Are you grateful by default?

Imagine that you were shipwrecked on a deserted tropical island. You are the only person on the island (a la the movie Castaway). All of your friends on the boat have drowned. And here’s the real problem: you have no real survivor skills.

You can hear the noises of animals in the jungle. You notice that the sun is setting and you have not found a place to sleep. You feel a combination of emotions: fear, grief, even anger.

But do you feel grateful for being in this situation?

Probably not.

And yet, you should be. You’re alive, breathing and with no major injuries. You’ve had a brush with death, and you lived.  You get the opportunity to learn more about an island that not many have visited. You get to learn skills (hunting, fishing, surviving!!) that many in our day and age can’t do.

You should be the most grateful person on earth!

Now, this is an extreme example. I get that. In your life, events of this magnitude don’t happen to you often. Most of the time you get some good events. And some not so good ones. Yet the fact is, you might only be grateful for a small percentage of them.

We are not trained to see the good in every situation. It’s easy to complain about the negative events and say, “Why me?”. And it’s super easy to be grateful only when things are going well. Any one can do that.

But true leaders are able to say thanks for the negative. Thanks for the shipwreck. Thanks for the shitstorm. Thanks for the opportunity to show your character.

The challenge is to become grateful for everything. Both the good and the bad. You get to say to the world, “I welcome this opportunity to be my best self.”

True leaders are grateful, by default. Are you?