Hugs are powerful stuff and are a quick reminder that we’re all loved and connected to each other.

Check it out:

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s called gratitude and it’s scientifically proven to boost your happiness by 25%!

Plus if you have any friends who feel meditation is just too out there (even though, it really isn’t), you can get them into gratitude instead.

Check out this quote from a study by Dr. Robert Emmons of the University of California at Davis and Dr. Michael McCollough of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas:

The first group kept a diary of the events that occurred during the day… the second group recorded their unpleasant experiences, [and] the last group made a daily list of things for which they were grateful.

The results of the study indicated that daily gratitude exercises resulted in higher reported levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism and energy. Additionally, the gratitude group experienced less depression and stress, was more likely to help others, exercised more regularly and made more progress toward personal goals. According to the findings, people who feel grateful are also more likely to feel loved.

McCollough and Emmons also noted that gratitude encouraged a positive cycle of reciprocal kindness among people since one act of gratitude encourages another… McCullough suggests that anyone can increase their sense of well-being and create positive social effects just from counting their blessings.

Not bad. If you haven’t already, I really recommend you get in on the gratitude community by joining GratitudeLog. Totally free and it’s like the Facebook of gratitude.

Have a look at the rest of this article from Tim Ferriss (author of the 4-Hour Workweek) below for more details on the perks of being grateful:

Don’t Like Meditation? Try Gratitude Training.

By Tim Ferriss from the FourHourWorkweek.com

Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist monk and zen teacher once nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King, Jr., has a knack for making the esoteric understandable.

In discussing what some call “present state awareness”–experiencing and savoring the present—he offers a simple parable:

Let’s say that you want to eat a peach for dessert one evening, but you decide to only allow yourself this luxury after washing the dishes. If, while washing the dishes, all you think of is eating the peach, what will you be thinking of when you eat the peach?

The clogged inbox, that difficult conversation you’ve been putting off, tomorrow’s to-do list?

The peach is eaten but not enjoyed, and so on we continue through life, victims of a progressively lopsided culture that values achievement over appreciation. But let’s get specific.

If we define “achievement” as obtaining things we desire (whether raises, relationships, cars, pets, or otherwise) that have the potential to give us pleasure, let’s define “appreciation” as our ability to get pleasure out of those things. To focus on the former to the exclusion of the latter is like valuing cooking over eating.

How then, do we develop the skill of appreciation, which is tied so closely to present state awareness?

There are a few unorthodox tools that we’ve explored already for state awareness, like the 21-day no-complaint experiment, but the most common mainstream prescription is meditation.

The problem with meditation is that it too often gets mixed with mysticism and judgment (attempting to forcefully exclude certain thoughts and emotions). Who really wants to visualize a candle flame for 30 minutes? It can work, but it doesn’t work for most.

Here’s where we enter the 60-second solution: gratitude training. From Cornell to the University of Michigan, scientists are looking at the far-reaching effects of practicing gratitude just like exercise.

Here is one example from Dr. Robert Emmons of the University of California at Davis and Dr. Michael McCollough of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas:

“The first group kept a diary of the events that occurred during the day… the second group recorded their unpleasant experiences, [and] the last group made a daily list of things for which they were grateful.

The results of the study indicated that daily gratitude exercises resulted in higher reported levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism and energy. Additionally, the gratitude group experienced less depression and stress, was more likely to help others, exercised more regularly and made more progress toward personal goals. According to the findings, people who feel grateful are also more likely to feel loved.

McCollough and Emmons also noted that gratitude encouraged a positive cycle of reciprocal kindness among people since one act of gratitude encourages another… McCullough suggests that anyone can increase their sense of well-being and create positive social effects just from counting their blessings.”

Click to continue reading »

And if you haven’t signed  up yet, get your happiness on with GratitudeLog.com. It’s like the Facebook of gratitude that my company has developed. Totally free and a lot of fun.

But where there’s a will, there’s a way. And here’s one way you can turn gratitude into a daily habit.

It comes from Mike, the man behind GratitudeLog.com and my business partner. He is a HUGE proponent of gratitude. And he’s got a few words to say about how to turn the simple act of gratitude into a daily ritual for self improvement and growth.

Check out this post and if you’re feeling a little thankful, head over to gratitudelog.com and express yourself!

…

Gratitude Log

By Mike Reining (Re-posted from NZ Internet Marketing)

I was asking myself the question today why so many of you LOVE the idea of GratitudeLog.com but fail to return to express your gratitude every single day and I huge insight struck me.

We are all creatures of habit. In fact, most of what we do every single day we do unconsciously on auto-pilot and it is very hard for new habits to become established.

As the saying goes “out of sight out of mind.”

We know, intellectually at least, that expressing gratitude and being grateful is a good thing. We also know that in less than 60 seconds a day, just by writing down what we are grateful for we will instantly raise our emotional set point and feel at least 25% happier. However, despite our good intentions and excitement, we still fail.

Well, here is a little trick that I use to easily help myself create new habits and routines that I want to stick to daily.

1) I use Google Calendar, if you have not tried it just go to http://calendar.google.com

2) I enter the item that I want to remember into Google Calendar and I make it a task that repeats every single day.

3) I then ask Google calendar to automatically me a daily reminder.

I have used this to develop powerful new habits such as:

* Exercising every single day
* Reviewing my goal list and affirmations every day

(I even add my goals and affirmations into the description so that they end up in my inbox and I can review them instantly)

I also used it to develop the habit of expressing gratitude daily via www.GratitudeLog.com. Of course I don’t need these reminders anymore because once you create a successful / supportive habit, it becomes automatic. That is the beautiful thing about habits.

So, take full advantage of http://calendar.google.com and start creating new success habits today.

And Click Here to Get on GratitudeLog and Connect with Mike and Me »

Until… he walks into the DMV and falls for a women who doesn’t believe in smiling.

Funny, inspiring and will leave you beaming.

Watch it! (2.8 million other people already watched this on YouTube)

Click here to view the embedded video.

For me, it’d be John Assaraf, Richard Branson, and… Mr. Miyagi from the Karate Kid. And that’s just off the top of my head. I could easily think of hundreds more.

I was inspired to think of my top teachers a couple weeks ago, when my friend Alex Mandossian put up a post of his top 101 teachers. He spoke of the gratitude and joy he felt when he named all 101 of his teachers.

Alex had a great list and most of those teachers would definitely make my list too. What really touched me was that he named me as one of his teachers!

“Vishen Lakhiani for teaching me the importance of keeping a Gratitude Log”

Thanks Alex. I’m honored to make your list.

Here are of Alex’s teachers that you might have seen on FinerMinds..

• John Assaraf for teaching me to find people who play at the things that I have work at
• Marci Shimoff for teaching me that Happiness can be passed on to many generations
• Janet Attwood for teaching me the power of declaring my passion in public
• Jay Abraham for teaching me to actively utilize the Strategy of Pre-eminence

You can read Alex’s entire list of 101 teachers over here »

But, I’d like to turn the question around to you guys now. Who are your top teachers? I can’t wait to read your comments!

P.S.: If you’d like to connect with Alex Mandossian, you can leave him an appreciation note here »

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, we we want to share it with you.

“What is GratitudeLog?” you may ask… Well, think of it as the Facebook or Twitter of gratitude. Instead of status updates and tweets about morning traffic and bad days, you get a stream of awesome posts of the things that make people happy!

It’s a totally open and free community where people from all over can join. Check it out and sign up for your free account here »

Here’s a quick video of my business partner Mike describing the sheer  awesomeness of GratitudeLog

The coolest part of GratitudeLog is the Community feature. You can send each other appreciation notes, give one another an Awesome Thumbs Up for each post, or even check out who’s the most appreciative. It’s a great place to meet like-minded friends and make gratitude a fun part of your day. You can “follow” people just like on Twitter or Facebook so you’ll have a real-time feed of all of your friends’ gratitude updates too.

We made GratitudeLog a free and open community to help spread appreciation, joy, and gratitude.

You can grab your free account here and start spreading the happy right away! »

After you join, you should check out some of these great authors. You can connect with them and find out what they’re grateful for too.

Sean Stephenson

Angelique Bianca

John Assaraf

Brian Johnson

Burt Goldman

Laura Silva

Grab your free account right here and start spreading the happy right away! »

What are you grateful for that turned out to be a blessing in disguise?

What I mean to ask is, what are you most grateful for that you once thought was bad or unfortunate? I want to ask this question because not everything that appears “bad” is bad at all. In fact, those little hiccups can turn into the best things in your life.

For me, it was not getting the fancy investment banking job straight out of university. Not getting that job has been a blessing to me in more ways than one.

So what blessings in disguise are you grateful for? Drop a comment and share your gratitude!

P.S. If you haven’t checked it out already, the happiest place on earth is here »

If you’ve seen the first part of his exclusive series on FinerMinds, Making Love, Not War: How To Create A Deep Attraction, then you’ll know what I mean when I say this man is truly one of the warmest, and most caring and insightful people out there.

Sean has literally read every comment that you guys have posted on the first part of his series and is incredibly touched by what people are saying, so in response he’s sent a thank you message to you:

The 2nd part of his series is coming up next week, so stay tuned because it’s going to get pretty interesting

Cheers,

Vishen

]]> http://daily.finerminds.com/gratitude/sean-stephenson-thank-you/feed/ 11 http://daily.finerminds.com/gratitude/the-gratitude-dance-you-dont-even-need-rhythm-to-do-this/ http://daily.finerminds.com/gratitude/the-gratitude-dance-you-dont-even-need-rhythm-to-do-this/#comments Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:16:28 +0000 Gabrielle Lim http://daily.finerminds.com/?p=4616 We often get so bogged down with work that we forget to enjoy the simple things in life and to NOT take ourselves so seriously.

So as a tribute to all the amazing things we need to be grateful for in life, here is the original Gratitude Dance by the Gratidudes.

You can’t watch this and not smile and you just can’t do this dance without laughing. It’s just that ridiculous.

For those who are looking to express some daily gratitude, check out gratitudelog.com. It’s an awesome social network of people who are grateful everyday. You can even send notes of appreciation to friends (along with a cute gift) and make certain gratitude posts private so only you can read them.

Now I’ve noticed a huge trend that’s starting to overtake even youtube. And that’s mind movies.

They’re like vision boards but in movie form. So instead of having a static image that can easily be ignored, this can actually become a part of your daily ritual.

Alright, this whole concept is best described with an example. So check out this awesome mind movie from personal development junkie, Alex Cattoni. Want proof that this works? She’s only 23 and she’s already managing a multimillion dollar company, lives a lifestyle only CEOs dream of retiring into, and is a world class photographer.

If you want some inspiration to build your own mind movie, you can check out this page »

How To Make A Mind Movie — it’s easier than you think

Mind movies are great way to remind yourself of your potential and of the fact that you can do anything you set your mind to.

Plus they’re fun to do and fun to share! What Alex did was really simple and all she used was her MacBook and Keynote. You can also do your mind movie on iMovie too using one of their templates. Another way is to use PowerPoint. You’ll be surprised at how these everyday programs can be used to create something so beautiful.

But for those of you who don’t have all that or are a newbie at movie editing, you can check out Ryan Higgins’ mind movie software. It’s built specifically to get the best out of you for an exciting, fun-to-watch mind movie. I recommend Ryan’s software because it also helps you clarify your vision. Lots of people at my office are already looking into this and we’re pretty excited about it.

If you wanna get to know more about Ryan’s mind movie software, just click here. There’s also a bunch of other people’s mind movies if you want some inspiration.

Click here to find out how you can make a mind movie like Alex’s  »

Cheers,

Vishen Lakhiani

PS: I think choosing the music is the best part. It’s just a little hard to pick a song that is defines your life. I’m thinking some U2.