I’m always grateful for everything in my life, but when I think about what I’m most grateful for this year, family and friends are my immediate focus. I’m incredibly grateful for the people in my life now, the people who have played a role in my life, and for all of the high quality time I’m able to spend with them.
My wife and I have been married for about a year now, and I’m more grateful for her each day. People say that marriage is tough, and I suppose it could be some day, but this first year has really been a breeze. I think she deserves a lot of the credit for that, because I’m stubborn about some things, travel all the time, and am generally a pretty unconventional person. She’s handled all of that gracefully and has worked alongside me to constantly make our relationship better.
On our second date I distinctly remember thinking that she would make an excellent partner, and she really has. I’m very grateful to have met her, to have married her, and for all that she does for me and our relationship.
This year family members came and visited in Budapest, Hawaii, and the island. When buying all of these places, one of my fantasies was to have family spend time with me at them, and I’m so grateful that it’s become a reality. Each is a little weird in its own way, like having to use an outhouse on the island, and I really appreciate how my family has embraced these places. Highlights have been having six family members stay on the island, having my father and step-mother come to Budapest, and having my brothers come to Hawaii.
I’m very close with my family, and it’s been so cool to get to have some adventures together and spend time in different contexts with them. You get to know people in different ways in different places, and that’s been a great experience.
Sometimes friends joke about how I’m the only person on the planet who tries not to make new friends. It’s sort of true, and I’m only that way because I feel like I already have a collection of the most amazing friends in the world. The rewards for getting to know my friends better always outweigh meeting new people for me. Of course every year I end up making some new friends anyway and am grateful for them too.
This year has been amazing for friends. We’ve gone on so many cool trips together, purchased a new property together, and have done a bunch of projects together. I think maybe what I’m most grateful for is the integrity of all of my friends. We buy property together on handshake deals, work together, invest together, and have never had any sorts of problems. It’s great having a big network of people you know you can trust completely.
I’m also very grateful for the trust my friends place in me. One friend even bought in to the Hawaii house without knowing where in the world we were buying a place so that he could be surprised. We now have about a dozen properties in Las Vegas and are building our own cool community. Most of those friends bought their properties without even seeing them.
Over this past year I’ve had a lot of meaningful interactions with my readers as well. Most of the people I coach now I was coaching a year ago. I had my first real life event last March and spent some pretty intense time with ten amazing people. I’m very grateful to have such high quality people care about what I have to say and to be able to do work that is so fulfilling to me.
I love spending time by myself, but I think part of what makes that easy is knowing that I have this huge network of incredibly people as part of the fabric of my life. Some of it was complete luck, like the amazing family I was born into and luck played a big part in the rest of it as well. I’m grateful that such high quality people exist on this planet, that I somehow found them, and that I have a lifestyle that enables me to spend so much time with them. Whether you’re family, a close friend, a new friend, or even just someone who reads my blog once in a while, thanks for being in my life.
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I don’t have a formal gratitude practice, but rarely does a day go by where I don’t space out and think about all of the things for which I’m grateful. It’s a very long list, so there’s no danger of running out. We all have good things and bad things in our lives, but by focusing on the good things and thinking about how thankful we are for them we extract all of the benefit out of those things we’v earned and been given. What’s the point of having great people around you and achieving things if you aren’t grateful for them? This little habit of thinking about the ways in which I’m fortunate is a big factor in why I’m always happy.
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Photo is a cool Banyan tree in Hilo, Hawaii
I still have 2-3 spots available for Superhuman 2 in March. If you’re interested please send me a brief bio.
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