The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – I Want to Thank You: How a Year of Gratitude Can Bring Joy and Meaning in a Disconnected World by Gina Hamadey

Episode Date: March 25, 2021

I Want to Thank You: How a Year of Gratitude Can Bring Joy and Meaning in a Disconnected World by Gina Hamadey An inspiring guide to saying thank you, one heartfelt note at a time. We all know that gratitude is good for us--but the real magic comes when we express it. Writer Gina Hamadey learned this life-changing lesson firsthand when a case of burnout and too many hours on social media left her feeling depleted and disconnected. In this engaging book, she chronicles how twelve months spent writing 365 thank-you notes to strangers, neighbors, family members, and friends shifted her perspective. Her journey shows that developing a lasting active gratitude practice can make you a happier person, heal complicated relationships, and reconnect you with the people you love--all with just a little bit of bravery at the mailbox. How can we turn an often-dreaded task into a rewarding act of self-care that makes us feel more present, joyful, and connected? Whether we're writing to a long-lost friend, a helpful neighbor, or a child's teacher, this inspiring book helps us reflect on meaningful memories and shared experiences and express ourselves with authenticity, vulnerability, and heart. Informed by Hamadey's year of discovery as well as interviews with experts on relationships, gratitude, and more, this deceptively simple guide offers a powerful way to jump-start your joy. Hamadey found herself thanking not only family members and friends, but less expected people in her sphere, including local shopkeepers, physical therapists, long-ago career mentors, favorite authors, and more. Once you get going, you might find yourself cultivating an active gratitude practice, too--one heartfelt note of thanks at a time.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain now here's your host chris voss hi folks this boss here from the chris voss show.com the chris voss show.com hey welcome to the podcast we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in be sure to see the video version of this at youtube.com forward slash Chris Voss. Hit that bell notification.

We have a most amazing author today. And, of course, we only have amazing authors on The Chris Voss Show. If you don't see these amazing – no, I can't say that. These amazing authors, of course, are everywhere. But the only ones that are on The Chris Voss Show are the amazing authors. So you definitely want to see that as well. But they do tour around. They do other podcasts as well but this young lady she wrote a beautiful extraordinary book

that's highly motivational and something we really probably need right now with all the different things we've been dealing with lately over the last year she wrote the book i want to thank you how a year of gratitude can bring Joy and Meaning into a Disconnected World. She's the author of this book, Gina Hamadi, and she's got an extraordinary bio we're going to take and go over here. She's a former writer with O, the Oprah Magazine, Food and Wine, Rachel Ray Every Day, and Women's Health. She spent a year saying thank you, writing a letter a day to someone who touched her life. And while she wrote to her friends and family, she also wrote to people that might be less obvious, but no less important. One month she wrote to doctors and healthcare

workers. One month she wrote to educators. She also spent a month writing to shopkeepers, the people she sees every day in her small Brooklyn neighborhood, and the results were life-changing. Selfishly, it made her happier, spreading around joy and gratitude, but the letters also healed complicated relationships and reconnected her with the people she loved. Gina writes about her experiences in the newest book. This thing is going to be coming out on April 13th, so you want to get the pre-ordered in on it so you can take and be the first one on your blog and book club to say, I know what's in this book. And she writes about her experiences, and I want to thank you. This wonderful book we'll be talking about today, and it's pretty darn awesome.

Welcome to the show, Gina. How are you? I'm great, Chris. Thank you so much. What a lovely introduction. Thank you. I was cheating a little bit. I was reading it from your PR agent, so there was that. So you've written this wonderful book. It's coming out April 13th. I want to start congratulations on writing a book. This isn't easy. Yeah, yeah, it is. It does feel like an accomplishment. I feel like my head's been down and I've been working so hard that I'm trying to, I'm trying to take it in and enjoy these lovely chats for one thing. There you go. There you go. You're on the other side of it.

The writing of the book is hard, man. I'm still trying to write my first book. And I'm just doing a pop-up that's like poems or something. I don't know. I'm not doing it. You know what's harder than the writing of the book is the planning of the writing of the book. That's what I find. Like when people are like, oh, my God, you wrote a whole book on thank yous. So you wrote all these thank you notes in one year. So did you just print

them into a book? And I'm like, no, but in the beginning, when I was trying to conceive of the book, that was one idea. It's like when there's no blueprint, that's the hard part when it's like, Oh my God, it could be X, it could be Y, it could be Z and the whole world. It feels like there's a whole world of options. But once I had the idea for what it would be Y, it could be Z and the whole world. It feels like there's a whole world of options. But once I had the idea for what it would be, then actually the writing of it was really fun. Awesome sauce. Give us your plugs or people can find you on the interwebs, get to know you more and order this wonderful book. Yeah. So Gina Hamity.com links to all the pre-order, the Amazon, your Amazon, your indie book, et cetera. And you could also just search my name

on Amazon if that's the easiest for you, although support your local indie bookstores. I'm on Instagram at Gina.Hamady and that's H-A-M-A-D-E-Y. And I'm on, I don't know, you could find me anywhere, Gina Hamady. There you go. So what motivated you to want to write this book? Okay. So it all started on a train ride. So I was commuting on the New Jersey transit, doing an opposite commute from my home in Brooklyn out to Summit, New Jersey. I had a consulting gig at Bowlin Branch, which is a nice home goods, soft sheets company. And it was like an hour long train ride.

It was in January of 2018. And I'm a mom of two little kids and I got was like an hour-long train ride in January of 2018 and I'm a mom of two little kids and I got this busy career and the quiet train ride is like a vacation that it doesn't get any better but I found that it would go by too quickly and I was lost in email and feeds and I had this vague sense that I wasn't quite I don't know taking advantage of it but I wasn't thinking about that too much as a thought in the back of my mind. And then I had this big stack of thank you notes to write to people who had donated to a fundraiser of mine for City Harvest, which is a great organization. And it wasn't something I was looking forward to doing. I'm not like one of those people. I feel like people are

finding me now that they're like, Oh, I've always loved writing thank you notes. I'm like, really? I definitely didn't. So it wasn't a task that I was looking forward to. But I found that when I actually turned to it and on the tray table focused on one person by one person, these random people in my life that had given money to this fundraiser, it was just feeling really good. It felt like the whole day changed. A peace and a calm came over me. I felt blood pressure was lowering and my breathing slowed. It just felt like a little bit of meditation in a way that it was surprising to me. And at the end of the month, I was thinking about this. And it happened to be January 31st.

And I was thinking how surprisingly lovely it was. And I looked at the list and there were 31 people. And for the only time probably in my life, I had a full concept come together in one moment. I said, okay, I've written a thank you note for every day of the year so far. And this month was dedicated to charity. So I will keep this up for this year. And every month will be a different topic. And so I'll just have to come up with the topics, the list of people for each of those months and just execute it. So that was the origin of the idea

and then I stuck to it. There you go. And so in the book, give us an arc of like, you've sat down and written, I noticed there's several months that you're using in the book to go through different chapters and give us a little outline of that if you would. Sure.

So the book goes, the book tracks the year. So every chapter follows a different month. And every month was so different. To give you an example, writing to my neighbors for favors they had done for me or my family throughout the year, that was a very different month than writing to my career mentors, where I felt like that was, I felt like I needed to outline those and they were longer and they were letters. And I went back and really spent time thinking about things that those people said and the example they set. So every chapter I go month by month, chapter two, neighbors,

chapter three, friends. And for each of those, I pull out a benefit, a lesson and a surprise because each of those months truly did have a benefit, a lesson and a surprise. Because each of those months truly did have very distinct benefits, lessons and surprises. And, and I also, for almost every chapter, I interviewed an expert of some sort to shed light on the benefit, I was feeling those things in that train ride, the breathing, slowing and the that feeling. And then I spoke to a neurologist and a meditation expert trying to help me figure out what was actually going on. Was my breathing slowing for an example? So that's part of the book too, is I'm pulling in these expert interviews. And I also interviewed some people that I wrote the notes to that maybe wrote back, oh my God, this really meant a lot to

me. So I interviewed a couple of those people saying, what do you mean? What was going on in your life at the time? Why did this note mean a lot to you in that moment? That's pretty awesome. That's beautiful. Is part of it a sense of gratitude or being in the moment of now where you're taking stock of who are the people in my life or who are the people who made a difference or maybe it's just care about people, whether they're people, I think, at the store or we bump into. Is that kind of what that's getting down to, that grounding that we need? I think that's a big part of it. For an example, in my neighbor's month, I set out the intention of, okay, I'm going to write to 30, or I guess it's February, so 28, 28 neighbors that did a favor for me or my family. And I'm starting to write those and I write maybe

five or six or seven or eight. And then I'm really looking around, right? Just try to, and I'm thinking, I'm walking around my neighborhood and I'm trying to retrieve memories. Who else is really kind to us when we go in our store? Who else did something like that? But what started happening was I'm noticing things that are happening in real time. So there was a shuttle bus that waited for my son and I as we're running down the street, or we went to Trader Joe's and I forgot one of the bags and the shopkeeper ran after me across busy Atlantic Avenue and found me. And then on that very day, actually, where I said, okay, great. Okay. I'm going to, this is note number 15 or

whatever. I'm going to write to that Trader Joe's guy. I came home and my mother in law was here. And she not only had watched my kids all day, as she does every Monday, but or did in pre COVID times, but she had also bought my son a new winter jacket, and she had brought us salmon patties for dinner. And so that was another little light bulb where I was like, Okay, so I'm noticing these wonderful favors that my neighbors are doing. I'm also now noticing something that somebody in my family is doing. So it just is, we all have these moments, right? Where you notice something that's lovely that somebody is doing for you. But I think what the year trained me to do was to expand on that feeling because it's not a fleeting thought where I just go, oh, that's nice. How nice.

And then you're onto the next thing and your next thing on your list, right? Where you're, that's the way you're operating. It's like, I had this task where I was incentivized because I had to hit this number that I gave myself. I was incentivized to say, hold on, let me, that could be a person that I'm going to write to. Okay. So I need to know that person's name.

And then I'm going to sit down and write a short to four minutes. It's not like I, but just sat down and explained if you hadn't run across Atlantic Avenue to give me that bag. I have two little kids that would have been such a pain for me to come home. I don't even know how I probably just would have said, forget it. And just, so I just wrote that in a note and then I'm still feeling that those nice feelings. And then I'm giving it back to the person and the manager, in fact, because I gave it to the manager. So it's, it takes this fleeting moment and it just expands it not only for me, but for that person.

I love that because you're focusing on, you're really focusing and reminiscing and being awash in, in that moment and appreciating those people. You're not just saying, like you say, thank you and have a nice day. And I imagine when it gets delivered to them, there's a whole mess of difference. And we'll talk about that in a second. But what sort of material are you using? Because this is a lost art. There's all sorts of apps where you can either send a note to somebody, I'm really bad for sending you an email saying Merry Christmas. And what sort of paper and are you doing anything special with this unique? How's that work? So I started out buying really pretty cards, but they'll get very expensive on this scale. So at Target, there was a plastic little bin of a hundred note cards, colorful note cards

with envelopes. They're just like solid color note cards. And I just use those for some people I might upgrade, let's say for my career mentors, it was a little more, it wouldn't fit on the front and back of a, you know, four by six note card. Then maybe I would, I would upgrade a little bit, but I definitely did not. I don't think the point is to get something very expensive and you don't have to have personalized stationery. I know somebody who went on a gratitude letter campaign for her 50th birthday year. She wrote 50 gratitude letters, and she typed them out on her computer and printed them out and sent them. Maybe she got nicer paper than just the white paper, but maybe not. It's truly

not the point. I think people get caught up in things like that, where they say, I don't, it's too expensive to get this, or my handwriting's not great, or it's just like, it doesn't, that's not what you're thinking of on the receiving end. You're not thinking, oh gosh, this could have looked prettier. You're just delighted on the receiving end. You're just thinking, this is such a surprise. Somebody thanked me out of nowhere for something that maybe happened a long time ago. How lovely that I impacted this person's life. They're not picking apart these little things that you might be thinking of. That's really interesting. So it's not really about the card. It's more about the message. And then also what's interesting is what you're

saying with people are, it's so unique, like no one gets letters anymore. All I get in the mail is bills and sales stuff and Arby's coupon I'm pretty sure that they love me in a sort of way but it's not very personalized let's put it that way um Arby's yeah yeah it says to car rt sort or something like that but so what do you do for people like me who write like a doctor like I'm I'mamously, no matter how hard I try, I can't write well that you're going to be able to read it. Like you're going to be even more angry.

You're going to be like, what did this idiot send me this paper? So what about people that have handwriting challenges? If you truly feel like you can't write something that's legible, then you type it and print it out. But if it's somewhat legible

and not beautiful, that's just a piece of you. It makes the artifact even more meaningful because you touch that and maybe there's a little smear and your hand was the one that smeared it. So if it's somebody who loves you or somebody who you've made an impact on or they made an impact on you, it just means all the more. But listen, typing it out and sending it is also an artifact that they can save and put away. And that is perfectly good if you really feel like I have illegible handwriting. And then there's the connection there. And then I'll put in PS, my handwriting is like a doctor.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. This is a favorite of yours. And that would make you laugh. And that's another thing where any of those little personal touches, I feel like so many, almost all of my fits come down to people strive for perfection in a way that it gets in the way. Whereas imperfection is, should actually be the goal. Because if you mess up and you scratch it out and you write a little note that says, Oh, I messed up. Like that just makes it more interesting. You know, I could put like a seal of blood or something on the corner.

Now you're talking without now you're talking now you're talking actually where that joker i rose from is have you ever seen those things where the people do the old timey wax seal on the envelope and they have the yeah i follow that on instagram it's like very asmr it's like very beautiful soothing to watch those things i don't do that i there's like a whole bunch of people that are like they're finding me that are calligraphy people wax seal people And maybe I'll get into that at some point. For me, my handwriting is not that great either. And you know what, to speak to the writing thing, I thought where you were going with this is that you don't think you're a great

writer. You meant your handwriting. I'm a good writer, just horrible. At the actual writing. But when people say, I imagine you express yourself so nicely, I would be surprised if you weren't a good writer. But for people who do have that hang up, oh, that's easy for you, you're a writer. I always say, I almost feel like being a good writer gets in the way because you're not, it's not about yourself.

You're not about, it's about yourself in the sense that you want to share your own memories, but it's not about the turn of phrase and being poetic. That gets in the way. That's like training. What you're trying to do is speak from the heart, speak the way you talk. Sometimes I would bullet a list.

Like you don't have to write a perfect, like the letter writing class that you took in seventh grade with the three paragraph or whatever. Sometimes I remember one, one career mentor letter that I wrote probably at the end of the month where I was like feeling a little, maybe a little fatigued. And I remember saying, I'm thinking of you, I'm looking back at my career, thinking of you here are five times that you helped me. And I just like bullet pointed them and just, that probably took me five minutes to write, but it's, it's specific. It's just, it's not written. And cause it's not about that. Yeah. I love this. I think it's beautiful and it's so unique.

It's so extraordinary. It sticks out so much that when people get it, they're like, well, what the heck is this? And you people, they get cards at Christmas or, you know, birthdays and stuff like that. And you can expect that sort of thing. But I imagine getting something like this out of the blue. what's the effect on that you found? And of course you interviewed some of these people in their book. What's the effect that you found that happened with some of these people when they got it? Yeah. So first of all, my, I wrote this note to myself early on in the year that really, I was talking, I've learned that maybe not everybody writes themselves notes in this way.

My editor in the book, if you really write a note to yourself, I don't know. Anyway, I like, I don't, anyway, I wrote it out to myself as I often do.

And maybe I'm the only one that was like, don't give everything, expect nothing. Do not keep track of these responses. Don't be waiting for everyone. I can't be like, Ooh, what are they going to say?

Because that's going to add a strange undertone to this year. There's like a thing to it where you're expecting something. And then if they don't reply, you're like, those people are stupid. And it's just like doing a favor for somebody for free and then expecting something in return. That's not really a gift. So I, that was my intention that this is a gift. Nobody's asking for this. Anything that comes back to me, I will treat as a gift. But I very specifically, I didn't plot these on a spreadsheet and check them off if they were nothing like that. It was and to this day, sometimes somebody will say, so sorry, I never responded. I'm like, I really don't know, because I was very good about sending it out, forgetting about it, although I did take a picture so I can look back and remember what I wrote, but I was not tracking. That being said, a lot of people, of course, got back to me in a very beautiful way. I heard so many takes on this sentiment. I was going through a very hard time and this helped. I heard that more times than you could imagine in a way that really broke my heart. And this is not during COVID. Of course, now it would be more expected, but it just was this lesson of you. Everybody has their own busy life. And I just never would have known that these people that

I love or who meant something to me at some point, even if we've lost touch, we're going through something and how wonderful that I had the power just to help a little, not fix it, but just had that power to help. And so I got a lot of mail responses, which I loved, from really random people in my life. What's coming to mind is my best friend growing up, I wrote to her father, Mr. Goddard, in my travel month. So I had a travel month where I went back to trips that were meaningful to me and wrote to the people who made them meaningful. And he, I went on their family vacations to Lake Tahoe when I was a kid. And I wrote to him and just included some specific details that he listened to John Denver in the car and we played charades and just how much it meant to me at that time in my life to feel like I was such a part of this really wonderful family. And he wrote a letter back to me. And at the end, because I addressed it to Mr.

Goddard. And at the end, he wrote, you can call me Ken, I'm 40, I can probably, we can probably get beyond Mr. at this point. So it was like, it just was this year full of those delightful little surprises that would just come in the mail, or I'd get voicemails, I'd get, you know, little selfies with pictures because for my friend month, so what I did for my friend's month, because that was a tricky one where it's like, how do I just thank a bunch of friends for being my friends? So what I settled on there was you can turn pictures into postcards. So I just went through these old picture boxes and reinforced them with a mailing label and just mailed them. And so I would template them. That's another tip I have, which is when you have a batch

of these to write, you can write, you can start them all the same way and then you get specific. But that's eased the way for me sometimes. That's a little easier than to say, I'm going to write 30 snowflake cards and each of them has to be nice to have the same sentence. And then you get helps you get in the groove. I started each of those. Remember when we were young and carefree because I'll be now I'm a mom and we're busy. And I just, when do I even have time to sit and hang out with my friends? Like I used to, but I found these beautiful pictures of us just hanging out at the pool or at a restaurant, at dinner parties. And then I got reactions of those were a lot of selfies with them with their little picture

and, oh my God, this made my day. That's a lot. That's probably the phrase I heard the most throughout this year. I guess I never thought much about that phrase, but it's a nice phrase. You made my day. And I heard it a lot. I love this because I think people in my life, I track people that have made a difference in my life. And I often think of them.

Sometimes I've gone through struggles and they've been there for me, or there's been a moment where somebody shared something with me and I've recognized how deep of an impact they actually made. And to them, maybe it was just a gesture, but I really needed that at the time. Sometimes they said something like I have a friend who'll do a quote. And I had a friend, I talked about it Friday on with Timothy Shriver, Maria Shriver's brother that we had on. And I talked to him about how a friend of mine made a Facebook post. And it was just a quick Facebook post. What you do right now with COVID, find a lifter or be a lifter. And he probably didn't give it too much thought. He put it out there and everyone's like, yeah, that's great. But I don't think he even will ever be able to realize how much that made a difference

in my life at that point in time and how I've used it over the last year to be a lifter. And we have these moments in life and sometimes I'll call people up or I'll send them a message on Facebook because we're close friends on Facebook. And I'll be like, yeah, that really helped me out. And thanks, man. And they're just kind of like, oh, yeah, thanks, man. And there's something just way more special with what you're doing. And also just recognizing it and spending some time really giving that love, that gratitude, that focus, that power of now where you're in the moment.

You're recognizing that. And by you spending all month long, and of course, the time you spent on the book, focusing on this, it really changed your outlook on life because you're looking for the beauty of life, the joy of life, a focus on like, I saw this in the news and I'm angry, which is what my day goes like. It's such a beautiful focus. Oh, thank you. First first of all i love what you were saying and yeah i have two things to say so first of all i love what you were saying about be a lifter and i think that person was that timothy schreiber who said that no it was actually a friend of mine but we shared it on the show we kind of marinated it

yeah i think first of all your friend would i think that would mean a lot to him to hear that. And like you said, it's, listen, don't let perfection be the enemy of the good. So sharing somebody, sharing that with somebody over DM or over email is way better than never sharing it. So that's number one. And if you feel like, and that's a great first step. So I have no, I have nothing bad to say about that type of sharing

and or just a quick text. All of those are wonderful. But if you do find yourself thinking about that a lot, it is, there is something that is extra special about putting it down on paper and handing it to somebody or sending them in the mail because it, I'm remembering what my friend Grace, I sent her a card in our travel month. We traveled around Italy together when we were 20 and she described it. She said, you sent me that card and I had it. It made me smile when I opened it and I put it on my counter and I left it there for about a week or two. And every time I walked by, she has two dogs, three kids, and she was in remission from

cancer and her mother was, so she would have a whole bunch of stuff going on. She said, every time I walked by it, I just would smile just for a week or two. And then I eventually put it away in my little, you know, memory box, whatever. But I know that it's there. And it'll make me smile again at some point. So it's like we live in this world of transient messages. And they don't mean nothing, they do mean something. But it's nice when something has that a little bit of staying power. And the other thing I was going to say is that a lot of people get caught up in Yeah, but this thing happened so long ago, what are they even gonna say? Is that so weird? So this is something I spent a lot of time thinking about. And in I interviewed somebody wonderful and meet Kumar out of the University of

Texas who studies. He's one of the he's of the University of Texas who studies, he's one of the, he's actually the rare gratitude researcher who studies the impact on the recipients. Most of the gratitude researchers study how good it makes you feel. So he's, I think the only one I know him and his co person who studies that impact. And what he, what we spent a lot of time talking about is these kinds of meaningful, open-hearted, vulnerable thank yous, whether they're long or short, they, you, almost everybody really overestimates the awkwardness of them and really underestimates the impact. And I was, I kept saying, I would say what I said to you, like, oh, there was this one woman who it really meant a lot to her because she was going through this hard time. And he's, you're getting it wrong. It meant a lot to

everybody. You didn't make everybody, you know, fill out, fill out a form at the end, like I did. So I'm coming out, you're coming at this from emotions and anecdotes. I'm coming at this from science. I promise you, it means a lot to people. Everybody said it meant more than, you know, what people anticipated. That kind of goes into this thing I learned, which is there really is no statute of limitations on something like this. People have in their mind, a traditional thank you note. And that first, always the number one rule, which is there's a ticking time bomb on it,

because somebody got you these earrings, and you got to tell them that you received them and thank you or whatever. And so this is very different, right? Because you're not thanking somebody for a gift received. You're thanking them for making an impact on your life. And not only is there no statute of limitations, it means more as more time goes by. It's like what you said about be a lifter. If you wrote that note to him in 10 years time, you're saying you actually made a great impact on my, on my last decade.

So that means more than just saying you said that thing last week and it was cool. So that's something else that I learned that was a big eye opener. Yeah. I'm going to wait 10 years and tell him then. I think he already knows. I think I told him, but I wanted to make something special for that special for that i might do like i don't know frame something or something like that for him because it's been a life changer it was i was at my bottom when when covid hit and all the events closed on the speaking and everything that we do closed i was just i just i was watching just tens of thousands hundreds of thousands dollars just fabric gone. And so I saw that. And of course, I knew I had a show and we talked about it Friday. So I'll let people go back to that. But one thing that's interesting about this is it's hard to get people's addresses. How did

you overcome that? Because number one, you ask people for their address. Now they're like, what's going on, dude? Like the phone book anymore. And I meet most everyone on the internet. I have huge audiences, huge interactions. I have really close friends and women get a lot of weird stuff in their DM. Asking for a woman's address could be a little weird, even though they're like, what are you sending me, Chris? What are some of the ways that you maybe overcame that or dealt with it? So for friends, I would leave it vague and say, I have a little something to send you. Could you send me your best mailing address? And for people, I had one month that I dedicated to authors. So it was like pure fan mail. It was my authors and also my son. I had him write to his favorite

children's authors. And for those people, there's somebody listed on, it's an agent or a publisher. And then for somebody in between, like, I remember in the author's month, there were a couple people where I emailed the author directly, they listed an email and I would ask them for a mailing address. And it was that same thing where it's like, am I really going to give out my mailing address? So for those people, I would explain what I was doing. Sometimes I would just take a picture of the card and email it to them and say, I wrote you this thing. If you would like a physical copy, send me a mailing address. And for some of these things, what I would come back to is the first benefit is to yourself, because I learned what it's called is when you're doing that, when you're sitting with

something positive, and when you're sitting with your gratitude, and when you're thinking about these nice things, you're strengthening your positive recall bias, what the brain people call it. And it's basically, you're rewiring your brain to be more positive, to be more optimistic, to concentrate on the good things instead of what might be missing. And at least it got that far. So if you wrote it and you're having trouble finding an address, fine. It's okay. You still got a benefit from it. I love the beauty of this because it takes you in the power now.

I was having trouble years ago where just my dogs, and my dogs are Siberians. They have those beautiful blue eyes. So they're just piercing. They're wonderful. And my one puppy, she's really young. She's always looking at daddy's girl. And so it's fun to look in their eyes. I'm sure if you're a parent, you're a parent, but I'm sure if other people are a parent,

they're looking in their children's eyes, looking in their relationships they have, really connecting. And sometimes we get really lost. We don't make that connection. And so for me, it's pretty important. And I was just writing something on Facebook today. I said, life isn't about selling things, including your soul. It's about the wonderment of being alive in the universe. Life is about being and fully experience the journey of it all. touching and moving people in a way and you're and then you're setting it free and if it moves or motivates that person great if not you're not looking for anything back and but it focuses you

on that moment brings you into that power of now and it connects you to the world and it also there's a lot of people that believe in the energy and the karma of that that you're that by you know focusing on that or sending out that energy, it comes back to you. I don't, you can leave whatever they want. So I love that aspect. You did several months in here. Let me pull the book back up. And on the book, you've got January chapter one, January's charity, February neighbors, March friends, April parenting that I mentioned somewhere in the bio that we first read, there was something where I think you wrote notes to your husband. Is that correct?

Yeah. The last month was dedicated to my husband and I wrote him a thank you note every day. Wow. Yeah. I know. It was like a marriage, sociological, anthropological experiment. So what was that like? Give us a little bit of insight. I'm really curious about that. It was very powerful because, okay, so as parents, any parents of young kids can attest, even parents who were lucky enough to have a great relationship, an equal partnership as equal as trying to be equal in any case, there's just too much to do. And there's so many things. I just feel like there's an undercurrent for so many of us, especially with kids who have young kids, just an undercurrent of I'm doing too much, you're not doing enough. It's, it just you feel it so deeply. I remember

hearing Adam Grant on a podcast talk about it. And he was saying, if you take a couple and you put them in separate rooms and you ask them what percentage of the work they're doing, you always add up to more than 100%. Everybody thinks they're doing more than the other person. And it's not because you necessarily don't think well of your partner. It's because, and this is what Adam Grant said, well, I'm, Oh, my God, it's so stupid. But it's so true. You're the person who sees what you're doing, because you're doing it. And you don't see what they're doing, because they're doing it anyway. So I felt that this was an exercise that really helped to correct that

where I'm instead of keeping track where I'm like, once again, I'm planning my son's birthday and he's not or whatever it is, which you get into those unhealthy thought patterns. It was and my husband and I have a great I have to I just I adore him. I think he's incredible. We've been together since college. He's the funniest guy. And I knew that I, of course, I knew I loved him. I knew I liked him. I knew he was my best friend. But doing this sort of changed the way we talked to each other because I stopped keeping track of the stuff that I was doing. And I started really noticing the stuff that he was doing because I had to. Because you changed your focus. Because I had to.

Because I changed my focus every day. He had a little card on his nightstand and it would be about, I remember one day I was talking about the music because I don't play music at all in the house. It's just, it's like his job. I totally, that's 100% him. So I was saying you played, it's like you, I expanded it to say not only do you play music in this house, it's so beautiful. You set the mood for the whole house and you calm down the kids when they're crazy. And you put this, it's like the kind of thing that I just was happening, but I never really thought about.

And he made a special trip to get the particular pink wine that I liked on the way home. And he went out of his way. It's just little things, but it added up to something big, which is you spend your whole day taking care of us and I do the same. It was this like lovely change of perspective. I love that. It's really beautiful. We had some authors on there with the book. I forget their names, but they can Google on the Chris Voss show.

They wrote the book 8080 Marriage and they talk about this thing of keeping tabs and trying to be like, well, I do more than you do. And it's like a list thing and how it can turn into animosity. And I forget the other word I'm looking for, but basically you're just like, you start to resent that, resent. That's the, you start to resent that other person. You're like, you don't do this. And it's what you focus on. I've had some bad relationships where, yeah, I'll do the dishes and vacuum the house, but I have to do it when you're here. Because if I don't, if I do it and you're not here, you don't see it happen. And so I never get any credit. And then I get yelled at because I never help out.

And you're like, Jesus, you know what I do? And then there's nothing even worse when you, like you say, you do the little things. You bring home roses. You make that extra trip to the store. You do an extra favor. And sometimes, you know, I used used to be i'm a giver so i have this problem but sometimes i i do things and i don't wave them around going i did this and so i should get some sort of thing for that i don't know why i'm doing bill cosby that's really

weird um really awful choice there that was somebody that was uh fat albert or something i don't know anyway the but you don't wave it around if you're a good person and be like, I definitely deserve like chocolates for this. And because then it's just not really a gift. And so, yeah, being, focusing on that. And yeah, man, that's a great thing. I think a lot of people should do that, especially in relationships, long-term relationships, because you're right.

It gets lost. You get lost in the menagerie. I used to love to do a thing in all my relationships i have a thing where when the person i'm in a relationship with comes home i like to stop whatever i'm doing i like to go greet them and get a kiss out of them or i kiss them or maybe that's both ways i'm not sure how that works sounded good at the time my head is a joke but i like to but it breaks that moment it recognizes that you're home and it also puts me in a different state where i go okay she's here now and it's time to take care

of the people i'm i'm interested and when they leave too because they've learned sometimes the hard way that someone can walk out that door and you don't ever see them again and you never know when that moment's going to happen the chaos chaos of this universe. And so it's really important. And just like what you're doing with the gratitude, you never know, especially with COVID, holy crap, we may never see this person again. They could get sick. They go in the hospital. You can't reach them. They're on an intubator and game over. And so I think it's taught us more in this sort of era. And then what you've done with the book that these moments, these people in our lives are more important than ever. I certainly sat down with COVID and went, what's the most important thing right here? Mom, two sisters. These are the things that I can't

live without. And these are the most important things. Screw the car, whatever, buying this new house, boat, whatever sort of crap. That doesn't matter because those things will still be here tomorrow. They're not going to get COVID and die. These people might and could and did. So, well, they did get COVID. So I think this is beautiful, what you're doing and just focusing on stuff like that. Is there any teasers that you want to give out that people should, we always like to give a teaser

so people can want to pick up the book even more than they usually would. What comes to mind is in my friend's chapter, so I said that I sent out all these, all these postcards from pictures and they started out, remember when we were young and carefree. So most of those were very lovely, easy, no problem. But the last four, I kept shuffling to the bottom of the deck because I, our relationships just weren't the same and they were strained. And in fact, one, three were, they were, our relationships were not as close as they once were for different circumstances.

But the last one, we really were not friends anymore. In my mind, she had stepped away when I became a mom and just wasn't interested because we weren't in the same life phase anymore. That was my narrative in my narrative to myself. But I did. I ended up, it was really scary. I remember feeling like literal, cliched butterflies in my stomach when I mailed it because I was like,

this is a person I love who dumped me in my mind and I'm sending her this kind of missive. I don't know if this is the right way to do it. I don't know if she's going to be offended. And so I guess that'll be my teaser is what happened next. I would, now you've got drama for me. I got to go find out what that's about. Order of the books, folks. I love that aspect. And there's so many beautiful things. There's so many beautiful things about you in here. How does, how do you deal with the reciprocation? Because sometimes I'm a giver, but I'm not a good taker.

And so I do giving and then scampering away going, ha, ha, ha. But I'm not good at like. It's perfect for you. It's perfect for introverts. It's perfect for people who are like that because I can just give you everything. Yeah. But what do you do when people come back to you with the thing? I don't know.

That's where I have a hard time. Like when people come to me you with the thing? I don't know. That's where I have a hard time. When people come to me and they go, you really made a difference in my life. I'm like, I'm an idiot. $4 will buy you a cup of coffee. I'm no messiah. I would say that what I would hope is that if people started sending you notes like this, I would hope that even if they made you uncomfortable, and the word I use a lot of my book is squirmy like even if it made you squirmy to hear stop saying nice things about me I'm not great at taking compliments like even if you feel that in the moment which I share that and it's something I'm trying to get over

sometimes I do share that I'd rather be giving a compliment than receiving one I would hope that you would still hear it right and that it would mean something to you, even if it made you uncomfortable in that moment, it would you think about it later, and you'd remember it. And you would know that you that something that you said, similarly to your Facebook friend said something, you think about it all the time, it gave you a new perspective. I'm sure you said so many things on this show that have done that for people. And I imagine that if they told you that it might feel squirmy and weird and uncomfortable, but that you would hear it and that it would feel that it would get in there into your heart and then it would make a difference for you. It usually does. I'll pull out a joke there or something like that and be like, yeah, or I'll just call them up. And I'll be like, did you, you sent a letter to me. You clearly wrote the wrong person. So did you want to know that? And if anyone wants to write letters in the show and tell everybody how much they love me, make sure you include cash.

So there's that. But I love the concept of this book. I love the beauty of it. I love that you spent all this time doing it. You did it in so many different aspects. People that influenced your career, books, people who travel with food, the parenting, friends, neighbors, probably a good thing for keeping the neighbors, the relationship with the neighbors going. Yeah. And it's upgraded my relationships with certain neighbors, which was so nice. It's like we had a lovely little, Hey, how's it going? Kind of thing. And just writing a note elevated it. Right. So maybe we know each other's names now. I'm thinking

of a guy at the farmer's market where now we all use each other's names when we see each other, instead of just a friendly wave or a neighbor down, down the hall or like looking out the window down, down my little alleyway down there in Brooklyn, it went from like friendly to no, no, we actually will, we'll share a drink outside and became more like friends. And I imagine one of the great things of this is the pay it forward aspect. Like my Starbucks in Vegas that I used to go to every morning, you, I don't know, I don't know who started in the morning, but someone always started to pay it forward. And so every time you go there, it'd be like the guy behind you paid for a front, in front of you paid for your stuff. Do you want to pay for behind or let it roll? And you just do that. And it was really nice. And so I

imagine something like this, when you're sending this beautiful thing out, it hopefully puts them in that moment where they put you in the same moment you were in where you're recognizing the gratitude and then the power of now. And hopefully that spreads. I heard a lot of that. Yeah. I'm thinking of my friend Allison in Seattle. I wrote to her in my travel month saying, I went to Seattle five years ago. Thank you for letting us stay over. We had so much fun with you and it was so great meeting your kids. And I know it was five years ago, but it really, you took the time to show us around. It really made a difference in that trip. And she said that she then did the same thing for somebody else that she thought back to a weekend trip that she took to a high school friend's house and wrote her a similar letter. So that's, that is a nice part. This is going to be awesome. I'm thinking to

write a book like yours only I'm going to spend a year writing people. I hate letters. No, I'm just kidding. That's just a joke, people. Anything more before we... That was my husband's idea for the next book. A year of grievances. A year of grievances. Just get it all off your chest. Just like, I never forgot it. You said that thing, and I never forgot it, and it's time for me to tell you about it.

That's when you get some coal or something. Some coal, and you mill it, and you you just wrap it or you just throw it. You basically take the coal and you take the letter you wrote and then you just throw it through their window or something. There you go. I'm just kidding. Don't do that, people. We, the lawyers said that I can't do that. They're in the mic right now screaming at me.

So this has been wonderful. This has been wonderful, Gina. Anything more you want to plug on the book before? Anything more I want to plug on the book before? Anything more I want to plug on the book? No, I'm delighted to be here. No, I think we said it all. I really thank you so much for your, these were lovely questions and very thoughtful. So thank you.

I love the concept of it. I think it's really thoughtful. In fact, I know that you didn't do the wax thing, but I'm actually going to, as soon as I get off this, I'm actually going to Google the wax thing and see if I can pick it up. And I'm going to try and figure out how to do this. Cause I, there are a lot of people I need to thank for my life and maybe one of them should be me. I don't know. No, I don't need to do that. I already have enough of an ego, but thank you for being here. I don't think that's a bad idea. I don't think that's a bad

idea. Really? I feel like a part of the, when I talked about the months that I spent writing fan mail to authors and most of them will never read it. I felt like that was a part of it was getting back to the person. I feel like a reader is such an essential part of who I am. And some of those things get lost as life gets in the way. And I felt like that was a month of reconnecting with, I don't know, the person that I was when I was a kid and remembering, I don't know, remembering what I love about myself and the relationship I have with art and how important that is to me. So I feel like a lot of this was a little bit about that falling. It's not, I wasn't only falling in love with my life, my husband, my neighbors, my neighborhood.

I felt like I was, it was a positive thing for myself too. I felt I've done a pretty good job choosing people and keeping them in my life. And I have to be proud of that. Yeah. And the love and the influence and positivity that spreads and spreads to other people. And it's just, it's like a, what's that little story about somebody you do something, you're short or curt or mean or insulting to somebody you just see on the road or honk at them in the traffic and then they're angry and then they go honk. It just, so it's that beautiful pastime is so wonderful. Thank you so much, Gina, for spending some time with us today on the show and enlightening us on your beautiful book. Give us your plugs so people can see you on the interwebs.

Yes. GinaHamity.com. All the social medias are Gina.Hamity. I think Twitter might be Gina underscore Hamity. If you search Gina Hamity, you'll find me. There you go. And thank you for being on the show. We certainly appreciate it.

It was my pleasure. There you go. And to my audience, check it out. I think this is beautiful. We should all start doing this. Everyone should start doing this and just writing beautiful letters to each other. You don't have to write anything beautiful. Just tell someone to thank you.

Just reach out to them. And you don't have to be like Robert Frost or anything. Just let people know that you care and you appreciate the small efforts that do. It's the small things in life. She is the author of the book, I Want to Thank You, How a Year of Gratitude Can Bring Joy and Meaning in a Disconnected World. Thanks to my audience for tuning in. Go to youtube.com to see the video version of this.

Go to goodreads.com for us as Chris Voss. See what we're reading. Go to all the different groups on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram and see the stuff there as well. Be safe. Be nice to each other. May write some letters to each other, wear your mask and we'll see you guys next time.