S1 Be Better 2 · Gratitude

Hey guys, welcome to the Virtus Performance Podcast. This is our second episode of the Be Better series, a little short chat every couple of days, hopefully talking about how we can all make our lives better. And I guess my goal of this isn't to sit here and preach and do things that I'm never going to try and never going to do, but I want to talk about things that I will actively incorporate into my life and hopefully you guys will do the same. My topic for today, I want to talk a little bit about gratitude.

For me, gratitude is finding thanks and being thankful for the little things and appreciating all of the things that you have and the people that are in your life and what you have currently. And it's not about what you want and I'll talk a little bit about how we obviously want to achieve things and we want to move forward and all those kind of things, but the main thing, the main point I want to get across today is just really being appreciative and enjoying what you do have and not getting lost in accumulating possessions and things and all that kind of stuff.

So I want to use a little story to help me with my point. It's something that I read probably for the first time maybe 12, 18 months ago and it's something that I've always kind of tried to remember and come back to every now and again. But basically it's a story about doing more or being more with less. It's called the American Investment Banker and the Mexican Fisherman. So basically the banker was at a small pier of a coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside that small boat was several large yellowfin tuna.

The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, "Only a little while." The American then asked why he didn't stay out longer and catch more fish. The Mexican said he had enough to support his family's immediate needs and that's all he needed for the day. The American then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?" The Mexican Fisherman said, "I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take siestas with my wife Maria, stroll into the village each day where I sip wine, play guitar with my amigos, I have a full and busy life."

The American scoffed, "I'm a Harvard MBA and could help you. You should spend more time fishing and with the proceeds buy a bigger boat." With the proceeds from the bigger boat, you could buy several boats and eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats. Instead of selling your catch to a middle man, you would sell directly to the processor, eventually opening up your own cannery. You would control the product, processing and distribution, you would need to leave this small coastal fishing village and move to Mexico City, eventually LA and then eventually New York City, where you would run your expanding enterprise.

The Mexican Fisherman asked, "But how long will this all take?" To which the American replied, "Fifteen to twenty years." "But what then?" asked the Mexican. The American laughed and said, "That's the best part. When the time is right, you would announce an IPO, sell your company's stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions." "Millions?" he asked, "Then what?" The American said, "Then you would retire, move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siestas with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine, play guitar and hang out with your amigos."

That story for me is pretty simple. It shows that you need to take stock of where you're at every now and again and actually appreciate where you are with what you have. It's really easy to kind of dive into work or life and just try and accumulate things and go, "Well, if I get this, I'll be happy. If I get this, I'll be happy. If I get a new car, I'll be happy. That's the thing that I need to be happy." But for me, and I think that this little story kind of shows us that

if we take a minute to look at what we have and we might not all be sitting in a Mexican fishing village able to hang out all day every day, but if we enjoy the little things that we have and we actually take pride in the work we do and why we do it and all that kind of stuff, then it's a lot easier to find that happiness. And I guess we all want to grow and improve and work hard and to use the bigger boat analogy, having a bigger boat to sail with Virtus is something that I want and I've always wanted.

But we look back a couple of years and I was coaching out of a shed at home, and now we've got a nice-sized facility in Mornington with a bunch of staff, and if you told me back then that this is what we'd have, I would have said, "Yep, I'd be happy then." And I am happy. I'm stoked. I'm appreciative. But there's always that want to have something bigger, and it's only when I allow myself to slow down and sit and kind of reflect and look at everything that we've all built and kind of say, "Yep, I'm pretty happy and I'm so gracious, I'm so thankful for what we have."

And it's not a luck thing. It's definitely not luck because we've all worked really, really hard, but it's a matter of taking that 30 seconds a minute out of the day to enjoy what I have and who I have. And I think first of all, I've spoken in a business sense and in a work sense, but friends and family and partners and everyone always comes first when it comes to being gracious. It's really easy to come home from a long day at work and kind of fall into the trap of being grumpy and not necessarily

giving yourself to the people that you're close with and kind of allowing those relationships to become a little bit more difficult because you're grumpy and you're tired because you're giving everything to work. So for me, it's about figuring out what it is you're actually working hard for and when you have a really clear idea of what that is and what your goals are and what you want to achieve, then it allows you to enjoy the little things. And I was talking to one of the boys, Pulsy, if you're listening, and he said the other day,

actually while he had the kids in, that you can only fit so much in your life and when he was working really, really hard and training for a triathlon, his home life suffered and that's something that I can definitely relate with when I'm kind of dialled in with work and football and my training and all those kind of things, there's always something that's going to suffer. So it's a matter of kind of looking at everything, like I spoke in the first Be Better series, looking at everything holistically and making sure that you're putting enough time and effort into all the things that matter to you and that you actually spend time enjoying what you do have.

So if I have one, I guess, take home point for today, it's enjoying what you have. And I'm going to finish with a little quote. I love quotes, if you haven't realised already, and I'll probably use a quote or a story or something to help me along with the podcast every time I talk, but here's my little quote to finish off with. It says, "I have what I have and I'm happy, I've lost what I've lost and I'm still happy." And I guess that's a perspective thing and I'll talk about mindset and perspective, I'm sure a lot, but the way we kind of look at everything is the way that we're able to, I guess, appreciate it and enjoy it.

If we look at something as a negative, we're going to look at the negative things. If we look at something as a positive, then we're going to enjoy the positive things. And I guess it's easier said than done, but it's a matter of using your mindset to actually help you achieve whatever you want to achieve and whether it's drastic improvement or whether it's just being happy. And yeah, that's something that probably isn't as prevalent in this world as it ideally should be. So thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed it. If you would like to suggest something for the Be Better topic, give me a yell, shoot me an email.

But yeah, well done. Thanks for listening. Be excellent.