing I want to share is the importance of a practice of gratitude.
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And I know this gets tossed around a lot and it can devolve into a meaningless meme pretty quickly.
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But I just wanted to share what it means for me and how a practice of gratitude has made a difference in my life.
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It is very easy, on any given day and particularly when times are very challenging as they are now.
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It's very easy to dwell in the negative.
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Far too easy.
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I'm a pretty positive person as you may have guessed.
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But I can, I can go there.
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I can go to the stress and the worry and the anxiety of, oh my God, how are we going to deal with this?
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How are we gonna get out of this?
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This is terrible.
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I can go there pretty quickly myself.
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And I have found that one of the most effective disruptors of that is to reground in gratitude.
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To come back to center and to say, what is good in my world?
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What is good in my life?
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And take some time.
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It doesn't have to be a lot of time.
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Even a few moments to just dwell completely in those things for which we are profoundly grateful.
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Those things that make our life far better.
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And that bring us joy.
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It is very difficult to dwell in gratitude and reflecting on what brings us joy and comfort.
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It's very hard to dwell in that and simultaneously dwell in anxiety and outrage and distress.
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They're oil and water.
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And we can choose.
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We can absolutely choose.
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Sure, we get hijacked all the time.
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All it takes is one triggering headline.
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And there are a dozen of those a day.
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Which are by design, by the way.
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That's one of the things that Trump in particular is very good at.
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He's very good at throwing out little grenades of outrageousness on a regular basis.
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And that's very strategic.
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It's like one a day.
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So that each day the spotlight's on him, people are focused on their outrage.
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And, you know, what.
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If you're focused on your outrage and how awful something is, you know what you're not doing?
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You're not getting to work and organizing.
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You're not focused on devising strategies, getting together.
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Building connection, building community and focusing on how we're going to make positive change in the world.
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One of the benefits of grounding oneself in gratitude and grounding oneself in what is good in one's life.
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Is that, first of all, it reminds us what we're fighting for.
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It reminds us of our sources of strength.
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And our sources of positive energy.
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And that puts us in a better place to not only go out in the world and be effective, but it also puts us in a better place to show up for all those people and critters for whom we're so thankful.
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Because at the end of the day, if we're not showing up fully and truly for the people in our life that really matter most to us.
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Then we're surely not much good to anybody else.
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There's a lot of benefit to simply taking time on a regular basis to ground oneself in gratitude.
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For me, what I find particularly helpful is to start my day with just a few moments before I even get out of the bed.
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One of the things that I focus on is what am I most grateful for?
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What brings me joy.
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What's really great in my life.
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And some of it's about people and critters, and some of it's about other things that light me up.
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Grounding in that at the start of the day, I find is incredibly beneficial.
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Because what you start your day thinking about really does have a lot of impact on how the rest of your day goes.
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And I have noticed that if I neglect to do that at the start of my day, that generally speaking my day doesn't go as well.
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And that I am more easily drawn into stress, for sure.
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By my nature, I'm not generally easily drawn into negativity, but I can be drawn into stress very quickly.
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And I find that that is more likely to happen if I have not grounded myself in just a simple gratitude practice at the beginning of the day.
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And I'm talking, you know, three to five minutes, maybe.
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I don't spend an hour on it.
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It's a few minutes to pause and focus, and choose how I want my energy to be how I want to show up in the world that day.
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My work is entirely focused on serving others.
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So for me to be able to show up truly in service and truly ready to help other people is utterly dependent on my ability to be grounded in feeling centered and positive and like I have good to bring to the world.
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I share that with you in hopes that it may be helpful.
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And you may already be doing this yourself.
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If you haven't had this as a regular practice, I really encourage you to explore it.
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I find it helpful to start my day that way, because it really has a big impact on how my day goes.
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But I also will revisit it as needed throughout the day.
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When things go sideways.
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When things start getting really tough.
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Is a really good time to just pause and take a little gratitude break.
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And even to ask the question, how might this thing that's happening right now.
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The software that won't work or the upset co-worker or the botched delivery or whatever's happening.
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That's throwing a wrench in how your day was supposed to go.
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A sister of the gratitude practice is to ask the question, how might this actually be helping me?
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Maybe this is exactly what needed to happen in my day for something else great to happen.
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I know.
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I was super skeptical, too.
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But I have found that actually sometimes, a lot of the time, that something that initially appears to be just a massive annoyance or a problem, and there's nothing good about it, period.
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Very often what I will discover as the day rolls on, is that, that thing that happened, shifted my attention or shifted my actions in a different direction.
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Either because I had to go deal with that problem or because it prevented me from continuing on the project I was on or whatever it is and caused me to focus my energy somewhere else.
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A lot of the time, the somewhere else that I wound up having to go because of the obstacle that was in my way winds up being a huge plus.
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Recently I had a series of things happen.
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When I was determined that I was going to achieve a particular outcome and I was absolutely determined I was going to make it happen.
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And I had planned.
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I was on it.
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I had done all the things.
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And then it appeared that it was going to not be possible.
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That in fact, a huge wrench had been thrown in it.
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And I was screwed.
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And I found myself saying out loud, I'm having a really hard time seeing how this could possibly be working in my favor.
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But okay, universe.
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You're up.
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Show me.
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And in fact, I followed my intuition about what I should do next.
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Even though my rational brain was fighting back like crazy and saying, no, no, you should do this other thing.
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Cause that'll mitigate the damage.
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And I'm like, yeah, but this is the only path I can see that would still maybe get the thing that I wanted.
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Even though it seems totally improbable and unlikely to succeed, it's the only path I can see.
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So I'm going to follow it.
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And when I got to the end of that path.
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I got not only exactly what I wanted, but I actually sort of got extra.
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It doesn't cost anything to try.
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And you just might be surprised.
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I do regard that as a close relative of a gratitude practice, just considering the possibility that there is something beneficial for you, hiding in what appear to be obstacles and problems.
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And to just stay open to that.
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It is much easier to stay open to that if you are operating from a place of gratitude to begin with.
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A place of receiving.
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Because when we're not in gratitude, we tend to be in a place of pushing away.
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And that means that all of the good stuff can't come in either.
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If we're in upset and stress, we're pushing away.
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And pushing away everything.
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And we're not letting in any of the good stuff that could be helping us.
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So a practice of gratitude is not only good for the soul in terms of just grounding us in something that is a lot more pleasant to be in than a place of negativity.
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But it also actually is beneficial in the sense that it allows in more of the good stuff.
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And the last thing I'm grateful for is all of you.
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Nonprofit leaders are a very important community for me and I can't think of a better calling than to serve nonprofit leaders.
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It is my heart.
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It's my home.
00:19:45.737 --> 00:19:52.207
And I'm so grateful for all of you for the work that you do, for the good that you bring to the world.
00:19:52.692 --> 00:19:57.160
And for the joy that you bring to me, when I get to work with each of you.
00:19:57.960 --> 00:20:07.039
Every day when I come to work, I feel like I have won the lottery because I get to work with some of the most amazing leaders on the planet.
00:20:07.319 --> 00:20:23.913
It is an absolute joy to work with nonprofit leaders to help you make an even bigger impact in the world and to build powerful influence with all of those decision makers that are going to not only affect your work, but are going to affect the communities we live in.
00:20:24.442 --> 00:20:28.063
And that are going to make this a better place with all of our effort.
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So thank you for being part of one of my most important communities of all.
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I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving season.
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And may you have an abundance of things for which to be grateful, now and throughout the coming year.
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Thanks for listening.
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And I'll see you in the next episode right here on the Nonprofit Power Podcast.
