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Accomplish And Enjoy More By Being Grateful
When you first walk into a room containing lots of people you don't know, what thoughts go through your mind?
Stop a minute to review any such experiences you remember and jot down what those thoughts were.
In such social circumstances, some people are excited about the opportunities to meet new people and to enjoy time with people they already know.
Others look on with trepidation, concerned that others may be harsh with them.
Still others imagine having lots of fun.
Busy people may start thinking of excuses to leave.
Those who like to make an impression may stand a little straighter and make a noteworthy entrance.
People in sales begin sizing up the crowd for potential prospects.
And a few, just a very few, people will simply feel grateful to be alive and to experience whatever happens. In such gratitude are seeds of great accomplishments and enjoying life to the utmost.
Gratitude clears the mind of preconceptions to see the situation with an open and energetic perspective. For instance, a grateful person in a room full of strangers will be eager to listen and to offer help to anyone who needs it.
Now, think about the person you would most like to spend time with at such a gathering. I believe that you would enjoy the occasion most by being with a grateful person.
While those who look forward to being with you and having fun will certainly be entertaining, they usually won't make a deep and personal connection with you. Certainly those who are averse to the whole experience won't be much fun or very helpful. And anyone who is mainly interested in what other people can do for them can be a positive pain.
Having thought about the potential for gratitude to improve life for grateful people as well as others, let's examine what a lifetime of gratitude can do for you by considering a grateful person, Krisztian Fekete, Ph.D.
Dr. Fekete was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary as part of a loving family which lived in a pleasant part of the green belt. His family was proud of his grandfather's success as a physician. Everyone in the family gave him lots of love. Like many young men, Dr. Fekete enjoyed sports including swimming, tennis, and acrobatic diving. He also appreciated trips to Germany where he learned a second language.
You may be thinking that someone with such a nice life would find it easy to be grateful. Yet many young people just accept the good things of life as their due and become very self-centered.
That wasn't the case for Dr. Fekete. Part of the reason for his gratitude may lie in his family's severe financial difficulties when he was 16, which helped him understand that being materially well provided for shouldn't be assumed. As a result of those setbacks, he lost his loved ones and his life style. From then, his family became a heavy load to carry rather than a source of blessing.
As an adult, Dr. Fekete decided he wanted to repeat the best of his youthful experiences. That desire was combined with a yearning to learn. Knowing that he wanted to create a loving, secure environment and to learn more, you might imagine that he became an academic. If you drew that conclusion, you would be very mistaken.
Dr. Fekete was drawn instead to practical and spiritual learning. On the practical side he earned a bachelor's degree in computer science and became a software engineer. After three years, he started a successful software company and worked there as a software developer. Drawn to learn more, he later enrolled in the Open University and earned a Professional Diploma in Management.
From these entrepreneurial and educational experiences, he learned what makes a company operate smoothly and how to identify and solve company problems. This new knowledge made him eager to learn still more, in keeping with his philosophy that the benefits from whatever love and wisdom have been gained in life can never be lost.
In parallel to this practical learning, Dr. Fekete also began to look for role models and mentors, realizing that others had experience that could help him.
He read lots of biographies, joined the Club of Budapest International (an organization committed to creating a better future for all), and began corresponding with Patrick Byrne, Ph.D. who was then the CEO of Overstock, a company that sold excess inventory over the Internet at bargain prices. In Dr. Byrne, Dr. Fekete found a true Renaissance man.
Dr. Byrne advised him to learn about value investing, and Dr. Fekete began studying that investment discipline. As a result, Dr. Fekete's investing results were quite good, and he gained another way to improve his financial security.
The insights Dr. Fekete gained from earning the management diploma and his experiences in making investments encouraged him to work toward becoming a highly skilled international-value investor, and he enrolled in a doctoral program at Rushmore University.
Dr. Fekete did well in his studies and was encouraged to share his new knowledge. Soon, his articles about international value investing were being read around the globe.
From this new-found visibility and academic support, Dr. Fekete gained confidence that encouraged him to seek opportunities to serve the many investors who began to contact him. He therefore became a professional investor as well as an IT entrepreneur and software developer.
Inspired to share even more of what he had learned, Dr. Fekete soon completed a book, Inspiring Mix for Titans, which he intended to be an inspirational blessing for readers with high aspirations. He continues to seek more knowledge, currently as a student of metaphysics at Oxford University.
Dr. Fekete has gained much from what others have taught him and wishes to share some of that wisdom with you. Dr. Fekete kindly offered a few thoughts that were inspired by Dr. John F. Demartini (a philosopher and chiropractor) about how he gained this larger vision and greater inspiration for his life:
"I realized that my greatest gift is my mind. I decided to fill my mind with how I want to live my life instead of how I did not. Most people are concentrating on the weeds instead of the flowers, and they blame the world around them instead of taking command in their own life.
"Inspiration is key to this journey. There is a science to inspiration which is based in the science of gratitude. The ability to stay grateful opens up the heart.
"When we are not grateful, we life in fear and guilt. Fear follows from a negative assumption about the future. Guilt is a negative perception of memories."
What is the positive side of inspiration? It's vision:
"Most people don't know that if you want to make a difference in yourself and get beyond yourself, you require a vision at least as big as your family.
"If you want to make a difference in your family, you must have a vision and a calling at least as big as your community.
"If you want to make a difference in your community, you must have a vision and a calling as big as the city.
"If you want to make a difference in your city, you must have a vision and a calling as big as the nation.
"If you want to be a leader in the nation, you have to have a vision as big as the globe.
"But if you are like me and you desire to create a global vision, you have to have an astronomical vision.
"If the 'why' is big enough, the 'how' will take care of itself."
Are you grateful enough to have a heart that's open to a vision that's as large as your potential?
If not, be grateful for whatever thankfulness you already feel, and your gratitude will begin to grow to match your ability to be inspired and enjoy accomplishing.
About the Author Donald W. Mitchell is a professor at Rushmore University, an online school, where he advises many doctoral candidates seeking to make career breakthroughs. For more information about ways to engage in fruitful lifelong learning at Rushmore to increase your effectiveness and improve your career, visit http://www.rushmore.edu
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