by Mike | Jan 31, 2021 | Podcast
By the time Alex Golimbievsky turned 35, he had been married for 15 years, had two beautiful kids and had either founded or led five companies. Alex has had an entrepreneurial mindset his entire life, and with that, has experienced some definite highs but also some deep, deep lows. He’ll share with us how gratitude has weaved its way into his life, from his early days enduring some very challenging situations in Ukraine to his family life and on to his entrepreneurial ventures. Throughout his journey, Alex cultivated a mindset of gratitude, which has sparked opportunities for change, provided incredible perspective and created meaning in his life.
Enjoy…
by Mike | Jan 17, 2021 | Gratitude
So, as 2020 wraps up, I sit here wrapping up my day, drinking a beer and listening to an all-time classic song by Boston called Don’t Look Back. Seems beyond fitting given the year we all just experienced. To me, it seemed like a roller coaster ride where we had no idea what turn was coming next, no idea if there is another hill or a valley around the next turn and uncertain if we’d ever come to a stop at the end of the ride.Well, we are coming to the end of 2020…that we know. And, with all of the craziness that came with this year, for me, there were countless opportunities to see life through a lens of gratitude. So, as an ode to 2020, I wanted to write down a few of the lessons I learned in 2020 even with (or maybe due to) the challenges and chaos that came with a global pandemic.
- Connection can still happen even across a great distance.
- Taking a break is productive. Slowing down to speed up is a real thing.
- The best way to live life is living life in the moment.
- Dogs really do love you unconditionally and they make incredible friends during a pandemic.
- Don’t take anything for granted. We’ve all seen this year how easily those mundane things, the things we take for granted can be taken away from us. And we’ve all felt the real pain that comes with that loss. So, I will not be taking anything for granted anymore.
- “Experiences” are better than “things”.
- Finding contentment is a critical step in finding happiness.
- Embracing challenges can lead us to incredible change.
- Like-minded people can change the world….together.
- Gratitude makes a difference…a world of difference.
I am convinced that the lessons I learned this year would be different without all of you part of The Gratitude Spark community, sharing your wisdom, your empathetic perspective, your kind hearts and your generosity. I have no question that you have all helped me to view our world through a grateful mindset – and for that, I feel like I’m a better person and better prepared for whatever comes in 2021.So, thank you all…for all that you have done over the course of the year. I can’t want to see what we do in 2021. Oh…and as a parting shot….screw you 2020!!! Yeah…that felt good!
Happy New Year friends…
by Mike | Jan 5, 2021 | Gratitude
Happy New Year! Wow…we made it to 2021! What a year we just endured. I’m grateful just to turn the calendar to January! And with the flip of that page comes the all-too-daunting thought of a new year’s “resolution”!!!
Have you ever told yourself that “This is the year! This is the year I’m going to set a resolution and stick to it!!! This IS the year!!!”. I suspect we’ve all said it once or twice this time of year – always with the best of intentions and a desire to make positive changes in our lives. Yet, what typically happens? If you’re like most people, the positive intentions quickly fade away and you’re left with the thought “well, there’s always next year!” But what if there was a resolution that was free, easy, and had the potential to change your life in ways that may shock you?
You might be asking yourself, what is this magical resolution that can be such a game changer? It’s actually pretty simple…it’s the practice of gratitude. I know – you might be thinking, “Ok, great, I can say thank you to people that do nice things for me, but, how can practicing gratitude be so impactful?” Well, if you just look at science, we can see that a practice of gratitude can have a ton of benefits. Practicing gratitude can:
- make us more optimistic
- improve our physical health
- help us sleep better
- improve our friendships
- make us happier
These are just a few of the things that cultivating a grateful mindset might do for you, so who wouldn’t sign up for all of those amazing benefits? But, with all resolutions, being successful in making positive changes in our life takes work – whether that’s dragging your tired body out of bed in the early morning to head into the gym or preparing the week’s worth of healthy meals to keep you focused on healthy eating. It’s no different for gratitude. Initially it takes real, intentional “work” to develop a habitual practice of gratitude. So, how can you practice it? Well, here are a few fun activities that can help you start building a practice of gratitude that can, in turn, lead you to a happier and healthier life in 2021.
- Take a few minutes each morning or evening to write down 3 things for which you are grateful. Placing priority on this list will open your mind over the course of the day to help you recognize and notice those things which bring you joy.
- Write anonymous notes of thanks to those who have positively impacted your life. There are undoubtedly many who come to mind. Drop the note in their mailbox and know that it will bring a smile to their face and joy to their heart. Also, since it’s anonymous, it will cause them start wondering who it is that thinks they are so awesome.
- Start a “gratitude jar” at home. Drop notes of gratitude for your family members in a jar and read them together at the end of the month and let the feelings of goodness and togetherness ensue.
- Send a “gratitude letter” to someone who has made a major difference in your life. Pick a person that you’ve never fully expressed the depth of your appreciation toward. The impact you might have on this person through your words could be profound.
- Donate your time or skills to a local charity. Strangers helping strangers – an awesome way to know you are making an incredible impact on those less fortunate.
So, over the course of 2021, look for ways to build a regular practice of gratitude. Have fun with it and as you begin to form a habit of gratitude, you’ll quickly see some really amazing positive changes in your life. Oh, and best of all, for this New Year’s resolution, you won’t have to drag yourself out of bed at 5:00am to get to the gym on those cold winter mornings.
Happy New Year everyone!
by Mike | Jan 3, 2021 | Gratitude, Inspiration
Problems. Three things are certain. We all have them. We all don’t want them. We all know that they often get in the way of living a joyful life. But, the reality is – problems are a normal part of life. A part of life that will always be with us. While our problems might bring new hardships to our life every day, consider this, what if…just what if, we chose to be grateful for the challenges our problems bring to us?
Grateful for our problems? What? Are you crazy? That’s simply ridiculous!!! You might be thinking “my problems are way bigger than yours” or “how could I ever be grateful for all of the chaos my problems bring to my life.” Thoughts like this are not unreasonable. In fact, they make perfect sense. Problems are bad. Gratitude is good. They just don’t seem to go together.
In our Facebook community called The Gratitude Spark (feel free to join by the way!), we were recently talking about the definition of gratitude. One of our amazing members from Australia made a great connection between problems we experience and gratitude for those problems.Imagine for a moment that you and your friends decide to write down all of the problems each of you are currently experiencing and you place them in a big pile in the middle of the table. As each of you start to pull out slips of paper that describe a problem someone close to you is experiencing, I suspect a few things would happen. First, you might feel shock, surprise or sadness about some of the things those close to you are going through. Second, I don’t think it would be too long before you would want to put all of those problems back and stick with the ones you wrote – your own problems – and you’d probably be grateful for the opportunity to do so.
That’s the thing with problems. We don’t often talk about them. We tend to keep them hidden. In fact, everyone you meet might be dealing with problems and fighting battles you really know nothing about. Mahatma Gandhi captured this perfectly when he said “I cried because I had no shoes, then I met a man who had no feet.” While your problem might be that you did a poor job on a work assignment, know that there is someone out there that actually has no job. While your problem might be that you aren’t feeling well enough to hang out with your friends, know that there is a child out there that is not feeling well enough to leave the hospital. While your problem might be that your home isn’t as nice as your neighbor’s home, know that there is someone out there that is homeless. It’s all about perspective.
Speaking of perspective, I got a whole bunch of it on a recent walk with my daughter. We were talking about what I was going to write for this article and she said “people always say that we should be grateful for what we have and part of what we have is our problems.” The wisdom and truth behind her words can’t be overstated. We have to own our problems – no matter how big or how small. Some of the slips of paper in that pile of problems on the table are ours. They might not be fun. They might be daunting. But, nonetheless, they are ours.
This leaves us with a choice. We can choose the lens through which we view our problems. We can choose to see our problems as challenges that keep us from a joy-filled life we deserve or, we can choose to see our problems as opportunities when viewed through the lens of gratitude. The beauty is that viewing our problems through this lens will allow us to see them as necessary for incredible personal growth. It will allow us to see our problems as opportunities to push ourselves to new heights. This lens will allow us to address our problems in ways that allow us to become stronger than ever through overcoming the hardships they may bring.
So yes, no doubt the problems in our life can cause chaos and challenges. But, if we take a moment to consider the lessons we can learn from them and the personal growth that can come from them, perhaps it’s not so crazy or ridiculous to be grateful for the problems we experience each day of our life.
by Mike | Oct 21, 2020 | Connection, Gratitude, Inspiration
Do you remember those “connect the dot” books you might have had when you were a kid? You know, the ones that had a page full of numbers placed at seemingly random positions on the page – just a big scattering of numbers. No pattern. No guide. Just a starting point. I sure remember them. I loved those pages in my “Highlights” magazine that I received every month.
Recently, a good friend of mine posed a pretty deep question about “life experiences” that caused me to start thinking about the journey we take through life. It led me to, of all places, those classic “connect the dots” pages that I loved as a kid. Why did I like them so much? Maybe it was the opportunity to create something that was very different in the end than it was at the start? Perhaps it was the unknown of what might result from all of the seemingly random twists and turns? At the time, I probably enjoyed them because I ended up with a pretty cool picture at the end. But now, as I reflect on those pages, I have a very different perspective. A perspective that is a little deeper. A perspective that led me to consider the connection between those “connect the dots” pages and our journey through life.
You might be thinking – a connect the dots page and one’s life journey? What’s the relation? Just consider, as you start a connect the dots page, you really only know two things, where to start and where to end. Between those two points, it just looks like a jumbled mess of numbers and dots with no rhyme or reason. Without connecting the dots, you really have no idea what you are creating. Even as you continue the process of connecting the dots, you still aren’t able to determine what this masterpiece will be. Until it hits you – there will be a point when you know exactly what it is that you are drawing. It is only then that you can sit back and start seeing what it is that you’re in the process of creating. I believe life is like that in a lot of ways. We don’t always know what our “picture” in life will be in the future. We take countless paths over the course of our life. We make decisions every day. We create connections with those we meet. Those are all dots in our life’s journey. But do they mean anything, these random dots along our life path?
Steve Jobs, the fearless leader of Apple summed it up perfectly in a speech where he was talking about three life lessons he’s learned. One of his life lessons focused on those seemingly random steps in our life, those dots. The steps we take…well, just because they are there in front of us. Those steps lead to a path whose destination we really know nothing about. Yet, we unknowingly keep following these dots.
Sadly, it seems that often we don’t understand how important those seemingly meaningless and random decisions and connections we make along the way can help us in understanding our life “picture”. In those moments, we really have no way of knowing where they are leading us. All we have is trust. Trust that those dots will connect in some way. So, I think we owe it to ourselves to be thankful for those opportunities, those decisions and those connections. While we might not know how they are cultivating a path for us, know that they are. They are happening for a reason. That random interaction with a stranger. The decision to decline a job offer. The person you meet at a party you didn’t want to go to who ends up changing your life.
Just as we have to step back from a connect the dots picture at some point to get a sense of what we are creating, so too do we need to pause and take a step back in our life in order to see the picture that all of those dots on our path have painted. It is only when we turn around to look at the path we traveled that clarity about our present comes. Perhaps that’s the beauty of life – not knowing where you’ll end up but knowing that where you end up is exactly where you are supposed to be…because the dots connected.
