Author: Kwin Peterson

A week is the perfect length for making significant improvement in life. This post is a brief summary of my experience and lessons learned while tackling one improvement over the course of a week.

The Goal: Say “Thank You” out loud to at least three people each day.

The Problem: Gratitude opens our minds to the richness of the world around us. I want to experience more richness, but I am not sure that I am feeling and expressing gratitude.

The Story: GB Stern wrote, “Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone.” For several weeks I have had an alarm on my phone that would remind me once each hour to stop and find something about whatever I was doing at that moment for which I could be grateful. This practice has certainly made me more thankful, but my gratitude was only between my ears–it wasn’t getting out into the world.

The Action: I was going to be intentional about saying a sincere “thank you” to three people each day. In the first few days, I thanked my boss, a co-worker, and every member of my family. Because these thanks seemed to be coming out of the blue, I explained what I was doing and why. People seemed genuinely touched, but it was uncomfortable and a little weird. I gave it up by Thursday.

I repeated the goal a second week to see if I could make it work. I stopped planning who I would thank and stopped prefacing it with an explanation. I watched closely for things I could be genuinely grateful for and thanked not only family members, but a waiter, desk clerks, even a guy in a car who waited for me to ride past instead of turning in front of me.

It felt great.

The Lessons: Being genuinely and sincerely grateful does not have to be planned, in fact, when you have to watch for opportunities for thanks, it makes you far more aware of all the good things that are happening around you all the time. Saying a sincere “Thank you” as opposed to a cursory “Thanks” has a real impact. It makes people genuinely smile, which makes you smile (Click here for more on this fascinating feedback loop.)

Incorporation: I will definitely continue and refine this practice.

Following my breakup letter to Benjamin Franklin, I was asked about exchanging time for money “according to market principles.” It’s a concept that I have touched on before and one that I did not understand well in the past.

After a period of post-grad school unemployment, I was working as the Marketing Manager for the Utah Symphony earning $26,000 per year and not making it financially. I realized that I while I had found a buyer for 40 hours of my time each week, I still had 128 hours that I could offer for sale. (more…)

Dear Ben,

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised: it’s a classic case of hero worship crashing into reality. We met when I was an overly-impressionable child and you were the charismatic character in the play 1776. You became my imaginary BFF and we had great conversations (it’s a wonder the other fifth graders didn’t kick the snot out of me). You were so wise; so smart. You knew all the answers and when you didn’t, you had a good joke or witty remark. I accepted everything you said as true until a few years ago when the difference between my pay and that of the CEO made me realize that time is not, in fact, money.

We didn’t talk as much after that, but I still wanted to believe you had the answers. I rationalized that because time and money can be exchanged according to market principles they were, if not identical, at least somewhat equivalent.

No more. (more…)

A week is the perfect length for making significant improvement. This post is a brief summary of my experience and lessons learned while tackling one improvement over the course of one week.

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Achieving goals, self-improvement—these things are really hard all by themselves. If you forget to bring the fun, they may be impossible.

It happened gradually (these things always do). From a healthy mixed diet of oldies, 80’s pop, choral, classical, top 40…and the occasional hair band just to make the kids roll their eyes, I found myself listening almost exclusively to BBC Radio 3. (more…)

Recently we visited Mount Vernon—the home of George Washington. I was impressed as never before that President Washington was one of the world’s great men and I asked myself, “How did he get that way?” After an hour in the estate’s excellent (and air conditioned!) museum I got at least part of the answer: He made himself into the man he wanted to be. He saw what he wanted to change in himself and made those changes.

We have all heard ourselves say things like, “I wish I could speak to a crowd like him”; “I want to be as gracious as her”; or “Wow, running a marathon would be so cool.” How many times have you seen or read about a characteristic of someone else and wished you had that trait or skill? Are there 10 things you want to improve on? 100? 1000? If the number of ways you want to improve seems impossibly high, I’ve got good news for you: it’s not.

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