It’s the time of year when we (in the U.S., anyway) pause briefly from our hectic schedules to contemplate the people, experiences, and things we are most grateful for.
It’s important to do—not just annually, but regularly–because gratitude is highly correlated with happiness. According to researchers at Harvard Medical School:
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“In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.”
In short, if you want to be happy, focus on being grateful.
When I think of what’s most important to me, what I’m most grateful for, for some reason I think of words starting with “F” in groups of three. I even thought of titling this post “Three F-ing Things I’m Grateful For” but figured people might take that the wrong way.
The biggest things in my life are faith, family, and friends. Those are eternal.
Outside of work, I’m thankful for food, fishing, and football.
And on a professional basis, I’m grateful to work with fantastic clients, to spend my days doing fascinating work, and to continue making phenomenal connections (okay, “phenomenal” isn’t an “F” word, but…phonetically, it counts).
I’m fortunate every day to work with some of the most innovative companies in IT service management software, financial analytics and business intelligence systems implementation, live event management technology and planning, medical education software, leadership development, and others. Great organizations, awesome people.
I’m blessed to do work that’s challenging and rewarding. SEO, which changes continually. Social media marketing. Lots of writing. Some PPC advertising management. Marketing and content strategy development. And lately, an increasing amount of influencer marketing, one of the most effective channels for cutting through the noise in our chaotic, crowded online world.
And I’m grateful for opportunities to continue to make phenomenal connections, both locally here in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and globally through social media. Since I can’t possibly name all of the amazing connections I’ve made even recently, I’ll just thank a few of the “connectors” here in the Twin Cities, the people who bring other great people to create new relationships:
- Reed Robinson, Ryan Broshar, and Casey Shultz at BetaMN.
- Maria Boland Ploessl at MinneStar.
- Jennifer Zick of Authentic Brand and Two Or More.
- Laura King at Marketers’ Community.
- Maddy Kennedy at MinneInno.
- Mykl Roventine at Social Media Breakfast – Minneapolis/St. Paul (#smbmsp).
And of course I’m thankful for YOU—everyone who takes a few minutes out of their day to read my blog. Happy Thanksgiving!