Thank You for…

23 Nov Thank You for…

Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone.

~G.B. Stern

A few thoughts on gratitude…

Every year my wife makes a calendar on iPhoto of all the prior year’s experiences for us to keep up in the kitchen.

This month she came up with something a little different. For every day of the month we’d write in a few things we’re thankful for. For the most part I’m a pretty appreciative guy and try to take very little for granted. But an exercise like this is incredibly eye-opening.

So often we don’t realize all the mind-blowing things, big and small, that we take as given.

This past two weeks of launching Live Off Your Passion was one of those times.

The experience of putting my first major paid project up for sale (and scrutiny), is enough to make a guy lose some major sleep (which I did). But it also turned out to be one of the most rewarding, proud, exciting and overall fun experiences I’ve ever had.

I pour my heart and soul into the ‘work’ I do at Live Your Legend. And I poured just has much love and sweat into the Live Off Your Passion eCourse. It was my goal to make it the most comprehensive online course for finding your passion and building a career around it. But even more than that, my goal was to create something that allowed you all to move from the 80% of people who don’t enjoy their work, to the 20% who love what they do. When we start to turn that statistic around is when we’ll start to change the world.

All of you will be the judges of whether these goals are achieved.

Since Live Off Your Passion launched two weeks ago, nearly 300 of you picked up a copy. That alone has me pinching myself.

I’ve received dozens upon dozens of really amazing emails from those of you who have already taken the course and some of you have been awesome enough to leave your thoughts in the comments at the bottom the launch post. Click here to check them out – this stuff has been so cool to read.

It’s humbling to see how much this is already starting to help people. It’s literally the kind of thing I used to dream of.

This brings me back to gratitude.

None of this would be possible without you.

A revolution begins with an idea but can’t exist without its support, followers and community. Live Your Legend would not exist without all of you. And surely Live Off Your Passion would have never seen the light of day.

As I write this I’m in Maui with 16 family members for Thanksgiving. To say the least, I am grateful.

It’s the perfect decompress after way too many long nights during the launch, but also the perfect environment to reflect on what actually matters and how grateful I am to have what I do.

Here is a very incomplete list of the things I am in awe of daily. The things that deserve constant thanks. I hope this list encourages you to make your own. And to leave at least one thing you’re thankful for in the comments below.

What I’m grateful for (in no particular order):

1. A family that has offered nothing but support and taught me that the words friend and family should be synonymous. And for encouraging experiments and showing me the meaning of the words ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’

2. A wife who supports everything I do. I mean everything. Who entertains the crazy ideas and is subjected to talking about this site and helping people do work they love, way more often than is fair.

3. A body that can run, jump, swim or climb just about whatever’s infront of it at a moment’s notice.

4. A mind that believes it’s possible.

5. The freedom to say the things I believe and build businesses to help people in a way only I can.

6. Having a belief that will change the world and doing something to make it reality.

7. Having a ‘job’ that excites me daily and involves only the things I’m actually good at.

8. Being able to fly across the world for the cost of a few nice dinners.

9. The Internet.

10. Being able to interact and become friends with people in every part of the world, right from my litte Macbook Air.

11. Apple and Steve Jobs.

12. Wine with close friends.

13. Having close friends with whom to sip the wine.

14. Having a group of people to share and inspire each other to live big and hold ourselves to the standard we know the world deserves.

15. To be able to make money simply by offering my talents – on and off the web (that one is still crazy to think about).

16. To know the importance of simple healthy food and be able to choose to eat it whenever I want.

17. To have a business partner who understands me and compliments my strengths almost too perfectly.

18. A little niece who is the cutest thing in the world and has the most perfect ability to remind me of what really matters (and the so many things we think do, but actually don’t).

19. The ability to meet and interact with inspiring people every day.

20. TED Talks + my iPad to allow me to be inspired by these folks absolutely any time and any place I want.

21. The ability to ‘work’ from anywhere. Absolutely anywhere (I’m overlooking the beach in Hawaii right now).

22. To not be able to distinguish the difference between work and play.

23. My perfect wife. Oh wait, maybe I already said that. She deserves another mention anyway ;). And her vegetarian recipe blog that I get to be the lucky test subject of almost daily.

24. WordPress.

25. Being able to have a super technically sophisticated website and business without knowing more than two lines of code. How is that possible?

26. Boj and her team at Get Friday out in India who help me do things better, faster and cheaper than I could ever hope to on my own.

27. Writing.

29. Be able to write.

30. Books.

31. Being able to read.

32. Having the chance to write books without anyone being able to hold me back.

33. Fresh, clean, really really tasty water available for free whenever I want it (we have some of the best water in SF!).

34. All the people who show me that ‘impossible’ is usually not much more than a state of mind. Those who’ve done it all before me, have shown me the path and help and inspire me to walk it every day.

35. YOU.

You. Make. All. This. Possible.

Thank you.

I can’t believe I get paid to do this stuff.

Take 15 seconds and write one thing you’re thankful for in the comments below. It’s not until you get it out of your head and onto paper that you can really appreciate it. If you’re reading this in email, click here to get to the comments. Let’s see how big of a list we can build!

And in case I don’t say it often enough…Thank you.

-Scott