“Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgiving, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” ~William Arthur Ward

I know a lot of you are already snickering at the idea of gratitude running with the ranks of finance, operations and marketing. It’s not something we readily talk about as fundamentally important in business. Truth is, without gratitude, we would have no sustained growth. Short bursts of success often fire up with no gratitude attached, but they fail in time from an absence of good values at the foundation. Without gratitude, core teams fall away, culture diminishes and becomes stagnated and undesirable, innovation ceases and followers unfollow. Through history, we’ve seen shallow-seeded greatness fall for the lack of gratitude and respect time and time again. For teams to thrive, for people to connect and for the mind to be open to learning, we must practice and show thankfulness. Our business and personal lives collide, like it or not, and one affects the other. The ability to be grateful is key to life balance and happiness, and this transcends into business. If you haven’t considered the value of gratitude in your day-to-day I encourage you to give it some thought. 

Gratitude is at the core of vital principles needed for effective personal and business growth. Many are gracious people, some more than others, and show appreciation often. It’s just that gratitude isn’t top of mind as the engine that powers positive career and life development. If we gave it more thought and made it a practice to show gratitude in the workplace and life in general, I would contend that the benefit would reach from head to heart to pocketbook to the foundation we stand upon.

When your heart is full of gratitude and you put forth effort to show your gratitude, a few really great things happen:

• You feel absolutely awesome.
• When someone knows you are genuinely thankful for them, they feel absolutely awesome.
• When appreciation is shown to people or teams, they are motivated to do more of the same thing that created gratitude in the first place.
• You will feel inspired to grow, reach and do.
• You begin to become keenly aware of other things to be gracious for.
• You feel and show respect for purpose, people and position.

All of these things have a positive reciprocal effect on others, you, business and life. Good makes good. Yes, being grateful typically falls into Zen teaching and not so much business education. Times are changing, business is personal and happiness is serious business. If we learn to tap into the values that create good, solid people and bring a sense of life balance and happiness to work, we’ll see business success follow. By showing gratitude, you encourage others to do the same. Go ahead, it’s easy; show thanks for someone or something today and watch what happens.