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💡 The Big Idea: A Little Gratitude Goes a Long Way

Practicing gratitude is one of the most powerful things you can do to improve your mental, emotional, and even physical state.

In this newsletter, I share why it’s so effective and how to harness the benefits for yourself.

The Link Between The Brain and The Body

In ​The Power of Positive Thinking, author Norman Vincent Peale spoke to many medical professionals who linked physical illness to broken thinking. One doctor he spoke to (Dr. Franklin Ebaugh) shared that the makeup of illnesses at hospitals was roughly evenly split into three categories:

• 1/3 was organic (something physically wrong)
• 1/3 was part organic, part emotional
• 1/3 was purely emotional

In one clinic with 500 patients, 386 (77%) were found to be ill from an unhealthy mental state (there was nothing physically wrong with them).

Yikes.

That statistic is pretty sobering, but it can’t really be that bad, right? After all, what exactly is an unhealthy mental state?

Here’s the scary part: *pretty much anything perceived as negative qualifies.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Nothing is neutral — even your thoughts. In fact, they create the inner dialogue and self-talk that end up framing your physical world.

As Stephen Covey once said, things are created twice: first in your mind, then in reality.

If you find yourself in a negative situation, it could have easily started out as negative thinking.

Consider the Source

So what do you do if you find yourself in that place?

Consider your inputs.

What have you been feeding on? And how has it changed you?

Jim Rohn once shared three critical questions to ask when you find yourself feeling frustrated:

1. Who am I allowing to speak into my life?
2. What effect is that having on me?
3. Is that ok?

This is a big reason why I’m not on Facebook, and I intentionally don’t keep up with the news. Those are negative voices optimized for algorithm engagement — NOT for my personal well-being. If something is really important, it’ll find its way to me. If not, I’ll focus on what I can control and not worry about the rest.

It’s easier for me not to feed on the negativity if I don’t even see it in the first place.

The Power of Gratitude

But what do you do if you can’t escape a negative environment? What if someone at work or a close family member is contributing to your negativity?

In those situations, the best thing you can do is practice gratitude. In fact, you should probably do this anyway!

Dr. Robert Emmons, professor of Psychology at UC Davis, is considered by many to be the world’s leading expert on gratitude. In his book Thanks​, he says that practicing gratitude can make you up to 25% happier.

But that’s just the beginning of the physical and emotional benefits that come with gratitude, which include:

• Reduced stress
• Lower blood pressure
• Better sleep
• Reduced risk of depression

Practicing gratitude can even slow down the body’s natural aging process!

But the craziest thing about gratitude to me is that the specifics of your situation don’t actually matter.

It’s an internal perspective change.

You don’t have to deny that negative circumstances exist. You just need to choose not to focus on them.

So, instead of highlighting all the things that are going wrong, find the things that are going right and express gratitude for them.

Gratitude Tips

There are a lot of different ways to practice gratitude.

One way is simply to keep a gratitude journal. Every day, I force myself to answer the question, What am I grateful for? It could be a conversation I had with a friend, the beautiful weather, how I felt after a long run, or something silly one of my kids said.

My wife and I also practice gratitude during our weekly date nights. We always end by verbally expressing gratitude for something the other person has done during the last week.

A curious thing about verbal gratitude: I’ve noticed that verbalizing gratitude towards someone instantly dissolves any anger I may feel toward them. No one can make you madder than your spouse can (😂), but the minute you force yourself to find something positive and verbalize it, all those negative feelings instantly dissolve. I dare you to try it! I have found it impossible to stay upset while expressing gratitude.

One thing to keep in mind when expressing gratitude: be specific. Try not to repeatedly express gratitude for the same general things, as it’ll start to lose its effectiveness. It doesn’t have to be something big, but it does have to be unique.

With Thanksgiving coming up here in the US, many of you will be getting together with family members. For some, that’s a great opportunity to practice gratitude. For some others, that may actually be a little stressful. But I challenge you to find the positive anyway. Remember, you have the ability to change your perspective, and practicing gratitude is a great way to do it.

Want some practice? 😉 Hit reply and let me know what you’re grateful for!

😎 Something Cool: Link Preview plugin​

One non-obvious Obsidian Canvas feature that I love is the ability to paste URLs and have actual web pages load. I’ve used this feature to create dashboards for tracking critical numbers in my creator business for a while now, but it’s always kind of bugged me that you couldn’t get link previews in your actual notes.

The Link Preview plugin solves this by loading a preview of the linked webpage whenever you hover over a link in Reading Mode.

There are other plugins that have separate commands for link embeds and previews in the actual content of your notes (kind of like what Notion does), but they’re overkill for what I want. I just want to be able to preview the website before clicking the link, much like you can with an internal link if you hold the Command key.

Unfortunately, it only works in Reading Mode. I wish it also worked in Live Preview, but I can understand the difficulties with that. For now, I’m switching to Reading Mode when I’m done writing and using this plugin to check the links before posting or publishing.

😎 Something Else Cool: The Focused 2025 Wall Calendar​

I reached out to Jesse at NeuYear several years ago because I was a customer and wanted to tweak a few things, and we’ve been working with him ever since on a custom wall calendar that is branded for the Focused podcast I do with my pal David Sparks.

There are a couple of things I love about these calendars:

• The months run together (no arbitrary transitions in the middle of a week)
• Each quarter is shaded so it’s easy to see, and each day is numbered with the day in the quarter (ideal for people who follow my Personal Retreat framework or the 12 Week Year approach to planning)
• There’s space at the top for your yearly words, themes, or intentions
• Small circles on each day for habit tracking
• Portrait and landscape available on the same calendar (printed on both sides)

I don’t really mention this calendar much other than on the podcast, but it’s one of my favorite productivity planning tools. They’re available now for $30.

Pro Tip: If you get one, I recommend mounting it on foam board at your local FedEx store. That gives you a much better surface to write on. Also, it’s dry-erase, but if you use wet-erase markers, they won’t smudge when you bump them with your hand while writing.

📚 Book Notes: The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale

​The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale was a life-changing book for me. It’s one of those that can completely change your perspective on life. And while I tend to naturally lean a bit more towards the pessimistic side of the spectrum, this book was just what I needed when I first read it. It helped me see how negativity and worry was stealing my energy, robbing me of peace, and keeping my world small. This book provides a blueprint to get back on track whenever you notice things starting to go wrong.

To download my mind map book notes for this incredible book, click here.

— Mike

P.S. I've been working hard on some new courses that will be available as part of a Black Friday promotion later this week. But if you're already overwhelmed with Black Friday "deals," I get it 😉 If you already know you're not interested, click here and you won't hear a peep from me until the next newsletter hits on Monday 🤐

P.P.S. If you're curious about what I have in store for Black Friday, you can find the details here.