Building a Life-Changing Gratitude Habit

Warwick Fairfax:
Welcome to Beyond the Crucible. I’m Warwick Fairfax, the founder of Beyond The Crucible. We need to train our brains, our hearts, even our souls, to dwell on gratitude. So gratitude will help give us energy and power to move us forward, which we all want to do, especially when we’ve had a crucible. We want to move forward. We want to move beyond it. And gratitude, it helps us power us forward to a more positive outlook on life that will actually help us lives of significance.

Gary Schneeberger:
How do we train our brains, hearts and souls to dial into gratitude? That’s the ground we cover today as we look into Warwick’s latest blog, how to tap into the Life-Changing Power of Gratitude? We explore seven steps that will help you focus more regularly on being grateful. And as a bonus, we also discuss the physical, psychological, and social benefits of living with an attitude of gratitude. Welcome folks, to another episode of Beyond the Crucible, and this is one of the fun ones. Well, they’re all fun ones, let’s be honest. But this is one of those Warwick, that we discuss your most recent blog at Beyondthecrucible.com. And you felt very strongly about this one. You chose the topic from several ideas you thought about over this summer that just now as we’re recording this, ended just two days ago. So let’s start off by how I always begin episodes like this where we’re going over one of your blogs, and that is, what led you to write this blog, which is titled How to Tap Into the Life-Changing Power of Gratitude? What was it that made that what you had to write about this month?

Warwick Fairfax:
Life is not easy, and it’s normal and understandable for our minds to drift to things that are challenging. We can think of everything that’s gone wrong, what’s going wrong now, what’s gone wrong in the past, what will go wrong in our lives in the future. We often think of, “Oh, I hope this doesn’t happen. Oh, I’ve got a terrible feeling about this coming meeting, or this family Thanksgiving or Christmas.” We can just drift into all of the things that we’re worried about, or I don’t know, there could be cutbacks at work and I got a bad feeling about it. So you mind drift, everything that has gone wrong, is going wrong, will go wrong. And then we drift into thinking about people that have hurt us. People that have let us down. Maybe it’s at work, maybe friends, maybe family. And then we can think of the mistakes we’ve made. “Gosh, boy, that was so stupid. Why did I do that?”
And then we just certainly, I do this quite a bit, almost this endless of just, “Why did I do that? That was just not smart. I wish I hadn’t.” I know we can get into almost this endless negative, depressing cycle of thoughts and one feeds on another that we have this almost doom loop, this flywheel of negativity. One bad thought leads to another and off we go. So it’s understandable that we have these negative thoughts because life is not easy. But we have to ask ourselves, how does this serve us? And the answer is, it doesn’t. To move forward in our lives and bounce back from our worst day, our crucibles to a more fulfilling life, which we call a life of significance. We need to train our brains to think differently. We need to train our brains to think of more positive, indeed helpful thoughts.
And this is not a natural thing. Our brains tend to go to the negativity, to the current in front of us, to cut us off, or that bad meeting that we just came out of, or challenges at home. That’s all very natural. It’s not natural to start thinking of positive thoughts, but we need to train our brains, our hearts, even our souls to dwell on gratitude. So gratitude will help give us energy and power to move us forward, which we all want to do, especially when we’ve had a crucible. We want to move forward, we want to move beyond it. And gratitude helps us power us forward to a more positive outlook on life that will actually help us live lives of significance. And it’s interesting as I think about the origin story of this discussion. Yes, I’ve been thinking of a lot of things over the summer when we do the summer movie series, and we do that in advance like we’ve mentioned.
So there’s still things to do, but it’s not quite the same pace. So being a reflective person, lots of ideas percolate in my brain. And so there was one time towards the end of the summer, where we are in Northern Michigan is about an hour away from the nearest airport. And I’m dropping my oldest son off at the airport. It’s about an hour drive. And so after I’ve dropped him off, I have, as I mentioned, an hour’s drive back to where we are. And that goes along the shores of Lake Michigan. And so it’s summer. And so you can see the sun glimmering in the water. You’ve got these beautiful trees and small towns. It’s a very beautiful, restful drive. And so here I am, I’m in the car for a while, it’s just me. And on the spur of the moment, without some plan, I just think about gratitude. And it wasn’t some big plan. I just thought, “I’m going to spend the rest of this drive, which is an hour, thinking about everything I was grateful for in life.” It wasn’t some plan. I thought, “Okay, let’s start, see what happens.”
And so I did. And just like with thoughts of negativity, one thought can lead to another. Thoughts of positivity, gratitude, one thought can lead to another. So just to give you an idea, I’m a person of faith. So I started with faith. And so I started thinking about, “Wow, I remember when faith, in my case, faith in Christ became important in my life.” It was at an evangelical Anglican church at Oxford University where I went, St Aldates was the church. I remember thinking about the friend who invited me to church and I said no a few times, but eventually came. I think about the Anglican retreat on the Devon coast of England, Lee Abbey, which was an Oxford-Cambridge retreat. And I began thinking about the walks along the cliffs, and the countryside, and the afternoons, and singing choruses and Christian choruses and listening to testimonies and sermons. And I’m thinking about how wonderful that was.
And I drifted, time in New York when I lived there in a couple churches I was in there and that life group. And I think about back in Australia and some people that were very helpful during those challenging times with the takeover in the family media business. And think about the church I go to now, and I’m blessed to be an elder there. So I got pretty specific. And so then I drifted to other thoughts, to family. So I started with faith and then I went to family. I think of my wife, Gail, who we’ve been married over 35 years, and how blessed I am. I think of my three adult kids, will, Gracie, and Robbie, what a blessing they are. I think of meaningful work that I have. So I think it doesn’t have to be this way, but I think often for many of us when we’re thinking about gratitude or indeed prayer, we can break it down in faith, or beliefs, values, whatever that means to you. Faith, family, work, just big categories.
And in terms of work, I think of all the things we do at Beyond the Crucible, and the wonderful team I have and how much I love what we do. I think of the nonprofits I’ve been involved in, such as being an elder at my church. And for many years I was on the board of my kids’ school, which is a Christian school. So the bottom line is, by the end of that drive, I was feeling incredibly grateful, incredibly blessed and uplifted. I was in a good mood after an hour thinking of how blessed I am in each of these areas of my life. And again, it was an hour, so I went into a lot of detail, faith, family, work. And that whole exercise, which was unplanned, reminded me of how important it is to be positive, and how important it is to be grateful because it’s not natural to do what I did, to think about all the wonderful things that have blessed your life. We just tend to go to the negative and ignore the positive.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, and it’s interesting because you talk about the intentionality of that, and I have my own origin story a little bit on, and I’ll talk about some more of it later, but here’s one of them right here. It’s a book called The Little Book of Gratitude that I have, and I just go through it periodically. And one of the things that’s interesting, because you said at the end of that drive, you felt great. There’s a physical feeling that comes with that. Well, one of the things that I’ve found for a while now in this book, the Little Book of Gratitude, is that there’s a PhD named Robert Evans who is one of the world’s leading authorities on gratitude. He’s a professor of psychology at the University of California Davis. And he has enumerated some, and I’m not going to go through all of them, but he’s enumerated some of the physical, and emotional, and mental benefits, the true benefits of gratitude.
Here’s just a few of the things. Physical well-being, stronger immune systems for those who lean into gratitude, lower blood pressure, sleep longer, and feel more refreshed upon waking. Hallelujah for that. There’s psychological well-being he also talks about, higher levels of positive emotions. We all would benefit from that for sure. More joy and pleasure. Who doesn’t want that? Who doesn’t want more joy or pleasure? And Robert Evans says that when you lean into gratitude, when you find and dig into those things that you’re grateful for, that’s what can come up. And then I’ll just mention social well-being, more forgiving. Well, my goodness, we talk about forgiveness all the time here at Beyond the Crucible.
So if you have gratitude for the things in your life that are good, for the people in your life that are good, that bless you, that can make you more forgiving, and that can help you get beyond your crucible. And less loneliness and more outgoing. So those are just some of the things, Little Book of Gratitude that Robert Evans talks about. But Warwick, I’m interested, what’s your reaction to these physical, emotional, mental areas of well-being that can come from being what you’ve just talked about, what we’re talking about here, and that’s gratitude?

Warwick Fairfax:
One of the things I talk about is these so-called Blue Zones in different parts of the world where you’ve got people that live longer, and Mediterranean and different places, and they analyze, well why? And some of it makes sense. They have a great diet like in the Mediterranean, it’s more of a Mediterranean diet, pasta, vegetables, fruit, nuts, what have you. They have a circle of friends that they spend time with. They have some connection to faith, higher power or something like that. And they’re naturally positive people. The glass is half full. They just have this sunny disposition and surprise, they live longer. Well, that research, if you will, is cross-currents with Robert Evans research, which is having this attitude of gratitude, having this sense of positivity, it is beneficial in every area of your life, physical, psychological, social. So it makes sense.

Gary Schneeberger:
And folks, if you want to have those psychological, those physical health benefits, here we go. We’re going to go into Warwick’s blog now. And I know you’ll be surprised like I was when I first read the blog that Warwick has, wait for it, seven points in his blog. It’s funny, Warwick, I always build our runs of show, the things that we’re going to talk about off the previous episode. And the last time we did this before the summer series, you had nine. I almost fell over when I remembered that you had nine points, but we have seven this time. So let’s run through those points in all seriousness, because they are good ones. They are points that will help you folks find, tap into, locate your gratitude. And the first one is this, pause the anger and grievance cycle. Talk about that a little bit.

Warwick Fairfax:
So we have to stop the flywheel of doom and negativity, because it’s normal for that to be a flywheel, one thought leads to another and off you go. You’ve got to stop that endless cycle of negativity, of recriminations for what you’ve done wrong and what was done to you. You’ve got to just pray, pause, meditate, and just pray, look to a higher power just for strength to just, let me pause and stop. Let me just clear my mind, be still, maybe it’s take a walk in the woods. Whatever it takes to just clear your mind. Maybe it’s just doing something that would take your mind off it. Maybe you’re a painter, maybe you like to make things in your shop, just different woodworking, whatever it takes. Find a way, be it prayer, meditation or things to take your mind off it to a positive direction. Find a way to pause the anger and grievance cycle, because you can’t move forward in a positive direction until you stop what can feel like an endless cycle of thoughts of negativity.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, and it’s interesting that you mentioned artists, someone who might be a painter. Because I was thinking as you were saying that, this step, pause, the anger and grievance cycle is like starting is like wiping your slate clean, wiping your palette clean, what you’re going to paint on, giving yourself a canvas to paint something on. And your second point is when you begin the painting process. And your second point is this, think of at least one thing you’re grateful for. One thing you can paint on that palette. So talk about why that’s so important.

Warwick Fairfax:
Now, this might feel like on your worst days, almost impossible. It’s like, “What could I possibly be grateful for? I’ve been betrayed, I’ve made some horrific decisions. My business is going under, I’ve just got fired. I’ve been grateful. What could there possibly be to be grateful for?” But typically there’s at least one thing. Maybe it’s a spouse, a partner, maybe it’s a child, a friend, a parent. Maybe it’s a friend at school. Maybe it’s just being grateful for some of the abilities you have. Maybe you’re athletic, or artistic, or maybe you just have this love of learning and reading. Think of one thing that you’re grateful for, and for people of faith, it could be broader. It could be just being thankful for having God in your lives. It’s interesting as I thought about, what’s one thing it could be grateful for? Actually, my mind drifted, being reflective, back our summer movie series and Rudy. And you remember, and you can tell our friends here, but Rudy grew up in this working class neighborhood, Indiana, not far from Chicago.
And he wanted to play football at Notre Dame, which being at the time, a senior of high school, just out of it was like an impossible dream. Everybody was very negative. Everybody’s almost laughed at him. But he had this friend at the steel mill where he worked after high school, and this one friend kept encouraging him, and he gave him a Notre Dame jacket where he wanted to play. So I guess the point of the story is, if you ask Rudy what’s one thing or one person you can be grateful for, probably the first thing he would say is, “My friend at the mill.” Other than that, what are you grateful for? Well, he’d probably be hard perhaps to think of anything at that point in his life, if that makes sense.

Gary Schneeberger:
Oh, for sure. That’s a very great example of if you just look around, if you do a 360, if you look, you’ll find it. It’s there. I think our experience tells us that. And the experience of the guests we’ve had on the show tells us that. And the experience of the people we know in our lives tells us that. This quote I’m about to read from the Little Book of Gratitude tells us that too. This is from someone named Alphonse Carr. Alphonse Carr said this, I love this. “Some people are because roses have thorns.” He said, “I am thankful. I am thankful that thorns have roses.” Sometimes the way to find gratitude is to just change your perspective, to look at something in a different way. That’s a fair way to do it. Don’t look at it in the way that leads you to feel, “I’m on the bad end of this.” Switch around, change your perspective, find the good end. That’s a pretty good kernel of wisdom, isn’t it?

Warwick Fairfax:
It is, maybe you wanted to go outside and have a run and it’s raining. It’s like God, really, and it’s not a massive crucible, but rather than saying that, it’s like, “Well, at least my grass will grow and the flowers will get watered.” And rain can be just refreshing. And anything in life you can look at negatively, on the other hand, you can look at it positively. Maybe it’s Thanksgiving and you got some challenging family members coming. It’s like, “Well, okay, maybe it’s an opportunity to reset. Maybe I can think of something I can be grateful for them, and maybe it’s going to be an opportunity where I can encourage that crusty, incorrigible uncle that I have. That’s always a pain. Let me think of something positive about him and I’m going to think of a way to reset this time. So your attitude going into things makes a huge difference.

Gary Schneeberger:
And I’m a little spooked, Warwick, that you brought up raining when you want to go running. Do you ever tap into my ring doorbell? Because that’s exactly what’s going on in Wisconsin today as we’re talking. So I’m not going to be able to run at least outside because it’s raining. But enough about that. Let’s go to the third point in your blog and the third point in your blog is this, begin to create categories of things and people you are grateful for. Why is that the next good and logical step to build gratitude?

Warwick Fairfax:
So part of this is, you’re trying to set up a flywheel of hope. You’re trying to set up a flywheel of gratitude. And so to do that, it takes a few steps. Because often it’s not easy to go from negativity to positivity. And so even if you’ve paused the anger and grievance cycle, if you’re not careful, it’s almost like being on a steep hill. You can start slipping. And so it’s good to think of not just one thing from my perspective, but just think of a bunch of things. You think of your family. You can think of parents, spouse, partner, kids, friends, people you’ve known different times of your life, co-workers. It could be relationships you have now, it could be in the past. Think of the work you do. Maybe there are some things you can think of that you are grateful for. Think of the gifts and abilities that you have.
So it helps before getting into a deep dive to think of the categories. And I think one easy way to think of it, you could break it down into three broad categories, faith, family, work. It could be more than that. You could call it beliefs, family, work, and you could add on activities and hobbies. But a good place to start is with those three, you can always expand, faith, family, work. And so now you’ve got three categories or more to mine from. So you might be thinking, “Okay, what’s one thing I can think of in each area?” one thing leads to another. But having categories helps you move from one thing to more than one thing.

Gary Schneeberger:
Good stuff. Folks, we are talking about Warwick’s latest blog, which is called How to Tap into the Life-Changing Power of Gratitude. We are on step four to build that, to find that life-Changing power of gratitude. And step four is this, spend time in each of these categories and go into some detail. So you’ve got the categories, you’ve built them, now you lean into them, now you really spend time ruminating on them, exploring them, unpacking them. Talk about that a little bit.

Warwick Fairfax:
So for me as a person of faith, on that drive back from the airport dropping my son off, that hour drive back, I started with faith as I mentioned. I got into some detail about where I came to faith in Christ. It’s an old Evangelical Anglican church at Oxford, and just that student retreat center on the Devon Coast, Lee Abbey. But I didn’t stop there. I thought of after that I worked in New York on Wall Street for about three years, and I began to think about a couple of churches I went to and life group that I was in that was so helpful. I think about back during my takeover years back in Australia, growing up in the family media business. And obviously for more on that, it’s in other blogs, podcasts, and on the website. But suffice it to say it was very challenging.
I think about just a circle of friends, some, my age, some older that really came onside me, prayed with me, and incredibly valuable. And I think about the church I’m involved in now in Annapolis, Bay Area Community church where I’m an elder and the group of friends I have there. So that’s just one strand, a faith strand. I went there during that drive, all these different elements throughout my life. And I did the same thing about my family. I did the same thing about work. So just going through every area of your life that you can think of and one thought leads to another, it can make you very grateful. I was thinking about not just what we do on the podcast, but some of the things that I was involved in in both the school, I was on the board of an [inaudible 00:23:46] Christian School, and we would work on governance and a strategic plan. I was heavily involved in both, and governance and various other things. And being an elder at my church, Bay Area Community Church.
I went into some detail about being grateful to have an opportunity to use my gifts and abilities in organizations that I deeply cared about. And I felt grateful for the opportunity to serve, and use my abilities to help the organizations and ultimately people that I cared about. So that just gives you an illustration of how gratitude in all areas of your life, relationships, the skills and abilities you have, the people that have been so helpful to you, it can just fill you with gratitude and positivity, if you let your mind run in a positive way.

Gary Schneeberger:
And as always with these blog episodes Warwick, you’ve built them step by step by step. So what you just said, if you just let your mind lead you in a positive way, well the next point that you make in the blog is where the rubber will continue to meet the road. And that’s this, commit to being grateful on a regular basis. So we’ve taken up until now what we’ve described as low-risk probes, small steps. Now is the chance to sort of make this a lifetime commitment. So why is commit to being grateful on a regular basis critical to what you’re talking about in this blog?

Warwick Fairfax:
So think of it like diet and exercise. Exercising once a year doesn’t do a whole lot of good. You’ve got to have a regular pattern. I think people would say ideally several times a week. And it’s very much like gratitude. If you’ve got to find a system, and it might be difficult at first, I’d say every day find time to take at least a few minutes to be grateful. You don’t have to do what I did for an hour. I just happened to be in the car. It was a beautiful drive back along Lake Michigan, when we were there in Northern Michigan during the summer. But we can find a few minutes to think of at least one thing or more that we’re grateful for. And what you might find is, those few minutes might turn into longer. Maybe you’ve got a 40-minute commute to work every day.
So rather than just listening to a podcast, of course if it’s this podcast, then by all means listen to a podcast. But let’s say you’ve listened to a podcast, ideally this one, either on your way to work or on the way back. Okay, you’ve got another half of the journey to do something other than listen to music, podcasting or what have you. And that’s 40 minutes you can think of things you’re grateful for. You are in the car, you have to be in the car. It is the way it is. So there’s usually some time that we have during the day that we can allocate to being grateful.
And again, don’t feel like you’ve got to start out with 40 minutes, the length of your commute. It can be just one or two things, but being regular and consistent with being grateful is very helpful. Because when you do that, you’ll find that your attitude to life will begin to change. You’ll be more positive. You’ll look at life being the glass half full, not half empty. So it’s a discipline. It’s something that you’ve got to do every day, at least in some case you can’t just think, “Okay, I was grateful three months ago.” It’s got to be on a regular basis. Find a way to do it.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. Well, and I’m going to share my way to do it that I found, and this is a gratitude journal, and it’s a three-year gratitude journal, which is cool because it has three years of dates. You go through it, and you just write at the end of the day, it’s one line a day it says here, I usually write longer than that. That’s just me. But it allows me to go through, review the day I’ve just lived and find things that I’m grateful for. So I’m just going to rip this open right now and see, “Oh, June 15th, there we go.” And this is funny, and this is a good one. Look at that. Thank you lord. June 15th of this year, 2025, I wrote this, the Father’s Day gift Kelly, my wife, bought me is divine, a necklace with Heather’s, Alissa’s and Hunter’s my kids, birthstones.
And then a great time with the McKissick’s, that’s Kelly’s family, and the Resch’s, that’s also Kelly’s family, at our house tonight. So it was just, that was what happened on that day. And before I go to bed, I pull this out, I write this down. But here’s another point I want to make about doing this every day, because there’s an important, when you every night stop and say, “Here’s what I’m grateful for.” Not everything that happened in your day that day is something you’re grateful for. You’re sifting through it and you’re pointing out what you’re grateful for. And I want to specifically go to this one, April 3rd of this year, just to show how this can work. Well, here’s my entry of what I’m grateful for on April 3rd, to show that things that are great that you are grateful for and things that can be painful, can happen on the same day. But what do you lean into?
So here’s what I wrote on the 3rd of April this year, 2025. Laura, my stepmother died today. So glad I got to talk to her yesterday. And then after that comes this. We also celebrated Hunter, my son’s 25th birthday, smiley face. That’s one of those situations where something really traumatic happens, but you can find something to be grateful for in the context of that. I got to talk to my stepmom the day before she passed away, and then we got to celebrate my son’s birthday that same day. So it’s not that when you talk about being grateful, Warwick, it’s not that you’re saying you have to be grateful, or you should be grateful, or you’re going to be grateful for everything that happens. It’s finding those things that you can be grateful for in the context of whatever happens, right?

Warwick Fairfax:
Boy, that’s so well said, and that’s such a good example, both of them. But obviously losing your stepmother, that’s a tragedy. That’s just a huge thing to deal with. But obviously there’s grieving, there’s mourning, but there’s also being thankful for the person that she was, and what she meant to you in your life. Even on her worst days, you, Gary found a way to be grateful. Doesn’t mean there wasn’t grieving and pain, of course, I’m sure it was an excruciating day. But yet you wanted amidst all the pain and devastation you want to think of, well, what’s something that I can be grateful for about my stepmom? And be grateful for Hunter’s 25th birthday? So it’s an excellent example, and I think what that is really saying, and I think it’s worth noting, there are different ways of doing it, but I think we should really consider what Gary is doing in which he has a gratitude journal.
And the advantage of writing it down, is that you can look back at previous days, like you just did, June 15, April 3rd. And it doesn’t mean you have to do that every day. Thinking of something you’re grateful for every day, we believe is very helpful. But by writing it down, it’s like there’s been a lot of positive things that have happened this year. Who knew? Now, would you remember what happened on February 4th if you didn’t look it up, what you’re grateful for? Probably not. But by having it there, you could say, “Well, I wonder what happened.” It would remind you maybe something positive happened. Gary’s looking it up right now.

Gary Schneeberger:
I am.

Warwick Fairfax:
I just picked a random date.

Gary Schneeberger:
Keep talking for a second, Warwick, I’ve got to find it here really quickly. I have to get my February 24th. There we go. February 4th. February 4th, February 10th, February 4th. Where are you? February 4th. All right, here we go. What am I grateful for on February 4th? The Fantastic Four trailer, the movie for The Fantastic Four, the Fantastic Fourth trailer dropped today. That’s what happened on February 4th, I was grateful for.

Warwick Fairfax:
Well, if you don’t know, Gary’s a big fan of superheroes, and I certainly like it too. And so Fantastic Four, it’s a fun movie. And yeah, it makes sense that you’re grateful for that.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah, it was my favorite comic book as a kid. So to see that on the big screen done right was great. So that was perfect, thank you for picking that date. That reminds me now.

Warwick Fairfax:
So yeah, I don’t do it quite as in an organized fashion, but I think we could all learn from Gary. For me, one of the things I do every evening is before I go to sleep, I have a time of prayer. Typically, in the evening, I have bible study, reflection, some people will do it in the morning, but I do it in the evenings. But as I’m about to go to sleep, in fact, my head’s on the pillow at this point, I start doing some scripture memory. I just have done this for a number of years. I’ve got a set scriptures that I go through, but then I also, in addition to prayer, do some thoughts of being thankful.

Gary Schneeberger:
Yeah. All right, that was point five, folks. Here is point six. Point six is this. Find a place where being grateful is easier. And Warwick’s indicated a couple of times that he’s talked about his sometimes on drive, sometimes when you have a little solitude, you can do it. So Warwick, what’s the importance of this point in the blog?

Warwick Fairfax:
So let’s say you’re in rush hour traffic, or you’re on a freeway and there’s an accident that’s going to keep you stuck for about two hours, or you’ve missed your flight at the airport and the airport is shutting down. That could be a time when you want to think of how I can be grateful for being stuck in the airport for three hours, but it’s better than the doom loop of negativity. But in terms of a normal rhythm of being grateful, let’s make it easy for ourselves. And so find a place where you can be grateful. It could be a walk in the woods, maybe it’s a walk in the neighborhood. If you have a nice drive to work, which is probably not too many people, then great. It could be in a museum. It could be just in the ambiance of your favorite coffee shop. Maybe there’s somewhere you go for a few minutes, or you take a break at lunch or what have you and you love the smells, the sounds in that place.
Think of a place where being grateful is easier, and then spend a few minutes, or maybe it’s 15, 20 minutes, however long you have. But the right place can make being grateful easier. If you are taking a walk in the woods, which we did a lot of, I did certainly when we were in Northern Michigan, if it’s just me, which often I’ll be walking with family or my wife, but sometimes it’s just me. I’ll have music on, I’ll have my AirPods in and I’ll be listening to, sometimes it’ll be worship music, sometimes it’ll be classical music. And listening to your favorite, for instance, piece of classical music as you’re walking through the woods, now you’re really primed to be grateful. You just ease back. You’re in the mood at that point to be grateful. So find a way and a place that makes being grateful easier.

Gary Schneeberger:
All right, folks, we’re about to hit the last point of how you tap into the life-changing power of gratitude, Warwick’s blog. Here’s the last point, and really Warwick, this could be the last point of pretty much everything we talk about beyond the crucible, as you’re walking out your life of significance, as you’re trying to bounce back from your crucible. And the last point is this, don’t give up, because it’s not going to be easy. Talk about why that is important, why that ability to keep at it, to not giving up, why that is so critical in this particular instance when it comes to being grateful.

Warwick Fairfax:
So let’s go back to that analogy of exercise. You’ve just run for the first time in years, or you’ve gone on an exercise bike, or whatever it happens to be, and it feels like it’s almost killed you. It’s like, “I can’t believe that, and I’m not doing that again. That’s just too hard. I mean, I’m so out of shape and oh my gosh, after five minutes I collapsed. I mean, it was awful.” And I get that. But with exercise, do it a few times a week and you find, “Okay, it was still difficult, but it went from almost impossible to merely difficult.” Then maybe goes to painful. Then it goes to, “It wasn’t too bad. And okay, I can do this.” It might take you months to get there, but step at a time. And so really with being grateful, think of it as, don’t give up. It’s easy to be negative, but what you’ve got to think of is, what’s one thing that I’ve been grateful for?
It may not be easy, but what’s one thing? Just start small and then think, “Okay.” And if you have to kind of make it a routine, think of, “Okay, several times a week, I’m going to set aside a time where I’m going to be grateful.” And often if it’s a commute to work, then you know you’re going to be in the car or the train or what have you, and set aside at least part of that time to be grateful. Find a time and a place where you’re going to do this. And ideally, as Gary has said, document it, write it down, make a note in your phone, or there’s different ways of doing it. But it might be hard at first. You start off with one thing, one person you can be grateful for and then expand that. But you’ve got to do it regularly. You’ve got to do it often and don’t give up. It will get easier if you keep up. It will get easier if you keep doing it.

Gary Schneeberger:
And here’s a good time to do it. This is another quote from the Little Book of Gratitude. I’ll do one more quote. This is Ralph Waldo Emerson said this, Warwick. He said, “I awoke this morning with devout Thanksgiving.” Love that phrase, devout Thanksgiving, for my friends, the old and the new. Maybe it’s the morning. There’s an example. He wakes up in the morning and he’s grateful for his friends. That could be something just simple, a simple way to start. And we have finished, speaking of starting, we have finished this episode of Beyond the Crucible about Warwick’s blog. But before we absolutely finish, we finished going through all the points. I need to ask Warwick an important question, because we’ve covered a lot of ground here. So Warwick, before we let folks go, what’s the one takeaway, the one truth you hope that everybody walks away with from our discussion about your blog on gratitude?

Warwick Fairfax:
It’s natural to think of everything that is going wrong in life, that has gone wrong and will go wrong. And it’s normal for many, if not most of us. It’s not just think of one thing. It may be not easy to think of more than one thing that you’re grateful for. It is very easy to think of many, many things that we’re not grateful for, that we’re angry and bitter, if not maybe even depressed about. It’s very easy, you just let your mind go. Or you could spend 40 minutes in a heartbeat about things that you’re angry and that you’re grumbling about. We don’t need to give lessons on that. It’s very, very easy to do. And that’s our brains naturally do that. And so while it’s natural and understandable, clearly it’s not helpful. You want to bounce back from your worst day, your crucible to a more fulfilling life, a life of significance, that doesn’t happen if you’re endlessly weighed down by this doom loop of negativity. It’s understandable, but it’s not helpful.
So one of the things we say often at Beyond the Crucible, is life is about choices. We need to make a choice. We’ve said so many times, it might be your worst day, and you’re feeling so bad about yourself, or angry about what was done to you, and you don’t want to get out of bed. You’ve got to make a choice to get out of bed and take one positive step forward. We say that in so many different episodes. This is the same way of thinking. We have to make a choice. We need to make a choice to stop the endless cycle of dwelling on disappointments, and the endless cycle of being angry about people who have let us down or betrayed you. We’ve talked elsewhere extensively about forgiveness. That’s one way of stopping that doom loop of just saying, “I will choose to forgive.”
That’s at least one helpful step to try to stop the endless doom loop of negativity, and anger, and resentment of people that have let you down or hurt you. So you’ve got to make a choice that I will refuse to keep dwelling on the negativity. Doesn’t mean I condone the bad things that were done to me, or the poor choices maybe my boss or others at work have made. But you make a choice not to dwell on the disappointment and the negativity. And then we need to shift. We need to pause. Seek the Lord or whoever you believe is up there, the creator, to just clear your mind, clean the slate, clean the canvas, and begin to think of what we’re grateful for. Think of one thing. And that gratefulness needs to be done in a disciplined, regular way like we would take exercise.
If you do that, eventually your disposition in life will shift from being more negative to being more positive. You start with one thing, expand from there, and find a time and a place to do it on a regular basis. Your outlook on life will change. And I think you’ll find that not just your outlook on life will change, but your ability to move forward from your worst day to a more fulfilling life and crucible to a life of significance. The pace will quicken. It will get easier to where you want to get to a more fulfilling life, a life of significance.

Gary Schneeberger:
Good place to end our discussion portion of this. As we always do though, folks, Warwick has come up with, and it’s interesting, I didn’t realize this when I first read the blog, I always say reflection questions at the end of the blog. And these aren’t questions. This time Warwick has written some reflection statements, and I’m going to read them to you so that you can reflect on them on this subject. How to tap into the life-changing power of gratitude, which is Warwick’s latest blog at Beyondthecrucible.com. First one is this, stop dwelling on anger and negative emotions. Take time to pray and meditate to clear your mind, your heart, and your soul from these thoughts that are pulling you down. Thought number one for reflection.
The second point of reflection is this. Start thinking of people and things you’re grateful for. The list might feel small at first, but dig deep and expand the list as time goes on. His last point in the blog was don’t give up. Don’t give up if you’re going through this reflection. Point number two, keep pressing through because it’ll come. And then the third reflection point is this. Find the time and a place to be grateful regularly and be disciplined about it. Being grateful will get easier the more it becomes a new ingrained habit and discipline.
And that folks, I’m grateful for the fact that that has wrapped another, I believe, very insightful and inspiration packed episode of the Beyond the Crucible podcast. So until the next time we’re together, please remember that Warwick and I know that your crucibles are hard, they’re difficult. There are things that you’re maybe not grateful for, that you’re certainly not grateful for, at least 360 not grateful for. But we also know they’re not the end of your story. And that if you learn the lessons from them, those things that you can be grateful for within them, and you apply them moving forward, the destination that you will be led on, the destination you will walk, the path you’ll travel will be one that will end in the greatest place you can be, and that is in a life of significance.
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