your life, send awesomeness out to everyone around you. Here are some good ways to get in the give-and-take flow, yo:
1. If you haven’t already, pick one or two causes that have real meaning to you and give to them every month. Give however much time or money you can, but do it consistently so it becomes a habit, so it becomes part of who you are. Even five dollars a month counts.
2. Give one of your favorite things in the world away to someone who would totally love it. And if you can, do it without them knowing where it came from.
3. Leave a dollar more than you normally would every time you tip. Or ten.
4. If someone is being snarky, instead of sinking to their leveland being snarky back, raise them up by giving them the love.
5. Smile, compliment, and crack people up as often as possible.
6. Say yes to invitations that you wouldn’t normally say yes to because you hate to inconvenience the person offering. Take them up on it. Give them the opportunity to give to you.
7. Stop and feel in your body how great it feels when you give and receive; raise your frequency and expect more good things to come your way.
8. LOVE YOURSELF
And everybody benefits.
CHAPTER 14:
GRATITUDE: THE GATEWAY DRUG TO AWESOMENESS
When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.
—Anthony Robbins; author, speaker, motivator, life-changer
When I was a little kid, my parents made my brothers and sister and I answer the phone in this very formal way, “Jennifer Sincero speaking,” as if, between fighting over who got to play with the Big Wheel and stuffing balloons down our pants, we were all running our own private concierge businesses. Their friends would gush on the other end of the phone about what a polite bunch the Sincero kids were, and I thought nothing of it until the day I made my very first phone call to a friend, and, upon hearing her answer, gripped the phone in wide-eyed disbelief. You get to say “Hello?” Do your parents know?! It was as unthinkableto me at the time as saying the F-word or sitting down to join my parents for a glass of scotch.
My amazement quickly turned to horror when I realized it wasn’t just that one renegade friend who could answer the phone in such a carefree manner, but everyone, and that my parents were clearly playing some big practical joke on us. Our objections were met with the standard, “When you pay your own phone bill you can answer it any way you like.” So the years passed, our indignation slowly getting watered down by habit.
I don’t remember exactly when the mutiny happened, but eventually we all started answering the phone like normal human beings. I’m going to assume it was around the time of their divorce, when Mom had all four of us mostly to herself, either in, or hovering around, high school, and phone rules got bulldozed in her switch to combat mode.
The demand for manners in general, however, was left firmly standing, and no matter how wild and wasted we got, we always remained those polite Sincero kids: “Can I help you Officer? Thank you, Officer. Yes, sir, that is my marijuana.” Not only are the words “please” and “thank you” ingrained in me like the recipe for my Italian father’s red sauce or the knowledge that it’s not cool to kill people, but being polite just always seemed to be such a no-brainer. Aside from the fact that it makes you feel like a good person, people will usually do what you ask them to do if you’re nice about it, and if you’re not, they won’t. Hello? Which is why it completely baffles me when anyone over the age of five is rude, and especially when they refrain from the thank-you part of the conversation when a gesture is made on their behalf, either by me or other people or The Universe in general.
I don’t know about you, but when someone doesn’t say thank you after I’ve hooked them up, it’s as glaring an omission to me as if they’ve shown up without their pants on. And The Universe feels the same
1. If you haven’t already, pick one or two causes that have real meaning to you and give to them every month. Give however much time or money you can, but do it consistently so it becomes a habit, so it becomes part of who you are. Even five dollars a month counts.
2. Give one of your favorite things in the world away to someone who would totally love it. And if you can, do it without them knowing where it came from.
3. Leave a dollar more than you normally would every time you tip. Or ten.
4. If someone is being snarky, instead of sinking to their leveland being snarky back, raise them up by giving them the love.
5. Smile, compliment, and crack people up as often as possible.
6. Say yes to invitations that you wouldn’t normally say yes to because you hate to inconvenience the person offering. Take them up on it. Give them the opportunity to give to you.
7. Stop and feel in your body how great it feels when you give and receive; raise your frequency and expect more good things to come your way.
8. LOVE YOURSELF
And everybody benefits.
CHAPTER 14:
GRATITUDE: THE GATEWAY DRUG TO AWESOMENESS
When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.
—Anthony Robbins; author, speaker, motivator, life-changer
When I was a little kid, my parents made my brothers and sister and I answer the phone in this very formal way, “Jennifer Sincero speaking,” as if, between fighting over who got to play with the Big Wheel and stuffing balloons down our pants, we were all running our own private concierge businesses. Their friends would gush on the other end of the phone about what a polite bunch the Sincero kids were, and I thought nothing of it until the day I made my very first phone call to a friend, and, upon hearing her answer, gripped the phone in wide-eyed disbelief. You get to say “Hello?” Do your parents know?! It was as unthinkableto me at the time as saying the F-word or sitting down to join my parents for a glass of scotch.
My amazement quickly turned to horror when I realized it wasn’t just that one renegade friend who could answer the phone in such a carefree manner, but everyone, and that my parents were clearly playing some big practical joke on us. Our objections were met with the standard, “When you pay your own phone bill you can answer it any way you like.” So the years passed, our indignation slowly getting watered down by habit.
I don’t remember exactly when the mutiny happened, but eventually we all started answering the phone like normal human beings. I’m going to assume it was around the time of their divorce, when Mom had all four of us mostly to herself, either in, or hovering around, high school, and phone rules got bulldozed in her switch to combat mode.
The demand for manners in general, however, was left firmly standing, and no matter how wild and wasted we got, we always remained those polite Sincero kids: “Can I help you Officer? Thank you, Officer. Yes, sir, that is my marijuana.” Not only are the words “please” and “thank you” ingrained in me like the recipe for my Italian father’s red sauce or the knowledge that it’s not cool to kill people, but being polite just always seemed to be such a no-brainer. Aside from the fact that it makes you feel like a good person, people will usually do what you ask them to do if you’re nice about it, and if you’re not, they won’t. Hello? Which is why it completely baffles me when anyone over the age of five is rude, and especially when they refrain from the thank-you part of the conversation when a gesture is made on their behalf, either by me or other people or The Universe in general.
I don’t know about you, but when someone doesn’t say thank you after I’ve hooked them up, it’s as glaring an omission to me as if they’ve shown up without their pants on. And The Universe feels the same
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