Words for the Workplace: A Deep Dive into Emotional Communication at Work - Day 5 - Gratitude

Talking about emotions can bring up a lot of emotions , and broaching this subject in the workplace can add another layer of complexity to the conversation , but it doesn't have to be that way . This mini series will cover five words or word categories that we can start bringing into the workplace to help communicate our emotions in more specific and helpful terms .

Hello and welcome . To Connect the Dots , lead the Way . I'm your host , heather Balseric . I am a white female with short , strawberry blonde hair , red glasses and I'm wearing a gray t-shirt . Today I am sitting in front of a teal wall that is covered with multiple pieces of art , and it is day five of the mini series . We have made it to the last day .

Thank you so much . If you've been following along . I really appreciate it . I'm really excited about today's topic because it's gratitude . I love gratitude . It's probably one of my favorite things . We talked a little bit about gratitude in day one when we were focused on the word happy .

In that episode I said as a leader , you should be practicing gratitude , showing it to your team , your peers and leader . Honestly , we all need to right no leader title required . How do we bring gratitude into the workplace ? We can thank people . We can tell people that we're grateful for them . Is that really going far enough ? Probably not .

When you are showing gratitude , it needs to be genuine , real , get to know the person and express gratitude in a way that is meaningful to them . Maybe you've been thinking about that this week . If you've been listening along , maybe you've been thinking a little bit about like , well gosh , how can I show gratitude ? How can I be genuine with my gratitude ?

The first thing that you can do is remember that gratitude starts with you . It's a practice . Brunay in Alice of the Heart says an attitude is a way of thinking . Practice is a way of doing trying , failing and trying again . Think about how you are working to show a deep appreciation for the individuals that you value in this life .

You're not always going to get it right . As you learn that person , as you build connections with them , you get to know them . You can try again . It's a practice . Do it , try it Fail , try again , then continue this cycle . The next thing that I want you to think about is don't be afraid to say it or chat it .

I feel like sometimes people don't talk about how grateful they are for other people because they're not sure how they want to express it . They may think the other person could take it the wrong way or insert any other number of reasons here . Find a way that you're comfortable sharing gratitude If you aren't good with saying it in the moment . Send a chat .

If your company has a kudos board or an accolade or whatever , send that If you remember at an odd hour , because I know I do that a lot . Schedule the message if you have the ability to do so , or set a reminder to yourself to do it the next day .

If you have the opportunity to call it out in a meeting and say thank you or show your gratitude on the spot , do it . If you aren't sure , though , what do I do or where do I start ? I say thank you to people , but I don't know how else can I show gratitude . There's a website called randomactsofkindnessorg . You can check it out .

I really encourage you to check it out . It's got a ton of really good stuff out there . It talks about all kinds of ways to be kind and being kind . It's part of the practice of gratitude . It's hard not to show appreciation for someone or something when you're being kind to them . There's another website that I used before that would generate .

You would go to it and it would like generate like something for you to do , and it focused on like in the digital workplace , and I can't find it . I could not find it , and I searched for a little while while I was preparing for the podcast , and I don't know . I've got to go look for it . I know there's one place .

I know I sent it to somebody , but I could not find it via my phone , so I've got to look on the computer tomorrow , and so I'll keep looking and I'll let you know if I find it in the future . I'll talk about it in another episode , or I'll put it update the notes for this one too , but yes , it's a different website that you can just .

When you go on it , it just randomizes and gives you something that you could do like in the digital world , which I think is like super awesome , especially if you work virtually with your teams .

Another part of showing gratitude , though , is also showing respect , and I'm going to share a little section from Erica's book on digital body language that I talked about yesterday , and this addresses the ways that we can show respect and specifically how we can show respect in the digital space here .

But she writes respect means that others feel appropriately valued , included or acknowledged . Respect means proofreading your email before sending it . Respect means honoring other people's time and schedules and not canceling meetings at the last second .

There's a couple others that she mentions , but I'm going to stop it right there , because I think those are some pretty good ones in the digital place in terms of communication and making sure that people feel appreciated , that they feel like you're grateful for them .

Their time is huge in the remote workplace , making sure they feel included , acknowledged , valued and I think about the proofreading your email before you send it right A base that , like one of the most basic signs of respect that you can do is spell a person's name right . If you're sending them an email , it's probably up in the two field .

Spell their name correctly . If they have a name that auto-corrects double-check it . I know for me my boss's name is the same as my sister's and they are both spelled different ways and I told my boss very early on .

I said hey , I'm just gonna forewarn you If I'm typing really quickly , if I'm typing something to you really quickly , I may accidentally type your name in the wrong spelling , because I had done it almost a couple times .

I'd caught myself every time , but it kind of like gave her that forewarning , but really , like , respect starts there spelling somebody's name correctly . So many other things I could add here , but I really do . I want to keep this short . I really appreciate if you've been following along . If you just happened upon day five , go back .

There's four other days before this that you can go . This is the August mini-series , which was focused on words for the workplace .

We have talked about happy , we have talked about creativity , we've talked about burnout , we talked about connection and then , obviously today , we talked about gratitude , and I am incredibly grateful to you those of you who have listened , who have commented and engaged in over on Substack and on my Instagram pages .

I just appreciate you so much and it means so much to me to hear from you and just thank you for that . Thank you for coming back again and again . I'd love to know how you show gratitude in the workplace . So I'm going to ask right , could you do me a little favor ? Head on over to my Substack with the link that is in the description .

That way you can comment and let me know how you show gratitude in the workplace . Make sure that you check out all the links in the description to learn more about Erica Duan's book Digital Body Language how to Build Trust and Connection , no Matter the Distance , and Brené Brown's book Atlas of the Heart . That's .

I was about to say I'll be back tomorrow , but I won't because this is day five . So I really enjoyed this little mini-series on words for the workplace .

I will be back , though , next Wednesday with the next regularly scheduled episode , so until then , remember you are loved , you are worthy and there are great things ahead for you in this life if you trust and believe in the Lord . Bye .