Gratitude isn't soft

I’m going to launch a 6-month cohort in January for men who no longer want to drift, but want to be a part of a community in the journey. We’ll meet monthly (virtual) to talk through content, frameworks, and accountability. You will also have the opportunity for 1:1 time each month. I’m limiting this to 10 people. $150/mo or $750 up front. Reply to this email if you are interested or in.

Hopefully you’re recovering from eating too much turkey (I’m firmly on Team Ham) and getting time with family. While Thanksgiving is technically over, gratitude is still going to drive our theme this week.

Most men think gratitude is something you do when life is going well.

When the job is solid. When the marriage is good. When the kids are behaving. When you've got margin in the bank account. Or worse, when we fake it one day each year.

Should you be grateful when things are going well? Of course. But gratitude that is conditional on circumstances isn’t gratitude. That's just relief.

Real gratitude is a decision you make when everything in you wants to complain. When you're stuck. When progress feels slow. When the gap between where you are and where you want to be feels too wide to cross. When frustration feels easier than hope.

Choosing gratitude in those seasons is how it becomes a discipline, not a feeling.

The problem is that too many of us obsess over what we don’t have. And that’s exactly when we drift.

Not enough time.
Not enough money.
Not enough support.
Not enough results.

When your attention is locked on the gap, you fail to see the gain. You take the good for granted. You live on autopilot. You get bitter. You drift.

Gratitude isn't about ignoring reality. Life happens and it is sometimes (often) hard. Gratitude is about choosing which reality you're going to anchor to.

You can anchor to what's missing, or you can anchor to the truth of how far you’ve come. You can live in the gap, or you can live in the gain. Only one perspective keeps you from drifting.

And despite what every Black Friday and Cyber Monday email is screaming at you, you don’t need more. More won’t fix a scarcity mindset. If you can’t be grateful with what you have, you’ll never be grateful with more.

“It is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.” - David Steindl-Rast

What you need is to stop for 5 minutes and realize what you already have. The breath in your lungs. Your family. Your freedom to choose. The roof over your head. The fact that you're still here, still trying, still in the fight. The opportunities in front of you. Is there work to be done? Of course. But we don’t have to wait to be grateful.

And here’s the science: gratitude rewires your brain - literally. Not in a soft, inspirational way, but in a functional way. Gratitude shifts your mental operating system from scarcity to abundance. From “I don’t have enough” to “I already have more than I realized.” That shift changes your decisions. Your reactions. Your perspective. Your resilience.

When you operate from abundance, you think clearer, you choose better, and you stop burning down what’s working just because you’re frustrated with what’s not

This week, try this: Every morning, write down three things you're grateful for. There are no rules to this. Gratitude doesn’t come with qualifiers. Pick any three things.

Do it for seven days. See what shifts. When working with leaders and teams, I almost always recommend this practice. And I see the eye rolls - especially from men. And I challenge them. “You’re free to not do this practice. But I’ll do it and then let’s catch up in a year and see who is doing better.” I’ve been doing this daily for five years (I use an app called DayOne) and I can tell you that it matters. And I have emails from dozens of men who, after initially resisting, thank me for challenging them.

Gratitude won't fix everything. But it will anchor you. It will change your perspective. It will force you to look for the good. It will keep you committed to the path of getting better. Make it a practice.

For you,
Kevin

P.S. I'm working on the NO DRIFT Weekly Standard - a system for men who want to take control back. Before it's finished, I created a Weekly Scorecard as a free test. Want to try it and give feedback? Just reply.

Thanks for reading this. Share it with anybody you think would find it useful. And as a reminder, NO DRIFT is not mine it is ours. I want to know what you think, what you want to hear about, what you are learning. All feedback is welcomed.