2017-11-22-Thanksgiving_Day_Greetings
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00:00:29.800 | Good morning, Radicals, and happy Thanksgiving Day to you.
00:00:36.280 | Please forgive my raspy voice.
00:00:38.160 | My throat has chosen to inform me that it would like a break.
00:00:42.240 | And of course, I'm seeking to provide a break for it as we enjoy the Thanksgiving Day holiday
00:00:47.720 | here in the United States.
00:00:49.200 | But I did want to make an exception here and take a quick moment to greet you and say happy
00:00:53.960 | Thanksgiving Day to you and draw one or two encouragement, pieces of encouragement for
00:00:58.320 | you from this holiday.
00:01:00.640 | The Thanksgiving Day holiday this week in the United States is actually my favorite
00:01:05.040 | holiday.
00:01:06.040 | And it's a holiday that has great meaning for the simplicity of the idea, the idea of
00:01:10.920 | giving thanks to God for all of the great blessings that we have.
00:01:14.680 | Financially speaking, if you were looking for one valuable thing that you could do that
00:01:19.960 | would, I believe in the fullness of time, really transform your life, make a habit of
00:01:26.040 | systematically noticing the good things in your life, the blessings in your life, and
00:01:31.760 | being thankful for those things.
00:01:34.240 | If your heart is filled with gratitude and thanksgiving, it's very hard to maintain some
00:01:39.560 | of the negative emotions.
00:01:41.400 | It's very hard to maintain fear and anger when your heart is filled with gratitude and
00:01:47.120 | thanksgiving.
00:01:48.120 | And there's probably the best time to sit down and look carefully at your life and consider
00:01:54.720 | the many things that we have to be thankful for.
00:01:58.200 | Very frequently, we find it easy to forget the many good things that we enjoy until something
00:02:04.160 | goes wrong.
00:02:05.480 | An example that always is very meaningful to me, from time to time, I get a canker sore
00:02:11.440 | in my mouth.
00:02:12.440 | And I think this is common to all people, but every few months, every six months or
00:02:17.960 | so, I probably get a canker sore in my mouth.
00:02:20.240 | It turns my mouth into a very painful environment.
00:02:23.480 | Makes it hard to eat, makes it hard to swallow.
00:02:26.800 | And during those times, I often reflect on how I've had many, many months of a pleasant
00:02:34.280 | eating experience, a pain-free mouth, and hadn't stopped to notice it.
00:02:40.820 | So I always try to pay attention when facing adversity or facing something painful, to
00:02:47.760 | appreciate it as a blessing to remind me of all the other times.
00:02:52.000 | But yet, how short-sighted is that?
00:02:54.720 | How short-sighted is it to wait for everything to be awful before noticing the things that
00:03:00.840 | are good?
00:03:01.840 | Friends, we live in the greatest time to be alive in the history of the world.
00:03:06.400 | Peace and prosperity increasing on all sides.
00:03:09.640 | There has never been a time better than today.
00:03:15.400 | The future is filled with wonderful things.
00:03:20.800 | Do you recognize those things?
00:03:22.160 | Are you paying attention?
00:03:24.840 | Frankly, your life has probably never been better than it is today.
00:03:29.120 | Now, certainly, you may be going through a trial.
00:03:32.040 | You may be going through a difficult time.
00:03:34.600 | But if you were to sit down and make an accurate assessment of your life, I'd bet you that
00:03:41.280 | you could come up with a whole long list of reasons and ways that your life is better
00:03:46.560 | today than it's ever been before.
00:03:50.120 | Don't miss the opportunity.
00:03:52.560 | You have a choice.
00:03:54.320 | You can either dwell on the things that you don't like and pay attention to all the things
00:03:59.080 | that you think are wrong with your life and with the world, or you can focus on the things
00:04:04.160 | that you do like.
00:04:05.900 | And wherever you dwell, wherever your focus continues, you'll see more and more of those
00:04:12.280 | things.
00:04:13.280 | So I want to encourage you, very practically, this Thanksgiving Day, this Thursday, 2017,
00:04:24.240 | do you have a heart filled with gratitude?
00:04:28.160 | Do you see the abundance that you're enjoying on all sides?
00:04:32.200 | If not, start making a list of reasons to be grateful, to be thankful.
00:04:39.560 | If there's something in your life that you don't think is all that great, start looking
00:04:45.920 | for the things that are great about it.
00:04:49.480 | Years ago, I remember just two stories.
00:04:52.100 | One came from Zig Ziglar, he used to tell a story of a woman that he interacted with.
00:04:55.600 | And this woman came up to him at a seminar and she said to him, "I hate my job.
00:04:59.800 | Can you help me?"
00:05:01.840 | And his advice to her after a little bit of interaction was, "Go home and make a list
00:05:06.240 | of everything that you love about your job."
00:05:09.880 | She did it and it transformed her working life.
00:05:12.760 | Because when you start focusing on the things that you love, you start to see more and more
00:05:20.240 | things to focus on.
00:05:22.480 | There's no reason to close your eyes to the things that are hard, the things that are
00:05:27.600 | difficult.
00:05:28.600 | But it's all a matter of where you focus.
00:05:31.320 | Focus on the things that are great.
00:05:34.280 | Another example that Darren Hardy shared one time was with regard to a man that he encouraged
00:05:39.120 | to do this in his marriage.
00:05:41.560 | A man and his wife were deeply struggling, angry at each other, frustrated at each other.
00:05:47.000 | He gave the man the advice to go and to buy a journal and every day to write a journal
00:05:50.760 | entry of something that he was thankful for about his wife and to make a gratitude journal.
00:05:58.440 | That practice transformed his marriage.
00:06:01.080 | Because instead of looking for everything that was wrong with his wife, he looked for
00:06:05.080 | everything that was right with her, everything that was fantastic.
00:06:10.240 | And I've applied the same thing in other areas of my life as well and I encourage you.
00:06:14.920 | I hope that your list is overflowing.
00:06:17.440 | I hope that you have many blessings in your life for which you can be thankful.
00:06:23.360 | If you don't, start making a list.
00:06:27.200 | Start counting your blessings and making a list systematically.
00:06:31.360 | It has the potential to transform your experience of life.
00:06:38.760 | Whatever you focus on grows.
00:06:41.280 | Focus on reasons to be thankful, reasons to be grateful.
00:06:44.560 | You'll find more and more reasons to be thankful, more and more reasons to be grateful.
00:06:50.880 | Focus on reasons to be miserable.
00:06:54.720 | Your destiny is assured.
00:06:57.240 | I close this short message to you.
00:07:00.000 | I thought it would be interesting to you for me to read President Abraham Lincoln's 1863
00:07:07.240 | Thanksgiving Day Proclamation.
00:07:08.640 | If you know anything about the history of Thanksgiving, it has a few different components
00:07:14.440 | in its history from early American history, a few different political movements.
00:07:21.680 | As with most things, it's a mixture of myth and fact.
00:07:26.920 | But in thinking about Thanksgiving, I pulled up again Lincoln's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation
00:07:33.320 | where prior to 1863, the different states and different parts of the United States celebrated
00:07:39.440 | Thanksgiving Day differently on different dates.
00:07:42.520 | And in 1863, almost as a political movement, Abraham Lincoln was trying to use, as any
00:07:50.360 | president does, he was trying to use the circumstances of the day to try to build more unity, especially
00:07:59.920 | around him and his actions.
00:08:02.280 | But I thought that this proclamation, which is pretty short, was really remarkable to
00:08:07.720 | read and in many ways it echoes themes that I see repeated in today's world as well.
00:08:16.600 | So without further commentary, I'll just read you this short presidential proclamation from
00:08:21.360 | President Lincoln.
00:08:22.360 | Washington, DC, October 3, 1863.
00:08:26.480 | By the President of the United States of America, a proclamation.
00:08:30.680 | The year that is drawing towards its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful
00:08:34.980 | fields and healthful skies.
00:08:37.880 | To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source
00:08:42.320 | from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that
00:08:48.000 | they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to
00:08:54.240 | the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.
00:08:57.760 | In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to
00:09:04.520 | foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with
00:09:09.840 | all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony
00:09:16.400 | has prevailed everywhere except in the theater of military conflict.
00:09:20.720 | While that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the
00:09:24.880 | Union, needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry
00:09:30.520 | to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship.
00:09:35.840 | The axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as iron and coal as
00:09:42.000 | of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore.
00:09:47.840 | Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp,
00:09:53.040 | the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented
00:09:58.540 | strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of
00:10:04.320 | freedom.
00:10:05.880 | No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things.
00:10:11.480 | They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for
00:10:16.280 | our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
00:10:20.440 | It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully
00:10:27.880 | acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people.
00:10:32.760 | I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also
00:10:37.400 | those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe
00:10:43.160 | the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent
00:10:48.560 | Father who dwelleth in the heavens.
00:10:50.920 | And I recommend to them that, while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such
00:10:55.840 | singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national
00:11:01.160 | perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become
00:11:07.640 | widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are
00:11:13.920 | unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to
00:11:20.760 | heal the wounds of the nation, and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the divine
00:11:26.440 | purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.
00:11:34.160 | And testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United
00:11:38.000 | States to be affixed, done of the city of Washington the third day of October, in the
00:11:43.400 | year of our Lord, 1863, and of the independence of the United States, the 88th, by the President
00:11:50.600 | Abraham Lincoln.
00:11:54.400 | If I could, I would invite each and every one of you over to my home this week, and
00:11:58.680 | I would serve you the best food that I can make.
00:12:02.280 | And I would love to listen to you and hear about the many blessings of your life and
00:12:07.560 | share with you the many of mine.
00:12:10.480 | But in the same vein as President Lincoln said those many years ago, since I can't do
00:12:18.120 | that, I encourage you, create the tradition in your own home.
00:12:22.960 | Fill your home with love and joy and laughter.
00:12:27.920 | Prepare the best food that you can.
00:12:30.320 | Go and invite every person that you can.
00:12:37.200 | Make your table full.
00:12:38.760 | Go and find all of the people who are lonely.
00:12:41.140 | Go and find the people who are hungry.
00:12:43.800 | Fill your home with everybody that you can find, especially those who are in need.
00:12:48.880 | And may you enjoy a Thanksgiving Day filled with a heart truly filled with thanksgiving
00:12:56.320 | and gratitude for our many blessings.