The 4 Impactful Ways to Express Gratitude with Kevin Monroe

TRANSCRIPT - The 4 Impactful Ways to Express Gratitude with Kevin Monroe

Roger: We can all appreciate how good it feels when someone expresses gratitude to us and how good it feels when we express gratitude to others. But have you thought about what it does for us beyond that fleeting feeling or what it does for others who witness it? I wanted to learn more about the positive impacts of giving and receiving gratitude.

So I sat down for a conversation with the gratitude ambassador himself, Kevin Monroe.

Kevin: What gratitude does as a superpower is give you fresh perspective on whatever you find yourself in in life. Gratitude is the I think of it as the ultimate lever. To architect a shift. Gratitude is an action. And when we start expressing gratitude, things

Roger: Kevin works with clients to embed gratitude in their cultures, because while neuroscience and evidence based research highlights the positive impacts that gratitude has on productivity and engagement, it doesn't come naturally to many. Kevin has many stories about the giving and receiving of gratitude in organizations, but the one that landed on me in a very impactful way, expressing gratitude to oneself.

Kevin: I stop and I look at the mirror and I tell myself what I'm grateful for about myself because Roger, I need to hear it. I need to hear it. If you're not watching the video, Roger is drying the tears.

Roger: Welcome to the What Do You Know To Be True? podcast. I'm Roger Kastner. For over 25 years, I've been working with leaders and teams to explore and co-design new ways of thinking and working together and taking action so that they could unlock their potential and create meaningful impact in these conversations.

I talk with ordinary people about their extraordinary skill, their superpower and the meaningful impact it has on others. The goal is not to hack or emulate our way into a new talent. Instead, the intention is to learn more about their experiences with their superpowers. And in doing so, maybe we can learn something about the special talent in each of us that drives us towards our potential and living into our possibilities.

If you're ready, Let's dive in.

Roger: Hey, Kevin, thank you for joining me here today. I'm grateful. We're here together.

Kevin: Oh, Roger. I am so grateful for this conversation and I want to welcome you who are listening, watching, whatever you, however you're interacting with us now. I want you to be part of this conversation with us.

Roger: What a great way to start. I'm so excited to learn more about your superpower of gratitude, but before we get there. What's important for us to know about you?

Kevin: Wow. Okay. So, Roger, you know, the way I introduce myself now, I've had a lot of important titles through the years. The titles that matter to me most now are husband, father, papa, I'm a grandfather of two children, friend, It is a title I love, and um, I use this one, Gratitude Ambassador.

Kevin: Right, my life, six years ago, my life started being transformed by gratitude. And a year later, I had this idea to start sharing that with others. And so that's been this quest. Um, and, and I work with businesses. I work with business leaders who want to see their culture uplifted and encouraged through the power of gratitude and appreciation.

I work with individuals who just want to have a more full, rich, flourishing life. And gratitude is a superpower that, uh, makes that possible.

Roger: You mentioned how you talk with leaders about. The, the, the value of gratitude. And it sounds like they're coming to the conversation, knowing the value of uplifting culture of bringing in gratitude and in an increased way.

What would you say to a client who begins to question about the, and ask about the benefits to performance and employee productivity and those other things that we measure, how does gratitude. At scale drive higher performing teams.

Kevin: What a wonderful question. Thank you for asking it the way you ask it, Roger.

Honestly, candidly, I'm, I'm in this, uh, times a conundrum. Um, gratitude is the vehicle. Right, that produces this change. I, I wouldn't say that all leaders, I mean, I don't know of too many leaders that think and go, gosh, you know, my problem is I'm just not grateful enough. That's not the pain that they feel.

Um, but gratitude's the vehicle that delivers the chant, the. Change or transformation that they're after, but they may not be saying it, but what they understand the leaders, and I'm going to use the, the leaders that are drawn or attracted to me, or that I find myself in circles with, they are more enlightened leaders.

They are leaders who already understand that their people, and I'm going to, I'm going to be very intentional in choice of words here. Their people are their most important resource. Not their most important asset. Now I get a little, that, that word troubles me sometimes, right? Because technically you own assets.

A company owns its assets. You don't own your people. So when somebody says, our people are our most important asset. Well, I'm like, Ooh, I want to have a conversation about that. Cause I'd love to, I'd love to help you have a shift on that. And when and where people keyword feel seen, heard, valued, and appreciated.

Those people show up, they are eager, excited to do their best work, those, those people are engaged employees, those people bring their energy to work every day, they unleash their creativity to their projects, and they're more excited to collaborate with their peers and colleagues. And that produces all kinds of amazing benefits that increases employee engagement, which when you read the studies, the numbers are abysmal in the world today.

When you look at, uh, employee retention, a lot of companies are struggling with intention. Well, what is it? Hey, man. That's because those employees are wondering, am I valued here? Well, are my talents appreciated here? And so where people feel seeing her valued and appreciated, they flourish and teams thrive.

Where they don't, people wither. And people are looking for their exit out.

Roger: I love that we both share this idea that words matter. And in your response, it came out very clearly. And people who work with me will tell me, like, Roger, you always say words matter. And like, they do. Because I think words land on us in ways that we are aware of, cognizant of, and in ways that we feel yeah. Um, and that might not think of it. So this idea of, you know, using the word assets, using the word, um, you know, appreciation, or, you know, there's the simple thank you. And then there's the very explicit thank you of the thing that you did that contributed to the bigger success. Words matter. And that words matter.

Focus the focus and, and. You know, not only the, the different words that are used, but how and when they're used.

Kevin: Studies show that in today's world, we hear between 20 and 30,000 words a day. We think 70 to 80 thousand thoughts a day. and beyond. But Henry Nowen wrote this. There are a couple of words that people are longing to hear, and those words resonate at a deeper level than other words.

And the words, you matter. The words, I value. You the words. I love you. And I know those are weird words for some people to say at work, but they need to be said at work, right? Uh, okay. So I go back 1960, CS Lewis wrote a book, the four loves, and the Greeks had four words for love that Lewis unpacks in his book.

And where people get hung up on love is the one word most people are thinking of is eros, right? Erotic and we certainly don't want that. Flowing in the workplaces, but there are other words. There's storge, which is the love of family. There's phileo, which philadelphia, brotherly love, and then there's agape, selfless love, or unending love, right?

So when, when we're talking about love, you just kind of realize we're not talking about erotic love in the workplace. We may be talking about phileo. We may be talking about, uh, Storge, love of companionship, companions, or we may be talking about that agape love, this, this selfless love for the, for the highest good of the people involved, love.

Roger: The word love in the workplace, uh, Brene Brown talks about, uh, in, in one of her stories, uh, referring to a naval leadership manual. Yep. Yep. I remember that. Where, you know, a love for the men, um, is the words used. And I think leaders, you know, we do not train our leaders, um, are for frontline managers on up, um, with the idea of this, you know, affection and care for the people that are under their charge.

Um, and it shows up, it shows up. We're focused on, we're focused on certain things really well. We're not focused. On those things like you matter, you are important, the things where all of us as humans, we need to be recognized for who we are.

Uh, how many leaders talk about their sphere of influence or span of control, right? I mean, the span of control is one that's thrown out in corporate worlds, right? How many people are in the span of control? What about this? Span of care. I got that one from Bob Chapman, CEO of Barry way Miller in his book, everybody matters. And I had a few conversations with Bob, but he started to, I started realizing, thinking, what about the people that are in my span of care?

Roger: That changes things, right? A hundred percent. So what are a couple of your favorite acts of gratitude that you have found have an outsized impact? What

Kevin: if you just send somebody a message and you tell them hey, I was thinking of you today you came to mind I was remembering the last conversation we had you said something, you know, that's still sticking in my mind I want you to know that and I want you to know I appreciate you.

I appreciate you for doing this blah blah You know, whatever Uh, I wasn't planning to say this, but I will. Here's the acronym. They're, they're four S's. Uh, if you want your messages to land with impact, uh, make sure they are sincere. The number one thing, right? If, if you're not sincere about it, forget it.

So it's gotta be sincere. It needs to be specific. And it needs to be simple, right? You don't need to make it over complex. There are no right words that are guaranteed to have a higher impact when you're expressing gratitude and appreciation. So you have your list of 10 words over here and you're always making sure you're, you know, working one of those in like, uh, you know, one of those magic word things, you know, and you just, the jumbles or you pick a word and you, you know, now all of a sudden you've generated the perfect message, uh, appreciation message.

No, keep it simple. Sincere, specific. When you do that, those messages are significant. They land with significance. And if you do that consistently, it becomes transformational in your leadership team company, right? So, simple, sincere, specific. Those three elements make it Significant. So when you, when you send a message like that, don't be surprised if the person says, wow, that made my day or you made my day.

It's kind of like, wait a minute, wait a minute. Out of 1, 440 minutes in a day, I took one of those and I sent a simple, sincere, specific message to someone and it made their day, maybe even made their week return on impact amazing, right? So Monday, Monday of this week. I sent a friend a text. She just came to mind.

It's somebody that introduced me. I met her through a client project five years ago. She introduced me to the guy she works for now. We've developed a friendship. So I sent a message saying, Hey Kelly, I just, you know, you came to mind. I'm so glad we met five years ago. And I'm thinking about all the amazing people you've introduced me to over the last five years.

Uh, thank you. Thank you. Five minutes later, oh my gosh, what a way to start my week. You know, this was an amazing message. Now get this, Roger. Five minutes later, a message from someone else, Sandra, lands in my phone. Hey Kevin, I wanted to thank you. So not only I've given a message, I've received a message, and now the universe It's sending another one my way, and I felt what Kelly felt.

I was like, oh my gosh, thank you, Sandra, you know, this made my day. How many things can we do that actually make somebody's day? That's pretty powerful. I said I was going to share something someone else does. I got permission, I shared this in the newsletter. I write, I shared it this week. It's my friend Wade Mitzel.

Wade's the CEO of the University of Louisville Physicians Group. And he does this thing about once a quarter. He calls it Gratitude Plus One. So he invites seven leaders from the Physicians Group. And those seven leaders Choose someone in their department that they want to celebrate and appreciate. And those people are invited to bring someone they want to celebrate and appreciate.

So there's the plus one, right? So now, and this starts with about seven, so about 21 people. Come and have breakfast together. And there's this hour is just the each person is Celebrating this other person and telling what they did and why they appreciate them then they're doing that and then they're doing you know And think about this think about an hour and 21 people have expressed genuine Heartfelt.

Gratitude and appreciation. No, uh, listing characteristics or values that this person exhibits. And that's why I appreciate you. There's a leader I respect. And he says, do for one what you wish you could do for everyone. Right? Andy Stanley, right? That's the principle Andy teaches. Do for one what you wish you could do for everyone.

And I shared that with Wade. Because Wade would like to do this for all 10, 000 employees of the system. And I said, wait, but, but I promise you the message is getting out because 21 are telling however many others and then that's happening and that's happening and the ripple effect, once again, let's go back.

If it's simple and sincere and specific, these have significant ROI and significant impact in the lives of people. Roger, the other thing I think of is it, I think in terms of moments. Magical moments happen in every company, every single day, right? Somebody just does something and for them, it's no big deal.

It's just how they do, but it's their superpower, right? And they do that and they do it with ease. They do it with grace and it has this magnificent impact on others and they're just doing it. And you just happen to notice it. And when you notice it, you want to call it out and you want to appreciate them for that moment.

So what you did is, so these moments happen every day. Most leaders miss the moments completely. Because they're busy, they're preoccupied. Many of them just minimize the moment. Because, oh gosh, Roger, that's just how Roger is, right? No big deal. He's always on it like that. High five, Roger. But what if we wanted to maximize that moment, right?

And maximize it means that we're going to call it out. So here's the simple process. You have to see the moment. Then you seize the moment. The moment, right? That, hey, this person just did something amazing and what if you seal the moment by expressing your gratitude and appreciation? And maybe there's something, maybe there's a tangible thing, a note or a card you write, or maybe you send them a message later, right?

But you have. You see it, you seize it. And then when you seal it, that moment is going to stay with that person for a long, long time. But the moments happen all the time. So how do we just see more moments?

Roger: Okay. We're going to take a quick break and be right back after this. Each. What do you know to be true episode is an opportunity to learn from and get inspired by our guests who are everyday people with extraordinary talents.

Making meaningful impact in their communities, the best, no cost way for you to help support this podcast is to subscribe or follow the podcast and leave a comment or a review. This helps us get the word out to other people, and it ensures that you won't miss any future episodes. It's great to have you be part of this community.

And I'm glad you're here. Okay, let's get back to the conversation

Kevin: Well, I don't know what kind of conversations you've had but I would I know this to be true in the circles I'm in most people don't know when their superpowers are at work Because it's just what they do. It's how it's who they are how they're wired and they just do this But when you see it, you go, Oh my gosh, you did that with such elegance and ease and grace.

And how did you do that? Well, they probably don't know because it's a gift, right? They've not studied it. They've not deconstructed it. They don't go, Oh, well here's step one and here's step two. And here's no, it's just how they show up. But when you celebrate it, they go, Oh, wow. Thank you. I you know, I do do that, right?

I didn't realize that. Thank you for pointing that out

Roger: Oh what I love about that is when I started this this podcast series talking to people about the relationship with their superpowers Some of the people that I invited on would like I am not sure what my superpower is like. Oh go ask your best friend Your friends know.

Um, I had a, uh, one of the guests asked their teenage son, not a good recommendation. You might not get the best answer there, but your friends, your friends will know. Um, and it is interesting when, when, you know, when you get your superhero power Pointed out to you again to your point. It's just it just comes natural.

There's a reason there's an innate reason why we do what we do

Kevin: Right, that's we're calling it out elevates it and celebrates it right and then people go Oh, oh and then others start celebrating it and appreciating it right and then this culture this culture is transformed

Roger: You're giving positive feedback of this thing matters. You do this thing. So well, please keep doing it again.

Kevin: We need it on our team. We need it in our company, right? You have a, you bring something to our team that no one else brings the way you do, and we want to honor that. Right. And please don't leave. Cause if you left that, that, that superpower would be a void and we would miss it.

Roger: So what do people get wrong about gratitude?

Kevin: The number one thing people get wrong about gratitude is thinking it's a finite. That there is a finite quantity of gratitude. So at the personal level, people want to save up their gratitude for when the really big thing happens in life. Oh, I call it the will be win.

You know, I, I'll be grateful when, uh, I win the lottery. I'll be grateful when I get the dream job. It's kind of like, I don't understand. It's not a finite quantity. Then likewise, it seems like leaders. Think, well, gosh, I need to save gratitude for when somebody does something heroic, or I need to save gratitude and only express it in the formal channels that we've developed as a company.

So, when we have employee of the quarter, employee of the year, I'll, I'll save all my gratitude then and we'll, we'll go through the official channels. Okay. I'm, I'm not against you having those systems, but what about just every, every day? Uh, every week you see somebody go, wow, I appreciate you. The other thing, the other thing that people get wrong is that gratitude is, is one more thing you need to do as a leader.

Gratitude is a filter that you can apply to everything you do as a leader. So when my, when my buddy, Wade, we're talking about this with physicians. Oh, I've got this checklist of all these things, you know, that I'm already required to do by, by different compliance and all. And, and now you're saying you want me to add gratitude to the list, right?

Oh, that's just one more thing. No, no, no, it's not a task. What if, what if, so if we're looking at a doctor, uh, a surgeon about to go into surgery with a team, what if just right around there, right before they start, the surgeon looks around and goes, Wow. What an amazing team I get to work with today. Thanks for giving your best here. How much time did that take?

Roger: Hmm. We've been talking about the benefits of receiving gratitude. What are the benefits of giving gratitude?

Kevin: There are neuroscience studies and, you know, uh, uh, FMRI of what happens in the body, in the brain. When people express gratitude, it's good for you to express gratitude.

People have written letters. To people they have no a way to deliver the letter to because maybe the recipient is deceased, but you want to express gratitude and appreciation to them. You write a letter that you can never deliver and you, you feel better because you wrote that letter. The research shows three parties benefit.

The person that's expressing gratitude has a, a lift, right? There's a benefit to them. The person who received, we're already talking about that. They get a benefit. Well, Researchers found there's a third audience that benefits and it's anybody that observes the transaction who've just thanked someone and acknowledged them for something they did.

Well, the other people that are watching that or hear about it later go, Oh. This is a company where effort is recognized. This is where going above and beyond is appreciated. Maybe if I do more than is expected, I too will be recognized.

Roger: When we express gratitude, we're not only saying what you appreciate, but you're saying, I see you.

Kevin: Yeah.

Roger: You matter.

Kevin: I value you. I mean, it's just, it's so much. So one time I wrote a post about that. All of the things you're communicating when you say, I'm grateful for you, right. You may, or I appreciate it. They're just several layers. You're saying I see you, right? Cause you have to see somebody. To actually take the time to do that.

And then you're saying there's something about you that I, I honor. I value, I appreciate, but when we really communicate gratitude and appreciation and all of the things we're just, that's transformational. The effect of it, right? It's funny. So Roger sent me this email that said, Hey, Kevin, I want to talk about gratitude and joy.

And when we started the conversation before we hit record, I told Roger, Roger, this is just so funny. 24 hours ago, I was in a car wreck, right? And I was not feeling, I was grateful. That no one was hurt. Seriously. I would, you know, there was a lot that I was grateful for, but it was just funny because I was talking to a friend 15 minutes before I came on with Roger.

I said, you know what I get to do in 15 minutes, I get to talk about gratitude and joy and all I felt the last few hours is frustration because I'm just dealing with insurance companies and dealing with the tow service and dealing with the impound lot. It's like, but that doesn't take away the joy.

Roger: What I'm hearing you say is gratitude is not only beneficial for the, the giver from a noticing from a connection from a ICU, recognizing the humanity and other people, but because you have been doing this work, you get into this car accident. And yeah, it's frustrating. It's scary. It's frightening. Could have been a lot worse. Gratefully, it's not. And you have to deal with all the aftermath and the aftermath is real.

There's a lot of stuff. That's a real pain in the patootie. And yet because you have the superpower of gratitude, you're able to say, oh, yeah, that was not great. I don't wish that on anyone, but I am able to pull out of everything that that is take that deep breath and lean into gratitude.

Kevin: I love the word lean into gratitude. Because that's a phrase I use a lot. Because it is, it's a deliberate choice. And it is a choice we can make several times, right? Life is hard. And when life is hard, it's easy to pull back. Right. And to stop doing things and to stop connecting with other people, or we can lean in.

So another misconception, right, is that everything in the day has to be good for anything to be in, for anything in the day to be good. It's like, no, it's not. No, it's not. You, you can, I mean, so yesterday, yesterday was a really, Um, crappy, or other, you know, word, day, it really was, and I had a friend ask me, and I'm like, you know, I mean, this was just like the worst day for this to happen.

It was already a bad day, and then this, and yet, and yet, and that's what you and I, you said it then, we're talking about it very, and yet, uh, gratitude does not prevent you from having bad stuff happen, but, and yet, In the worst of times, it allows us to still find something beautiful going on in the world.

So the other thing, Roger, I think it's funny that people think because I'm gratitude is so much of the work I do and I choose to be positive and optimistic. I think they think bad stuff never happens, right? And they think I never have a bad day. And I just kind of laugh. I'm like, I'm just, just keep thinking that, you know, it's okay.

Just keep thinking that, but nothing's farther from the truth, right? That, that saying, be kind to other people. You have no idea what they're going through. Everybody, everybody's going through something right now.

Roger: I'm really curious, what or who inspired you to have the superpower of gratitude?

Kevin: My mom, and I never got to tell her, right?

Uh, she, I didn't realize it before she was gone, but, but my mother had a joy for life and my mother, uh, like a lot of people grew up in poverty, grew up in the depression, I mean, grew up in, in real poverty. But, but she always had joy and she was always doing for others. These things are more caught than taught.

So I think I caught that from my mother. She didn't, she wasn't, it wasn't always teaching, right? It wasn't, even though there was, remember your manners, um, you know, that kind of thing, but I just think I caught it six years ago. This time, six years ago, I was at a really dark place and I. Um, Cried out for help and, and gratitude was part of the answer that came, Roger.

And I started getting way more focused on bringing gratitude into my life. And it's a game changer. And, you know, I mean, I can be honest that I, I have a lot of problems today. I have challenges, right? We all do. And yet, there's that word again, and yet, because we choose to look at life through a lens of gratitude.

So, Wayne Dyer said, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. So, if you were to ask me, what does gratitude really do? What, what, what, if you want to talk about gratitude as a superpower, not just, you know, but gratitude, what gratitude does as a superpower is give you fresh perspective on whatever you find yourself in, in life.

Gratitude is the, I think of it as the ultimate lever to architect a shift. Gosh, wow. I was not planning on sharing this, but this is something I get into in coaching. Pick the person on your team that gets under your skin more than anybody else on your team. Okay. For the next 21 days, just find something every day or remind yourself thing every day of something you're grateful for that person, a gift they bring to the team or some, just find something to be grateful for. And if you apply gratitude to that person, Just if you do it consistently, you will change how you see that person because now you're going to have seen them in a good light and I want to celebrate that.

Roger: Oh, it changes the perspective just like the Wayne Dwyer quote you're just saying, but also by you recognizing the humanity in them.

They're going to show more of that and they might actually change and not to use this as as motivation for manipulation, but more like this, you're telling them what you appreciate about them and they're likely to show more of that. And they're seeing you in a different light because you are now showing that you see them as they are.

Kevin: Yeah. I mean, it's a win win, right? It's this win win. So yeah, it, it, the ability to shift perspective. Is powerful and so okay you listening if I mean take us up on the challenge think of a situation That you want to experience differently Start finding something in that person that relationship that situation And and be intentionally grateful for it for seven days for 14 days for 21 days and see If it doesn't shift in your experience, I believe it will.

So gratitude is not magic, but the effect it is, it has is magical.

Roger: As you were just suggesting this challenge for our listeners, I'm going to take it up. Um, but it got me thinking, what if that, what if that person you're focusing on, what if that was you? What if you identified things you were grateful about yourself?

Kevin: 25 months ago, this time, um, so January of 2023, I was doing a session for the Omni hotel, CNN center and 75 leaders there. I love doing this. You've, you've been a part when I've done this, we measure hope at the beginning of a session. We do a session. We measure hope at the end, a participant in one of these in this session at the Omni hotel.

She wrote me a note in at a one, out at a six. Cancer, fire, dementia. Those are all things I experienced with my parents in the last year and it has taken a toll on my life, my mental health. I didn't want to be here today. I came in at a one, out at a six. And then when she handed me the car, she said, actually, I'm probably a seven now and gave me a, can I hug you?

I'm like, of course you can, you know, and, and she goes, I, I had no idea how much I needed this today. I just thought this was a corporate training, right? And here, this is a transformational experience for me. And somehow, something came up. It's like, hmm, what if, what if we express gratitude to ourselves?

For this. So, her name's Vicky. I said, Vicky, I dare you to do it. I'll do it right now. And what if we each write a, a, a, a card about what we're grateful for, for ourselves and send it to the other? Roger, I did it. She did it. And one of the things, I, I just wrote that I was grateful for the gift that allowed me to connect with people the way I'd connected with this lady that day.

And the impact that my work had on her hope. I mean, I'm like, wow, I I'm, I'm just grateful for that gift. I'm grateful that I said yes to pursuing this gratitude journey. This was in January, May of that year, I was speaking at a conference. I was speaking at a, uh, leader, women leaders in technology conference.

The moment this happened, I'm like, oh, I'm doing this. I'm doing this at that session. We have everybody gets an I'm grateful for you kit in that day and I say hey As we wrap this up, I want everybody to reach in and grab a card I said now what I want you to do is I want you to step out of yourself And I want you to look at yourself And I want you to write a note to yourself about yourself, right?

I'm grateful for you for whatever that is Let's let's do that So everybody does it. There are 250 women in the room. Everybody does. And then I said, okay, now pair up with someone, everybody pair up and read them the card you wrote about you. Oh, that's not fair. I wouldn't have written that if I know I was going to read it out loud.

I said, I know, I know. I know, that's why I didn't tell you that part of the exercise. Sobbing. Sobbing. And it was beautiful. And it's what you just, what, what if? What if? And there are times, Roger, I do this. And I get a feeling, you're a guy that can do this. I stop and I look at the mirror. And I tell myself what I'm grateful for about myself.

Cause, Roger, I need to hear it. I need to hear it.

So if you can't, if you're not watching the video, Roger is drying the tears in his eyes.

Roger: And what's, what's amazing is I came up with that idea to do it for myself and immediately felt the need for it immediately felt, Oh, I think I'm pretty good at recognizing the humanity and other people, but am I?

When was the last time I recognized myself and saw the humanity in me? And, um, yeah. Yeah, the waterworks started.

Kevin: So what if we do this? When this episode releases, what if you and I both agree that we're going to write a note on that day about something we're grateful for, for ourselves. We'll post it. You, you have a, a Substack channel.

What if we post it there and what if we invite other people to post their notes about themselves? And if you're game for doing this, you know, when, when this episode releases, I'm game to do it and invite others. Oh yeah.

Roger: Totally. Um, yeah, I'm all in on that one. And it got me thinking like we, you know, there's gratitude journals and I, I used to write down the three things I was grateful when I was going to bed.

Yeah. Totally. Three things I'm grateful for at the end of the day and a hall, uh, who's been on the podcast a couple of times, most recently talking about how to access joy, she was saying, she writes five things down every morning to start the day with gratitude. And that was, that was a game changer for me, this one writing the things you're grateful for about yourself.

Holy moly, that, that sounds like jet fuel. Sure,

Kevin: I hope there's something out of this conversation that you take action on, right? Gratitude is an action. And when we start expressing gratitude, things shift.

Roger: You might have just answered this question, but what do you know to be true about your superpower of gratitude?

Kevin: Gratitude changes everything. If we let it, right. And why does it, it changes because it changes our perspective. It changes me. It changes my relationship to other people, right? Gratitude changes everything.

Roger: And what did you believe early on about gratitude that you've come to learn that's not true?

Kevin: Gratitude's for those people, those, those highly emotional people, those real touchy feely people, right? Yeah, gratitude's that soft stuff. Gratitude, gratitude is, is a tough essence.

Roger: So what's next for you and your superpower of gratitude?

Kevin: Hmm, okay, I'm just going to put this out there. I want to, I want to find companies that want to go deep and long on this journey.

Roger, you've done consulting work. You know, it's easy for people to want just to sprinkle something on and it's easy for people. We have an event. Can you come speak at this event? And can you come help us have a great event? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it when I get to work with companies long enough. That we transform culture and we change the way people communicate where people create, people relate inside a company.

So I'm looking for companies that want to go the distance with gratitude and appreciation. And I don't think I've ever put that out there that plainly. So, and then secondly, one big idea, gratitude experienced is better than gratitude explained. Hope grows in gratitude. When we host a gratitude encounter in the course of an hour, hope usually grows somewhere between 22 and 26 percent in the, in the course of an hour.

And people connect deeply and quickly. And then I've started looking around and I think, What are things that are going on in the world right now? People feel disconnected. People feel alienated. People are isolated. People are alone. People have more despair and anxiety than hope. Nutshell, we want to create a space for people to come and breathe, rather than vent.

Because there's so many places people go to vent. And what we need is places to breathe. Fresh air. People to breathe fresh hope and not just spew the venom

Roger: that is being spewed on all of us. A number of years ago, I was talking to a friend about the benefits of complaining. And there's something, there's something evolutionary about it where if, if I complain about something and you agree with me.

Roger: That tells me that, okay, we, we are, you know, we are closer together. We're building connection here. And that we're not the crazy ones. It's them. But if you complain and other people say, no, no, no, I don't see it that way. Then it's like, Oh, I need to change my thing. I need to get, you know, if, if I want to stay in the middle of the herd, I need to, to, to let that thing go.

You know, complaining is also, I think a. A way where people want to be recognized as human, like I'm having this experience, isn't this horrible. They want to be noticed. They want to be observed. You get the same thing with gratitude, but you're not, um, but it's the positive side of that. It's the positive connection.

It's the positive reinforcement of the good stuff versus the, Hey, are we connecting on this bad thing?

Kevin: So this is. This is one of the beautiful things we stumbled on accidentally in 2019 when we first started hosting Gratitude Challenges. We create this community to solve a technology problem and then we unlock something.

I'd, I'd never read about before. We unlocked what, the, the layers, and the layers, and the beauty of what happens when we share gratitude collectively, right? So, you mentioned journaling. I journal, but I have a real bug against journaling. If, if, if private journaling is all you do with your gratitude, you're missing out.

You're missing out because there's something when we started doing this collectively, we just drop a prompt and all of a sudden people are posting their response to a prompt and then they're seeing someone else post a similar response, a different response, and all of a sudden out of this. collective, this community, the experience was, was exponentially richer, right?

It wasn't just incremental. It's not just, okay, one plus one. Now three people have shared their gratitudes. There are three expressions of gratitude. You're just like, Oh no, everything you shared expanded my understanding, enriched my experience of gratitude. It's like, Wow. When we come together, right?

These magic happens and it's, it's this unlocking and it's like, wow.

Roger: If a listener wanted to follow up with you, ask you a question or attend one of these events, how, how should they go about and do that?

Kevin: Yeah, so if you're on LinkedIn, look me up. I'm just Kevin Monroe. The, I guess I was the original Kevin Monroe on LinkedIn.

So there are no numbers after that. It's just, you know, look up Kevin Monroe. Uh, kevindmonroe.com  is our website. So on the first Tuesday, of every month at, uh, 12 noon, nine Pacific, and you do the math if you're in some other time zone. I host a Gratitude Encounter. It is an open event. It is 60 minutes where we explore, express, and experience gratitude in community.

Uh, I'd, I'd welcome you to, to come to any of those. Uh, we also do those for companies and it's amazing what happens. And then there's some things we've created. Publications. We have one that's, um, the difference between genuine gratitude and toxic positivity, because so much has been out there about toxic positivity.

There's another guide we have, uh, that you can find, uh, on our website, uh, about, uh, the bridge to increasing emotional intelligence. So this started with a tech team that said, Hey, are, we have people who are, have the highest IQ in the field. But they don't have the EQ to match, and we'd love to boost their EQ, and we have a belief that gratitude's a practice that will increase the emotional intelligence of our team.

Can you help us with that? Well, we did, we do, and, and so we, we wrote this little video. tool that's all about, uh, Victor Frankl's one quote, between stimulus and response, there is a space, and in that space is our freedom to choose. We wrote a whole little piece that just unpacks that. And what happens when you, uh, use gratitude to build a bridge between stimulus and response?

Roger: I don't think there's any better way, um, to end this conversation than with gratitude. And I Since it's, since I'm the host, I'll go first. I want to thank Bill Hefferman for connecting us. Um, he reached out to me and suggested that, um, I subscribe to your newsletter. Next thing I know I'm in one of your gratitude events.

And we're here today where I am learning so much more about gratitude than I knew before. I was a fan before. Um. And I am absolutely super charged with this idea of expressing gratitude to myself. I'm going to start crying again. Um, so. I might've broke the rules. I said more than one thing I'm grateful for, but let me hand it over to you.

Kevin: Well, I I'm going to echo that because I was telling my friend about this call upcoming and how bill was the link that created this. And I don't know if you know this, but the moment I found that out, I sent bill one of those links. I'm like, gosh, Bill, I mean, I just met Roger and I had no idea that you were the conduit for that connection.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Made my day. I want to thank you who are listening. I want to thank you for being open to Consider the invitation to lean into gratitude for whatever you're going through right now. I do. I just want to thank you for being a part of this conversation. And of course, Roger, I want to thank you for being an amazing host and creating this space.

Roger: Kevin, thank you so much. I am so excited when you said yes to being in this conversation. Um, I'm leaving the conversation even more excited for, for what you shared and how to take a gratitude practice to even a higher level, whether that's the self gratitude or whether that's the plus one concept or asking people to write down.

What they're grateful for and then share it with someone else. Like, yeah, if you want to leave a, leave a workshop with everyone buzzing with connectivity and gratitude that love that idea. So I am grateful for you and our time together here today. And I'm so looking forward to the next time. Thank you, Kevin.

Kevin: Thank you, Roger. This was wonderful.

Roger: Thank you all for being in this conversation with us. And thank you, Kevin, for teaching us more about your superpower of gratitude and giving me a few new adds to my own gratitude practice. The question I'm asking myself now after this conversation is, where and when should I be expressing gratitude when my current responses might not be so generous.

What Do You Know to Be True? is a Three Blue Pens production, and I'm your host, Roger Kastner. We're recording on the ancestral lands of the Duwamish and Suquamish people. To discover the ancestral lands of the Indigenous people whose land you may be on, go to native lands.ca.

Be well, my friends. And of course, love you, mean it.