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HR entrepreneur Mike Coffey, SPHR, SHRM-SCP engages business thought leaders about the strategic, psychological, legal, and practical implications of bringing people together to create value for shareholders, customers, and the community. As an HR consultant, mentor to first-stage businesses through EO’s Accelerator program, and owner of Imperative—Bulletproof Background Screening, Mike is passionate about helping other professionals improve how they recruit, select, and manage their people. Most thirty-minute episodes of Good Morning, HR will be eligible for half a recertification credit for both HRCI and SHRM-certified professionals. Mike is a member of Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) Fort Worth and active with the Texas Association of Business, the Fort Worth Chamber, and Texas SHRM.
So now we're talking about how does practicing gratitude actually affect productivity and profitability in a company. There are business stats here that show that gratitude has a positive effect. If you're in business to make money, which is what a business is there for, right, why would you not want to boost productivity by 50% with something as simple as showing appreciation for your team members.
Mike Coffey:Good morning, HR. I'm Mike Coffey, president of Imperative, bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly service. And this is the podcast where I talk to business leaders about bringing people together to create value for shareholders, customers, and the community. Please follow, rate, and review Good Morning HR wherever you get your podcast. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, or at good morning hr.com.
Mike Coffey:More and more, employers are encouraging their employees to bring their whole selves to work, And, of course, they already were. It's not like they were getting lobotomized on their way to work every day. We all drag the stuff in our lives, both good and bad, into work with us every day. Sometimes our circumstances outside of work energize and motivate us, and other times, they're stressors and distractors that keep us from performing at the level we know we're capable of. Joining me today to discuss what both leaders and team members can do to create environments where everyone thrives is Lori Seitz.
Mike Coffey:Lori is an employee well-being consultant with a deep background in corporate communications, broadcasting, and entrepreneurship. She delivers workshops to corporate clients on Zen leadership and finding peace of mind amid the chaos. Lori also publishes a biweekly newsletter on LinkedIn called WeeklyZen, and you can listen to her podcast, fine is a 4 letter word, which she bills as the podcast that empowers you to say fuck being fine, and it is that salty at times. And as a warning to my more genteel listeners, there may be more frank and NSFW language in the rest of this podcast, so you can just jump forward to the commercial to get your research credit if that's what you wanna do. Welcome to Good Morning HR, Lori.
Lori Saitz:Good morning. Yes. Thank you so much for having me.
Mike Coffey:So let's start with your podcast title. Fine is a 4 letter word. I mean, I've been married 28 years now, and I know fine is a landmine. If I ever ask, how do you feel about this? And fine is the answer.
Mike Coffey:I know that's not the end of the conversation, but that does sum up your approach, to achieving high performance on a personal level. Why is fine a 4 letter word?
Lori Saitz:Fine is it it's a default. It's a default word that people just go to when they don't wanna tell you what's really on their mind. And we've been conditioned to accept that it's okay to say fine and that it's okay to hear fine and just keep moving. Like, nothing was nothing's wrong there.
Mike Coffey:Well and it's kind of what we expect and maybe sometimes really wanna hear. And maybe, you know, we I think we ask how you doing or how are things going, and we really don't wanna hear that. Right? And so we've conditioned people as, you know, as, as a culture to say, you know, a fine because we know we ask that a lot, and we really often don't wanna know. How are things going?
Mike Coffey:I'm praying they say fine. I don't wanna sit here for the next 3 or 4 minutes hearing about, you know, their dogs, you know, pooped on the rug or whatever is going on in their lives, their kids, their spouse, or any of that. So maybe part of the problem is we shouldn't ask that question unless we really want the answer.
Lori Saitz:There you go. I was just about to say, Mike, you know, if you don't want the answer, then don't ask the question because people say everything is fine, one, because they don't want to tell you what's really going on. They're embarrassed. They're ashamed. They're they're trying to manage it in their own head, and they also know that the person asking probably really doesn't want to know.
Lori Saitz:And so anybody who's listening to this show right now is never gonna hear that word or use that word in the same way again. So, yeah, the challenge is if you don't really wanna know, don't ask the question. Like, let's be authentic and genuine here.
Mike Coffey:And so what questions would you you know, what's a a casual greeting or something that you might say instead of how you're doing if you really if this is not the forum for us to unpack all of that.
Lori Saitz:Hey. What's going right good right now?
Mike Coffey:Oh, okay. Oh, there you go. That's yeah. Yeah. What's going really well?
Mike Coffey:Yeah.
Lori Saitz:What's good in your life?
Mike Coffey:Oh, there there you go. Yeah. Okay. That'll that'll those will work. Yeah.
Lori Saitz:You know why that's such a good question, just real quick, is because it refocuses people. Most people are focused on what's not going right and what they wanna complain and criticize about. And when you ask them that kind of question, it changes their their focus.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. And I I typically end emails with rather than thanks, you know, be well or something like that to and, you know, that's my wish for everybody. And so, you know, I hope all is well and those kind of things are and hopefully, you know, it finds the the, you know, whoever I'm talking to that way. What is the downside of of not being honest, of just responding fine?
Lori Saitz:The downside is nobody makes any real connections. Nobody's building any real relationships, and there's a loneliness epidemic happening in our country and in our world. And it's in, I believe, in large part because people aren't able to connect authentically. We're we're now relegated to everybody's communicating virtually, so nobody's in the same space and having face to face conversations where the energy is different, and people feel like nobody really cares how I feel. You know, we're asking that question, how are you, but not really wanting the answer.
Lori Saitz:People feel that. And so it leads to this feeling of isolation. And, you know, there's a record number of people I'm not gonna get into the whole, like, pharmaceutical thing, but there's a record number of people who are on antidepressant, antianxiety medications. And I feel like a lot of times, that's because they don't know how to manage those emotions. They haven't been allowed to, and this is a way of of getting through as opposed to dealing with it.
Mike Coffey:And you talked about those authentic connections, and I think that's one of the skill sets that we don't screen leaders for.
Lori Saitz:Yes.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. It's almost a drinking it is a drinking game at this point on this podcast where I talk about how we take somebody who's really good at a job and make them a supervisor or a leader over a team, And being good at that job is a completely different skill set, than being a good leader and motivating, incentivizing people. And I think part of that is that that authentic connection. Talk a little bit more about as a leader, how do you make that authentic connection?
Lori Saitz:A 100%. I just wrote a LinkedIn post about this last week about accidental managers is the term that I found. Ah. Yeah. That people get promoted.
Lori Saitz:They don't have the skills, and they're not given the training to become better leaders. They're just expected to know how to do it. Like, if I put you in front of a piano, you should be expected to know how to play, you know, Beethoven? No. Right.
Lori Saitz:Yeah. And so making those authentic connections and and building relationships and being a real person comes back to how do you bring your authentic self to work? How do you are you allowed to be who you are in the workplace, and then are you allowing your team members to be who they are, or are you asking them to hide part of themselves in order to fit into some mold that you've created? I need you to be this kind of robot. You know?
Lori Saitz:And and so to overcome that is to have genuine conversations. Like, hey. Not just, how was your weekend? Did you watch the game, you know, but, hey, what what was you know, again, what was good about your weekend? And I recommend to, actually, to team leaders to start meetings that way and to refocus everybody and go around the room and say, hey.
Lori Saitz:What was what's good right now? So that, again, you're helping people reframe and rewire their brains to focus on what is good, what is working. We'll get to what's not working and how we can fix it, but what is working? And asking people about that.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. That's what our our team members our team meetings every week. With my senior team, we start out with a segue that, you know, everybody goes through and says one positive thing that happened at work, one positive thing that they feel comfortable sharing happened in their personal lives. And part of that is we get that out of our systems and because we you know, most of us have something we want to share and it doesn't disrupt the rest of the meeting. But also it's, you know, it's a it's a great way to connect at the beginning of the meeting before maybe we get into conversations where we we, you know, rub up against each other the wrong way.
Lori Saitz:Yeah. And it lets people get to know each other on a more personal level, and that's what builds relationships and collaboration, helps people be better at collaborating with their team members when they can know them on a more personal level. They feel more, more connected and more willing to help.
Mike Coffey:So what other okay. I think to be a good leader, you've, you know, you've got to kinda have your own stuff in order to start with. So when you're working with the higher performing business leaders, what kind of things do they do or what kind of tools do you bring to them to help them focus their their ability to to lead their people, and to be authentic and, you know, bring about the best results for the individual and the organization?
Lori Saitz:One of the biggest challenges for most people, whether they're a leader or they're part of the team, is managing the distractions in your head. You know, people talk about time management as being a challenge, and, yes, it is. You need to time block and make sure you, you know, got things on the calendar that need to be addressed and all of that. However, it's the mind management, managing the distractions, keeping when you're you need to be focused on the task at hand. How do you focus your mind so that you're not still thinking about the argument you had last night with your partner or the conversation you need to have with your elderly father, you know, next weekend that you really are dreading?
Lori Saitz:You know? How do you keep yourself focused on the task at hand so that you can work on the client presentation or work on invoicing or whatever it is, whatever is in front of you, and getting it done in a way that is efficient, that doesn't take you 8 hours when it really should be taking you 5. You know, managing these distractions. How do you do that? And when leaders learn the tools and techniques to do that, that makes them better at their job.
Lori Saitz:It also makes them better at managing the people around them.
Mike Coffey:And it would probably, for all of us, make us more authentic in our personal relationships too if we're not preoccupied with work. Because certainly in my career, which is a long time, I've I've been in that spiral where when I'm supposed to be working, I'm thinking about the issues in my personal life and, you know, somebody's sick or or whatever. And then in my personal life, I'm thinking about I'm feeling almost guilty that I'm not working. And that's I mean, it's really bad if you're an entrepreneur because you feel like you're on, you know, 724.
Lori Saitz:I hear you.
Mike Coffey:But yeah. And so, you know, I it but it would be it brings balance if you can be really present right now Yeah. With whatever you're doing and focus on the right thing the things that right in front of you and let everything else go. I I teach yoga and that's I often start my class with with breathing and just saying, everything that happened before class today, let it be outside the door. Everything that you've got planned for the coming week, let it be outside the door.
Mike Coffey:Give yourself the next hour on your mat just to serve yourself. And, so but what what skills you mentioned skills and tools. What skills and tools, you know, because like time blocking, that's like, you know, that's a chainsaw. Right? I mean, we can cut down a tree with it, but it doesn't mean that we're cutting down the right tree, that we're doing a good job or trimming.
Mike Coffey:What what tools really help you refine that ability to be present, authentic, in the moment?
Lori Saitz:You just mentioned one of the most basic tools that people that is so easy to do that a lot of people will discount it because, wait, it can't be that easy. You mentioned breathing, and presumably, everybody who's listening is breathing. Right? However, are you breathing efficiently? Are you breathing in a way that is actually serving you?
Lori Saitz:Yes. You're you're breathing to stay alive, but most people are breathing very shallowly, and that actually increases stress levels because it's when you're breathing shallowly, you're you're, generating more cortisol, which is the stress hormone, so that that's what's running through your veins. When you stop and you breathe really deeply, even for 60 seconds or a 120 seconds, like 2 minutes, to stop and just breathe in really deeply all the way down to your abdomen. Feel the air coming in all the way down, all the way down. I'm sure you do this in your yoga classes.
Lori Saitz:Right? And let it go, and as you're breathing out, feel your head relaxing, your neck relaxing, feel your shoulders moving away from your ears, and just do that a few more times. Let yourself breathe in, oxygenate your blood and your brain, and now you're filling yourself with the feel good hormones of dopamine and serotonin and oxytocin, and you're reducing the cortisol in your body. So just simply sitting and breathing and saying to yourself, like you mentioned, I'm focused on this task at hand. Whatever happened before, whatever is going to happen later, I'm breathing, and I'm sitting here doing this right now.
Mike Coffey:I just read a book, and I'm I'm I'm look I wanna give the author credit. James Nestor. He just wrote I just read finished his book called Breath, and it's it's it's about his 15 year he's a science journalist, and his 15 year study of of breathing in different cultures and all of that. And so if somebody really wants to do a deep dive into everything, not just yogic breathing, but what the science says about all kinds of of the impact of breathing on on your nervous system, It's a really good read and and the back end of the book is is basically a blueprint to how to improve how you breathe and to, you know, to do your own experiments with what works for you. So I think breathing is giant.
Mike Coffey:So just taking that that time, especially before a difficult conversation
Lori Saitz:Yes.
Mike Coffey:To to breathe and and sit to yourself and just let everything go. Everything that you're carrying on your back, in your backpack. I'm always thinking about those things that we put in our backpack and we carry around with us all day, and they're better on a shelf till we need them later.
Lori Saitz:Mhmm. Yeah. Such a great analogy. Just doing that breathing. Or if you are getting ready to work on something that's gonna take a lot of brainpower, you know, first of all, finding the right time for you.
Lori Saitz:You're talking about books. I'm just finishing reading, Dan Pink's book called When.
Mike Coffey:Oh, it's a great book.
Lori Saitz:Yeah. Yeah. The scientific
Mike Coffey:The cappuccino. Oh, perfect. Yeah. The nappuccino Yeah. Is, I I read that probably 10 years ago, and I'm a big believer in the nappuccino now that that drink a cup of coffee, take a 20 minute nap in the middle of the afternoon.
Mike Coffey:Boom. You're ready for the rest of the day.
Lori Saitz:Right. So finding the ideal time for you to be working on something that requires a lot of concentration, and he talks in the book about for most people, that is typically in the morning, but not for everybody. So, anyway, finding the right time. But but even before that, doing the breathing and potentially going outside for and taking a quick 5 minute walk. And if you can do it in nature, great, but if you have to do it around a a parking lot, then do that, and without your electronics.
Lori Saitz:I mean, if you have to have your phone in your pocket, but you're not listening to it, you're not looking at it, you're walking, and you're paying attention to what am I seeing? What am I smelling? What am I hearing? What does, you know, what am I I don't know what you're tasting if you're out walking. But, you know, if you're in snow, maybe you're getting some snowflakes on your tongue.
Lori Saitz:I don't know. But, and, again, centering yourself. Like, you said the you know, centering, grounding. Another great exercise if it's warm enough is to take your shoes off and stand in the grass for, again, 2, 3, 5 minutes, doesn't have to be longer than that, and feel yourself being rooted like a tree, like a sequoia. I'm rooted, and I am grounded, and nothing can shake me.
Lori Saitz:These are great exercises to practice before you need to, like you said, go into a difficult conversation or sit and be focused while you work on a project. And you will find if you do this, instead of I don't have 5 minutes to go do that, you're actually going to save yourself a lot of time because you're gonna be more efficient when you come in to do the project.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. You come in focused, ready to do this one thing, and everything else has cleared your mind.
Lori Saitz:Yeah.
Mike Coffey:Or you reprioritize. If you say I mean, I think that's the other thing we get one of the problem one of the challenges, I think, with time blocking is you get locked into a schedule before you know what the rest of the world's gonna throw at you today. And so you've gotta be willing to say, okay. I I still need to give this project an hour and a half, 2 hours. But right now, you know, rather than try to fight through and knock this thing out, this other thing that I know is important and urgent, I need to take care of right now.
Mike Coffey:Move it around. And I I I think sometimes we don't quite get that part of the time blocking.
Lori Saitz:Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Coffey:And let's take a quick break. Good morning. HR is brought to you by Imperative. Bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly service. If you're an HRCI or SHRM certified professional, this episode of Good Morning HR has been preapproved for 1 half hour of recertification credit.
Mike Coffey:To obtain the recertification information, visit good morning hr.com and click on research credits. Then select episode 184 and enter the keyword fine. That's f I n e. And if you're looking for even more recertification credit, check out the webinars page at imperativeinfo.com. And now back to my conversation with Laurie Seitz.
Mike Coffey:So that's kind of on a personal level. So if I wanna be a leader who helps my employees, my team, you know, bring them their whole selves to work, you know, really be authentic and and maybe have the freedom to practice some of these things that help them be focused and maybe create, you know, be more creative. What are some things as a leader I can do to to build kind of a team that that's comfortable with those those kind of things?
Lori Saitz:Number 1 is do those things yourself so that you are leading by example so that they see you doing them, and that gives them permission to do them. And secondly, teaching them, whether you're teaching them directly yourself or you're bringing in a consultant like me to teach them these kinds of tools and techniques. Because when you when you are teaching them, you're doing 2 things. 1, you're giving them the tools that they may not otherwise have, And 2, you're telling them that because I'm giving you these tools, it is also now okay to use them. I'm giving you permission.
Mike Coffey:So that how does that affect, like, the let's say we're in office. So, you know, we're and if we're going to have that kind of freedom to practice those things, how do indeed, you know, do you see the employers who need to change their environments in order to make that easier to do?
Lori Saitz:It's a culture thing. So now we're gonna get into a whole other discussion about, does your corporate culture support this? Right. And Yeah. Some cultures do, and some cultures can can if they don't already, and some cultures just never will.
Lori Saitz:And, you know, I'm not gonna say that's okay, but that's how they are. You're not gonna change them. Right? So you have to look at, does your corporate culture support this? If you're a manager and there's a hierarchy above you, can you create this kind of environment in your department?
Mike Coffey:Right. You know, it kinda goes back in one of the things I talk about sometimes when I'm working with clients or or speaking is, you know, it's it's kind of a cliche, but the story about the the old man walking with his grandson along the beach and all the starfish have washed up, and the old man's picking them up throwing them out in the ocean. And the kid says, hey. You know, granddad, there's thousands of these. You you know?
Mike Coffey:And and, you know, you're not making a difference. And as he throws one out, he says it made a difference to that one. And I think inside an organization, if you don't if you're not at the level or you don't have the influence to change the organization, you can set that example by how you treat your organization. I've got a friend who was the CHRO at a large call center, and really toxic management from the, you know, through the leadership. And he started with just his department, and and he insulated them.
Mike Coffey:He took the brunt of some of it of of what things happened there, but he built a inside the team, he built that safety. And then the other department saw it. They ultimately got bought out and, and, you know, and the the new buyers immediately ran all the the the awful management away, including the former owners. But, but at least he made a difference in his area. And if another manager saw something they wanted to emulate because not ever most of us don't want to have teams that are dysfunctional and we just don't you know, a lot of leaders don't know how to create that environment.
Mike Coffey:So if you can model it, I think that's a really good start. But how do you when you're talking to your leaders about this, it's easy for a leader to to say the wrong thing or to be misunderstood and make and employees feel like when the employer is trying to or the leader is trying to get me to not focus on my distractions or not be distracted or whatever, to feel like you're minimizing the real issues in my life. You know, when you tell me to focus in on work and, you know, all of that, what you're really telling me is all these other factors aren't that important.
Lori Saitz:What you're really teaching them is how to have find peace of mind in every area of their life. And if you can help them understand that, yes, this is gonna make you more efficient and effective and productive at work, and it's going to make you more present in every relationship in your life. It's going to help you find peace of mind in every aspect of your life so that you don't feel like you have to go home from work every night and pour yourself a glass or 3 of wine, which you think helps you sleep but really doesn't. Right. You know?
Lori Saitz:Or that you,
Mike Coffey:Or doom scrolling on your phone. Yeah. I mean, which is just as bad. Right?
Lori Saitz:Right. While you're drinking the wine. You know, that that this that these tools and techniques have a cumulative and overall effect on your life. So, yes, they are going to help you be a better team member at at work, and they're going to help you be a better version of yourself overall. It's going to be easier to have tough conversations in your other relationships.
Lori Saitz:It's going to be easier to have you know, to build better relationships so that maybe you don't have to have such tough conversations. It's gonna make you a better parent. It's gonna make you a better human, and it's going to help you alleviate stress in every area of your life. And this is the part where I really struggle because so many people are addicted to this feeling of being in stress all the time. And so you can teach them these tools and techniques, but they feel very it's very uncomfortable to not be stressed all the time, to not feel like you're a squirrel stuck in the middle of the road going, which way do I go?
Lori Saitz:What do I do? What do I this, like, very squirrelly feeling
Mike Coffey:Right.
Lori Saitz:Or to feel like your hair is on fire all the time because that's just what you've become used to. And it doesn't necessarily feel good, but it's comfortable. And when you find peace of mind, now that feels uncomfortable. Wow. That's weird.
Lori Saitz:I don't know. How do I go find drama?
Mike Coffey:Yeah. Well and I think a lot of entrepreneurs are kind of high anxiety people and and and a lot of really professionals. Successful professionals are are pretty high anxiety types. And when I took the made the decision a few years ago to manage my anxiety intentionally, and really reduced it significantly. What I found was, oh, it's really hard to get anything done now because I was using my fuel.
Mike Coffey:My fuel for getting stuff done for so many you know, for decades was that anxiety. And so I had to be a lot more and it made me a lot more productive because I was a lot more intentional about what I was working on and when I did it. Paying attention to, like, Daniel Pink's discussions around biorhythms and those kind of things, about when I got stuff done. But, yeah, it's, you've, you know, you've gotta if you get rid of that anxiety, you'll find that you work a lot more productively when you're focused on the right things. You talk also a lot in your blog and on the podcast around about gratitude.
Mike Coffey:Mhmm. Talk a little bit more. We talked on it about, you know, recognizing what's going well. What else can how else can gratitude make a difference, and how can a team leader kinda draw that out of of their team?
Lori Saitz:Oh my gosh. I'm so happy you asked that question because I love talking about gratitude because it's so freaking powerful, and and people think that gratitude is just, it's a nice thing to do. It's it's the right thing to do to say thank you. Right? I don't know if when you were a kid, your parents made you write thank you notes after the holidays and after your birthday or whatever.
Lori Saitz:Yes. It's good manners. However, there's been so much research and science done on practicing gratitude and how it affects your physical body, how it affects your brain. It literally rewires your brain to be more compassionate, to be kinder, and to be more effective, which is fascinating to me. But there was a study done from Harvard and Wharton that showed receiving a thank you from a supervisor boosted productivity by 50, 50%, so now we're talking about how does practicing gratitude actually affect productivity and profitability in a company?
Lori Saitz:There are business stats here that show that gratitude has a positive effect on these numbers. Like, how do you not wanna take that? If you're in business to make money, which is what a business is there for. Right? Why would you not want to boost productivity by 50% with something as simple as showing appreciation for your team members, just recognizing their value in contribution to the team.
Mike Coffey:You know, I think sometimes leaders fall into the trap of saying, I'm showing them gratitude. I pay them every 2 weeks. We've got this contract. We've got this agreement. I pay them.
Mike Coffey:They show up and do the work, and, you know, why do I have to go out of my way to coddle them or to to do this stuff? But that same leader certainly wants to hear from their leaders. Right. Good job. Right.
Mike Coffey:Hey. I really like the way you handled this, whatever it was.
Lori Saitz:Yeah. It's not coddling. It's it's boosting somebody to it's it's simply recognizing their value in contributing to the team. Yes. You have an agreement that you pay them every 2 weeks, month, whatever it is that that that they deliver the results, but that's just a that's just a contract.
Lori Saitz:Like, why don't you wanna be a good human and boost somebody's, feelings of value? Like you said, who doesn't wanna hear, hey. Good job, Mike. Thanks so much for, your contribution to the project. It really helps because this is how it helped the client, or this is how it helps the team, or this is how it helps the company organization reach our mission.
Mike Coffey:Right. And we talk about that a lot here. We're talking about who our client is, and everybody understands what how what they do solves our clients' problems.
Lori Saitz:Yes.
Mike Coffey:And and since, you know, the majority of our company is an employment related background investigations company, you know, we're helping clients create safe workplaces, make wise you know, and we're helping the applicants. Yeah. Because sometimes it's just, you know, making sure that the right person gets in the right role so we're not putting a square peg in a round hole when we're working with our clients. So everybody benefits, and so we kind of go into that. I think, you know, that meaning everybody's looking for meaning in their in their work.
Mike Coffey:I mean, we've seen all the, Patrick Lencioni stuff and all that stuff. It's all out there. The other thing for gratitude for me is, for myself, is when I remind myself of the role of luck in my own success. It's hard, you know, if if you just think, okay. I, you know, I'm an island, and I did all of this by myself, then, you know, it's hard to have gratitude.
Mike Coffey:Right? But if you recognize, I didn't have any choice in the, you know, the people I stumbled across in my life who were mentors to me early on and who helped me. You know? I didn't have any any role in the fact that I was born with a functioning body and a mind that works the way it does that's brought me, you know, these the success and all those things. All these things that are outside of my control have brought me success, as much as, you know, my ability to leverage those opportunities and and to be there, you know, to step up.
Mike Coffey:But, you know, I always say success is, luck, mindset, and skill in that order. And, and so if I will remind myself that, hey. You know, I was just you know, it's pure luck. I mean, you know? And and if somebody's more spiritual, then maybe what you say is, you know, I, you know, I, you know, I received this blessing or or however you frame it in in your worldview.
Mike Coffey:But I think that's, that helps me at least with with gratitude is just remembering, you know, the day I get what I've really got coming to me, I might be really disappointed. You know? So, if we can mix it up and and say, you know, things that came to me without my, you know, without my necessarily deserving it or earning it or, you know, things outside of my control, that's what I'm grateful for.
Lori Saitz:You said number 2 was your attitude.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. Mindset. Yeah.
Lori Saitz:Mindset. That is so enormous, and that's where gratitude comes in. It you know, that attitude of gratitude. Yeah. I'm not the sub phrase is so overused, but the the whole idea that you get to choose how you look at life.
Lori Saitz:And if you look at life as something to be grateful for, and you can find gratitude even in the toughest situations, and if you can't, call me, and I will help you find it, because I am a master at finding gratitude even in, like, what looks like terrible, like, everything's on fire situations. It is possible. That's not to say that the situation isn't happening, and we're painting over it with rose colored glasses and whatever. We can still recognize that there's a stressful situation or that things are out of control, and we can still find gratitude at the same time. There was another study done that showed the number one reason that people leave jobs is because they don't feel appreciated.
Lori Saitz:So if you want to improve those numbers, again, gratitude, it does not cost you anything to to be nice, to be compassionate, to to recognize when people are doing well. But this whole idea of choosing what to focus on. You know? Do we have time? Can I share an exercise?
Mike Coffey:Sure. Sure.
Lori Saitz:Okay.
Mike Coffey:Yeah.
Lori Saitz:So this is called the bottom grateful for exercise. Alright? So, again, we mentioned earlier that people have a tendency to focus on the things to things to complain and criticize about.
Mike Coffey:Right.
Lori Saitz:And so here's my invitation for your listeners. When you catch yourself complaining or criticizing about something, and I say when because, again, we're human. We will. Catch yourself in the moment and say, but I'm grateful for like, give me something that that pissed you off in the past couple of days Oh. That you were complaining about.
Mike Coffey:I'm so peaceful and lovable, but the, oh, okay. Yes. At at the yoga studio, a a teacher left a mess in the studio for for me to come in, and I had to clean up my the studio before I taught my class. And and, it annoyed it annoyed me. Yeah.
Lori Saitz:I can understand that. And now can you add on, but I'm grateful for what?
Mike Coffey:But I'm grateful that I got to come teach a class because, I mean and, you know, I I I if I could figure out how to monetize it, that's what I would do all the day every day, and I'm teaching 7 times this week. So it's not unusual for me to be in there, but, you know, it's a gift to me to be able to, you know, to lead people in something that I love, for for an hour at a time.
Lori Saitz:Yeah. And and but I'm grateful for could be something that's not even related to yoga. Oh, thank you. You know, I'm angry and annoyed that the other teacher left the classroom a mess, and I have to clean it up before my class, but I'm grateful. I got to enjoy such a nice holiday with my family and that we got to spend some quality time together and and laugh and really enjoy each other's company.
Lori Saitz:Like, it doesn't have to be relate. It could be but I'm grateful that the sun is shining today, and I don't have to put rain boots on to go out in in this weather, you know, that is just so beautiful. Whatever it is. Perfect. But I'm grateful.
Mike Coffey:But I'm grateful.
Lori Saitz:And practice grateful for you.
Mike Coffey:Thank you for joining me, Laurie.
Lori Saitz:My my joy to be here.
Mike Coffey:And I'll include links to Lori's, newsletter on LinkedIn, her podcast, in the show notes, so go find those. And I'm grateful for you listening. You can comment on this episode or search our previous episodes at goodmorninghr.com or on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube. And don't forget to follow us wherever you get your podcast. Rob Upchurch is our technical producer, and you can reach him at robmakespods.com.
Mike Coffey:And as always, thank you to Imperative's marketing coordinator, Mary Anne Hernandez, who keeps the trains running on time. And I'm Mike Coffey. Please don't hesitate to reach out if I can be of service to you personally or professionally. I'll see you next week and until then, be well, do good, and keep your chin up.