S.T.O.P. Gratitude

*Note: The following text is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Bill Berthel

Welcome to the Get Emergent Podcast. The Get Emergent Podcast guides leaders to creatively strengthen relationships and improve performance of their leadership and those that they lead. We like to provide concepts and ideas that you can turn into pragmatic experiments to help you develop your higher potential in your work and in your leadership. We hope you’re going to find some better practices to apply in your work. I’m Bill Berthel.

Jeremiah Poulsen

And I’m Jeremiah Poulson. And it’s November, Bill. Yeah, November. And I’m excited to talk about all things turkey and stuffing.

Bill Berthel

Yeah.

Jeremiah Poulsen

It is just so happens that we’re recording this and on the horizon. I can almost smell it happening as we’re talking right now. The sweet potato pie or. No, there’s no sweet potato pie. Sweet potato casserole, uh, I love so much. Yeah, Brown sugar, all that good stuff. So I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. My family does a little bit of a thing where we go around the table at Thanksgiving and we share what, you know, what’s one thing you’re grateful for this year? We’ve got a tradition there that we try to keep. It’ll be a little bit different. I don’t know what it’ll look like with kids that are a little bit older this year than they were last year. We’ll see what they’re grateful for. But, uh, what do you think about this Thanksgiving holiday that’s coming up?

Bill Berthel

It’s my favorite holiday as well. And I do love Thanksgiving for all that it brings, the great food. There’s something about it being a holiday that is usually lower pressure. But, you know, I don’t know. Sometimes it’s starting to feel like there’s a lot of pressure to get together and, you know, who’s gonna say what at the dinner table? Because we’re so divided as. As a society. But I do love being thankful. I love the space of gratitude. I’m gonna go on a little rant here, you know. Well, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Why do we need a holiday? Why do we need a season to be thankful? Wouldn’t it serve us better to be thankful as a regular practice instead of this being a really bad performance review process? Like in our organizations that we have a performance conversation once a year or four times a year, which is better? Why aren’t we having gratitude or thankful conversations on a more regular basis?

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah. So wait, what you’re saying is we shouldn’t just say what we’re thankful for around the table once a year?

Bill Berthel

Why not every night? More than that, you know, or whenever you’re together. Right. Or even with you yourself. Some of us do have some of those kind of practices in place, and that’s awesome. And I think we recognize why they’re in place is because they do shift our thoughts to a slightly more anabolical place, uh, that allows us to see some hope or some possibility. But sometimes it’s really hard to hold that space, isn’t it? It’s really hard when whatever is sifting in, if it’s the geopolitical landscape, the news, the challenges we have personally, uh, finances are tight for a lot of people. Illness, uh, in our families. Sometimes I just don’t feel like being thankful. There’s a lot going on.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah.

Bill Berthel

Right. There’s just a lot going on.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah. In the journey along the way, there’s so many things that can almost steal the opportunity to be thankful. I remember years ago being at a Thanksgiving dinner, and immediately after the Thanksgiving dinner was over, the family started laying Black Friday ads out on the table. And it became planning moments for. Okay, what are we doing, uh, you know, at midnight tonight, we gotta figure out who’s staying in what line to get there. Exactly.

Bill Berthe

That’s my brother’s part of the family. That’s like. You just described their Thanksgiving.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah. Yeah. So, yep, we did the grateful thing. Now let’s buy more. Yeah. Yeah.

Bill Berthel

Personally, I go in and out of many of these, you know, gratitude exercises, like at dinner, sharing, you know, just in conversation. I remember when my son was really young, the way we framed it was, you know, what’s one thing that made you happy today? And what’s one thing you kind, uh, of wish went better today? That first part is kind of gratitude. Right. So what are you thankful for? What were you pleased with today? I go in and out of gratitude, journaling personally to keep my energy up. It’s one way. Keep my focus a little bit more attuned towards refueling the hope battery is kind of a way I think about it. Right. But in full disclosure, I fall out of this practice probably as much as I fall into it.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Same here.

Bill Berthel

You know, it’s just. It kind of ebbs and flows. For me personally, when I’m not journaling, I’ve sometimes experimented with what we call the stop Gratitude. And STOP is an acronym here, so S T, O, P. Oh, fun fact. Do you know the difference between an acronym and an initialism?

Jeremiah Poulsen

No.

Bill Berthel

All right, so I knew I’d have fun with you on today’s episode.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Initialism.

Bill Berthel

Yeah. So the STOP process is an acronym, but we often misassign the title of an acronym to what is technically more grammatically called an initialism. So the key is whether you say the word as a word or not.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Oh, okay.

Bill Berthel

Yeah. So like, we’re saying stop, so it’s truly an acronym. So like the CIA or the FBI or what are the brown trucks that deliver stuff?

Jeremiah Poulsen

UPS.

Bill Berthel

Yeah, initialism. They’re all initialisms.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah. Yeah.

Bill Berthel

What’s the big space agency that used to do the space shuttle? What’s their name?

Jeremiah Poulsen

I was going to say SpaceX, but no, no. NASA. NASA.

Bill Berthel

Uh, yeah. Say it as a word. Truly an acronym. So this is an acronym stop. And we want this to be an acronym because that’s, like, literally the first step before we go through the letters of the acronym. The S, T, O, P. The key to beginning this is that strategic pause. Like, give yourself that beat. Stop.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Take the breath.

Bill Berthel

Take the breath. Take the strategic pause. Because when we’re overwhelmed or we’re feeling like we, I don’t know, just don’t have gratitude in this moment. Stop, pause.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Or even if I’m just not in that mode at all, whether I don’t have it or have it 100% stop.

Bill Berthel

The S that starts the acronym stop represents the word simple. Make the gratitude a simple one. Don’t worry if it feels insignificant or really small. Right. Sometimes we put pressure on ourselves, like, this has to be something really important to make it into my journal or for me to give thanks right now. Boy, it better be a great performance. I better say something just brilliant. For me, sometimes it’s just something, uh, really simple, like the way the sunlight’s filtering through the window right now, or just a sound I can hear often a bird chirping or a kid laughing or something. Simple.

Jeremiah Poulsen

As I go to that place I saw. I’m a big John Mayer fan, and I love his music, love his guitar playing. And he’s writing a song in this one video, and he’s literally just looking at the corner of the room and beginning to sing about the shadow of light in the corner of the room.

Bill Berthel

Yeah.

Jeremiah Poulsen

It’s a just in the moment, simple recognition of that thing that’s there.

Bill Berthel

I think we’re trying to make things too important sometimes, Jeremiah.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah.

Bill Berthel

Like there’s simple beauty. There’s simple gratitude all around us. Right. And that doesn’t make it unimportant.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah.

Bill Berthel

Right. So the S is simple. Think about simple actually driving it. Today I saw this. This woman was walking her dog down the sidewalk right here in the city. And the dog was Just a silly, goofy looking little dog, you know, just maybe just to pause and look at his funny little face and just, you know. But it was simple. Yeah, The T in stop stands for timely. So it’s just that like, um, I’m, you know, driving in, I’m thinking, oh, shoot, am I going to be late?

Jeremiah Poulsen

All.

Bill Berthel

It’s just timely what’s in front of me now. There was that silly little dog walking by timely means. Now, don’t struggle to think about three things that happened to you today that you appreciate. That’s a great practice. I’m not trying to belittle that, but sometimes that’s really hard. Sometimes. That’s why I don’t stick with gratitude. Journaling is I get to the end of the day, I’m like, crap. I can’t think of three things. What are three really important things? Today it’s about the now. The T is timely.

Jeremiah Poulsen

I love that because so often what keeps us from being grateful is we’re trapped in what was or what will be. But ultimately we can’t go to those places. We can’t be in those places. We can only be right here. And this is, I mean, I don’t want to get too wild with it, but it’s the idea that really all we have is now and ah, we can be right here right now and be, uh, grateful for what is and be satisfied in that.

Bill Berthel

So as you’re taking that pause, you’re making it simple. Make it about now. Make it about that timeliness. T is the timeliness we’re up to. O in the word stop, right? O is the observation. But it’s not just the gratitude or thankfulness observation. It’s not noticing that shadow in the corner. Not just that. Not just noticing the adorable, cute, silly little dog on the sidewalk. It’s not just that part of the observation. But now turn that observation inward. Notice what you feel. Observe your energy shift. Sit with that just a moment longer. Give yourself permission to have this pause just a moment longer to notice self. Observe self. Odds are your energy will shift more anabolically, meaning you might feel a bit more positive or you might feel a little spark of hope, possibility, or at least maybe some relief from what was feeling like before of, you know, overwhelming or things are maybe as bad as despair.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah. And I think it can be even okay to say that, right? If I’m feeling sad, if I’m feeling the dread in the moment, observe it.

Bill Berthel

Absolutely.

Jeremiah Poulsen

It reminds me last week I was in the hospital for some procedures that were being done for a family member stayed overnight a couple days. And along the way she stopped and kind of made eye contact with me and said, how are you feeling right now? Yeah. And in that moment, in the now of that moment, the observation became collaborative. It became, oh, uh, I’m sad. And there was a beauty in that. There was even a gratefulness in the connection and the observation of what was behind the simple moment, you know, what was inside of it.

Bill Berthel

Stephen Covey reminded us in the 7 Habits of what Sigmund Freud originally said that you know, any emotion that isn’t given its full life in that moment, basically we repress it or push it down, will come back later, usually in uglier ways. So there’s a gift in what that person did with you and just asking you to look at your emotion in that moment.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah.

Bill Berthel

Now we can’t necessarily do that every moment of our lives. We got to get stuff done. Right. We need to seem, uh, more practical than just emotional.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah. But every moment of every day of every year of our life. But not once a year either, Right?

Bill Berthel

Exactly. Exactly. So taking these pauses a few times a day. Right. So the observation here, the O of the observation is really observing self in this practice and noticing there’s likely an energy shift as you pause. Just the pausing can do it.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Mhm.

Bill Berthel

As you start to make a simple and timely gratitude observation. And then we’re up to the P. We’re up to the proceed. The P is for proceed. Ask yourself how you’d like to proceed from having this brief moment of simple and timely gratitude. This is also the moment of another P. It can also be potential. So how would I like to proceed and how will I intentionally step into the potential of this shifted energy again? Might just be a moment of relief. Awesome. Might be a spark of hope. Might be a creative idea that you want to step into utilizing that P is about proceeding into the potential.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah. As you talk about the P, another one comes to mind which is purpose. And even asking, what is the purpose of this moment, this now moment that we’re sharing that I’m having, what is it giving me that I can take forward into the next moment?

Bill Berthel

Absolutely. So whether this becomes something to do around the Thanksgiving Day table, you could practice the stop process right there of gratitude. Stop gratitude right there. Could be a daily or fairly daily kind of ritual for you to think about. Where might I just take that strategic pause and notice things just a little bit differently?

Jeremiah Poulsen

Yeah. I can’t help but think of all the stop signs I hit along the road, you know, on any given day, commuting, either into work or around town. And I think I’ll take that challenge. As I’m driving around and I hit those stop signs. Maybe that’s my moment of stop gratitude practice, right?

Bill Berthel

I love it.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Even take a breath. It might piss off the people behind me in the road if I take a little bit too long. But, hey, I’m being grateful here.

Bill Berthel

Now, I can see you need a bumper sticker on your vehicle that says stop for gratitude.

Jeremiah Poulsen

There we go.

Bill Berthel

I don’t understand what you’re doing.

Jeremiah Poulsen

Can we put those for sale on the Emergent website?

Bill Berthel

That’s awesome. Hey, Jeremiah, thank you.

Jeremiah Poulsen

You’re welcome, man. It’s great conversation. Now I’m looking forward to more than just turkey and stuffing, and I don’t have to wait for it to stop and be grateful.

Bill Berthel

There you go. Thank you, folks, for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode and that you’re looking forward to more. You can listen to a new podcast two times every month here at Get Emergent or wherever you listen to your podcasts. And we hope you pick something up that you’re going to apply to your leadership and your work. Uh, let us know how it goes by reaching out to [email protected].

Thank you.