Gratitude in leadership means being aware, every day, of what you have to be thankful for, and letting people know what they mean to you. A daily gratitude practice makes you a happier person and a better leader. It also spreads, because a grateful leader brings good energy, love and appreciation to the whole team.
- Gratitude is one part intention and one part awareness.
- Start the day with it. Name three people and read your list before you check your phone.
- Notice the small things, like your morning coffee or your ability to go for a run.
- Tell people what they mean to you with a call, a video message or a handwritten note.
What is gratitude in leadership?
My co-host Arturo Gomez has led teams for 25 years. He describes gratitude as being grateful, with a deeper understanding of what you should be thankful for on a daily basis. The key word is daily.
Arturo also calls it one of the things we most often fail at. We spend most of our time looking at what we don't have. Gratitude is the glass half full, an optimistic view of everything around you.
Why is gratitude important for leaders?
The more gratitude I practice, the happier I am and the better leader I become. Mine started the day I left my nine to five job and went to making $0. Everything was up to me, and I learned fast that negativity would not get me to my goals any faster. I have led team good vibes ever since.
By leading ourselves better, we can be better leaders for others.
Arturo connects gratitude to self-love. We often treat ourselves worse than our worst enemy, with head games like "I'm not good enough." Gratitude is a building block that helps you become a stronger version of yourself. From there, you can give more to your team.
How do you practice gratitude as a leader?
Gratitude is one part intention and one part awareness. First decide you want more of it. Then build ways to notice it. The morning is the biggest game changer, because it is how you start your day.
| Two ways to wake up | What happens next |
|---|---|
| Hit snooze, then grab your phone | Email, news and social media decide your mood before you are out of bed. |
| Wake up thankful | You control your state of being and build momentum for the day. |
- Tell yourself today will be great. It is the first thing I say when I wake up.
- Name three people. While I brush my teeth, I name three people I'm grateful for. Arturo comes up often.
- Write your list once. Set a 15 minute timer and write down everything you are thankful for, with no judgment.
- Read it every morning. Within my first 30 minutes, I read my gratitude list. Over time you start to feel it.
Writing it down is the same idea as writing your goals, a practice I share in goal setting for leaders. You can also end the day with gratitude, so you finish on the same note you started.
Why are the small things the hardest to be grateful for?
They are easy to overlook. One of my mentors told me to go outside, pick up something like a leaf, and simply be present with it. In Sarasota I picked up a green leaf and counted what looked like 200 perfect lines on it. It was a piece of architectural beauty, and it was all around me the whole time.
- Your health After a good run, I think, thank God for my ability to run. Plenty of people can't.
- Your morning coffee Sitting with it and saying thank you starts a chain. Soon you are blessing strangers on the street.
Arturo taught me that last one. On my runs, I bless the people I pass and hope something good happens for them. Gratitude makes you come from a place of love.
The more gratitude I practice on a daily basis, the happier I am, the better the person I am and the better leader I am.
Rob Cressy, Episode 23
How do you show gratitude to your team?
Go and tell people how much they mean to you. Call them, send a video message, or write a handwritten note. Thank your friend, your client, your partner. Sometimes all it takes is a 30 second video that says, I'm thinking about you. These chances are easy to pass by, and they make everybody around you feel better.
Keep a record of the thanks that come back to you too. A compliment file is a simple way to do it.
How does gratitude make you a better leader?
When I meditate, the first thing I say is, I'm doing this for myself and I'm doing this for others. Gratitude works the same way. It makes you a better person, and that lets you give more to the people you lead. Arturo sees it as energy. Bring gratitude and positivity into your day, and you have more of it to share. It also deepens your empathy, which I cover in empathetic leadership.
Does gratitude still matter when AI does more of the work?
It matters more. AI can help a team do more with less, faster. The appreciation people remember comes from a human. Lead human first, AI enabled, and use some of the time AI gives back to thank the people who make the work happen. I share how leaders start in AI for leaders.
Do this today
- Write it down. Spend 15 minutes writing what you are grateful for, then read it tomorrow morning.
- Run 12 days of gratitude. Write one thing you are grateful for each day for 12 days, or share each one with your audience.
Listen to the episode
Gratitude
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Questions people ask
How do leaders show gratitude?
They tell people directly. A phone call, a short video message or a handwritten note that says thank you for being my friend, client or partner goes a long way.
What is the easiest way to start a gratitude practice?
Set a 15 minute timer and write down everything you are thankful for. Read the list the next morning, and keep reading it every day.
Why is gratitude so easy to forget?
People are wired to want more and rarely feel content with where they are. Arturo Gomez notes that most of us spend more time on what we lack than on what we have.
Should you practice gratitude in the morning or at night?
Both work. The morning sets the tone and builds momentum for the day, and the evening closes it on a positive note.
Full transcript
Episode 23: Gratitude
Welcome to Leadership DNA, a podcast for those who aspire to be a better leader. Alongside Arturo Gomez, I'm Rob Cressy. Today's topic, gratitude. Arturo, what is gratitude? I mean, I think it's in its basic sense. It's being grateful and having a little bit of a depth of an understanding of the things that you should be, you know, that you should be thankful for on a daily basis.
I think you just said something that is so important, daily basis. And for me, and I know you, gratitude are very big in our state of being and who we are, that you have to be thankful for what you have. And especially right now, when times are tough, how do you overcome that? By being more grateful for your health, for your relationships, for your ability to go for runs. And I've found in my life, the more gratitude I practice on a daily basis, the happier I am, the better the person I am and the better leader I am.
Listen, I would say it's probably one of the things that we most frequently fail at. There's not many people that I know that, you know, this is really truly looking at life with the glass half full, right? It's, it's always, it's an optimistic perspective on all things and being, you know, again, being grateful for what you have.
And it's, I think we spend way more time, probably most of our time looking at the things that we don't have and why our life isn't this way or why our life isn't that way. And I think, you know, the beauty of it, the, and I would say that I don't have a repetitious program that I even live by that I, you know, that I fundamentally can anchor or coach or give to somebody and say, hey, here's the program to be able to show, you know, daily, you know, moments of gratitude.
I know that writing things down is a tremendous thing. And I've, you know, there's a number of books and processes that I've looked into that, you know, kind of have people focusing on gratitude early in the morning. Right. And, and then also circling back at the end of the day. And so I'd be lying if I said that I did that all the time, but I will tell you that the moments and I'll even just keep it in a shorter path.
Let's even just talk about the last nine months and everything in the last nine months, because I think the last nine months have been probably the most challenging period of time for the planet, you know, for the planet. It's the, it's the only time I can really think of that the entire planet has been on one level of consciousness.
And so, you know, there's, there's so much that could be bad. There's so much that could be wrong. And I think that we oftentimes get ourselves sucked into this black hole and that you don't, you know, do we wake up and say, I'm so happy and thankful that my parents are alive, that I'm, that I'm alive, that I'm, that I actually have a roof over my head, that I actually have a warm meal to eat.
You know, these are the things that, again, we lose sight of it because we're, we're programmed to just want, want, and never be content with the current outline in the current state. It's this, you know, not living in the present component. So yeah, I think it's, it's vitally important. And I think it's, it's going to be more important as we move into, you know, this next phase moving out of the pandemic, whenever that may be. But we should all be very grateful that we have the things that we have.
100%. And the good news is I believe this is an area I specialize in and it all can be centered back to the origin of me starting my entrepreneurial journey. When I realized when I went from having the safety of a nine to five job, and then all of a sudden being completely on my own and making $0 and being like, Hey Rob, everything's up to you now, figure this out.
And I was like, Holy crap. And I realized that negativity did not serve me. And it was not going to get me closer to my goals or get me there faster because of that. I've been the leader of team good vibes ever since. So when people are always like, Rob, how are you such a positive person? I'm like, why in the world would I ever be negative? That just doesn't make sense to me because you get what you put out. It comes back to you.
So as this relates to gratitude, so that's where my foundation comes from. So I've got a very strong why I'm all in on this life that I have my dreams and everything I want to accomplish and just doing things that I build the world in my image. So that's my foundation. So then when it comes to gratitude, you're like, all right, well, how do you build that positive mindset that you have to always be radiating like that?
And as you said, a lot of people like the morning and night in the morning is the biggest game changer. And if there's going to be a several, if you do this, the one thing, this is one of the biggest ones. Why in the world do we want gratitude in the morning? Because it's the way that you start your day and that's going to allow you to build momentum. So think about two different ways of people waking up.
Number one, which I think would be a very common way you wake up, you hit snooze maybe once or twice. And then all of a sudden you jump on your phone and you check your email or you jump on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook, and you immediately start consuming the news of the rest of the world. So that's one way of starting the day. But then there's the way that maybe I start my day where I get up and I don't have this snooze button. And I wake up in the very first thing that I say to myself is today is going to be a great day.
And within the first 30 minutes of me being up, I read a series of gratitude of things that I'm thankful for every single day. And actually before I even get to that, when I zombie my way from the bed to brush my teeth and I'm sitting here brushing my teeth, you know what I do? I say three people that I'm grateful for and Arturo, you know what? You come up often because when we record these episodes, so I'll be sitting there and I'm like, all right, who have I not thought about?
And oftentimes it might be someone who I learned from yesterday, or maybe it's someone I'm going to talk to today. So I'm like, I'm thankful for Arturo. I'm thankful for my wife and I'm thankful for my parents. Boom. I go downstairs and 30 minutes later, I read the list of things that I'm thankful for and what you can do for this. And this is a very simple action item. So you're like, Hey, I've never written this down before.
All it starts with is with being intentional once about writing down the things that you're thankful for. Set a timer on your phone for 15 minutes. Give yourself this permission in this space and just go there and say, I'm going to write down the things that I'm thankful for. Just let it go. No judgment whatsoever. Boom. You write that down.
The next day. What I want you to do in the morning at some point, I want you to go to that document and I want you to read the things that you are thankful for. And as we get better at this, you're going to start to feel those things. But the first thing that I just want you to do, I just want you to have that on wax, write that down because now this is the power of intention and Arturo, you already believe in goal setting. So it's the exact same concept for this. And once you do that, all of a sudden you start your day a little bit differently. Instead of jumping on email or allowing the world to dictate what's going on in you say, wait a second. I know that I can control my state of being in one way that I can do that is by starting by being thankful for everything going on.
I can't help but be better today because I read this gratitude moving forward. Everything else is going to be gravy. So that's my action item on the simplest way that you can add gratitude to your world. Super important. And, you know, every outlet that I've looked into to kind of study this, and I would say that I've probably more come across this rather than pursuing it as a study.
You know, obviously there's aspects of my meditation that have, you know, really kind of highlight gratitude is an insanely important thing that everybody should really pay a little bit more attention to because, you know, you said it really builds frame of reference. And if you can start your day, end your day and really look at the things that you should be grateful for.
There's always going to be something on the list that you can put because certainly that's my perspective, but I think it becomes endless. And I think, you know, every moment that we are on this earth and that we're taking breath, I think there's something certainly to be grateful for. And I think the key comes down to one word, awareness. Are you aware of your opportunities to have gratitude in your life? If you never think about it, then guess what? You're probably not going to be a very grateful person because you're not trying to be intentional about it. So maybe it's actually one part awareness, one part intention. One, you need to be intentional about wanting this.
Boom. I want to be more grateful. I want more gratitude in my life. Cool. Now, what can we do to make more awareness of it? And Arturo, one of the things that I've learned from you, and I've mentioned this before around awareness is every time I go for a run or I'm walking around in Chicago and I see someone, I'm blessing everybody where there's this spot when I'm running towards the lake and towards Merchandise Mart, where oftentimes there's a bunch of homeless people who sleep there and I'm usually running in the morning. So a lot of them are still sleeping right there. And you know what? On my way there and my way back, every single time I'm blessing those people, I say, you know what? I hope something good happens for them. And then sometimes I'm running further on down the road and I just see a random person. And I think of you, Arturo, and I'm just like, hey, I hope that person has a good day. Boom. And there's this awareness that has happened from me learning from you that has triggered.
And I would like to think that there's an element of gratitude baked into this, of me blessing other people, hoping that they have good days. Because when you live in gratitude and you start from that, of the things that I'm thankful for, of this podcast and my family and my dog and my ability to run, all of a sudden you come from a place of love more and you've got this heart.
And as we're in this holiday season, once again, I'm going to say this, that I really work on having this holiday cheer and spreading it. And you know, one way we can do that is by being grateful. And even last night I decided just to go for a walk and I love it. It's such a beautiful thing. And here's a tip for you. You want to have a smile on your face? Step one, go outside. Step two, look around and put your head up. And that's exactly what I did. Cause you know what I noticed?
I noticed lights all over the place in Chicago. And I was able to take pictures of these beautiful lights everywhere. And all of a sudden I was baked in gratitude because I was aware of the beautiful surroundings that engulfed me. And then all of a sudden I couldn't help, but be happy. And then that manifests itself to this podcast right this moment. Yeah. It's, it's such a critical thing.
And it really shapes, it really shapes mindset. You know, there's, there's people that again, you know, that we've both come across that I think have, you know, a perspective or a viewpoint on life that maybe that certainly needs to be shifted. And I think that, you know, we've all kind of had those down moments, but gratitude and really understanding that perspective of the things that we should be happy about, um, can change an entire mindset. It gives you energy. And a lot of this, I think relates to, you know, one of the first podcasts that we, that we spoke about, you know, self-love and about, you know, treating ourselves, you know, we often treat ourselves worse than what we would, you know, our worst enemy. And a lot of that comes from these head games that we play and I'm not good enough and I'm never going to get this and I'm never going to have this. And well, one, you know, the, the material possessions, we need to put that stuff aside. It's okay to have wants and desires and goals and stuff like that. But I think, um, for the men, mental health, you know, for somebody to actually be able to begin to really evolve, I think that you have to practice a tremendous amount of self-love. And for me, gratitude is that, is that builder is if it's not, if it's not the most important piece, it certainly is a significant building block and actually being able to come to, uh, I think better terms with who we are and what we provide, you know, the universe. And I think that that helps, um, to get us in a spot where we become a stronger version of ourselves. And in, in that we then can give more.
So being grateful, being happy, bringing some good energy and positivity into your day is going to allow you to really kind of share that. Oh, uh, 100%. I love that you said that because this all comes to leadership then by leading ourselves better, we can be a better leader to others. And you mentioned meditation and I'm really trying to be intentional about how I can help people simplify this to make it easy for themselves in terms of why you want to do it or how you can do it. And I think to something that's part of my meditation practice, and it's actually the very first thing that I have said every single time. And I close my eyes and I say, I'm doing this for myself and I'm doing this for others. And it's a very important thing that if we're thinking about gratitude as only ourselves, it's actually not just for ourselves by making ourselves a better person, we're able to better give to others. So in terms of like setting that intention and becoming more aware and God forbid, we also do this on the backend at night as well. It's like, well, why in the world do you want to do that? You're like, well, you know what? I'm super on fire, not just for my own life, but my ability to be a better leader and to help other people. So I know by me living in this zone of love and caring and gratitude, it's going to allow me to be the best version of myself as a leader for other people. So let's talk about the small things, because I think this is where we can get the easiest wins and it's also the hardest and most overlooked. I believe gratitude can be boiled down to the simplest things that you can think about. And what one of my mentors actually said is, I want you to go out in nature and I want you just to pick up something, whether it's a leaf, a blade of grass, look up into the sky or something. I just want you to sit there and to be present with it.
And notice the beauty of it and just sit in that. So when I was down in Sarasota, I picked up this green leaf and it never would I have done this previously. And I just picked it up and I looked at how intricate it was. There may have been 200 perfect, like vertical lines on this leaf. And I had an element of gratitude and appreciation for the beauty of this leaf.
And the reason that I'm sharing this is because all of this is around us on a daily basis. All I had to do is pick up a leaf and be intentional about looking at it and being like, holy smokes, this thing is a piece of architectural beauty. It's a freaking green leaf, but it was amazing. So think about the things in your life that are so small and simple. Like when I go for a five mile run and I'm in flow and I'm listening to a podcast and it goes really well. You know what I think when I'm done, thank God for my ability to run. Because I remember when the Boston marathon bombing happened and I felt some sort of way. I felt hurt because of the community I was a part of. And some people don't have the ability to run. And I think about when I have my morning coffee, when I'm reading and I sit there and I'm like, man, I am so thankful for this coffee that I'm drinking right now. And when you open your eyes to the simplest things that you can be grateful for, all of a sudden it becomes contagious to where now you're walking down the street and you're blessing people. And it all starts because you're thankful for your morning coffee. Right. I mean, you know, you brought this up. We were, we just happened to be in a, in a, you know, kind of, I think this, uh, this concept or this topic just happened to be something we really wanted to talk about, but it is the season of gratitude. I mean, we're, we're living in, you know, the, a period of time where, you know, traditionally we are all giving thanks to the things that we have and the people that we have in our lives. And so, um, you know, right now the world slows down. So the world's doing you a favor to give you a moment in time to, you know, wake up potentially without any obligation to, you know, work, um, in the next week. And you know, spend some time with your coffee and grab a piece of paper and a pen and, uh, and start listing some things, uh, you know, writing things down during this period of time is going to really put things in perspective for you. So Arturo, let's get to the action items and takeaways. What is one action item you have or takeaway? Yeah, no, really the action item I would say is, uh, and I'm going to actually push this, you know, back on myself. Um, it's, you know, having some fun with the holidays and maybe doing, you know, 12 days of gratitude and, you know, getting started next week, um, and chasing down, you know, that goal as we get to, you know, Christmas or Christmas Eve and just putting some real basic thoughts on, on paper. And it doesn't need to be more than, more than one. I think you can, you know, start with one and give yourself that lead up so that, you know, maybe Christmas morning, Christmas Eve, you you've actually outlined, you know, 12 amazing things that you're really grateful for. I absolutely love that. I am in my mind's already racing of the things that I'm going to do. So what I'm going to do is I am going to share my 12 days of gratitude in my Instagram story. So that every day, boom for 12 days, that's what I'm going to do. And my action item is for people who have not written down something about gratitude in the practice. All I want you to do is just to spend some time intentionally and do it. Just, just write it down. I promise you, I promise you, this will be an absolute game changer for your life because it's going to change who you are. And as a bonus, I've got another way that you can practice gratitude because if you want to be better at building relationships, I want you to go and call people or send them a video message or a handwritten note and let them know how much they mean to you. Hey, thank you for being my friend, my client, my partner, anything, because these are the opportunities we all have in front of us that are so easy for us just to pass by. Oh, you know what? It's 2020 coronavirus. I don't really need to do it. No, this is your opportunity to be a shining light. And sometimes all it takes is a 30 second video message to someone that says, Hey, I'm thinking about you. I'm sending tons of good vibes and love your way. Boom. Nice and simple. And I promise you it's going to make everybody around you feel so much better. I love it.
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