Think gratitude is just writing down "I'm thankful for my husband" ten times and calling it a day? Same, Megan. Same. In this episode, Anna Stando—creator of My Gratitude Challenge—breaks down why most of us are doing gratitude wrong, why complaining might literally shrink your brain, and how to actually make this practice stick without feeling like a broken record.

What You'll Learn:

1. The two-part definition of gratitude that changes everything (hint: it's not all about you)
2. Why complaining is linked to Alzheimer's—yes, really
3. The 2-minute daily practice you can do while brushing your teeth
4. How to teach kids gratitude when they're growing up with more than you had
5. Why positive people still need to practice gratitude (looking at you, Megan)

Real Talk Moments: Megan opens up about her skepticism after years of failed gratitude journaling. Anna admits that complaining is basically a "national sport" in her Polish household. And Danna shares her parenting hack of starting every tough conversation with "I love you"—because she can't exactly say what she's really thinking.

Anna's Parting Wisdom: "You can't complain and be grateful at the same time."

Connect with Anna Stando: mygratitudechallenge.com

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Organilicious - Danna, Functional Medicine Health Coach

Hi, I'm Anna Stando and I am the creator of My gratitude Challenge.

I'm today's guest on the So Frickin' Healthy podcast.

Join us as we talk today about gratitude, all the different ways in which you

can practice gratitude every single day, how gratitude can make you more

resilient and how you can experience all of it in my gratitude challenge.

How's it going?

Good.

It's Friday.

I'm so happy.

I love recording on Fridays.

Actually.

I feel like the week's done now.

We can just have a nice conversation and shoot the shit.

So I was thinking the other day I was listening to a podcast that was talking

about a very dear movie to my heart.

And I'm curious, what's your favorite childhood movie?

I dunno if I can call it childhood, but definitely super young adulthood.

It would be Clue.

Clue.

Okay.

Like the movie, the, the movie based after the, the board game clue.

Have you seen it?

Yeah.

it's the best movie ever.

What, what did you like most about it?

I loved, first of all, I love, um, what's his name?

Tim?

No, uh,

Tim Curry,

Tim Curry.

I love him to pieces.

I mean, I will watch any movie with this guy.

He's just hilarious.

And so, you know, even Rocky horror picture show, I'm like best . Um,

but what I think what I loved about it, first of all, every single

character is just fucking hilarious.

Like they just nailed every single character.

And the fact that the, and this is not a spoiler, just

kind of like be ready for it.

I guess if you haven't watched it, watch it, but, um, it's got numerous endings.

So they, I don't know if you remember this.

I mean, I watched it lately with the kids again, cuz I was like, you guys have to

watch this and, and they loved it as well.

But the funny thing is that they showed you they're like, this is

the, this is what happened or did it, or maybe it happened this way

or maybe it happened that way.

So, so they kind of give you all the scenarios and that the way, way end of

course, like the, the end, but, um, but it is just so funny, so witty and so quick,

you know, mm-hmm and I just, I just find it just one of those hilarious movies.

So I really, if I had to choose one, I mean I could name probably 10 more, but

if I had to choose one of those probably.

Yeah.

Yeah.

What's yours.

Well, I would say it's, it's my favorite because it's my first movie that

I actually remember watching, which was little mermaid and it came up recently

because I was listening to a, a three part episode of revisionist history by, um,

am I gonna forget his name?

Don't lemme forget his name something.

Okay.

I'm so horrible.

I, I, oh, I had his name on the top of my list and then it's gone anyway.

Um, Maxwell son and Maxwell.

Okay.

You're gonna have to cut all this out while I figure, how

will I, what his name is.

Anyway, the point is, is that they kind of redid the little mermaid in kind of like

today's standard of like, they kind of analyze the whole movie about like losing

her voice and, and how this, I think it's a hands Christian Anderson, uh, based

book or is it another, you know, it's like an old, the little mermaid is like an old

fairy tale and it was based after this.

One of the, the author, I should have written us all down before we

started , but the author was gay closeted of course, in the, whatever,

the 18 hundreds, whenever you wrote it.

Right.

And, and little mermaid was about him.

Reaching out to another guy who he thought had mutual feelings and the

guy rebuffed him and he felt like he lost his voice and this kind of thing.

So it was like little mermaid was like, based on this thing.

I love that.

I've never heard that before.

Yeah.

I mean, you have to listen to the episodes cause obviously I don't do it.

Justice, Malcolm Gladwell, fucking a Malcolm Gladwell.

Thank you very much people.

I found it in my punch bowl anyway.

So then they, he hired, well hired a strong word.

They got Jody foster, they got your, uh, favorite armchair expert.

Um, D yes, D shepherd played the prince and they did an audio version

of like just the ending of the movie.

They redid the whole thing.

So it was just, it was really one really nice.

It was such a deep dive into a childhood movie that I just took kind of for

granted, but then he did such a great job of also telling the back story and

then also reimagining this whole thing.

So it was just quite an experience and it kind of brought the little

mermaid back, but, uh, yeah.

So that's my favorite childhood movie.

That's funny.

Yeah.

I mean, that's, that's what I meant, cuz I was like, oh I could name so many kind

of Disney things and, and, and movies and characters and stuff like that.

Cause I lived off of Disney.

I mean I would come home to my grandparents' house and they would

sit that's how I learned English.

That's why I actually spoke like Tweety bird for like the first

year of my life in America.

Um, but I would literally just sit there and watch like all the, the

Warner brothers and, and everything mm-hmm and of course then the movies

were just like, I grew up like, and like all of these, but I think

there's always this like one movie.

Where you kind of go, like, you gotta watch this.

This is the funniest thing ever, you know, or this is the, this

will blow your mind memento.

That was a mind blowing movie.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I remember watching that one and going.

What the hell did I just watch . Yeah, but if I had to pick one movie that I

would watch over and over again, not little, mermaid's not bad because it's

a singing, you know, it's a musical and I like to sing, so I could do that one.

But princess bride is my very, very close second.

Yes, because it's got the funny, it's got the romance, it's got everything in it.

And I mean, it is just so good.

And unfortunately I think the generation we have now that are so

used to like all of these very extreme action sequences or this very extreme

romance, like it doesn't, I'm not sure if it translates as well now to.

The kids now.

Well, so the, this is the trick that I did because I was, you know, me,

I'm, I'm a, I'm a, such an annoying mom.

I mean, like, I really am, my kids didn't get to watch anything.

And if it, if they did, then it was very short and it was in

English and it was not dubbed.

And it, you know, I had my, like, this is the way my kids were gonna grow, grow up.

And so what I did was I, they first watched the old school movies.

Ah, and now we're kind of getting now that they, you know, have control over

the remote and they watch whatever they want or, or they kind of talk to

friends and they find out about all the Avengers and all the like big ass movies.

But we started them off with like back to the future, one, two and three night at

the museum, all the night of the museum ones, you know, like, so we, we made sure

to get them and of course, princess bride.

So we made sure, oh my kid, oh my little one.

When he screams, remember in the torture chamber, When he's being

like pulled and he screams my little one, like started crying.

He was like, oh my God, what the hell?

Like it was that, but, but that's because it's so close to reality versus like

watching Avengers or something like that.

And you're like, wow, well that was obviously computer automated, you know?

So I think it it's.

Yeah, like there's pluses and minuses with these videos, but I think that

they now get to enjoy the old movies because we kind of introduce those first

that's a good strategy.

All right.

So today we have Anna AA, Anna.

She actually spells her name a N N a or N a a N I

a. And she promised me that.

You'll explain why that is.

Hey, Anna, how's it going?

Hi Danna.

Hi, Megan.

All good.

How are you?

We're good.

We're good.

We're super excited to have you on board today.

No, I'm super grateful that she's with us today.

nice.

Nice.

Well done.

Well, I am super grateful to be here as well, and very

excited to be one of your guests.

Now.

I, uh, very much enjoy listening to the previous episodes, uh, learning a lot.

So yeah, it's, it's fun to be now.

One of your guests.

Great.

So you're joining us.

First of all, we were commenting before how to pronounce your name correctly.

Can we go ahead and start with that?

Because I wanna start on a good note.

Mm-hmm yeah.

So I am known as Anna Sando, I'm known like this here in Switzerland

and any other country that is not Poland because in Poland, I'm

mostly known as Stan or as AYA.

So AYA is the very casual version of my name.

And Ana is the one that really goes on certificates and, you know, in school and

when you're in trouble, perhaps, or when you're leading a major bank or something

like this, and they're gonna call you with your full, proper, uh, name, Ms.

Astan, you know, the CEO, something, something.

Um, but other than that, it's the casual version.

Well, so now we know so much more about you.

We know that you're from Poland, but you're living in Switzerland right now.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

And so we're all experiencing the same weather and cool.

So in same time zone, everything's now coming together,

the stars are aligned

So we're here to talk about gratitude and your business,

mission, calling is gratitude.

And the first question I have is can you maybe just explain a little bit

about gratitude in general and how you stumbled into this or how it affected

your life in, in a way that's veered you into this path that you're in right now?

Mm-hmm yeah, sure.

Happy to.

Yeah.

So, you know, when you ask people around, you know, are you grateful?

I think the majority of us are going to say, yeah, of course I say, thank

you when it's due, you know, and I am aware of all the good things in my life.

And, that, you know, I would describe myself for many years

as well, but the truth is, this gratitude is often superficial.

And, and there is a, there is a way to deepen our level of gratitude.

And I stumbled across gratitude, two years ago I was pregnant

with my second child and, it was during COVID, in autumn, winter.

And the world was a very scary place, obviously due to the coronavirus pandemic.

I wasn't really sure how this was going to affect the pregnancy delivery of my baby.

You know, family visiting or, or not also, it was winter, right?

Cold, rainy.

We were in the lockdown.

So spending a lot of time on our own feeling, heavy in pain often.

And then there were the US elections that for some reasons were affecting me.

Quite significantly as well.

So I felt really dragged down into like kind of a negative spiral.

Right.

I spent a lot of time reading news and you know, about the doom and gloom

in the world and, and it, it, yeah.

I wasn't feeling very well.

I mean, it was nothing, you know, nothing major, nothing, nothing huge.

But I felt that I was tired of myself as well.

And, you know, some days I would just like sit and cry and I

wouldn't understand why this.

And a friend of mine came across a book about gratitude and spontaneously

she suggested that we would try it.

And I had another friend who I thought would be interested in doing that as well.

So I created like little group for the three of us to practice together.

And I was so impressed by how much positive impact it had on my day, if I

was sometimes really forcing myself to be grateful, because on some days, you

know, you, you get up, you're tired.

You, you ache, everything is wrong.

You read the news, right.

And, Yeah, and it really didn't feel like there was something I

wanted to be grateful for, but even if, when I made myself right.

And sometimes it was difficult, I really could feel my mood lifting.

I could, you know, I would smile a little bit.

It would give me the energy to get out of bed.

Even if it was just for a few hours, I would, I would really feel

physically, better and motivated to do something with my with my day.

So that's how I start.

That's how I kind of, yeah.

Started practicing gratitude in a, in a more structured way.

I love that.

I actually went through something very similar, well, similar is

wrong because there's nothing similar to COVID and being pregnant

through COVID and the us election.

So I'm gonna take that back.

But it was probably about 10 years ago, I had two kids very, very close in age.

So they're they're 15 months.

And some of the listeners already know this story, but I was just

super depressed, overweight pain from head to toe, just I was in, in the

worst shape of my life, emotionally, physically, mentally and everything.

And my husband back then actually had that idea, or probably heard that somewhere

where we should just do like a gratitude diary and just write down three things

that we are thankful for that happened during the day mm-hmm . And so we started

that together on a holiday actually, where the boys were just driving us insane.

And we're like, oh my God, what have we done?

And we started it then.

And I just remember it's making the holiday even a little bit more bearable

with two tiny kids who just did not do what you wanted them to do, obviously.

So, yeah.

And I think we've been practicing it actually ever since.

So I love that it is doable when you're not already on a positive.

Kind of space, right?

Mm-hmm because sometimes it's so, so hard for yourself, for you to pick yourself

up off the floor and just kind of go like, you know what, I can't do this.

And, and then really that it, that to, to prove that it actually does work.

Mm-hmm, when you're not necessarily in your best kind of

head space, you know what I mean?

Yeah, absolutely.

I think it's remarkable that such a relatively simple thing.

You know, it doesn't cost anything.

It doesn't take a lot of time.

You can do it any place.

Any time you can do it out loud, you can do it on your own in your head.

You can do it when you're standing in a queue.

You can do it when you're changing the 10th nappy full of poo,

and it works every, every time.

And sometimes I start by you know, being quite ironic about it, right.

It's if I'm really having a tough day and, and then I notice that I'm

going down this negative spiral again.

Uh, am I start by saying, oh, I'm so grateful that my child vomits

on me just a little bit, you know, remember the other time when,

when she vomited of me, like, you know, completely, or I'm so grateful,

it's just a vomit and not a poo-nami.

Right.

Just so true starting there.

And then, you know, you make yourself smile with it and, and then yeah,

but we started really quite deep.

Right.

And, and the topic of kind of gratitude and resilient is, is very

dear to my heart and, and how it can help us to get through difficulties.

So I would love to come back in a minute, but you, but I just

remembered that you asked me as well, what is actually gratitude, right?

Because I think we have all assumptions about what is, is gratitude, right?

In simple words is, you know, feeling thankful, right?

And, and there is a definition by Robert Emmons who is really

expert in the, in the topic.

And I really like it because it has two elements.

So he said that he says that on one hand being grateful is acknowledging that

there are good things in our lives, right?

So that's one knowing and acknowledging that there are good things in our lives.

And that's often that is maybe easier for us than, than the second part.

Cause in the second part, he says that it's also recognizing

that at least part of that good comes from outside of ourselves.

That we don't have everything in our hands that, you know, we have benefited from

people's health help or circumstances.

And obviously that's difficult for some of us especially in our culture

of believing that self-made is, is best and, and a lot of different

things and attitudes around gratitude.

Right.

That I'm also happy to tell you more about, right.

Why, why is it difficult to be grateful, but, but coming back to

that definition, right, it really has kind of two elements, right?

Acknowledging that there are good things.

And recognizing that we have benefited right from circumstances and people

who have helped us, to be where we are now, how do you feel about it?

I agree.

I think I'm just skeptic because I've tried and

failed so many times at this.

You know, I've tried doing gratefulness or gratitude log or whatnot.

And I find it difficult one because I don't, I'm a relatively

positive person in general.

I don't have a quite negative view on a lot of things.

I don't like the feeling when I have a negative view or pessimistic, so

I'm quite optimistic most of the time.

And then I find myself going, I'm thankful for my husband.

I'm thankful for the apartment that I'm living in.

I'm for the job that I have.

I'm thankful that my parents are still alive.

I'm thankful that I have means to go home.

I mean, and I felt like I repeated like the same 10 things again and

again and again, and in, and then I was like, well, it's not really

doing much for, for me this way.

And so that's why I'm a little skeptical because it seems like for some people,

I don't know if it comes so easily or if I was just doing it wrong.

So those two things I'm generally positive.

So I'm not like.

In that negative mindset and then not really like being able to

identify more than 10 things in my life that I'm actually grateful for.

So maybe you could help me out here with your expertise.

And like, I'm sure you've met people like me.

So what's.

Well, what's, what's wrong with me?

How come I can't be grateful?

There is nothing wrong with you and I

wait, wait, sorry.

Stop.

No, you don't know her well enough.

There's a lot wrong with Megan.

Okay.

Take a,

okay.

We'll let you go with that one.

Okay.

Well, yeah, help me out here.

What can I do differently?

Well, so first of all, I believe that we, when we are feeling positive,

gratitude comes naturally to us.

So I feel you probably are grateful quite naturally when you are in your

happy state, because when we are feeling positive, it's because we have had great

experiences because we are with people that we love, because , we have fulfilling

jobs and we just have a nice date.

And then it's easy, you know, to radiate that energy of, of happiness

and tier four, you know, if you.

If you weren't grateful, even if you're not saying to yourself consciously in

your head, I'm really grateful that I have had such a fantastic day today.

You must have been grateful for those experiences in order to feel so happy.

Okay.

So I'm just, I'm a superhero at gratitude

you are, you know, a gratitude junkie who just, does it unconsciously

give some more of that good feeling?

Yeah,

no.

So I think that one, right when we are in a, in a good state, of mind when we

are happy, It is because we recognize that there are good things in our lives, right?

This is this, this, this part, one of definition.

If those old things were happening in your life and you were unhappy, then it

would mean that you are ungrateful, right?

Because you are not, you're not recognizing those

good things in your life.

Yeah, actually, that's the one thing that pisses me off a

lot is when people are complaining

and their life is from the outside.

Pretty good.

You know what I mean?

I'm just thinking like, why are you bitching and moaning about this stuff?

I mean, like you're in Switzerland and you have a job.

I mean, sorry, that these are two really amazing things to start

with, but, and maybe I try not to judge too much because obviously

you don't know everyone's situation.

You don't know what their past, you don't know what they're dealing

with, but I feel like somehow.

that's also coloring how I see other people when they complain

about things that I'm thinking, why are you complaining about this?

So maybe that's also an add-on effect of having this generally

positive outlook in life.

And, and I, I am grateful that I have not had any kind of major

issues in my life, major problems.

I haven't had to overcome superhuman things and change my whole life

because of medical issues or accidents or anything like that.

And so I can definitely see for some people who have those things, that

they, it might be more difficult because they've had a huge negative,

something happened in their life.

And they're working back to understanding maybe how that

negative turning that negative experience into something positive.

What did we learn from it?

You know, you see this a lot with, you know, people who have amputees,

for example, that's a very visual implication of something that has

happened negatively, but now they.

A platform to talk on or they have something else.

I also feel like I've never had such a big thing to overcom come, so I'm

not you thank God for them, right?

Yes, exactly.

I mean, but it also means like, okay, well, yeah, I'm thankful for that.

I have a bookcase.

no.

About the complaining, right?

Uh, oh God.

Yeah.

It's such a disease.

I'm gonna complain and complain.

And now I think there are already some studies that show that it, it has a really

negative impact on your brain and it can actually even lead to Alzheimer's.

So that's one good reason to stop complaining.

And I must admit that it's hard for me as well.

And, I come from a culture and a household where complaining is a national sport.

You know, we, we love to, outdo ourselves or who has it, who has

a worse, I have come a long way and yet, sometimes I still, you

know, catch by stop complaining.

So mm-hmm and, and complaining is a sign of not being grateful.

Right.

You can't complain and be grateful at the same time.

So, yeah.

Coming back to, to what you said about, you know, can I be grateful for my

bookcase and, you know, I'm grateful for the same 10 things, all the time.

Yeah.

It's, by all means it's all, it's, it's all good, whatever it is that

makes you, you know, happy what makes your life easier or happier

are good things to be grateful for.

And it's good to, so, you know, if you were to kind of try it in a little bit

different way is to always try to make a list of kind of the bigger things in

your life and the smaller things, and the bigger things are, you know, like

you said, your, your husband, right.

And having a job and a nice place to leave or whatever it is, it is true

for your situations for your situation.

And those things should keep coming back in your gratitude list.

Because one of the biggest obstacles to practicing gratitude

is that we start to take the good things in our lives for granted.

Mm, and that's the danger, right?

And we know that, you know, we will take our partners for granted that can have a

very negative effect on our relationship.

And, when we take everything for granted, when we have this

sense of entitlement, right.

And nothing really brings us joy anymore.

And our life starts to feel quite, quite empty.

And, looking at the smaller things right.

Is also very important.

So a good way, you know, to do that is to look at your day, you know, what

are the small things that happened and being grateful for objects is fine.

And I, you know, there are so many things that are objects that I am grateful for.

And every day I'm thinking, okay, what if I didn't have a laptop or my laptop broke?

How would we do this podcast now?

I mean, you know, I would probably spend a lot of time stressing about it, right.

Going, right.

Trying to, you know, repair it or buying a new one, spending lots

of money and so on and so on.

So.

One trick that's gonna help to appreciate the, the kind of physical objects

is to imagine life without them.

Right.

How would it be not to have them.

And then I, I very much believe in kind of feeling gratitude, right?

So just going rationally through the list of things is probably

not gonna do much for you as you, as you said, by gratitude diary.

What, what Dana was saying has been proven to really have a very positive

impact on, on people's lives, because there is this, you know, head pen,

connection, and writing really helps us to make sense of our lives.

And it helps to kind of cement what we are appreciating.

And it helps to build that cushion that we can fall up on when things go wrong.

Right?

And that's again, a kind of a metaphor that, that Robert Emmons he's using a lot

and writing also makes you to slow down.

Right.

So if you really sit down and, write down the stuff, and if you go beyond,

I am thankful for my bookcase, but you add, you know, the second part,

I am grateful for it because it makes you to really think about it, right?

Why is it?

It's a trivial example, but when you actually write out,

why are you grateful for that?

Or are you grateful, your husband, are you grateful for the sunny day today?

And then it goes deeper in your heart.

And, and yeah, I believe the gratitude really starts to work when you

feel your heart kind of swelling with emotion with, with warmth.

And, and then you know that you have done it and.

Yeah.

If I can, one more thing is kind of to take some time for it, right?

So there's just going quickly for your list, especially when you have, you

know, difficulties at the beginning.

It's not enough, but if you can take know 10, 20 minutes, actually sit down,

write down, don't forget to include them because imagine life without

those things, then it helps to kind of shift perspective a little bit.

And hopefully your heart will open up just a little bit more

to, to appreciate, but also don't beat yourself up about it, right?

If you are happy, if you see all the good things in your life, then it means that

you are grateful and there is no need to kind of force yourself to yeah create

practice that doesn't feel natural to you.

Yeah.

This is something that I also have a lot of clients come up to me and

they're maybe experiencing like anxiety, depression and things like that.

And so I always talk to them about gratitude because I think that's something

that really made a huge shift in my life.

And I think it is super helpful for others as well.

And a couple of things that I always say is that one is, you know, something

that I kind of started doing as well with my family, cuz you know, being

in a household with three guys.

It's rough, man.

It's rough.

It really is.

And now they're pre-teens well they're teens, but they, you know, they

don't, they don't want me to say that.

So they're, pre-teens, they don't give a shit about what I say.

Like I'm talking to the walls practically the whole time.

So when I kind of, when I'm standing in the room and I feel just aggravated

with the situation with husband, kids, whatever, the first thing that I do,

of course, after, after just taking a deep breath is I'll just look at them.

And the first thing that I say out loud is I love you, right?

Ah, yes.

I heard about it on the episode.

Yeah.

And so the nice thing about it is that, like, it reminds me why

I'm even in the space with these creatures that I cannot stand.

Right.

So that already kind of brings up the gratitude to begin with.

Cause I do love them.

I don't like them personally sometimes, but I love them.

Right.

So it kind of brings me closer to like, what am I, what am I doing here?

Like, what's the, the, because right.

That Anna that you were talking about is that because like, okay,

I'm here, I'm trying to deal with you because I love you.

And because I'm stuck with you for the rest of my life,

so I might as well do this.

Right.

And so that's kind of that, that one thing that comes to mind and, and also

something that I, that I talked with my clients about is, and maybe Megan,

something that you can can think about.

I don't know.

I know what you think about this idea is to look at past experiences.

That are not necessarily positive ones and to find what you're

grateful for within or, or like what positive came out of that situation.

Right.

So I don't know, this guy broke up with me and da, da, and you're

sitting there all like miserable.

And then you're like, okay, what is the positive that came out of that?

Is that I, I don't know.

Now my relationship with my husband is much better because I

learned how to communicate better.

I learned whatever, right?

This is just one of, of many, but I had clients who came up to be with like,

just the shittiest life, you know, CV of life in the last like year or two.

And they're like, how am I supposed to say that I'm grateful for losing both

my parents losing the love of my life.

Like a list of things.

And I'm like, you know what?

It's not easy.

It's not, it's not meant to be easy.

Right.

If it's easy, like you said, and like, if it's easy, then, then

you're grateful and it's great, but.

The shift that it does in your life and in what you see and what comes to you, like

the energy that comes towards you when you're complaining, like Megan was talking

about the people that just constantly complain, they will, that shift will

keep coming at them like flies, you know?

And when you shift that mindset and you're like, my life hasn't

changed at all, I just change it.

I shifted my, my mindset mm-hmm and therefore, now I'm actually seeing the

more positive, so I will be grateful even on that list I will write.

Okay.

I'm grateful that I saw a teenager get up and let an old person sit on the, on the.

Right.

For me, that's heartwarming for me.

That's something that needs to happen more.

And it was beautiful, especially in Switzerland, it's not happening

enough, but it needs to happen more.

And it's something that I saw that was beautiful that made my heart grow.

And so that goes on the list.

So I don't think it has to be something that is specifically about you for you.

We can remove the ego out of it and just look around and grab

onto those positives and just be grateful for those mm-hmm yes.

Oh my God, you brought so many interesting things.

I don't know where to begin to comment.

But maybe with the end then.

Yeah, absolutely.

It doesn't have to be all about you always.

Right.

And, Megan, don't feel kind of put on the spot is to you, to you

Megan, and to everybody who is listening, who is thinking sometimes,

you know, what is this about.

Yeah.

As, as Dana said, kind of acknowledging all the good things that are

happening in the world, right.

It's just holding on to them just a little bit longer, rather

than let them fly by without, you know, a moment of appreciation.

It has really a very positive impact on, on, on your life.

And yeah, we know that, right.

That what, what the brain does a lot, the brain gets good at,

and it means that we can actually rewire our brain towards positivity

or towards even more positivity.

If this is already going well, the, the silver lining, right.

That you mentioned Dana.

Yeah, I think so, so important.

And I think it's, I it's important as well to recognize that,

you know, gratitude is not.

A tool that kind of erases the negative experiences or a tool that minimizes

the, the negative experiences, because that's often what people think as

well that, I have had quite a few interesting conversation on the topic

where people tell me nobody it's important to, you know, recognize all

your emotions, go through that emotional thermal work through them and release

them because just, you know, putting them at the back of your head yeah.

Is going to, uh, uh, how you say it backfire.

Backfire.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And I completely subscribe to that.

Right.

I, I totally believe that we need to fill into our emotions, our

feelings, and it's okay to be angry and it's okay to cry and it's okay.

You know, to feel ashamed.

It's okay to feel disappointed.

And it's, it's absolutely necessary to work through all those feelings.

And then it's also absolutely necessary to release them at certain point because,

yeah, that's just going to be better for our, you know, mental and physical

health and, and gratitude is just one, you know, it's not the kind of the

magic pill that does, it, does it all for you, but it's just one of those.

Easy to apply easy to start with tools that can help you to get

through a negative experience, because it it's a counterbalance, right?

When there is something really wrong in your life and you keep

practicing gratitude, then you know, it can level a little bit of things.

You can, you can still know that, okay.

That this is really bad.

This is unfair.

It shouldn't have happened.

And I still have all those good things that I can be, grateful for

and just shifted that perspective.

Right.

It makes you sometimes realize that you have still things to live for, right.

That there is hope,

you know, I grew up in a Christian household mm-hmm In the

Midwest in the Bible belt, in the us

And as we're talking, what I'm realizing is that a lot of what you're talking

about in terms of gratitude shows up in religion and I don't know other religions,

so I can't speak to other religions.

I just know Christianity decently.

And like, for example, praying, you know, we always prayed before, before

we ate giving thanks for the food.

I'm just thinking, oh, that that was simple gratitude, we didn't

really call it this, right.

The whole like gratitude movement, like really focusing on it has

come in the last, you know, couple years, decade or whatever.

But I feel like a, probably gratitude is baked into a lot of

different religions in a way that they do it to be grateful for this.

And also like same thing with the negative things happening.

Right.

God's got a plan.

There's something here I will learn from this.

This is something that maybe even I won't learn from it, but somebody else will take

something away from my pain in this point.

And that's part of this, you know, God's plan.

And I feel like that's all baked into religion.

So I feel like probably I did do a lot of gratitude when I was growing up and

I grew up very poor household growing up and we always, always had food and

clothes and house, so it was nothing like destitute and I, I definitely had a very

good childhood, but I, we weren't taking, you know, extravagant family vacations

or we didn't have a pool in the backyard.

You know, we had cows and a sandbox.

And so we learned to play with what we had, but it was more of like a

natural, like, this is what we have.

So I feel like maybe that's also, when you come from having less.

To having more, you naturally feel more grateful.

And maybe those people who have generally been born with a silver spoon in their

mouth and have always had everything they've needed, goes back to what you

were saying is that they just take it for granted that that's the way life

is that you know, that they will go to the best Ivy league school or they

will get the best job because of this.

And because of that, and you know, kind of this, the social and

economical class that they're in, provides them with more opportunities.

But they don't even realize that those are the opportunities they have, because

they've always had them this kind of, I know we, we, we just took a big left

turn, but I, I feel like that's what I, when I was listening to both of

you, that's what I was getting out of this is that maybe that's the reason

why I'm feeling so grateful because I make more money in Switzerland than I

need and I'm have a wonderful place.

And so, you know, it's like, and I also came from a wonderful family.

It's a, yeah, I think it's, some people are just blessed with that

kind of attitude and other people unfortunately never get to learn it

or have to learn it because they've never been in a situation where they've

gone from a, let's say a less cushy situation to a more cushy situation.

Mm-hmm , I mean, I also see it, the other way around as

well with people where, you know, they've lived an okay life, but

something just shook their world.

Right.

And when something shakes your world, depending on your situation,

you could take it lightly in a way you could take it positively.

Or you could be like, whoa, what the fuck?

Like, and that shake can really put you in that funk of negativity

of like, why is everything shitty happening to me right now?

Which will inevitably bring more shit, right.

Or you can really kind of go like, okay, I acknowledge this feeling, but, or, and

if you wanna keep it to a positive, right.

But I think every individual will see it in a different way and

have different things happen.

Some people fall into depression because physiologically they're missing certain

nutrients like they're not balanced within themselves, like physically.

And so that could also lead to negative thinking and that could lead to, again,

we can catch it, nip it in the head, or we can kind of roll with it and write that

negativity wave, which will then bring more negativity to your life, I guess.

So like I see your point, but I think, I think it could be,

I think it could be any, any situation and any person, you know,

Yeah.

I think many people have indeed like a wake up moment, right.

They either go for something difficult or they have gone for something difficult,

a disease, for example, mm-hmm right.

And then they come out and they say, oh my God, it was a close call.

Right.

I am I've I've now appreciated a little bit more what I have it's exactly what

Meghan was talking about at the beginning.

Right.

That you didn't need to overcome any major, you know, life threatening diseases

and similar, but for some people it's that moment for some other people who are aware

a little bit more aware that they have it.

Well, I see, you know, I see them often volunteering because they,

they say, okay, I need to put those things into perspective.

And I know really, quite a few, most extraordinary people who

have had it really, really well, but who were brought up right.

In a way to say, okay, we are lucky.

And then again, this is recognizing that part of that lack is

outside of their control, right?

That it's not, they've all made that, fortune or whatever, just on their own.

And they, you know, just, you know, super intelligent and

the best people on the planet.

And of course it, you know, they deserve this, but they tell others,

we are lucky and they volunteer, they volunteer by their either, you

know, going to volunteering, going to, refugee camps, volunteering for

some organization collecting money.

And I think that's a great way kind of to put your own situation in perspective.

And this is something that, worries me as well.

And my partner, we can talk about, you know, the fact that we also kind of came

from less and then it to refer it more natural for us to appreciate that, that

luck that prosperity here in Switzerland, the beautiful mountains, right?

The security on the street.

Right.

You name it, but how are we going to teach our children?

You know, not to, I think in his words is how to not to turn into,

self absorb, brass breadth, you know?

Yes, exactly.

It like, how do you wanna make sure that they also kind of appreciate those

things because they are being for us, the life that they are living is yeah.

A life of a silver spoon.

You know, we just had birthday for our son.

Right.

And, the amount of gifts, right.

From not from us necessarily right from us also was, a big

gift, but then from friends and family and so it just kept coming.

Right.

And it was wonderful.

And, and, and very often we already thinking about, okay,

what, what can we do, right.

How are we gonna ensure that they know what they've got?

And it's not a standard.

Yeah.

I don't know.

Danna, how do you do that at home?

I am not the best parent

um,

when you start every argument with you with, I love you.

So that's a good, you know, and not every child is blessed to have, you know, kind,

I mean, I can't just be like, I really wanna punch you in the

face every single time, you know?

So what we noticed is that we are the same, so we both were brought up.

Okay.

I was a little princess at home.

I don't know if it was like material wise, but I was a princess.

I was the first born of two first borns of a big family.

So I was just treated as the princess for six, the first six years of my

life until my sister came along.

So I was spoiled, run run really.

I'm quite surprised at how well it turned out comparably . Um,

but then my husband was growing up to like, his dad was a musician.

His mom was a nurse, like very, very humble life, you know, very

kind of small like materials, weren.

Wasn't like big gifts or anything like that.

And then we met and we were like, okay, we wanna give the kids what we never had.

Right.

So as parents, we always kind of say like, we wanna give them more.

But at the same time we realized that they lose, how should I say this?

Like, it just means nothing to them at the end.

Like it's yet another gift and they play with it for five minutes and

they put it aside and then it's done.

Or they play just with a box at a certain age.

Right.

And it doesn't mean anything.

So what we actually started doing is switching to experiences.

So we're having experiences and, and a gift is an experience

rather than like here's another Lego set and here's another shoe.

And here's another way mm-hmm

But I have to say, we have both at home, like we have a kid who can probably live

off of like, Bread and water if I gave him bread, which I don't but like literally,

like he would be like on nothing and he's super grateful for everything.

And then the other one's like, I need the newest Nikes and I need

the hottest shoes and the hottest pants and the hottest, this and that.

And so he's a little princess on his own.

And so for him, the experience is nice, but it's not, you know, you have to think

a little bit outside the box for him.

So he's getting bunnies for his upcoming birthday, because

we figured it's an experience.

Yes.

But it's also responsibility.

So for him, it's a little bit harder to kinda like dig

through and, and figure it out.

But, well, I hope I, and I think that's how it's gonna turn

out the long term as an adult, he's gonna look back at all those

experiences and he's gonna realize.

That they matter more than the shoes right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That how much effort you put into creating a fun memories and, and what

kind of a privileged life he has had to be able to have those experiences, but

also to have really parents who care.

Right.

And who put so much effort and time to actually organize

something that is memorable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, you always hope that with kids.

I will say this with every episode.

I think Megan's like sick and tired of me saying it, but like parenting

is the hardest job ever and it's.

Not as rewarding as people tell you, it is right.

It's, it's not, , it's great when they're asleep and they're beautiful.

Right.

Or when they hug you and then they kiss you and they tell you how pretty you are.

That's awesome.

But that's like 1% of the day, really like the let's get really, the

rest is like chasing after them and making sure they don't make the sofa

black and, and don't kill themselves on the road and all these things.

So it's a very exhausting job.

But I think that at the end of the day, we, as parents have to come

up with how to show them the real world without overwhelming them.

Right.

So what we did was take them to volunteer for Ukraine.

For example, we always volunteer.

We give things, we try to kind of get them involved in that.

And I think that's helpful.

Without actually sitting them down in front of the news as they used to do

with me, where in Israel, it's like a thing where the news are on from seven

in the morning until until 10 at night.

And that was a little bit too much.

Like it's a bit too much, especially for kids who are growing up, like

wallflowers here in Switzerland.

But I think that that's really important.

And I think that really just kind of putting more, more value

to experiences than to material things, which will therefore make

them appreciate these things more.

Right.

Appreciate going out my kids.

If I take them, if I go like, let's go into the supermarket, like, like a fancier

supermarket Miros, doesn't do it for them.

But like AUA, let's walk into AUA together and they're like, oh my God.

And they'll walk in there and they'll look at every, all the ingredients with me

and they'll choose whatever they is cool and they'll walk out and often they'll

be like, this is the best day ever.

And I'm like, I love you.

Like now I genuinely love you because this was so it's totally rewarding.

Yeah.

yeah, exactly.

Instead of me thinking like, what museum should I take them?

And this one's stupid expensive, and then you have to chase them.

Then both are going in different directions.

And you're like, oh my God, I lost my kids in a split second.

You know, it's funny that way, but like, I think the, the

time that we spent with them.

The, the quality versus quantity, right?

Like the time that we spend with them, the things that we do with them, the,

the education that we provide to them, I think that's so much more valuable.

And I think they don't maybe at a certain age, they don't necessarily see it.

Cuz they see my friend got a Barbie and I didn't, but when the time

comes, when their parents or when they're like young adults, they,

they do learn to, to value it.

So it might not be rewarding in the, in the moment.

But I think I see it now with my parents too.

I'm like, wow, you guys I didn't think you did a good job, but yeah.

You're okay.

Yeah.

That's one of my boyfriend says often as well about his parents

and he's got three sisters and every year they would go for a big holiday.

And it would be really a stretch, a financial, you know, four children, right.

For four children, right.

To go anywhere is already, you know, an effort.

So for a whole year, basically, that would be saving up for those experiences.

Right.

So it would, it may mean that the every day wouldn't be perfect, perhaps the funds

see dresses and, and so on, but ultimately they would have those holidays and, okay.

It's only two weeks, you may say, only out of the entire year, it's not

that they had horrible lives right.

For a year, but they weren't getting the, the latest gadgets, but then

they had those holidays and now they have those memories and those

pictures and they just, just love it.

Yeah.

I think that the nice thing to do as a parent is to for you, even Anna, after,

after your kid had a birthday, how old is.

Three

Okay.

So that's already a good time to ask what did you enjoy the most from your birthday?

You would think he'd be like, oh yeah.

Was that , Lego said or robot or this or that, or dinosaur that I got, but

he will most likely tell you, like how you made the cake together or how there

was this time that you did something.

That's what they actually remember.

And that's the nice thing about it.

That's when it clicks,

what he remembers is the sparkler, the candle that fully

traumatized him and he hit at the table.

So it's really this example of negativity bias of focusing on

that one thing that wasn't perfect.

oh, he was really over in a fire fire fire.

Right.

And he hit on, this is scary.

Which was really quite funny for us to watch.

He came out only when the fire was gone.

But the one thing that we do often is asking ourself, what is the best

thing that happened today, right.

And that you can do that with your partner, with your friend

with your children as well.

And, and obviously now he still, he starts to get the concept right.

As he's learning speech and so on.

Yeah.

But with my partner, we do that very often right.

Just before going to sleep.

So what's the best thing that happened today and thought, Ooh, right.

And then you start to list all the good things that happened in a day

while you are trying to come up with that one good thing that happened.

And you end up on a really good note, you say, Hey, that

was actually a very good day.

So.

Yeah.

So, so, you know, Megan and everybody else who's listening and

thinking, oh, is so complicated.

Was that fuss about, or how to do it properly?

You know, just like asking yourself in it.

What's the best thing that happened today is an expression of gratitude.

And your mental health and your physical health will be

grateful for you doing that.

I am curious from a scientific point of view, cuz you mentioned this on

your website and you talk about how it's science based data about how practicing

gratitude can improve your wellbeing.

Mm-hmm could you maybe dive into this a little bit?

What kind of research has been done?

Like for example, I know stress levels can be measured in the body with certain

hormones and you know, it can be actually measured because of the different

chemicals that are going on in your body.

So do you feel comfortable talking a little bit about the science behind it?

Yes.

So.

I think what exactly what you said about the stress level is one of the things

that is kind of the most measured, right?

So that often what's done in the science of gratitude, it's the

simple everyday practices right.

That people have to do.

So in, in one study, people were asked to keep a gratitude diary and for, I think,

six weeks and they just needed to write once a week, they needed to make a list.

Oh, once a week.

Right.

And a lot of the studies are also made on kind of the self-reporting levels right.

Of happiness.

So in, you know, in that particular study, people would really report,

you know, feeling significantly better after keeping gratitude diary for just

six weeks and just writing once a week in it, in another study people people.

Was measured as well after, you know, doing gratitude practice, a short

gratitude practice in the evening.

And after just spending that few minutes every evening, thinking about all the

good things in your life makes you sleep better, which obviously has a positive

impact on your entire day afterwards.

Good.

Yeah.

it's, difficult nowadays to talk about science because so many people

are like, I just don't believe what the scientists say anymore.

Unfortunately, we're in the yeah.

And the research on gratitude is, is quite new, right?

There is really, 20, 30 years that that is being reported, but the most findings.

So first of all, there isn't that much body of, of a research yet, but the,

the ones that are there they're really pointing out just general levels,

just increased levels of happiness.

Self-perceived betterment health at perceived better mental health

and more, more, more tranquility being able to deal with negative

emotions a little bit better.

And I think that's, that's amazing.

And I think what you said about, you know, studies and people sometimes not believing

certain research and, and, and so on.

I always think that.

If you think that something is working on you on a certain diet or gratitude

practice, or may it be fasting or I don't know what, what else is there

or believing in the law of attraction.

Right.

Which I do very much, if you think this is working for you, then,

then by all means keep doing it.

Right.

And maybe don't disregard from, from the bat.

Right.

That, yeah.

Yeah.

And maybe now's a good time to mention your website, first of all,

my gratitude challenge.com and which is pretty easy to remember you hit

the jackpot with that URL, by the way.

That's a very good one.

But maybe you could explain a little bit about what your challenge is.

Why is it 28 days?

What can people expect to happen?

I know it's right now limited to Europe because you actually send

some physical things, which I was surprised to read, because so could

you maybe dive into how, how does that work and what people would expect

very happy to, but also for all the listening kind of entrepreneurs

and on the comment of the jackpot web, the website, actually, my URL

allowed first was my to challenge.org because.com was not available.

And then one day I started to receive 20 emails from different

domain service providers that.

Dot com has become available and they wanted to sell me this for hundreds

of dollars or pounds or whatever they were coming from to which my

tech lady just went to some Polish platform and bought it for 10 French.

Yeah.

I just got started regardless.

And then the universe brought me the, the.com as well.

So that might happen as well for, for everybody else.

Nice.

My gratitude challenge is a 28 day program that teaches ratitude.

It speaks about the different benefits of cultivating a grateful mindset.

It speaks about why is it difficult?

To do so sometimes as much as we did today going a little bit more

in depth, it all social on studies.

And every day there is a challenge that you have to do.

So that's why it's called a challenge, right?

Because there is a theme for the day , there is a, a video it's

normally around five minutes.

And in that video, I explain certain things, any given day.

And then I tell people what to do and there is always it's always

connected kind of to appreciating what's good in your life right now,

appreciating what happened in the past.

Sometimes it's also looking for the silver lining as we talked about and

even appreciating our future as well.

So also kind of applying the law of attraction and

manifestation techniques as.

And it's 28 days because I believe that's long enough to kind of

develop a habit of gratitude.

I think that are really different studies again, that tells you

what's the ideal time to kind of having your habit having 21 or 28.

If you do it consistently, then you know, you get a good.

Hang of things mm-hmm and even if you don't do it, you know, every

single day going forward, you have practice enough to kind of call in

those skills when you need them.

And indeed there is a gratitude box just for a little bit of, you know, fun.

You have to think advent calendar.

So on a certain day of a challenge, you can open a, a

goodie and it's just a symbolic.

Little thing that is designed to make you smile and it's related to the challenge.

So it really helps you to execute on your task that given day, it starts a little

bit as a kind of a motivation sometimes.

Not for people keep going, right.

Because they know every few days I can open something.

So it helps to build that habit.

And it feels like a reward and just, I don't know, the

people absolutely lost the box.

They definitely don't sign up to the challenge because of the

box, because I give quite little information about what's inside

and what to expect, but I know that it always receives a lot of love.

Yeah.

And then there is also an optional community where people can actually

share the learnings exchange.

There are also optional live group calls.

That's kind of on top and some people choose to do the journey on

their own, learn something new every single day, do the task on their own.

And some love to take this further to the group as well and exchange.

And yeah, the next challenge starts on September 5th already.

And the registrations have opened and we have the first participants

already, already in, so I'm very much looking forward to the next

round and yeah, the current round actually finishes just just in few.

Oh, nice.

How many times a year do you open this challenge?

Well, so it has been five this year since I started.

Okay.

So I don't know yet.

What's that going to be going forward so far?

It's has been very ad hoc one finishes.

And then I start to think about when it's going to be the next one.

So I'm very proud to say that the next round is already open and

set up and because that's progress.

It also has to do with the fact that I am, will be going independent soon.

So I resign from my job and going to focus more on my GRA to challenge and

also on some other on some other projects.

So I've got a little bit more time and energy to give it the love

and attention that it deserves.

That's wonderful.

Excellent.

Excellent.

I'm with you.

I just quit my corporate job after 17 years.

So I'm also in that frame of mind of like, God, I can do so much now.

So yes, I'm right there with you.

Yeah.

Oh, that that's exciting.

Does it count if I never had a corporate job?

No, you don't get to say anything.

No.

So

you have never had a corporate job.

No.

Wow.

See, it's just like, I can't, I can't say anything.

When you guys talk about your kids, I haven't had any kids, so, and I'm not

gonna have kids, so no, no comments.

All I can say is when my husband and I see parents with kids, we're all

looking at each other going, okay,

that Dodge.

And we're looking at you and thinking, remember these days, what.

No.

. Yeah.

Uh, yeah.

So Anna, what are the different types of gratitude?

Cause we were talking about writing things and we were talking about kind

of noticing them maybe speaking them out loud, but are there any other

ones that you can say to give people options, Megan spoke about like

writing it down, doesn't do it for me.

Like what would be the different types of gratitude that people can actually

try and see what works for them?

Mm-hmm yeah.

So the other one that we spoke about as well was this, what's the best thing

that happened today, which is a great conversation started, or what's the

best thing that happened this week.

If you're catching up up with your friend, right.

And puts you both automatically in a good mood rather than, Hey, how are you?

And.

You know my job or whatever, right.

LA LA LA LA, because we have the tendency to focus on the negative.

And, another way to practice gratitude is to design your own two minute gratitude

practice that you can do every single day.

And I love that actually.

And I do that almost every single day.

And sometimes you don't even twice a day or three day day, and it's quite simple.

You need to identify an activity in your day that you do every

single day that doesn't require a lot of cognitive power because you

do it quite automatically, right?

Like brushing your teeth or something exactly.

Brushing your teeth or going with your dog, or addressing yourself up or drying

your hair, or something like that.

Right.

Or waiting on the bus stop.

Right.

And you know, the bus is coming two minutes or the bus is coming for

minutes and you kind of scroll from your phone for your phone, right.

So finding something like this that you do every day or almost every single day,

and then committing that you are gonna spend the first two minutes, just thinking

thoughts, you know, of gratitude, what is it that I can be grateful for today?

Or what is it that I can be grateful for that happened yesterday?

I like to do it in the moment.

So what is it that I can be grateful for today, but for example, if you

start in the morning with brushing your teeth, you can, and you didn't

do the, the evening practice.

You can then think back to your day yesterday about all the

good things and then finish with giving thanks in advance for.

Another wonderful day ahead.

And I do that when I do my coffee, right.

So I've gotta express the machine and then I go and press the button, my

stand there, and I see the blinking and then, then press the pattern.

I see the coffee coming down and of two minutes sometimes

feels really long, right?

Because it's like, normally you, you just leave it and come back

or you would be on your phone or just chat, chatting to somebody.

But when you actually stand there in the moment, think that

mindful moment for yourself.

And you, you know, sometimes it takes me a few seconds ready to like

to come up with something, right.

It's like, Hey, because you're so much focus on your work

and you're on go, go, go.

And then you're like, wait, Commit for gratitude.

Okay.

What can be grateful for and it really, I think it's a good way.

Gratitude diary, also gratitude diary with your kids, right.

Or family booklet.

That's what we do as well.

It's not every day, sometimes we don't do that for two months.

And then suddenly we do that five times in a week when they just do

something funny and sweet or we have a nice experience together.

We write down a few, few things for that.

And one day we hope to have many notebooks like this, that we can kind

of pass on to them so they can see how their life was as little children.

Another one great with the kids as well is a gratitude jar.

So literally taking a jar, decorating the jar.

Yeah.

You know, who've got, you know, preschool kids or young children but

also teenagers the middle love it.

Right.

Decorating and then stuff, snippets of paper.

And then asking ourselves at the dinner table again.

Right.

What is it that we can be grateful for?

Everybody writes one thing, you put it in the jar and when the jar

gets full, you take it all out.

And then you have one evening where you just read for all those notes.

Right.

And you're like, oh yeah, forgot that indeed.

You, you know, this happened or that happened.

Yeah.

Let it give you some ideas for sure.

I like the idea of the jar.

And I don't think you should limit that to children because I. Love crafting,

give me a reason to cut something and glue something together, please.

I love it.

Yeah.

So you can have a court board or whatever, right?

Yeah.

And, or make a collage of all those things that you can be grateful for

and they don't need to be warned.

It may be a picture mm-hmm right.

As well.

Yeah, I do that somehow.

I do it digitally as well.

So I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, Donna is very analog.

I am digital analog, so I like my analog stuff, but I also like my digital stuff.

So I have a digital journal day one, it's a very popular digital journal.

And that's also somewhere where you can have multiple journals and you could

have a gratitude journal digitally.

But anyway it's not gratitude, but it's, it's something similar

because it makes me laugh.

My husband you know, have you ever met those people who are.

Super funny when they have no idea they're being funny.

Right.

Which even makes it so much more funny.

Right.

And he's German.

But he's has a great grasp on the English language, but nonetheless, there are times

when he would say the funniest shit and I'm like, I have got to remember this and

I started calling them, his name is YRN.

And so I started calling them YMS and I had a hashtag in my digital journal

called yours and we would read back through them and it would make us laugh

all the time, because like, just as an example in German, the table is a

TIS and the plate is a teller and you know, that phrase, it was so good.

I could lick the plate.

Right.

Because the, the food was so good and he's like, it's so good.

I could lick the table just cuz he got the two mixed up and I, but I feel

like that's another good way to like, well, in his mind, Titian teller.

Orian this year and then, yeah.

Anyway, but nonetheless, he says this super funny shit all the time and I

made this journal and then every once in a while we just go through and

read them and I just die laughing.

So I could see that this is a good one, but I think instead of even

waiting till the jar is full it's, like when everybody's kind of had

like a down day, that might also be a good day to say, okay, everybody's

feeling kind of in the dumps today.

We're not in a good mood.

Maybe we just had an argument or we're just in general, the

weather's kind of gross and sad.

Let's, let's read through the gratitude jar cuz so even before it's fall using it

as a reminder either analog or digital,

look at you, Megan, you have turned a complete advocate and you

coming up with ideas, how to, how to make gratitude, practice your own.

I love it.

I'm a quick study.

She is.

I was always convinced.

I don't wanna put that out there.

the skeptic part of me was that I couldn't make it work for myself, or

I didn't have some revelations, so I was never against gratitude or maybe

I should have made that clear at the beginning, but no I was always sold.

I just needed to know how to drive the car that I was just bought.

You know, I'm gonna edit that and everyone's gratitude.

Right?

Stupid gratitude.

You me that I'm so

thank you, Anna.

This was awesome.

I'm very happy to have met you and learned about.

Gratitude opened my eyes a lot.

So I appreciate your time, Donna.

Good for you too.

No, it was terrible.

I'm never gonna speak to you again.

no, it was really awesome.

Thank you so much, Anna.

It was really, really a pleasure to speak to you, to pick your brain about these

things, to hear more about your own life.

And I hope that our listeners take at least one little tip out of

all of the ones that we discussed today to, to put a little bit more

gratitude in their life as well.

Thank you so much for the invitation I was yeah.

Really happy to be here.

I really enjoyed the conversation as well.

Dana, thanks again for this opportunity, Megan, I feel like, you know, I knew

you already before coming up of this podcast because I've listened to you.

Uh uh, so much, so it's really fun to, uh, yeah.

To, to meet you virtually and then have a conversation with you as well.

So yeah.

Thanks again.

Thank you all so much for listening to this episode of

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