Be Transparent with your Gratitude
Authentic gratitude in business will go a long way.
Are you happy about what you’ve achieved? What are you grateful for? Being grateful enables you to remember how fortunate and blessed you are, and gratitude impacts the way you view life.
Successful leaders regularly express gratitude for the positive things in their lives. Some even keep gratitude journals or lists. Gratitude is an important trait to possess, because when people realize you’re grateful, they often want to keep giving. This doesn’t just extend to your personal life — it obviously extends to business as well.
Authentic gratitude in business will go a long way. Gratitude means that you truly care about others and you recognize their gifts and talents. If you have employees, it is extremely important to cultivate an “attitude of gratitude” for them and their gifts and talents. If you have colleagues and customers, think of ways that you can let them know how important they are to you. Even if you have managers, bosses, or a CEO above you, it’s important to manage up, down, and sideways — and one great way is to be authentic and show your gratitude. See the positive in everyone you meet and celebrate it.
It’s important to show your appreciation to the people you are grateful for. Appreciation comes in many forms — like words of gratitude, compliments, and rewards, to name a few. My good friend and attorney, Buz Barlow, has shown me the power of appreciating and recognizing people for their achievements and contributions. He taught me to clip newspaper or magazine articles I find about people I know, or articles they’ve written, and send them to the person with a note of congratulations.
And he has made me a firm believer in the power of personal thank you notes. I often hand-write notes to thank people for their business, to let people know I’m thinking of them, to encourage them, or just to recognize them for doing something really cool. In fact, I usually handwrite 20 to 30 personal notes a month, even as busy as I am, because today I believe so strongly that appreciation is powerful.
In turn, I have received hundreds of letters from people thanking me for what I’ve done for them in showing them appreciation and recognition.
Think of the people who make a difference in your life and show them your appreciation. Take a look back at the previous year and the people who touched your life along the way. Now take some time to list those individuals and ask yourself if they know how much you appreciate them. If they don’t, what are you waiting for?
Aesop said, “Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.” It is noble, indeed, to be thankful, as such a gesture shows humility and selflessness. When we step outside our sometimes egocentric world to recognize that we cannot and do not control everything, we can acknowledge our day-to-day existence as a gift. Being grateful for whatever benefits we receive enables us to remember how fortunate and blessed we really are. This habit of expressing gratitude is also a fast track to a more positive outlook.
