Kay:

Hey Questers, welcome back to Gratitude Week. This is Tuesday, November 24th, and episode 232. We have a quote for you today from Henri-Frédéric Amiel and he says, “Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.”

Shi:

Now Henri was a Swiss moral philosopher, poet, and critic. So, you can see the beautiful prose here and the cyclical nature of what he’s referring to in this kind of thankfulness gratitude loop that can only help your life and build you up stronger. But I like this differentiation that he brings forward here and I think it’s a helpful one to consider as we get into this a week of really Thanks-giving,

Kay:

Well, when we were unpacking this quote I couldn’t help but feel like the distinction here was that thankfulness is almost like the tool, right? Thankfulness is the tool that you use to induce the emotion of gratitude, and what we know about emotions is that often emotions proceed action. So, if we’re going to put thankfulness into action, the intermediary emotion there that draws that action forward is gratitude. Thankfulness is a stepping stone, but it’s not the whole enchilada.

Shi:

Right? It’s bringing that extra dimension to it and thankfulness may consist merely of words. We’ve all said, you know, ‘thank you’ to someone who holds open a door.

Kay:

At the end of every email.

Kay and Shi:

Thanks.

Shi:

Right. And certainly, you feel thankful but moving that into a deeper expression of that feeling, bringing it into that gratitude is where we are really acting on that thankfulness and demonstrating gratitude through action. Maybe it’s more than putting things at the bottom of an email. It’s an entire email dedicated to your appreciation. Maybe it’s an actual thank you card. Maybe it’s sending a gift or a note or something. So, really taking that feeling and putting it into action.

Kay:

You know I even think about how gratitude can be expressed. Maybe in more of a social setting, like showing the gratitude for the dinner that was just cooked for you by hopping right up and helping with the dishes or saying a really hearty, thank you if somebody does something loving and making like eye contact – I know it’s awkward, but eye contact and saying thank you and maybe giving a nice smile too is so powerful. Sometimes slowing down long enough to experience that emotion of gratitude through the act of thankfulness can be something that can help you in steeping yourself in both of those three things.

Shi:

So, one of the actions that we have taken in order to demonstrate our gratitude for each and every one of you is we have created an eBook for you that is to help you quest your best. We want to help you quest to your best life and we’ve put together our five favorite tools in order to do that and put them in an eBook. So, if you go to kayandshi.com, you’ll be able to find that Quest for Best Quest Life eBook and it’s totally free, and we’re not trying to sell you something. Maybe we’re just trying to sell you on yourself and how you can better your life and really live that best life. But this is one way we wanted to move out of thankfulness and just saying, thank you and into the action of gratitude.

Kay:

Well, we have a lot of that emotion happening inside of us. The emotion of gratitude for what has transpired in this last year for how many of you are here supporting us here in the Mentorship Quest journey. So many of you are questing too and have reached out to us, let us know where you’re at in the journey. Some of you are listening first thing in the morning and getting these shots of inspiration from our wonderful quest guides as we go. But as a reminder, Henri-Frédéric Amiel, the Swiss moral philosopher, poet, and critic, in this beautiful prose reminds us that, “Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. That gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. That thankfulness may consist merely of words, but gratitude is shown in acts.”

Shi:

So, clearly we are going to help you move out of thankfulness and into gratitude in today’s quest. So, we want you to transform your thankfulness into gratitude by performing at least one act of appreciation today, and please know that we are thankful for you too. That act might just be a gratitude to yourself or to us, and go download that eBook at kayandshi.com. Are you ready?

Kay and Shi:

Let’s quest!