So today's episode is extra special because we do this every year. And I love celebrating gratitude. So when this episode goes live, it's going to be the Thanksgiving holiday here in the United States. And I thought, why not focus on gratitude and blessings. We've done this the past few years. And it's always a lot of fun. And I hope it's a real treat. And I hope that you kind of just enjoy the different types of content that I create on my podcast. So you are inspired to do
your show the way you want to do it. So let's get right to it. Welcome to the Proffitt Podcast whe e we teach entrepreneurs how to start launch a d market their podcast. I'm your host, Krysta , Proffitt, and I'm so excited that you're her . Thanks for hanging out with me today. Because f you've been trying to figure out the world f podcasting, think of this show as the time savi g shortcut you've been looking for. So let's g t right to it, shall w
So today's episode is a bonus episode, there are actually no show notes, no extra homework and nothing for you to take away other than learning a little bit about gratitude in the way that you can celebrate some of your
blessings. So I thought I would share a little bit about what I do personally, some of the traditions we have as a family, and I hope that you just take away, just like this is just a feel good episode, whether you're cooking for your family, you're hanging out with loved ones you haven't seen, I hope that this is that warm, fuzzy episode that just puts a smile on your face. So how can you practice gratitude in your everyday life.
So something that I have done for the last few years is I keep a daily gratitude journal. And it's something that I realized about myself is I don't do well under pressure. I don't like it when someone says you have to do something this way. Like I guess it's my rebellious nature, I immediately either don't want to do it, or I don't want to do it how someone told me I had to do it. So for a while, I
would write down three gratitudes every day. And then I would just literally verbatim every day, I would put the date in the top left hand corner of my little journal. And then I would say today I'm grateful for and I would list out three things. Well, then after a while, I started to feel like three isn't enough. Isn't that crazy? Like writing down just think about it for a second. If you wrote down three different things every day, for 365 days, like that's 1000 Something blessings
that you can count in a year. And I still felt like it wasn't enough. I thought that I had more blessings. Now, I want to tell you a little bit more about my backstory, because it is important to understand why I think this way. So I have been doing gratitude journals, I guess, since about 2014 2015 When I first started writing, but it wasn't very often I didn't do it on a regular basis. I didn't write on a regular basis at that point, either. I was just trying to get into the
practice of getting up earlier. Like that was feat number one was, oh my gosh, I just got to wake up before the kids do I want to be able to have a cup of coffee in silence. So back in those days, I mean, it feels like it was forever ago. But in reality, it was only five or six years ago, I was struggling to just wake up in the morning. Not from a place of like depression or anything like that I just physically was I had just had a baby.
We had our youngest son, he was born in 2015. And it was just really hard for me to find a lot of purpose in just being a stay at home mom. This is
part of my story. I've shared it before that, you know being a stay at home mom and trying to grapple with that all I was going to do is something that I struggled with for a while and I remember thinking well this is silly I shouldn't get up and write because what is writing going to lead to write if it if it doesn't have an immediate payoff, I'm typically not very interested. But I did start the gratitude
practice. Those were my initial writings, not writing a whole page in my journal every day or writing for 10 or 20 minutes. It was just what are three things that you're grateful for today. And then I did challenge myself and like you can't say coffee every day. You can't just write coffee, my
husband and kids Every day, that's cheating. So I started to challenge myself a little bit more and say, Okay, well, what else okay, well, fresh air, or a beautiful day, or the fact that we can afford groceries, like, it really came down to the most basic things. But in reality, if you look around, those are things we should all be grateful for. I know I'm going to get like deep and spiritual and kind of woowoo in today's episode, but again, this is my bonus episode, I can do what I want with
today's talk about gratitude. But it really hits me on a different emotional level when I sit here, and I think, oh, my gosh, I'm so blessed.
And something that we do a lot as a family, as we'll have dinner times together, and we pray. And one of my go to prayers is I'm grateful for the roof over our head and the food in our bellies. It's something that I've said for years, years and years and years before we have a meal, we'll say this prayer, like the kids will say it oftentimes, and my husband's like, I don't know what else to say. He'll say the same
thing. But it's our default, because at its most basic level, that's a pretty amazing thing to be grateful for. Just having a roof over my head, a safe place for my kids to sleep at night. The fact that we're all healthy. I mean, that's like, sure, like, you see that gif. I'm imagining that gif where it's like Chris Pratt, and his like, brain is exploding. He's going. That's what I feel like, if we really think about, like, sit down wherever you are, right now. Look around you. What do you
have to be grateful for? My, my, my husband, my son. So I was trying to say, my oldest son, he's in middle school. And he came home from athletics the other day. And he was like, Mom, there were these kids like they were jacking around, and they were goofing off. And they made us do more squats. And they made us do all these other things. Because all these kids were above it. Like he was just going on and on and on. And I was an athlete
all growing up. So I get it, I totally get it. And I told him I'm so I'm gonna tell you what my coach told me one day, you're gonna pay to have someone get your butt into gear and get you into shape. Because you're probably going to go to a personal trainer, you're going to go to the gym, like I told him that and I'm sure he's like rolling his eyes like mom, okay, okay, whatever, mom, because I kind of rolled my eyes and my coach when she said that to me when I was in middle school, but
now I get it. I totally understand what she meant. But then I told him when he was just going on and on, he was just whining complaining about, you know, we just had to do so many squats, My butt hurts so bad. And this and that. And I said, you know that there's someone out there in the world right now. That would kill to be able to do a squat. Maybe they have a form of you know, they just they don't have legs, they don't have feet.
They are not capable of doing all the things that a healthy young man who is able bodied is able to do. Do you see that? And he looked at me like, why are you the way that you are? Mom? No, I know, the look on his face. Like, really, like you're gonna you're gonna take it to that level. But it's so true. Like, oftentimes, we just have to look at what's around us. And I know I'm guilty of it, too. I whine and complain. And I moan about things that I'm not happy about. But at the end of the
day, I go back to my gratitude journal. And I say, Dude, I have five things that I was able to write down today. And sometimes it's electricity. Sometimes it's the fact that we have the internet's sometimes it's that and I'll get to some more interesting stories about gratitude in a second is very creative ideas that our kids come up with. But I challenge you today, look around your surroundings and ask, how many things can I
name that I'm grateful for? Maybe it's just a sunny day, maybe it's a warm cup of coffee, maybe it's 20 minutes alone for you to think and meditate. I know, back in the day in 2015 2016, when our son was an infant, and he wasn't sleeping. I remember being so so grateful for those days when he would sleep through the night, or those days when I didn't feel like I was at his beck and call and I could just detach for a second and have 20 minutes to myself. The big things
don't always have to be the big things. The big things can actually be the small blessings that you have day in and day out. So the other thing I want to talk about is what we do together. at the dinner table I told you a little bit about like we we pray, you know, we we try to sit down at least several times a week. It's not just once a week we try to sit down as a family and have dinner
together. That's one of my things. It's like one of those quirky things that I'm, this is why I'm so protective with my boundaries when I work when I'm with my family and dinner time is something that I just cherish, I cherish so much the conversations that we have at dinner, the silly things that my boys do y'all the so my kids, when I'm recording this, my kids are 12, nine and five. And the things that come out of those boys mouths.
I mean, it's they're hilarious, they are all so funny that they never grow out of their humor, and the things that they say to each other, because it's just, I'm mostly crying, like every night because I'm laughing so hard. They are so hilarious, which I feel blessed about that as well.
But what we do is, as a family, we, I always ask, okay, who's gonna go first. And without fail, they know exactly what I'm talking about. Because this is part of our tradition. And it's called Best part worst part. So if you're trying to connect with your family members, and you want something fun and different to do, whether you're sitting around the table, you're having breakfast in the morning, you're, it's over coffee with your spouse or your partner,
I encourage you to try this out. So it's called Best part worst part. And it's quite simple. It's just us saying, okay, share the best part of your day, in the worst part of your day. And then I will often say something that's, you know, it was it was a highlight like today, I'll literally, I'm sharing this with you today, when I'm recording this. The best part of my day today is I got to go on a run this morning. And it was beautiful weather. When I'm recording this. It's fall in
Texas. And I don't know if you've ever been to Texas in the fall, but it's usually still like 8590 degrees, until we really get into fall. It was 55 degrees this morning. And it was sunny. So it was cool, but it wasn't too cold. And it was just it was beautiful running weather. And it felt so amazing. I felt like I've finally got my stride back. So that was one of the best parts of my day is going on a run. Feeling good about it. It makes me feel stronger mentally, physically,
spiritually, whenever I run like that. So that was the best part of my day, maybe the worst part of my day. I don't really know that I had one today. But this is one where we give the kids the opportunity and anybody that's with us to kind of share that grievance. Like if you've been holding on to something like the other day, I did have a worst part of my day. And it was, what was it one day I stubbed my toe really bad. And it was just so silly. But it was a very real thing, right?
It's a real thing. Like don't hold all those things in and just say, Oh, it's not that big of a deal. Well, this gives you the opportunity to get it off your chest and bring it up. Like if anytime you were gonna complain, it's at the best part worst part table, because everybody can share. And it's really fun, especially for those of you that do have kids and you're trying to connect with
them. My kids tend to open up at the table, because they're just used to it because my husband and I will be really honest about the best parts and the worst parts of our day. I've had internet issues that have totally messed things up. I've talked about having just a difficult conversation with someone that was really uncomfortable. It just really creates that space for you to have open communication with your family. And it's
just, it's such a blessing. It's kind of awkward at first because people are like, Oh, how do we share this, but we've been doing this for several years now. So if anybody's starting with kids just know it's probably going to be awkward at first or even with your partner. But it's it's really awesome. It's awesome to hear those little nuances of someone's day. And then the other part so that's the first thing we do. So it kind of it's there's five of us. So it's like a roundtable
discussion. Our youngest is usually raising his hand saying Can I go first? Can I go first? He usually goes first. And then he'll do his best part his worst part. Most of the time the kids will say mom I don't really have a worst part.
But then you have to share three things that you're grateful for. Or what the boys it's so funny my laugh when I say it, what they call the "rat toots". The reason why they call them this is because we used to say okay, you have to share three gratitudes and one time I think that I said it too fast or something and I and they they said what did you just say rat toots? Anyway, total inside joke I guess it's one
of those you had to be there. But we just die laughing every time so we just call it a rat today. You got to share your attitudes. And the kids are encouraged to share three things that they're grateful for y'all. I'm blown away. So I have my own gratitude practice, right? This is what I do by myself, when I'm drinking my coffee in the morning. It's just a great way to start my day, like from a place of gratitude. But it's also how I end my day, with my family when they're all
sharing the things that they're grateful for. And what we challenge them is to not say the same thing every day, just like I challenge myself, I can't say, coffee, my husband and my family every single day, they have to say something different. The things that they come up with are phenomenal.
And it just, it makes my heart I feel like the Grinch like we're the heart grows like two or three sizes bigger, because they're so inventive now that they've already said, all of the basic things are thankful for our dog, our cat, you know, Christmas, their grandparents, all of these things that kids would normally say, they've started to get really creative. The other day, one of the kids was like, I'm grateful for spoons. And I was like, wow, me, too. We were eating soup.
Yes, me too. And then one of them said, Well, I'm grateful for chairs, because otherwise we'd all be sitting on the floor and our butts might hurt a little bit. I was like, yes, yes, it's not comfortable to sit on the ground anymore. I can't sit crisscross applesauce and feel good about it. Like it's just not the same as when I was a kid. And then they'll say things like, I'm thankful for
electricity. I'm grateful for my friends. And then it just, it's really just expanded to this thing that I never imagined when we started doing this. But it's what I look forward to every day, every single day.
So if you're trying to work in more gratitude into your life, I hope that these practices encourage you. I hope that at the very least, if you're with your family over the next few days, you can turn to them and say, Hey, what's the best part of the worst part of your
day? Do you have any gratitude to share or just one thing that you're thankful for, we also have this long standing tradition that we do in our family where on Thanksgiving dinner, we'll all stand around the table, we all hold hands, we say a prayer, and everyone has to share one thing that they're grateful for. And we will typically say no
one can repeat someone else's gratitude. And it's funny because it's usually I remember doing this as a kid and just rolling my eyes and saying everyone's just gonna say, they're grateful that we're all here together, which is usually what happened, because it was the sometimes the only time all the cousins got together are the aunts and the uncles and, you know, people that we don't often see. But now, it's really fun to go into the season and have a lot of gratitude for all the
blessings that we have. And I look forward to being able to say all the things that I'm grateful for, because I recognize them on a regular basis. Even on those hard days, even when I don't want to and things are kind of sucky and things are slow and I'm frustrated, I can still look at everything around me and say, I'm so blessed. I'm so grateful for the things and the people and just all the blessings that I have in my life.
So that's all I have for you today. I hope that you have a fantastic holiday if you're on holiday break, and if not, I hope that you find a way to work in gratitude. However it looks like for you for your business, in your professional life and your personal life. And I hope that you have a fantastic day. But that's all I have for you today. So as always remember, keep it up. We all have to start somewhere.