The Power of Gratitude

A couple days ago I told you I ran a publishing company here in Oregon during my mid-twenties. It was a fun few years for me. I fell in love with books during the time, and am grateful to still be in the industry, these days as a writer, of course.

I don't know what led me to do it, but one day I decided the company would become more grateful. I bought several boxes of thank-you cards and gave one to each member of the staff (we were tiny, so this was no big deal) and asked if we'd be willing to write a thank-you card to somebody every day until our boxes were empty. The staff loved the idea. We wrote cards to our customers, to our vendors, even to our delivery guys. I wasn't expecting anything to happen, except maybe to let the people who supported us know how grateful we were, but to my surprise, we saw a fairly significant boost in our business. No kidding.

I don't know if our business increased because we sent out thank-you cards, but it certainly didn't hurt. There's something inherently powerful in saying thank you to somebody. Most good deeds go unnoticed, and when we notice them, especially a year of them or a decade of them, and finally send a card, it goes a long way in encouraging the people around us.

It's Thursday, and I thought maybe today we'd have something called Thankful Thursday.

Who are you grateful for today?