Gratitude is an amphetamine
How gratitude can work better than any coffee, tea or any other stimulant
My donkey was dragging
That’s how yours truly felt late Tuesday afternoon before Thanksgiving. Sorry for not using the word I wanted to. Some of my older relatives actually read this newsletter.
Now, one of the perks of working from home is you can sneak in a quick cat nap to get you through those rough patches. Yet my day had more left to it than work as I actually wanted to get a workout in before the food fest of the coming days. Plus, there’s always the danger a quick snooze can morph into an hour or more.
So, what to do?
Fortunately, the work that remained was a Thanksgiving newsletter for one of my clients. Even more fortunate: I got to choose the subject.
Earlier in the pandemic when my state went into lockdown, there was a lot of uncertainty. One of the newsletters I wrote for this client focused on the story of Kellogg’s and Post cereals during the height of the great Depression. The Reader’s Digest version goes like this:
In the early 1930s, Post, the number one brand of cereal in the U.S. cut it’s advertising budget. Kellogg’s, the number two brand, increased it’s advertising budget by 35 percent. Part of that included the launch of a new product, Rice Krispies.
Kellogg’s soon displaced Post as the number one cereal brand for more than a decade following the Great Depression.
At the beginning of the shutdown, many business owners faced the same sort of decision: shut it down or double down. I wrote a newsletter piece that shared the Post-Rice Krispies stories and encouraged people to do the latter. In reflecting back over the past two-and-a-half years, I realized I had the theme for the newsletter and quickly got to work. Yet something else happened:
I felt incredibly energized!
Now, my ass had totally been dragging (yes, I said that word). Something about thinking back about how grim it looked in March 2020 and how things have been and are now, lit a blowtorch underneath me. I finished the newsletter and then jumped on my rebounder for a vigorous workout—outdoors in 30-degree weather!
Please note that gratitude is a tremendous part of my daily life. I keep a gratitude journal and will daily write down five names of people and things I’m grateful for. I’m a regular reader of Grateful Living’s Word of the Day. To further cement each day’s quote, I transcribe it in cursive—lefthanded and righthanded. My meditation practice often includes
Yet there was something about going back in time to the day I first wrote the Kellogg’s piece and then reflecting on how things were now that provided a jolt, a figurative lightning bolt catapulting me through the rest of the day.
So, what’s the lesson? Practicing gratitude can do more for than simply let others know you appreciate them—and that’s a pretty great reason right there. Yet it can really do more for you if you lean into it and feel it as you share it.
How do you do that?
It’s pretty simple really. Ask yourself what you’re grateful for and why? Then really think about that person or thing has done for you and the difference it made in your morning, your day, your life. The energy you receive from your gratitude will be in direct proportion to how deeply you can go back to what made you grateful to begin with.
Try it. It’s the perfect time of year to really think about what you’re grateful for.
But what about…the newsletters that built My Home Office Hacks.
To continue the gratitude theme, thank you to those newsletters who recommend My HOH to their readers, so many who have become subscribers. Special thanks to:
A home office essential? EMINTA Waterproof Desk Pad Protector, Sewing Reinforcement Dual Sided PU Leather Mouse Pad Desk Blotter, Desk Writing Pad for Office/Home (Green/Blue, 31.5x15.7inch)
I have to admit I thought this recommendation was a tad dopey. Though it does make sense in eliminating the need for a mouse pad. And cleaning up crumbs—I do eat at the desk sometimes—becomes even easier. So, this might be worth a try for your home office.
Inspiring quote of the week
“You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”— A.A. Milne