July 23, 2025 • 29 mins
Empowered Living With Jeff Byrd.
Welcome to Empowered Living. Listen as Jeff tackles critical issues in a way that brings "Insight for business, leadership, and life!
https://www.talknetworkradio.com/hosts/EmpoweredLiving
Welcome to Empowered Living. Listen as Jeff tackles critical issues in a way that brings "Insight for business, leadership, and life!
https://www.talknetworkradio.com/hosts/EmpoweredLiving
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Hello, this is Gabriella on the scene today with Top
Network Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We have a real dread for you.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Just around the corner, and that is Empowered Living.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
With Jeff Bird.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Jeff is the owner of Jeffrey for Coaching and he
will be coming to you weekly to teach you more
about empowered living. Now let's join Jeff already in the studio.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Hello and welcome. This is Jeff Bird with empower Living
and today I'm so glad you tuned in in this
month of Thanksgiving, month of November. As we approach the
topic soaring through gratitude, I think there are a few
things in life that can do as much for us
(01:17):
and open as many doors as a grateful attitude, a
grateful spirit, a grateful heart. Actually, the apostle Paul in
the New Testament wrote in one of his letters, in everything,
give thanks for this is the will of God in
Christ Jesus for you. Now, notice he didn't say, four
(01:37):
everything give thanks. We're not grateful for war, we're not
grateful for tragedies, we're not grateful for disease. But what
he said is in everything, give things, even in the
midst of the difficulties and the challenges of life too.
Keep a mindset that looks at the things we have
to be grateful for. On the spiritual level. He mentions
(01:58):
everything God's done for us in price on the spiritual level,
on the mental level, the gifts and abilities He's given us.
On the emotional level, the people who care for us
that we love, the things that bring joy to our
hearts in life, and even on the physical level, those
things we can do and the activities we can engage
in that refresh us or bring value and bring joy
to other people. Oprah Winfrey said, be thankful for what
(02:23):
you have. You'll end up having more. If you concentrate
on what you don't have, you will never ever have enough.
Isn't that the truth. There's nobody at any state who
couldn't if they chose to just think on what they
don't have. Even a Bill Gates or someone like that
could if they chose to. We would seem foolish. But
(02:46):
they could choose to think about what they want that
they don't have, and they could make themselves miserable. Someone
asked John D. Rockefeller one time, how much money does
it take for a man to truly be happy? And
Rockefeller responded, just a little more than what he's got.
And if we think that way, we'll never be happy.
(03:08):
If we're constantly looking at that little more that we want,
that little more that we want will never really develop
a grateful spirit. But a beautiful part is like Oprah said,
if we're thankful for what we have, we'll end up
having more. So we're going to kind of break that
down and look at some aspects of gratitude today that
I'd like to share with you. The first thing about
(03:29):
gratitude I want to look at is the power of gratitude.
The power of gratitude. Gratitude is powerful, and I think
really the main thing that strikes me is the power
of gratitude is the power that gratitude has to touch
a heart. To touch a heart, now, this can be
on the part of the person showing the gratitude or
(03:50):
the part of the person receiving the gratitude. Now, if
you knew my wife, Angie, some of you may you
would know that she loves to think veterans for their
service to our country. She goes out of her way
sometimes I'll be pushing a grocery cart through a store
and kind of looking around, just chatting to her. And
I'll look and realize I'm just talking into thin air.
(04:12):
She's gone. She saw a guy in a veteran's hat
halfway back across the grocery store, and she's run across
the store over there to thank them for their service
to our country. And it's funny, we joke about it,
but it's very meaningful in the way. And I'm glad
that she has such a heart to see that value
in other people and to go out of her way
to show appreciation for what they've done. But one time
(04:36):
she saw an older man in a Vietnam veterans hat
and with him was a little five or six year
old grandchild, and she went up to them and she
leaned over to the grandchild and she said, did you
know that your granddaddy is a hero. And he looked
up at his grandpa and he said, really, grandpa, you're
(04:56):
a hero. And when she looked up at the veteran,
he had tears coming down his face and he said,
no one's ever said that to me before, no one's
ever thanked me for what I did over there, And
that just shows after all those years. This was forty
some years since Vietnam, but yet and he had never
been thanked for what he did, for what he sacrificed,
(05:17):
for what he was willing to sacrifice for the country,
And just one random stranger coming up and thanking him
was able to touch his heart in that way. Now,
don't you think the rest of his day was a
much better day? And don't you think also that my
wife's day was a much better day. She told me
that story, and I shared that story often when I'm
speaking to groups and engagements to show the power of
(05:40):
appreciation and the power of gratitude. It touches both hearts
and it elevates both people. It brings a new sense
of value. One of the main things that does is
it brings a new sense of value. Don't you know
that that veteran felt more valuable, more appreciated when he
left the store that day after having heard that from
my wife that somebody just appreciated their efforts and his
(06:04):
sense of self It brings the newest sense of self worth.
I'm sure that his sense of self work and value
was enhanced, as was Angie's. When she went out of there,
She's like, Wow, I just I did a little something
today that really impacted somebody else's life. For the good
and made them feel special, and that makes me feel special.
Solomon wrote many, many years ago that he who refreshes
(06:26):
another will himself be refreshed. And that's just so the truth.
We cannot build up somebody else and refresh them without
being refreshed ourselves. Number two under the power of gratitude
is that gratitude has the power to create new connections.
You know, if you're a grateful person, that makes other
(06:47):
people want to connect with you. People want to feel appreciated.
We feel so unappreciated so often for so many things,
and when somebody comes along that has that kind of
mindset and really appreciates them, that creates a dis hire
for connections. And you never know where those connections are
going to go. They could end up being some of
the most beneficial connections you ever come across in your life.
And gratitude opens doors like that. And then the third
(07:11):
way that the power that gratitude has is it has
the power to focus us off our cell and elevate
others in our eyes. When we take time to stop
and to look around at what other people are doing,
when we see what they're really doing, what they're really
giving on a daily basis to at their job, to
(07:31):
their family, to their neighbors, to the world around them,
and we stop and we think about that. It takes
us out of an egocentric world for a minute and goes,
oh my gosh, look at that person, look at what
they're doing. That's that's so cool, you know, that's I
really appreciate them. So it takes our eyes off ourselves
for a minute. We could we could all use a
break from that. Honestly, even even on our best of days,
(07:54):
with our best of intents, that's still often a struggle
to get away from that kind of self centered thing
and to really look out and see others, see them
for who they are, for what their intentions are, and
the good that they want to do and are doing. Okay, next,
I want to talk about the purpose of gratitude. The
purpose of gratitude, similarly to what I was just explaining,
is that it allows us to see clearly the big
(08:17):
picture and the role that others are playing and have played.
It gives us a bigger view of life, a bigger
picture view of life. We can get so busy navel
gazing and just focused on ourselves that we don't even
see the beauty of the world around us and the
people around us, and the gifts that we've been given.
Rachelle Goodrich said, gratitude doesn't change the scenery. It merely
(08:42):
washed clean the glass you look through so you can
clearly see the colors. Isn't that the truth? If we
were looking through a dirty window out of the beautiful day,
the scenery would be the same as it was a
clean glass, but we would get a very different impression
of it. Right, Gratitude cleans that glass so that we
(09:02):
can look and clearly see the beauty of what's going
on around us and the people around us. It opens
our eyes to ask the question, Hey, where would I
be without the help of God and others? Right? We
tend to take for granted the things we have, and
gratitude stopping and looking around shows us that big picture
of Oh my gosh, look at what God and other
(09:24):
people have done to help me get where I am.
Where would I be without those people, even people just
doing what seemed like menial tests. Where would we be
without them? Where would we be without the guy that
picks up the garbage every week, or delivers the mail,
or serves us at the restaurant or fills up the
gas pumps with gas so that we can go get gas.
There's people doing so many things around us all the
(09:44):
time that create the life that we can so easily
take for granted, and gratitude causes us to see the
big picture of that. It reveals the beauty of what
we already have all around us. Earlier this week, I
was listening to a Ted talk and there was a
Vintage Monks on there, and he was talking about gratitude,
and he said that when we stop and look around,
(10:06):
often the first thing we do is just enjoy. Ah,
just take a breath and enjoy the things we've been
given around us. It's fall here in the state of
Virginia and we're finally getting some trees turning color. It's
going to very late fall here, but just stopping to
look at the colors in the leaves and the colors
in the sky, and the beauty of the world around me.
(10:29):
Since I heard that talk, I've been intentionally doing this morning,
just just stopping and entering into a spirit of gratitude
for all the beauty that's around me in the world.
And gratitude will do that for us. It also creates
confidence that more good will come, and we can so
easily get focused on the worries of the day and
(10:51):
of the moment that we forget all the good that's
come to us throughout our lives. We forget all those
things that we were worried we're going to go poorly,
and that they worked out all right, we were okayvision
and came through, we were cared for. It's easy to
forget that. But gratitude reminds us of those things, and
then that gives us the assurance and the confidence, Hey,
more good's gonna come, It's going to work out all right,
(11:11):
It's going to be okay. We need to know that
gratitude creates an attitude that attracts more. It's been said
that we don't attract what we want, we attract who
we are, and gratitude will attract the right kind of people,
the right kind of opportunities to us. Because, frankly, who
(11:33):
wants to work with somebody and give opportunities to a
negative person who's not grateful for anything and who thinks
everybody owes them something, nobody wants to work with that
You're never going to get a very good job that way.
You're never going to get a very good promotion that way.
But gratitude creates an attitude that attracts more. Grateful people
are just charming, they're just magnetic. People want to be
around them. And lastly, under the purpose of gratitude number five,
(11:56):
gratitude creates appreciation of each mone moment that is given,
which provide infinite opportunities. When it comes down to it,
what are we really grateful for? The things that we're
most grateful for that we all want are, after all,
the moments of life that we're given, the moment that
(12:16):
it is given. I used to work in hospice and
for a lot of the people who are near the
end of life, what they very much want is another moment,
another moment. When we're young and when we're healthy, we
take those for granted. No, we got plenty of moments
to come. Don't have to worry about that now. But
each moment is a huge gift, a huge gift. We
could never create this life that we have. We couldn't
(12:37):
create our bodies to sustain it. It couldn't create our spirits.
Each moment is a gift, But the real gift isn't
the moment. The real gift is the opportunity that the
moment contains. We can squander that moment. We cannot appreciate it.
We can go Wow, I have this moment to make
a good decision, to do something that increases my own
(12:59):
value or that builds up somebody else's value. I have
this moment that I can do something good in that
I can change the course of somebody else's day life
or even the future of the world. When one life
has changed, the world has changed. Want to make a
difference in the world, do something that benefits one other
person in a day. And number three, when we looked
(13:22):
at the power of gratitude and the purpose of gratitude,
now I want to look at the process of gratitude.
The process of gratitude now. The first thing in order
to become grateful people, I mentioned it a couple of
times already, is we have to stop. We have to
take a minute or a few minutes, preferably out of
(13:44):
the constant churn of what do I have to do next,
what do I need to do next, what do I
need to be doing, what's on the agenda? We have
to take a moment and stop and open our eyes
and our hearts to look around us, at the beauty
that surround us, at the people that are around us,
(14:05):
at the those who have built and lived value into
our lives. We have to stop to look outside of
our cells and our schedule and what we have to
do next. If all we do is live every moment
looking at what do I have to do in the
next moment, we will never fully appreciate those moments that
we've been doing. Next thing that will help us enormously
is to keep a list. Make a list of all
(14:28):
that's been given to us by God and others. The
longer that list, that deeper our appreciation is going to be.
The shallower that list, the shallower appreciation. If you can
only think of a couple of things, you're not going
to have a lot of gratitude a lot of appreciation.
When you really start thinking into that and start populating
that list, your sense of gratitude is going to skyrocket,
(14:48):
and with that all the good that comes from gratitude.
Next we need to well while we're stopped, is to
appreciate where we are as a result, and where we
might have been without what we've been given. Okay, think
of the movie. It's a wonderful lie. Many of you
will relate to that movie. We have a little theater
(15:10):
here in ghenton Norfolk that plays in every Christmas season.
It's very heartwarming. And Jimmy Stewart you might remember, as
the main character. And he's just down and he's discouraged,
and he's in the dumps and he's just ready to
jump off a bridge and end it all. But a
couple of angels come to him in the form of men,
and they show him. They take him around the town
and they show him life and everything's just wrong. People
(15:31):
are just out of sorts. Businesses and restaurants don't exist.
Everything's just out of whack. And what they ultimately revealed
to him is, this is what life would have been
like without you, without your influence, without what you meant
to other people. So we need to see what is
life like as a result of what we've been given
and what we've done with it. What would it be
(15:52):
like if we hadn't received those gifts, if we hadn't
had those opportunities that we've taken. Now, next, once we
get that list and we see everybody that's lived into
our lives and the difference that it's made and made
through us, then we need to let them know, we
need to take some action. We've seen studies show that
inward gratitude changes us. We will benefit just by being
(16:15):
grateful on the inside and having a list on the
inside and having that attitude in that stance. But when
we express that inner gratitude outwardly, it changes other people
and it changes relationships. Think back to the story I
opened with with my wife Angie and the veteran. She
could have had great appreciation for that that even if
(16:36):
she knew his story or say she read it somewhere,
she could have known that and really appreciated him, and
she would have been better for it on the inside.
But it wasn't until she went to him and thanked
him out loud and connected with him that he was
changed and the relationship their mutual appreciation. Even though as
far as I know, she's never seen him since that
(16:57):
change thing. And then other times we do see people
afterwards and relationships a built, beautiful things come out of them.
And lastly, on the process of gratitude is use each
moment to its maximum benefit for self and others. In
other words, see every single moment of life that you're
given and the opportunities it contains to build up ourselves,
(17:22):
to read something, take a class, somehow develop ourselves so
that we can be of our maximum benefit, both to
ourselves and the people around us. Every moment contains an opportunity,
and using those opportunities to their maximum benefit. That spreads
the gratitude around. That takes everything we've been given and
(17:42):
makes it bigger and puts it back out in the
world to build up other people. Okay, now I want
to talk about the benefits of gratitude. There's a number
of benefits of gratitude. Okay, The first one that I
found is that gratitude frees us from toxic emotions. Gratitude
for us from toxic emotion. Fewer negative words were found
(18:04):
to produce better mental health in a case study that
I read about fewer negative words. Now here's the interesting thing.
It didn't matter how many positive words the people said
that didn't increase their mental health. It was how many
fewer negative words they said. Once with the least amount
of negative words had the best mental health. So turning
(18:28):
down that negative inner chatter and that outer chatter and
developing of spirit of gratitude will free us from toxic
emotions and improve our mental health. Like I mentioned before,
even unshared gratitude changes us. Just having that attitude inwardly
will change us, change our day, change the way we
act towards those we encounter in that day. Number three,
(18:49):
gratitude effects increase over time. This was interesting. I thought
this was very interesting. People who started doing gratitude practices,
they were that are off twelve weeks out than they
were one week out from beginning that practice. Gratitude expands
over time. When you develop a grateful mindset, It's like
(19:10):
it exponentially increases your mental health, your ability to cope
with things, your ability to make a difference in the world.
The effects compound over time and increase. Gratitude also enhances
brain function. It enhances our brain function. In the studies,
it showed that there was greater stimulation of the medial
(19:31):
prefrontal cortex, which is the part of our brain that
is related to learning and decision making and grateful people
in other words, we're grateful, our brains get stimulated and
we are better able to learn and make good decisions.
How do you think that's going to impact the success
of our lives? That's gonna take us off. Not only
(19:52):
are we going to draw the right people to us.
But we're going to learn quicker, learn better, and make
better decisions as a result of just being grateful. Gratitude
journaling was also found to increase our long term well
being by over ten percent. That is the same impact
as doubling our income. Wow, that's an attention to get
(20:16):
her humh wouldn't everybody listening here today, as well as myself,
like to double our income. Yeah, absolutely we would. But
developing an attitude of gratitude will have the same impact
on our long term well being as doubling our income.
That's the difference it makes in our life. One of
the reasons for that is that it improves our physical health.
(20:37):
Another proverb of Solomon said that a merry heart does
good like a medicine, and grateful hearts tend to be
happy hearts, and people reported that they had fewer aches
and pains, they reported just feeling overall healthier, and they're
also more likely to care for themselves. A person who's
more grateful about their life will take better care of
(20:59):
that life. Okay. It also was found to increase happiness
like I just mentioned, and reduce depression. That's from Robert Emmons,
a gratitude researcher. So if you're depressed, doing something for
somebody else, showing them how much you're grateful for them,
noticing the good things that exist in the world around you,
and showing appreciation, that'll help you real quick. In fact,
(21:23):
there's an old poem called do something for somebody quick
that was written back in the eighteen hundreds by a
woman named Grace Gold and I looked it up recently
online and I found it to my surprise. And I
also found that they were using it in PTSD victims
to help them recover, and that when they focused on
other people, when they focused off themselves and their own experiences,
(21:43):
and when they developed gratitude and showed appreciation and helped
other people, they got better more quickly. Next, gratitude will
create better sleep for us. I know so many people
these days they just have trouble sleep, and now, thankfully
I'm not one of them. I can sleep any time, anywhere.
It's just one of my it's a gift. It's just
a spiritual gift. I thank you. I have the gift
(22:04):
of sleep. I can sleep anytime, anywhere. But it was
found that people who spend fifteen minutes before they go
to bed doing gratitude journaling had better sleep and longer sleep.
That was from an article in applied psychology called Health
and well Being. And lastly, it reduces stress and gratitude
(22:26):
fosters resilience. It was found that Vietnam vets with higher
levels of gratitude had lower levels of PTSD. The higher
the gratitude, the lower the PTSD, and greater levels of
resilience were shown following September eleventh tragedy and those who
practiced gratitude. In other words, grateful people bounce back quicker.
(22:49):
They bounce back quicker. They have a better view of life,
they have a more positive view of life, and even
when bad things happen, they bounce back more quickly. They
don't spend as long down, as long as depressed, as
long as discouraged. So this leads us up to the
practice of gratitude. Now we're going to take a short
break and then we're going to come back and we're
going to jump into the practice of gratitude. I have
five things I'd like to leave you with that'll help
(23:11):
you practice gratitude on a daily basis.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Jeff will be back shortly to wrap up today's message.
This is Gabriela still on the scene today with Top
Network Radio.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
If you're just.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Tuning in, you're listening to Empowered Living with Jeff Burd.
If you've missed any part of today's message, you can
hear it again online as well as the entire archive
of Empowered Living at www dot.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Topnetwork Radio dot.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Com or search keyword hashtag empowered Living. We would like
to acknowledge our music partners, Sound Ideas for Corporate to
the Max and Kevin McLeod for Airport Lounge. Any scriptures
or read during this broadcast are from the New ameera
and Standard version of the Holy Bible. If you would like.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
To learn more about Jeffreybird Coaching, visit www dot Jeffbirdcoaching
dot com. That is j E F F b y
r D Coaching dot com. Do a Facebook search for
at coaching Rocks or drop Jeff aligne at Jeff at.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Jeffbirdcaching dot com Again j E F F B y
r D Coaching dot com. Let Jeff's coaching rocks be
the building blocks of your empowered success.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Now, let's go back to.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Death for the rest of today's message.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
And welcome back again, this is jeff Bird with Jeffreybird
Coaching and you're listening to Empowered Living and we are
wrapping up today's broadcast called Soaring with Gratitude. Now, the
last thing we want to talk about. I want to
give you five keys to practicing attitude on a daily basis,
and the first one is we have to stop. We'll
(25:05):
never get a grateful mindset if we don't stop. We
have to stop the busyness in order to have time
to think on all that we have to be grateful for.
We're just running, run and running the hamster in the
hamster wheel. We're never going to have the time that
we need to look around us and notice all the
things and the people we have to be grateful for.
Number two, we need to reflect. We all have to
(25:29):
have time to reflect. It's been said we have to
come apart or we will come apart. So we all
need that time to reflect, to take time to think
through the past day, the past week, month, or maybe
the year, and to dwell on all who have contributed
to your life and the difference that it may just
taking some time at the end of the of the day.
(25:50):
It can be five, ten, fifteen minutes, maybe someone you
can do a half hour or more, taking some time
at the end of each day, at the end of
a week, at the end of a month or a
quarter or a year, just taking some dedicated time to
just be still, stop the activity, and to reflect on
all that's happened, and to think through all the different
people who contributed to all the good that you have
(26:12):
in your life right now. The third is to list
list those people. Keep a list in a journal, on
a phone, on an app somewhere of all those who
have made a difference in your life and all that
you appreciate in the world around you. Listing these things
is essential. I have a friend. She's an old, older
(26:32):
woman now, but she told me the story of when
she was a young woman. She tended to have a
pretty critical spirit, and an older friend of hers I
believe she was a nurse she came to her and
she said, I want you, every night before you go
to bed, to kneel down next to your bed and
list five things that you're grateful for before you go
to bed. I believe she was in her twenties when
(26:54):
she was given that advice, and she took it. She
respected the woman who gave it to her, and she
started that practice center twenties and now in her upper seventies,
she's still doing that every day, and she said that
it changed her life. Making the list even five things,
you can easily come up with five things, but it
gets our minds on all the good things that are
(27:14):
coming in from the world around us and the people
around us, and it gets as focused off the maga.
The fourth thing is to share. Don't just make that
list internally when it's appropriate, do everything you can to
share with the people who have made the difference. Let
them know how much you appreciate what they've contributed to
you and the difference that it's made. Again, inner gratitude
will change us, but external gratitude, gratitude shared changes others
(27:39):
and strengthens those relationships and makes the world a happier
place to be. And number five is to become become
all you can in each moment so others can be
grateful for you. The more we use each moment to
develop ourselves and so that we can be good for others,
the more we give them to be grateful for. And
it just keeps going back and and around and around,
(28:01):
and the gratitude just bills and bills as we develop,
we give. People are grateful for us, We're grateful for them,
and it just goes back and forth. And you know,
if everyone in the world took the time to do
this and looked at at others with gratitude, there would
be no one on earth who didn't feel appreciated, no
one on earth who didn't feel appreciated. Now, wouldn't that
(28:22):
be a nice world to live in? But the good
news is that each of us can have the opportunity
to do that every day because we have those moments
and those opportunities. So again, the five practices are to stop,
to reflect, to list, to share, and to become Thank
you so much for tuning in today. It has been
a pleasure to think on these things with you and
(28:43):
to share them with you. And I hope that as
we proceed through the holidays, through this month of Thanksgiving,
and then on into Christmas and the New Year, that
this sense of gratitude will be something that you can
join me and in practicing on a daily basis. There's
all kinds of gratitude journals and to do this, my
wife and I just got a gratitude journal that we
just started using together. This morning just ordered it on Amazon,
(29:06):
So we're starting our days that way and finishing up
the days that way. I hope that you'll join me
in this and that together we can have a gratitude
transformation in the world around us. Thanks so much again.
This is jeff Bird with Jeffrey Bird Coaching, and this
is empowered living
Hello, this is Gabriella on the scene today with Top
Network Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We have a real dread for you.
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Just around the corner, and that is Empowered Living.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
With Jeff Bird.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Jeff is the owner of Jeffrey for Coaching and he
will be coming to you weekly to teach you more
about empowered living. Now let's join Jeff already in the studio.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Hello and welcome. This is Jeff Bird with empower Living
and today I'm so glad you tuned in in this
month of Thanksgiving, month of November. As we approach the
topic soaring through gratitude, I think there are a few
things in life that can do as much for us
(01:17):
and open as many doors as a grateful attitude, a
grateful spirit, a grateful heart. Actually, the apostle Paul in
the New Testament wrote in one of his letters, in everything,
give thanks for this is the will of God in
Christ Jesus for you. Now, notice he didn't say, four
(01:37):
everything give thanks. We're not grateful for war, we're not
grateful for tragedies, we're not grateful for disease. But what
he said is in everything, give things, even in the
midst of the difficulties and the challenges of life too.
Keep a mindset that looks at the things we have
to be grateful for. On the spiritual level. He mentions
(01:58):
everything God's done for us in price on the spiritual level,
on the mental level, the gifts and abilities He's given us.
On the emotional level, the people who care for us
that we love, the things that bring joy to our
hearts in life, and even on the physical level, those
things we can do and the activities we can engage
in that refresh us or bring value and bring joy
to other people. Oprah Winfrey said, be thankful for what
(02:23):
you have. You'll end up having more. If you concentrate
on what you don't have, you will never ever have enough.
Isn't that the truth. There's nobody at any state who
couldn't if they chose to just think on what they
don't have. Even a Bill Gates or someone like that
could if they chose to. We would seem foolish. But
(02:46):
they could choose to think about what they want that
they don't have, and they could make themselves miserable. Someone
asked John D. Rockefeller one time, how much money does
it take for a man to truly be happy? And
Rockefeller responded, just a little more than what he's got.
And if we think that way, we'll never be happy.
(03:08):
If we're constantly looking at that little more that we want,
that little more that we want will never really develop
a grateful spirit. But a beautiful part is like Oprah said,
if we're thankful for what we have, we'll end up
having more. So we're going to kind of break that
down and look at some aspects of gratitude today that
I'd like to share with you. The first thing about
(03:29):
gratitude I want to look at is the power of gratitude.
The power of gratitude. Gratitude is powerful, and I think
really the main thing that strikes me is the power
of gratitude is the power that gratitude has to touch
a heart. To touch a heart, now, this can be
on the part of the person showing the gratitude or
(03:50):
the part of the person receiving the gratitude. Now, if
you knew my wife, Angie, some of you may you
would know that she loves to think veterans for their
service to our country. She goes out of her way
sometimes I'll be pushing a grocery cart through a store
and kind of looking around, just chatting to her. And
I'll look and realize I'm just talking into thin air.
(04:12):
She's gone. She saw a guy in a veteran's hat
halfway back across the grocery store, and she's run across
the store over there to thank them for their service
to our country. And it's funny, we joke about it,
but it's very meaningful in the way. And I'm glad
that she has such a heart to see that value
in other people and to go out of her way
to show appreciation for what they've done. But one time
(04:36):
she saw an older man in a Vietnam veterans hat
and with him was a little five or six year
old grandchild, and she went up to them and she
leaned over to the grandchild and she said, did you
know that your granddaddy is a hero. And he looked
up at his grandpa and he said, really, grandpa, you're
(04:56):
a hero. And when she looked up at the veteran,
he had tears coming down his face and he said,
no one's ever said that to me before, no one's
ever thanked me for what I did over there, And
that just shows after all those years. This was forty
some years since Vietnam, but yet and he had never
been thanked for what he did, for what he sacrificed,
(05:17):
for what he was willing to sacrifice for the country,
And just one random stranger coming up and thanking him
was able to touch his heart in that way. Now,
don't you think the rest of his day was a
much better day? And don't you think also that my
wife's day was a much better day. She told me
that story, and I shared that story often when I'm
speaking to groups and engagements to show the power of
(05:40):
appreciation and the power of gratitude. It touches both hearts
and it elevates both people. It brings a new sense
of value. One of the main things that does is
it brings a new sense of value. Don't you know
that that veteran felt more valuable, more appreciated when he
left the store that day after having heard that from
my wife that somebody just appreciated their efforts and his
(06:04):
sense of self It brings the newest sense of self worth.
I'm sure that his sense of self work and value
was enhanced, as was Angie's. When she went out of there,
She's like, Wow, I just I did a little something
today that really impacted somebody else's life. For the good
and made them feel special, and that makes me feel special.
Solomon wrote many, many years ago that he who refreshes
(06:26):
another will himself be refreshed. And that's just so the truth.
We cannot build up somebody else and refresh them without
being refreshed ourselves. Number two under the power of gratitude
is that gratitude has the power to create new connections.
You know, if you're a grateful person, that makes other
(06:47):
people want to connect with you. People want to feel appreciated.
We feel so unappreciated so often for so many things,
and when somebody comes along that has that kind of
mindset and really appreciates them, that creates a dis hire
for connections. And you never know where those connections are
going to go. They could end up being some of
the most beneficial connections you ever come across in your life.
And gratitude opens doors like that. And then the third
(07:11):
way that the power that gratitude has is it has
the power to focus us off our cell and elevate
others in our eyes. When we take time to stop
and to look around at what other people are doing,
when we see what they're really doing, what they're really
giving on a daily basis to at their job, to
(07:31):
their family, to their neighbors, to the world around them,
and we stop and we think about that. It takes
us out of an egocentric world for a minute and goes,
oh my gosh, look at that person, look at what
they're doing. That's that's so cool, you know, that's I
really appreciate them. So it takes our eyes off ourselves
for a minute. We could we could all use a
break from that. Honestly, even even on our best of days,
(07:54):
with our best of intents, that's still often a struggle
to get away from that kind of self centered thing
and to really look out and see others, see them
for who they are, for what their intentions are, and
the good that they want to do and are doing. Okay, next,
I want to talk about the purpose of gratitude. The
purpose of gratitude, similarly to what I was just explaining,
is that it allows us to see clearly the big
(08:17):
picture and the role that others are playing and have played.
It gives us a bigger view of life, a bigger
picture view of life. We can get so busy navel
gazing and just focused on ourselves that we don't even
see the beauty of the world around us and the
people around us, and the gifts that we've been given.
Rachelle Goodrich said, gratitude doesn't change the scenery. It merely
(08:42):
washed clean the glass you look through so you can
clearly see the colors. Isn't that the truth? If we
were looking through a dirty window out of the beautiful day,
the scenery would be the same as it was a
clean glass, but we would get a very different impression
of it. Right, Gratitude cleans that glass so that we
(09:02):
can look and clearly see the beauty of what's going
on around us and the people around us. It opens
our eyes to ask the question, Hey, where would I
be without the help of God and others? Right? We
tend to take for granted the things we have, and
gratitude stopping and looking around shows us that big picture
of Oh my gosh, look at what God and other
(09:24):
people have done to help me get where I am.
Where would I be without those people, even people just
doing what seemed like menial tests. Where would we be
without them? Where would we be without the guy that
picks up the garbage every week, or delivers the mail,
or serves us at the restaurant or fills up the
gas pumps with gas so that we can go get gas.
There's people doing so many things around us all the
(09:44):
time that create the life that we can so easily
take for granted, and gratitude causes us to see the
big picture of that. It reveals the beauty of what
we already have all around us. Earlier this week, I
was listening to a Ted talk and there was a
Vintage Monks on there, and he was talking about gratitude,
and he said that when we stop and look around,
(10:06):
often the first thing we do is just enjoy. Ah,
just take a breath and enjoy the things we've been
given around us. It's fall here in the state of
Virginia and we're finally getting some trees turning color. It's
going to very late fall here, but just stopping to
look at the colors in the leaves and the colors
in the sky, and the beauty of the world around me.
(10:29):
Since I heard that talk, I've been intentionally doing this morning,
just just stopping and entering into a spirit of gratitude
for all the beauty that's around me in the world.
And gratitude will do that for us. It also creates
confidence that more good will come, and we can so
easily get focused on the worries of the day and
(10:51):
of the moment that we forget all the good that's
come to us throughout our lives. We forget all those
things that we were worried we're going to go poorly,
and that they worked out all right, we were okayvision
and came through, we were cared for. It's easy to
forget that. But gratitude reminds us of those things, and
then that gives us the assurance and the confidence, Hey,
more good's gonna come, It's going to work out all right,
(11:11):
It's going to be okay. We need to know that
gratitude creates an attitude that attracts more. It's been said
that we don't attract what we want, we attract who
we are, and gratitude will attract the right kind of people,
the right kind of opportunities to us. Because, frankly, who
(11:33):
wants to work with somebody and give opportunities to a
negative person who's not grateful for anything and who thinks
everybody owes them something, nobody wants to work with that
You're never going to get a very good job that way.
You're never going to get a very good promotion that way.
But gratitude creates an attitude that attracts more. Grateful people
are just charming, they're just magnetic. People want to be
around them. And lastly, under the purpose of gratitude number five,
(11:56):
gratitude creates appreciation of each mone moment that is given,
which provide infinite opportunities. When it comes down to it,
what are we really grateful for? The things that we're
most grateful for that we all want are, after all,
the moments of life that we're given, the moment that
(12:16):
it is given. I used to work in hospice and
for a lot of the people who are near the
end of life, what they very much want is another moment,
another moment. When we're young and when we're healthy, we
take those for granted. No, we got plenty of moments
to come. Don't have to worry about that now. But
each moment is a huge gift, a huge gift. We
could never create this life that we have. We couldn't
(12:37):
create our bodies to sustain it. It couldn't create our spirits.
Each moment is a gift, But the real gift isn't
the moment. The real gift is the opportunity that the
moment contains. We can squander that moment. We cannot appreciate it.
We can go Wow, I have this moment to make
a good decision, to do something that increases my own
(12:59):
value or that builds up somebody else's value. I have
this moment that I can do something good in that
I can change the course of somebody else's day life
or even the future of the world. When one life
has changed, the world has changed. Want to make a
difference in the world, do something that benefits one other
person in a day. And number three, when we looked
(13:22):
at the power of gratitude and the purpose of gratitude,
now I want to look at the process of gratitude.
The process of gratitude now. The first thing in order
to become grateful people, I mentioned it a couple of
times already, is we have to stop. We have to
take a minute or a few minutes, preferably out of
(13:44):
the constant churn of what do I have to do next,
what do I need to do next, what do I
need to be doing, what's on the agenda? We have
to take a moment and stop and open our eyes
and our hearts to look around us, at the beauty
that surround us, at the people that are around us,
(14:05):
at the those who have built and lived value into
our lives. We have to stop to look outside of
our cells and our schedule and what we have to
do next. If all we do is live every moment
looking at what do I have to do in the
next moment, we will never fully appreciate those moments that
we've been doing. Next thing that will help us enormously
is to keep a list. Make a list of all
(14:28):
that's been given to us by God and others. The
longer that list, that deeper our appreciation is going to be.
The shallower that list, the shallower appreciation. If you can
only think of a couple of things, you're not going
to have a lot of gratitude a lot of appreciation.
When you really start thinking into that and start populating
that list, your sense of gratitude is going to skyrocket,
(14:48):
and with that all the good that comes from gratitude.
Next we need to well while we're stopped, is to
appreciate where we are as a result, and where we
might have been without what we've been given. Okay, think
of the movie. It's a wonderful lie. Many of you
will relate to that movie. We have a little theater
(15:10):
here in ghenton Norfolk that plays in every Christmas season.
It's very heartwarming. And Jimmy Stewart you might remember, as
the main character. And he's just down and he's discouraged,
and he's in the dumps and he's just ready to
jump off a bridge and end it all. But a
couple of angels come to him in the form of men,
and they show him. They take him around the town
and they show him life and everything's just wrong. People
(15:31):
are just out of sorts. Businesses and restaurants don't exist.
Everything's just out of whack. And what they ultimately revealed
to him is, this is what life would have been
like without you, without your influence, without what you meant
to other people. So we need to see what is
life like as a result of what we've been given
and what we've done with it. What would it be
(15:52):
like if we hadn't received those gifts, if we hadn't
had those opportunities that we've taken. Now, next, once we
get that list and we see everybody that's lived into
our lives and the difference that it's made and made
through us, then we need to let them know, we
need to take some action. We've seen studies show that
inward gratitude changes us. We will benefit just by being
(16:15):
grateful on the inside and having a list on the
inside and having that attitude in that stance. But when
we express that inner gratitude outwardly, it changes other people
and it changes relationships. Think back to the story I
opened with with my wife Angie and the veteran. She
could have had great appreciation for that that even if
(16:36):
she knew his story or say she read it somewhere,
she could have known that and really appreciated him, and
she would have been better for it on the inside.
But it wasn't until she went to him and thanked
him out loud and connected with him that he was
changed and the relationship their mutual appreciation. Even though as
far as I know, she's never seen him since that
(16:57):
change thing. And then other times we do see people
afterwards and relationships a built, beautiful things come out of them.
And lastly, on the process of gratitude is use each
moment to its maximum benefit for self and others. In
other words, see every single moment of life that you're
given and the opportunities it contains to build up ourselves,
(17:22):
to read something, take a class, somehow develop ourselves so
that we can be of our maximum benefit, both to
ourselves and the people around us. Every moment contains an opportunity,
and using those opportunities to their maximum benefit. That spreads
the gratitude around. That takes everything we've been given and
(17:42):
makes it bigger and puts it back out in the
world to build up other people. Okay, now I want
to talk about the benefits of gratitude. There's a number
of benefits of gratitude. Okay, The first one that I
found is that gratitude frees us from toxic emotions. Gratitude
for us from toxic emotion. Fewer negative words were found
(18:04):
to produce better mental health in a case study that
I read about fewer negative words. Now here's the interesting thing.
It didn't matter how many positive words the people said
that didn't increase their mental health. It was how many
fewer negative words they said. Once with the least amount
of negative words had the best mental health. So turning
(18:28):
down that negative inner chatter and that outer chatter and
developing of spirit of gratitude will free us from toxic
emotions and improve our mental health. Like I mentioned before,
even unshared gratitude changes us. Just having that attitude inwardly
will change us, change our day, change the way we
act towards those we encounter in that day. Number three,
(18:49):
gratitude effects increase over time. This was interesting. I thought
this was very interesting. People who started doing gratitude practices,
they were that are off twelve weeks out than they
were one week out from beginning that practice. Gratitude expands
over time. When you develop a grateful mindset, It's like
(19:10):
it exponentially increases your mental health, your ability to cope
with things, your ability to make a difference in the world.
The effects compound over time and increase. Gratitude also enhances
brain function. It enhances our brain function. In the studies,
it showed that there was greater stimulation of the medial
(19:31):
prefrontal cortex, which is the part of our brain that
is related to learning and decision making and grateful people
in other words, we're grateful, our brains get stimulated and
we are better able to learn and make good decisions.
How do you think that's going to impact the success
of our lives? That's gonna take us off. Not only
(19:52):
are we going to draw the right people to us.
But we're going to learn quicker, learn better, and make
better decisions as a result of just being grateful. Gratitude
journaling was also found to increase our long term well
being by over ten percent. That is the same impact
as doubling our income. Wow, that's an attention to get
(20:16):
her humh wouldn't everybody listening here today, as well as myself,
like to double our income. Yeah, absolutely we would. But
developing an attitude of gratitude will have the same impact
on our long term well being as doubling our income.
That's the difference it makes in our life. One of
the reasons for that is that it improves our physical health.
(20:37):
Another proverb of Solomon said that a merry heart does
good like a medicine, and grateful hearts tend to be
happy hearts, and people reported that they had fewer aches
and pains, they reported just feeling overall healthier, and they're
also more likely to care for themselves. A person who's
more grateful about their life will take better care of
(20:59):
that life. Okay. It also was found to increase happiness
like I just mentioned, and reduce depression. That's from Robert Emmons,
a gratitude researcher. So if you're depressed, doing something for
somebody else, showing them how much you're grateful for them,
noticing the good things that exist in the world around you,
and showing appreciation, that'll help you real quick. In fact,
(21:23):
there's an old poem called do something for somebody quick
that was written back in the eighteen hundreds by a
woman named Grace Gold and I looked it up recently
online and I found it to my surprise. And I
also found that they were using it in PTSD victims
to help them recover, and that when they focused on
other people, when they focused off themselves and their own experiences,
(21:43):
and when they developed gratitude and showed appreciation and helped
other people, they got better more quickly. Next, gratitude will
create better sleep for us. I know so many people
these days they just have trouble sleep, and now, thankfully
I'm not one of them. I can sleep any time, anywhere.
It's just one of my it's a gift. It's just
a spiritual gift. I thank you. I have the gift
(22:04):
of sleep. I can sleep anytime, anywhere. But it was
found that people who spend fifteen minutes before they go
to bed doing gratitude journaling had better sleep and longer sleep.
That was from an article in applied psychology called Health
and well Being. And lastly, it reduces stress and gratitude
(22:26):
fosters resilience. It was found that Vietnam vets with higher
levels of gratitude had lower levels of PTSD. The higher
the gratitude, the lower the PTSD, and greater levels of
resilience were shown following September eleventh tragedy and those who
practiced gratitude. In other words, grateful people bounce back quicker.
(22:49):
They bounce back quicker. They have a better view of life,
they have a more positive view of life, and even
when bad things happen, they bounce back more quickly. They
don't spend as long down, as long as depressed, as
long as discouraged. So this leads us up to the
practice of gratitude. Now we're going to take a short
break and then we're going to come back and we're
going to jump into the practice of gratitude. I have
five things I'd like to leave you with that'll help
(23:11):
you practice gratitude on a daily basis.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Jeff will be back shortly to wrap up today's message.
This is Gabriela still on the scene today with Top
Network Radio.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
If you're just.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Tuning in, you're listening to Empowered Living with Jeff Burd.
If you've missed any part of today's message, you can
hear it again online as well as the entire archive
of Empowered Living at www dot.
Speaker 3 (23:40):
Topnetwork Radio dot.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Com or search keyword hashtag empowered Living. We would like
to acknowledge our music partners, Sound Ideas for Corporate to
the Max and Kevin McLeod for Airport Lounge. Any scriptures
or read during this broadcast are from the New ameera
and Standard version of the Holy Bible. If you would like.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
To learn more about Jeffreybird Coaching, visit www dot Jeffbirdcoaching
dot com. That is j E F F b y
r D Coaching dot com. Do a Facebook search for
at coaching Rocks or drop Jeff aligne at Jeff at.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Jeffbirdcaching dot com Again j E F F B y
r D Coaching dot com. Let Jeff's coaching rocks be
the building blocks of your empowered success.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Now, let's go back to.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Death for the rest of today's message.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
And welcome back again, this is jeff Bird with Jeffreybird
Coaching and you're listening to Empowered Living and we are
wrapping up today's broadcast called Soaring with Gratitude. Now, the
last thing we want to talk about. I want to
give you five keys to practicing attitude on a daily basis,
and the first one is we have to stop. We'll
(25:05):
never get a grateful mindset if we don't stop. We
have to stop the busyness in order to have time
to think on all that we have to be grateful for.
We're just running, run and running the hamster in the
hamster wheel. We're never going to have the time that
we need to look around us and notice all the
things and the people we have to be grateful for.
Number two, we need to reflect. We all have to
(25:29):
have time to reflect. It's been said we have to
come apart or we will come apart. So we all
need that time to reflect, to take time to think
through the past day, the past week, month, or maybe
the year, and to dwell on all who have contributed
to your life and the difference that it may just
taking some time at the end of the of the day.
(25:50):
It can be five, ten, fifteen minutes, maybe someone you
can do a half hour or more, taking some time
at the end of each day, at the end of
a week, at the end of a month or a
quarter or a year, just taking some dedicated time to
just be still, stop the activity, and to reflect on
all that's happened, and to think through all the different
people who contributed to all the good that you have
(26:12):
in your life right now. The third is to list
list those people. Keep a list in a journal, on
a phone, on an app somewhere of all those who
have made a difference in your life and all that
you appreciate in the world around you. Listing these things
is essential. I have a friend. She's an old, older
(26:32):
woman now, but she told me the story of when
she was a young woman. She tended to have a
pretty critical spirit, and an older friend of hers I
believe she was a nurse she came to her and
she said, I want you, every night before you go
to bed, to kneel down next to your bed and
list five things that you're grateful for before you go
to bed. I believe she was in her twenties when
(26:54):
she was given that advice, and she took it. She
respected the woman who gave it to her, and she
started that practice center twenties and now in her upper seventies,
she's still doing that every day, and she said that
it changed her life. Making the list even five things,
you can easily come up with five things, but it
gets our minds on all the good things that are
(27:14):
coming in from the world around us and the people
around us, and it gets as focused off the maga.
The fourth thing is to share. Don't just make that
list internally when it's appropriate, do everything you can to
share with the people who have made the difference. Let
them know how much you appreciate what they've contributed to
you and the difference that it's made. Again, inner gratitude
will change us, but external gratitude, gratitude shared changes others
(27:39):
and strengthens those relationships and makes the world a happier
place to be. And number five is to become become
all you can in each moment so others can be
grateful for you. The more we use each moment to
develop ourselves and so that we can be good for others,
the more we give them to be grateful for. And
it just keeps going back and and around and around,
(28:01):
and the gratitude just bills and bills as we develop,
we give. People are grateful for us, We're grateful for them,
and it just goes back and forth. And you know,
if everyone in the world took the time to do
this and looked at at others with gratitude, there would
be no one on earth who didn't feel appreciated, no
one on earth who didn't feel appreciated. Now, wouldn't that
(28:22):
be a nice world to live in? But the good
news is that each of us can have the opportunity
to do that every day because we have those moments
and those opportunities. So again, the five practices are to stop,
to reflect, to list, to share, and to become Thank
you so much for tuning in today. It has been
a pleasure to think on these things with you and
(28:43):
to share them with you. And I hope that as
we proceed through the holidays, through this month of Thanksgiving,
and then on into Christmas and the New Year, that
this sense of gratitude will be something that you can
join me and in practicing on a daily basis. There's
all kinds of gratitude journals and to do this, my
wife and I just got a gratitude journal that we
just started using together. This morning just ordered it on Amazon,
(29:06):
So we're starting our days that way and finishing up
the days that way. I hope that you'll join me
in this and that together we can have a gratitude
transformation in the world around us. Thanks so much again.
This is jeff Bird with Jeffrey Bird Coaching, and this
is empowered living
Popular Podcasts
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com