Thanksgiving. And what are we going to talk about? Saying thanks. I want to propose that there are four ways to enjoy life more through saying thanks. There are actually three, but one of them has two elements. So, the first way of enjoying life more by saying thanks is to simply say thank you to people. That’s the first way everybody thinks of, and that’s it. We say thank you to people, we make people’s lives better. People do lots of things for us and making them realize that somebody sees them and appreciates them is a big deal. There was a company that I did an experiment with once in which we gave every employee a $25 gift certificate. And we said, “Somebody must have done something for you this month. Say thank you and give them this gift certificate.” The first month was tough. People didn’t do it. It was hard. And then we came back and told them it was unacceptable and to give it to a person who helped them the most. Not somebody who, you know, rescued their kitten. Just somebody who helped them. Anyway, after that, it just became part of the language of the company. So that’s the standard—saying thanks is a good thing.
The second way is what it does to the person who says thanks—and this is the way that has two components. One is that when we say thanks, we kind of look into the guts of the action. We kind of dissect it. I don’t mean when we say a casual thanks. I mean when we really say thanks. When we say to somebody, “I know that when I needed your help, it wasn’t the easiest time for you to help. I know you had lots of things to do. And I appreciated it because I was really sad, or I was stuck with this project. And what you did for me was incredibly meaningful. It was at the right time. . .” Anyway, you see the point. We think about the act that we could be thankful for, we dissect it, and we think about all the elements. It’s not just the way we consumed it. We pay extra attention to it, we think about all the elements, and we increase our gratefulness. In this way, saying thank you helps the other person, and it helps us. The first component is dissecting and thinking about all the details. And the second component is that simply saying thank you is helpful and makes us happy.
Think about all the times this year that that you said thank you. I’m willing to bet that almost all of them made you feel better after the thanks than before the thanks. It just increases happiness, and especially so if you go into dissecting the elements and thinking about all the reasons you’re thankful.
The last way, which I think is the most interesting is the attitude of being thankful. And the attitude of being thankful means it’s not just after the fact. It’s not just reflecting on what there is to be thankful for. It’s about going through the world with the perspective of being thankful and looking for places where we could be thankful. This attitude is the best we can hope for, because it allows us to look for opportunities and we change the course of our action. It also changes our attention to details, it directs our actions, and that’s the one I recommend the most.
So, a very happy Thanksgiving to everybody. May you be thankful and say so to other people. May you inquire more about your own thankfulness. Share it with other people and express thanks. And may you develop the attitude and the perspective of being thankful as a way of life. If not for the whole year, maybe for this period around Thanksgiving. So to all of us a thankful end of the year and maybe even a thankful 2026.
