Hello. Welcome to the Matt O’Grady podcast. I wanted to do this podcast- it’s going to be a short one today, just so you know in advance, we don’t have much time- but, I was really affected by this experience I had this morning. You can read more about it in the description of this podcast. I copied and pasted part of a blog post, and you can read the rest over at mattogradycoaching.com.
But, I was just taking a very simple moment, to be grateful. And, as most of you who listen to this podcast know, I’ve written a book on gratitude, which I’ve been practicing for 20 years. And about a decade ago, I took my practice much deeper. It’s been something that I’m focused on every day, sometimes dozens of times throughout the day, sometimes for hours consecutively and it’s taught me a lot of things, and many beautiful, deep, powerful, inspirational aspects of life. Gratitude is a great teacher, a really great teacher.
What happened today was certainly something I’ve noticed before, but I noticed it in a different way today. And that’s the amazing thing about wisdom, is we can learn something, and then many dozens or hundreds or maybe even thousands of experiences later, we hit a new threshold with our level of wisdom, with our connection to whatever it is we’re focused on learning, deepening, vibrating, connecting to in our lives. For me today, during my simple gratitude practice, which was- it’s kind of a funny one too, I always find these to be interesting when, they kind of look so above and beyond the material aspect of things.
So I was cleaning up my garbage cans after coming back from dropping my son off at his grandparents for the day, so that I could come work. I’m just simply putting away the garbage cans.
And I decided in that moment, right as I was going to do this test, to become grateful. Just because that’s kind of, that’s how I live my life, how I aim to live my life every day, from a grateful place. That’s why I named the book that I wrote Living Gratitude.
And so, I’m going to pick up my garbage cans, and to be grateful for them, the first thing I was grateful for was, how they made it through the winter. Because during some of the cold days, it looked like I was going to need a new garbage can. No big deal, but I just remember noticing it, and here I am months later, and it’s working completely fine. It was just kind of frozen, I thought it was just misshapen, and it wasn’t going to go back to its normal arrangement, but it did, interestingly enough. And I was grateful for that. And then I was grateful for the garbage men. And how, other than a tip once a year, I really don’t have to think about it, it’s just something that the local town provides, and of course you pay taxes and all the rest of that, and I understand we’re paying for something and receiving something in return, but, regardless of that there’s always a deeper level.
We can always use gratitude as a way to connect more deeply, more profoundly, more beautifully, more seamlessly with the smallest details in our lives, and therefore really deepen our connection to our own lives and the other people in our lives, and I find gratitude to be a really useful and powerful tool in this respect.
As I’m doing this, I’m bringing the garbage cans up, and bringing my neighbor’s up for him. This was out in the middle of the street. You know, trying to pay it forward. Just doing kindness, because it just always feels good to do kind things.
And the truth is, for anyone who’s practiced them for a while, we learn that it’s its own reward. We’re no big martyr for doing something kind, the reward we receive is actually much greater than the effort to be kind. But that’s a whole other story.
Just as I’m doing this I’m noticing, literally within 5 seconds of being grateful, there’s a huge shift in my attitude, in my perspective, in my level of inspiration for the day. I wasn’t feeling badly at all, I was just kind of focused on some of the things I was going to do today and my mind going ahead and planning and thinking, and gratitude really brought me into the present moment. Really grounded me in the simple, and the beautiful, and the joy of being alive.
So I went from being grateful for my garbage can and my garbage men, to being grateful for my body, my mind, and my breath, and my heart, and my life, and the abundance, and my house, and my businesses, and my family, and my friends, and it just kind of brought me through. And, I’m telling you– gratitude. I’ve done dozens of podcasts on gratitude, and written a book on it, and dozens more blog posts and articles and things like that. But I never noticed, to the degree that I did today, how fast gratitude can shift our perspective.
So if you’re looking for something to help your life, and you’d like something fast, I highly recommend gratitude. Gratitude, it’s such a long term game. For me it’s really a long horizon process, that’s what it’s been over the last couple decades, but I remember when I first started using gratitude, and I talk about this in the book, I was so amazed at how quickly it worked.
Now the truth be told, I guess since I’ve become so dedicated to it as a daily practice, sometimes a dozens of times a day practice, that the speed of it hasn’t been so important to me. It hasn’t been so interesting to me.
Just because it’s something I do when I wake up. Something right before I go to bed. And then I aim to remember it as much as possible throughout the day. And I’ve built that practice in. It’s a new neural pathway in my mind. It’s a new emotional pathway in my heart that I’ve been building on for years and years.
So speed wasn’t so important for me. But since I’m a coach, and I’m always trying to help my clients, and further all of their aspirations, and help them further them themselves, I wanted to talk about the speed. Because it’s something for me, where- 20 years ago, it made such a profound effect on me, so I just kind of stopped everything and started focusing on it, and built a multi-decade practice, only because it’s been very rewarding to my life. But today I had the experience of the speed, and I said, “Wow. That’s not something I’m teaching my clients, the speed.”
As you often get to hear, my very faithful podcast listeners, you get to hear a lot of my ideas first. Because this is really like my journal. If you don’t know this, the podcast is- I don’t do a lot of long term planning with it- you’re living with me in the moment of what I’m experiencing and going through, and the self development work, and the realisations happening, and I really appreciate the thousands of you who are downloading it. It means the world to me. And your emails, and your visits on my Facebook page and all of that. MatthewDOgrady is the Facebook page.
It’s much, much appreciated. Thank you so much for doing that, and visiting and liking the page, and telling me what you think of the podcast. I’m communicating with a bunch of you right now, about some relationship issues and other pieces.
Anyways, feel free to reach out at mattogradycocaching.com. Just click contact on the top right hand side and shoot me an email. I’d love to hear from you. I really hope that this helps you.
A gratitude practice working in the moment, 5 or 10 seconds – boom (snaps fingers), just boom (snaps fingers), it’s just there- the relief of starting to feel better. The relief of noticing the goodness in your life, and the abundance in your life, and the happiness in your life, and focusing on what you do have as opposed to what you don’t have.
Always a really good practice. So, anyways, thanks for listening. I’ve got a coaching client I’m one minute late for, so I’ve gotta run. Thanks! Love you guys. Bye.
Matt
PS – In case your not sure how to do this, here is a link to my book on “Living Gratitude: A Simple Path to Happiness”
