50. On gratitude, happiness, and mindset. A short special for the 50th episode of Project Mindset!

Hi everyone and welcome to Project Mindset. This channel is for all those who know that with the right mindset, anything is possible in life. Today we have a very special episode of Project Mindset. It’s the 50th episode—I can hardly believe it! A milestone we’ve reached together. It’s essentially 50, or maybe even at least 50, personal stories that I’ve shared here on the podcast channel. I have to say, there’s a lot of emotion involved, of course.

Of course, I always think ahead about what I want to share with you, what I can share, what lessons and experiences I’ve gained, what I can do better next time, and what you might think of in certain situations if something happens to you. But I have to say, I’ve learned a tremendous amount through this podcast. So it’s not just that I’m trying to pass on my knowledge here; quite the opposite, I believe I’m also learning a great deal from it.

A lot about myself, of course, but also a lot about the listeners. I learned so much from the interviews I had with the various personalities, and you really shouldn’t underestimate that when you do something that might initially seem like work, you shouldn’t forget that you can also develop a whole lot of new skills and learn a great deal in the process, and I’m incredibly grateful for that. I think we covered a lot of topics in the 50 episodes.

The topics of the first podcast year

So, one episode dealt with the topic of clarity in life, another with gratitude, dealing with emotions, dealing with feedback, taking full responsibility for one’s life, choosing one’s heart, and I also quite liked the episode about reflecting on habits, approaching one’s activities with a certain intensity and focus, and dealing with one’s own expectations..

There was an incredibly wide variety of topics covered, and I actually listen to the individual episodes myself from time to time to, let’s say, remind myself of the problem or the challenge, and to reflect on what I personally think about it. I also look things up in my journal, but I think it’s like a small archive, and that’s really my goal with the Project Mindset Podcast: a small archive of knowledge, at least one day for my children. If no one is listening to me, they absolutely have to listen to it.

I was also asked if I’m running out of mindset topics, which is, yes, I find an interesting question..

Developing one’s own perspective

On the other hand, there’s a saying or quote from Muhammad Ali that I think is extremely cool. He once said that anyone who sees the world at 50 the same way they did at 20 has wasted 30 years of their life, and I think you can actually apply that to your whole life. So if I haven’t had any new experiences in 10 years or haven’t seen certain things differently, then I haven’t developed further.

I strongly believe that my exploration of mindset topics will not end; on the contrary, the more I interact with others, the more knowledge I build in a field, the more there is to learn about that field. Therefore, I can say from my own perspective that I will continue with the podcast for a very long time. When I think about it, it’s only been a year since I started, and I personally think I’m only at the beginning of this whole mindset topic. To put it very simply, I’m only at the very beginning of this whole mindset topic.

I don’t want to give the impression that I’m some kind of know-it-all, but actually, I’m still learning myself, I’m on a mission to explore my mindset, to constantly refine it, because I notice that things happen in my life every single day, you could almost say, where I think to myself, wow, no, you wanted to react differently, but now you’ve reacted the way you might have two years ago, but actually you know better.

Regularly refresh the basics

Mindset, in my view, also means that you constantly remind yourself of the fundamentals, your foundations, so to speak, or the basic learnings you’ve made, repeating them again and again. It’s not like you learn something once and that’s it; you actually unlearn certain topics or you simply forget them, and that—and my goal, at least with the podcast, is that I can constantly remind myself, ‘You learned this once,’ so that you can deal with such a situation or in such a case differently, or deal with the challenge differently.

What I took away from interviews

As I mentioned earlier, the interviews were also incredibly exciting for me. I found it very interesting to learn about the different mindsets of the interviewees. I also found the skills they wanted to develop particularly interesting. This wasn’t necessarily my main focus at first, for example, when I spoke with Florian Mutaano, who said he wanted to learn a skill, and that was the topic of patience. I found it fascinating that he described it as a skill, an ability. I hadn’t thought of it that way before. And here and there, some really interesting things came up that I hadn’t initially realized were actually incredibly important.

Or, in a conversation with Dennis Siver, who said, for example, before a big fight he has or has had, he simply went into it like it was a game. That is to say, he took it seriously, of course, but not too seriously. He saw it as a game. You have to consider that: he goes into the octagon, essentially fighting someone else in the UFC league, and sees the whole thing as a game. Perhaps you can apply that to other areas of your life and say, “I don’t have to take everything so seriously, even if it might be serious. I can see it as a game.” Accordingly, you then deal with certain situations in a more relaxed way.

From thinking to doing

What many people said, or rather, I think pretty much all the guests, or at least I got the impression that they shared this mindset, is that it’s important to just do it, no matter what you’re planning. I believe that taking action, creating a topic, and moving forward with it is incredibly important for one’s mindset, incredibly important for one’s happiness, and I’ve taken that to heart. Simply keeping this “doing” in mind when I set out to implement something, not thinking about it for too long, because you tend to overthink certain ideas. Sometimes it’s just better to do it and see what happens and then adjust accordingly, instead of not doing it and constantly thinking, “Oh, if only I had done it.”

For today’s episode, I had a little something special planned. I had the opportunity to give a short presentation at a small company event on the topic of gratitude, happiness, and mindset. I’d like to include this presentation here today; I think it’s a great fit for a project mindset. What could I rather talk about than gratitude, happiness, and mindset? I’ll play it right now. Before I begin, I want to warn you that while I plan to continue talking a lot about mindset topics in the future, I’ll also discuss certain work methods I’ve adopted.

Continued

Let me say that when I want to be particularly focused or make significant progress with my work, I’ve developed certain habits and tools to help me get into a kind of flow state, so I can be more productive. That might sound like career-related stuff at first, but it’s not. What I’m really talking about is that I’ve discovered that when I’m in that flow state, no matter what it is, I actually enjoy the work more, my mind is clearer, and I become more productive overall. This, in turn, leads to me feeling good at the end of the day.

I don’t want to imply that I am who I am based on my performance—that’s what one of the next podcast episodes is about—but rather, I believe that because we spend so much time at work, it’s important that we use that time wisely. This means that we also draw energy from it, not just put it in. I also want to talk about health, nutrition, and a little bit of exercise here and there; that’s something new in the Project Mindset.

Body and mind in everyday life

I think it’s incredibly important to have a healthy mind, but it’s just as important to have a healthy body. Accordingly, I’ve discovered a few life hacks here and there for myself, like how I can tweak my diet a bit. The topic of fasting, or intermittent fasting, is also incredibly exciting and interesting. It’s helped me a lot. I’d say it’s helped me find a certain balance in my life again, and in my body as well.

The same goes for exercise; it doesn’t necessarily have to be super-intense training sessions. Sometimes it makes sense to do short but very efficient workouts so you feel good physically. And what I always notice is that after exercising, I simply feel better. Sometimes my mind resists it, though—oh no, getting up again, going out into the cold, or to the gym, or to the club—it’s always a bit of a hurdle.

The feeling after sports

But I really have to say, in all the years I’ve been doing sports, there was maybe once—and I can’t even remember it—when I felt bad afterward, unless I was injured, of course. But there have definitely been times, yes, in the vast majority of cases, when I’ve exercised, I simply feel good afterward. And that, of course, contributes incredibly to my happiness. Exactly, that’s why the warning. So, I won’t just be talking exclusively about this topic—focus, work methods, and so on, health, nutrition—but here and there I’ll also include a few topics, or rather, information, or tools that have helped me a lot, here in the podcast.

Okay, enough chit-chat. Now, let’s get to the presentation I had the pleasure of giving. It was truly an honor to speak about it. It was for an acquaintance of mine. He owns a company that’s currently growing. I think he has 15 employees by now. And he’s also a keen listener. At least, that’s what it tells me, judging by the fact that you all tune in to the podcast now and then. He was particularly interested in the topic of gratitude. He even mentioned that he regularly discusses gratitude with his management team at his company.

Mindset as a topic in the company

That means they’re also trying to implement that. They talk about this mindset topic, I think about once a week, or I can’t even remember the exact frequency. But he especially liked the opportunity for me to speak about gratitude in front of his people. I’m very grateful for that. And I hope you enjoy this little presentation. So, that’s it. Now, enjoy the presentation. It’s difficult to maintain this level of quality after the intro. Don’t be surprised, I’m putting the microphone down.

As Artur already mentioned, I have a kind of podcast channel. I publish a few videos on YouTube, and the occasional interview. And this video here, where you’re only in it from behind, if at all, will be on YouTube. If anyone has a problem with that, please don’t say anything. Exactly. I’ll also mention the name of the podcast channel at the end. But first, thank you, Artur. Can we arrange that? Thank you. So, my name is Reza. I’m 38 years old. I have two children, I’m married, and I live near Heidelberg. Not in Heidelberg anymore, but near Heidelberg.

As Artur already said, I’m definitely not the kind of crazy high-flyer you just described me as. I studied business administration in Mannheim, had a great time working at banks, consulting firms, and a fantastic fintech startup in Frankfurt. Then I founded my own company. I made a few bad decisions. I didn’t accept the HTGF investment, among other things. My ego definitely got in the way. Five years ago, I’d say I was a different person than I am today.

Continued

I haven’t become a convert or a monk or anything like that, but you learn things over time. You learn to manage your ego. Above all, you learn that you truly don’t know everything. And the older I got, the more I understood that. Exactly. And today I’d like to talk about gratitude. It’s become incredibly central to my career, and also to my personal development. Because in the business world, gratitude isn’t something that’s ever discussed.

That’s something I’ve noticed. And when I talk about gratitude, I’m talking about a kind of mindset. And for me, mindset—it’s a super generic term in English, I know—mindset means a kind of mental attitude you have. It’s about how you start the day, how you meet friends, how you meet your family. You can either have a good time together or you can have a bad time together. But if I know I’m meeting up with family this weekend, maybe even a bit far away, and I already have that mindset, I just don’t feel like it at all.

Entering into conversations with openness

Of course, it’ll be awkward then. But if I have the right mindset, I’m up for it. I’ll spend two hours talking to someone I’d probably least want to talk to. But then you really hear some interesting stories if you listen closely. Actually, I want to start with something very obvious. Sorry for the question, but what do you see here? Arthur? Exactly, a black dot. And I had—the black dot is very central. I’ve had the experience that my career has actually been on a relatively steady upward trajectory.

So, I’m originally from Iran. It’s not like I was handed everything on a silver platter; I actually had to work for it. All I knew was that you have to work hard to achieve something. That means studying really wasn’t easy. Deutsche Bank, all those things—it was, let’s say, connected to hard work. And then when I founded my own company, things went incredibly smoothly at first. Arthur can probably only remember that.

I hired people. I had, let’s say, partners, some of them at the board level, actually just like you guys, I just realized. But let’s say we quickly grew to nine people, great people on the team. It was really fun, too. My ego was naturally up there at first—my first startup was up and running, what more could I want? And then the first mistakes crept in, and my first startup, which had started off incredibly well, turned into a failure. To put it bluntly…

Responsibility for one’s own decisions

I made a few wrong decisions. I’ll admit it was my fault, not someone else’s. Many conversations with other people followed. I still do, but I just didn’t absorb it. So, hey, I know how things work. But this startup failure, that was basically my black mark. As you can see, it’s right in the middle, and you can’t even see what’s around it. But what I want to explain to you today, as Artur almost said, is that there’s still a blank space around it.

When I ask a question like that, most people just say “black dot.” They don’t even see the white around it. And today it’s actually about the white around it. Specifically, if you focus on the black dot, you get caught in a negative downward spiral. I then landed a very good position with one of my clients very quickly after that. So, I went straight from being the founder of a great startup—okay, it was a failure—to joining the client as Chief Innovation Officer.

A setback and its impact

So, I landed softly. But that career setback hurt a bit, I’d say. Especially my ego. I see it differently now. But back then, it was, let’s say, very stressful for my ego to constantly have that black mark. And I actually—and I’d even say I was drawn into it—I really got into a situation where, before, I was more of a creator. I created things. I’ll come back to that later, a creator. Be it the product, be it teams, be it good networks, whatever.

And I switched to being a consumer. What I mean by that is, I consume social media, I consume Netflix. That’s not a bad thing, you can do that. But when you step out of that creator mode and are just a consumer of information, you’re actually not happy anymore. I think it’s not without reason that most users who only consume on Instagram and the like are actually unhappy. And I became one of those consumers. Not that I spent all day doing it.

Continued

But I’ve learned how to create. I’ll come back to that later. Out comes a piece of paper. I’m from, let’s say, a team player. That’s the second important point that contributed to my unhappiness. So not only have I become a consumer, but I’ve also become, well, a loner from a team player. Great company, great people at the company. First of all, hey guys, I’ve just had a major setback. Leave me alone for a bit. I need some time to myself, the usual.

So, I didn’t get in touch with my network. I contacted my friends less. Sure, I still kept in touch. I wasn’t going through a depressive phase. It wasn’t like I was completely broken, but simply that I’d moved away from, let’s say, community-oriented thinking and towards solo thinking. I need to do my own thing first. That was a second point that contributed significantly to my unhappiness. The third point, which I’ve already mentioned, is the perspective that I only saw this one negative aspect.

For example, I didn’t see back then what kind of networks I could build, that I would get to know someone like Arthur, that I could call him a friend. I didn’t see that at all back then; it just existed, it was a failure. So my perspective back then was completely wrong. Another important point I discovered about myself, as I transitioned from being a founder to, let’s say, no longer a founder, was that I also relinquished any kind of ownership.

Ownership instead of shifting responsibilities

What I mean by ownership is that I no longer felt that way. I also met many colleagues back then who constantly said, “That’s Pall, someone else’s problem, that’s not my responsibility, that’s not my product, that’s not my company, that’s not mine,” blah blah blah. The whole concept of ownership fell by the wayside for me. I had a lot of ownership before, not just as a shareholder, but overall—my company, my team members, and so on.

And then I was in a mode where I constantly saw this black spot, where I was saying, “Hey, let me out, the problem isn’t my responsibility, the company belongs to someone else, the employee has a problem, yeah, it’s not my problem.” I was totally in that mindset, “I don’t care.” No ownership. Another point that contributed to the unhappiness, and I’m mentioning these points because maybe you’ll recognize yourself in some of them. Another point was that I also lacked focus or didn’t approach things with sufficient intensity.

Attention in conversations

When I was in conversations, I only half-listened. In meetings, I did other things on the side, I don’t know, typical Zoom meetings. You know how it is, you open other browser windows, do something else. There was no intensity. When I started a project that I enjoyed a little, I’d just take one step and think, “Okay, I’ll try something else.” Back then, I didn’t realize that if I really wanted to get excited about something, I actually needed focus and intensity, because without focus, without intensity, you just take that one step and then give up.

So, another important factor regarding unhappiness. The other thing I touched on earlier with the topic of ownership is that I’ve also given responsibility to others, saying, for example, that my wife is responsible for my happiness, or that I’m unhappy now because this and that happened. I’ve shifted the responsibility onto others. It’s also incredibly interesting that you can make someone else—and I think it’s a fatal mistake, for example, to make your children responsible for making you happy.

Who is responsible for my happiness?

That’s not true at all. Even now, after going through some of that process, I still ask myself, am I actually responsible for other people’s happiness? But back then, I had the mindset that others were responsible, that my boss was responsible for my well-being. Before, I was essentially responsible for everyone’s comfort, but now my team lead, or whoever my boss was at the time, was responsible. If I wasn’t doing well, it wasn’t my fault.

He’s not to blame. And the whole thing about gratitude, which is what we’re really talking about today, was actually like this: I got amazing awards, I got great equipment from everyone, and then there was a colleague who got a new iPhone. And I was like, what? Why does he get a new iPhone? I was so ungrateful that I didn’t even appreciate what was really going on. I had my own room, I had a great office, I had a good iPhone, but this colleague got a new iPhone, and I was ungrateful.

Continued

Why is he getting a new iPhone? I don’t live there. That spiral of unhappiness completely narrowed my perspective. Looking back, I’m sure that happened because I kept focusing on that one negative point. I didn’t appreciate the things happening around me at all. And the funny thing is, those were seven points I mentioned. If you take the negative aspects out of those seven points, that’s actually the key to becoming happier in life.

So, it’s not like, “I’m not trying to sell you anything,” or “These are the ten steps to happiness.” I just want to share a little bit of what’s made me happier. I said at the beginning that I’d become a consumer of information; I wasn’t creating anything anymore. And I realized some time ago how important creation is. My office is back in Walldorf now, and there’s an Ikea right next door. And, as you do, you go to Ikea and buy something.

It’s incredibly annoying, you take it apart, I had to build such a small cabinet. It took forever, it really annoyed me. But when it was finished, when I’d created it, I’d be like, when my parents were around, I’d say to my mom, “Hey, that was me. I built that cabinet.” Or I’d say to my wife, “I didn’t bump into it in front of her. I just built it.” You can see that Ikea makes a huge business out of it. I think they’ve figured out that creating something makes you happy, even if it’s just a cabinet.

Create something of your own

I’m proud of the wardrobe. That’s why I’ve moved away from the idea that I only consume, that I just let everything be tailored to me, and so on. I create something. And it can be just a wardrobe. Sure, building a company is cool, but it doesn’t have to be a new company every day. You can also build something small, something you put together yourself, or an app, something virtual, anything digital—that’s fun too. I think creating is incredibly important for your mindset; it makes you happier.

If you just wander around all day, leaving everything as it is, I think it makes you unhappy. Creating is incredibly important. Secondly, Arthur mentioned it earlier, the topic of community. We now have a community that I think is extremely cool. We call ourselves the Seedbed. I also have a mindset community. There’s also a cigar community where we meet regularly. I’ve gone back from having to go through life alone to sharing my experiences with others, exchanging ideas, asking them a few things, asking each other a few things.

Learning through exchange

And to be honest, I can’t really talk myself into things, but there was hardly a conversation where I didn’t learn something. I can only do that if I’m part of a community, talking to people. So I’ll definitely talk to you all afterward, if there’s still time. Absolutely, because I want to learn from you. It might sound selfish at first, but maybe something will come of it, maybe we’ll talk again in two years, recognize each other somewhere, ah, there was something there.

That’s why this whole thing went from “I was caught in this downward spiral of unhappiness, I wanted to leave everyone alone, I wanted to go my own way” to “OK, I need to get back into the community. I need to connect with people.” It’s incredibly exhausting coordinating meetings with the core group every six weeks because everyone is so busy. But I’ve never felt afterward that it was all for nothing. And every time, I’ve gone home with a thought: It was really great that we met up.

There hasn’t been a single time I’ve regretted it. Community is extremely important. And the opposite of what I said earlier, regarding the black dot, is the white space. The white space is, for example, the time I spent founding my company. I’ve already mentioned a few things. The network. I’ve made new friends. Or the basics. I learned how to start a company. Not everyone knows that. You have to learn it first. I learned how to draw up contracts.

The other side of a setback

I’ve learned how to handle certain things, how to use certain tools. These are all things I didn’t even realize I’d learned back then. And that’s why, if you have a dark spot in your life, try changing your perspective. That’s what I learned along the way. I actually had a small argument recently with someone close to me. It wasn’t that things got heated, not at all. With us Iranians, it’s just that you don’t talk to each other in those situations.

Continued

I don’t know exactly, we Persians have a huge Persian rug, so we push everything down, add to it, and then we just don’t talk about it anymore. But the interesting thing was, during our conversation, this person said a few things to me where I, let’s say, saw what they actually think about me. And that really surprised me, so to speak. And then it was okay for me to say, okay, now I may have lost a friend, but at least I know what he thinks about me.

So I was simply grateful for this information. Because the older you get, the less time you have. You want to spend quality time with friends, with people who like you. Now I know I don’t have to do that anymore. I did lose a friend, but the perspective—I’ve also learned that I can invest my time elsewhere—is okay with me. Ownership. A very important topic. I think many people also forget about employees and companies, even if they don’t have shares.

Responsibility for the shared outcome

You have a certain ownership stake in the company, in its success. For example, if you say, “I don’t care anymore that the glass is crooked or has fallen over.” And there are many examples. You don’t know if tomorrow, or the day after, one of the investors might come by and say, “Hey, what’s going on here? What’s the situation?” Everyone grapples with ownership issues at some point. And what I also try to make clear, regardless of the business, is that it’s perfectly okay to say, “This is mine now.”

That’s what I’ve made sure of now, whenever I’ve done something well at the company. I created the result. It wasn’t someone else. It was me. Even my little son, for example. He does judo. He’s four years old. Whenever he does something good, something nice, I always say he’s my son. He’s mine. It makes you happy to say, “That’s mine.” It’s difficult to say that about people. But you understand what I mean. It makes you happy to say, “That’s mine.” For example, to say, “I enjoy working at the company, it’s my company, in a way.”

Develop a connection to one’s own work

Saying something makes you happy. Saying, “I have nothing to do with you,” is unemotional. I think that’s perfect for unhappiness. But saying, “This is mine,” makes you extremely happy. So, I find the concept of ownership extremely important. I mentioned focus and intensity earlier. I was in a mode, as I said before. A quick look at this showed it wasn’t for me. Then I checked out something else. I was basically taking one step in each of 20 directions. But what I eventually realized is that I have the most fun when I take 20 steps in one direction.

Many people think they should find, or know, what their purpose in life is. And if they don’t know it, everything’s awful. I think you find your purpose when you’ve been doing something for long enough. Because then you also discover the beauty, for example, in something. I started the podcast a while ago. To be honest, I find it incredibly stressful. I’ve done the first few episodes, the first interviews. The effort was enormous. I briefly considered quitting.

Discover the depths with perseverance

No, I kept going. There are 50 episodes online now. So there’s a lot of work behind it. But with each new episode, I discover the beauty in it, in the work I’m doing. And that’s what I mean by running 20 steps in one direction. It’s so much more worthwhile. Having that perseverance and patience. I’ll do this for two years. I’ll do it for three years. Or whatever. You find aspects that are particularly beautiful. Not everything about what you do is cool.

There are always stressful things. The technology, for example, annoys me every time. But when I finally have the product out, or whatever it is, PADDIC, after a certain amount of work I’ve put into it, that makes me happy too. So focus and intensity. Extremely important, extremely important ingredient for happiness. Then, what I’ve really come to understand, the issue of responsibility or accountability, I find that kind of cool. The issue of responsibility. I realized one thing. During the time when I was caught in such a downward spiral of unhappiness, I didn’t want any responsibility.

I wanted to take the easy way out. Avoiding stress with my wife, friends and family was my priority, let’s put it that way. I also did less exercise back then because it all seemed so difficult. There was just so much work involved. Until I realized that some things were happening around me too. That all the decisions you make, even those that seem simple, are actually tough decisions, which is what I mean by that.

Continued

It’s incredibly hard to work on a good marriage. I’ve been with my wife for 16 years. We’ve been married for five. It’s hard work. But what I imagine is that going through a separation is also hard. I have to decide which hardness I choose. The same goes for exercise. After so many hours of work each day, going out to exercise is extremely difficult. But the fact that my joints hurt, that I feel out of shape, that’s also hard in its own way. Again, I have to consider which hardness I choose.

The topic of finances is another one. It’s obviously incredibly easy to eat out every day, not cook, and just let everything slide. Keeping your finances under control is tough, but so is going broke. That means you have to choose your own path to hardship. And that’s why, over the years, I’ve come to realize that there are hardly any easy decisions. Easy decisions seem simple because they are easy at first. But at some point, an easy decision becomes a tough decision, a harsh reality, so to speak.

Choose your own challenge

That means you should choose the tough path you want to take. I don’t know what kind of job you’re coming from, for example. It was probably a tough decision for you too. Like, where do I go? What do I do? Exactly, you chose the tough path. It would have been easier to stay where you probably were before. Precisely for that reason. And I believe tough decisions pay off. Yes, well, we don’t know each other, but yes, but you can also choose to simply do nothing. That’s the easiest thing in life, to do nothing.

The simplest decision, but one that eventually becomes really tough, confronting you with harsh realities. This also applies to the issue of responsibility and accountability. If you seemingly disregard everything about yourself, it’s easy at first, but then it gets difficult. And the last point: if I previously said I was ungrateful because I had an older iPhone than my colleague, I know now, after reflecting on it, that it’s absurd. It’s completely absurd that I even thought that way. Especially regarding the issue of gratitude.

I have. I first heard about it from another podcaster who said, “Hey, if you do this gratitude routine for 30 days, then you’ll be grateful.” So, whatever. Anyway, I knew from conversations I’d heard that gratitude is an extremely important topic. I was like, okay, I’ll try it. For 30 days. And the routine is super simple. I talked about it once before. My calendar now includes a morning and an evening entry. I get a reminder at 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., so after waking up and just before going to sleep.

A daily gratitude exercise

Two minutes of thinking about something, thinking about something I’m grateful for. That’s okay. I’ll do it. For the first few days, it was just the usual stuff. Yeah, I’m grateful I’m healthy. I have a roof over my head. Food to eat, the usual stuff. You’re kind of grateful for it, but also kind of not, because you know what I mean. So standard. Then at some point, my brain told me, hey Reza, stop messing around and really think about what you’re grateful for.

And then the interesting things came out. And first of all, don’t laugh. First, I was grateful. Artur will understand that my AirPods connect so well with my iPhone. Totally, I’d say, take a swear when you think about it. But it works wonderfully. I was grateful for that. Or then, for example, that the coffee tastes so good. Then you notice the little things, the things you think about. Or that the blanket on my skin—yes, my wife bought a new blanket, super expensive, but it’s soft.

Consciously appreciate the little things

It’s nice. I was grateful that it was such a soft, warm blanket. And once you get into that mindset, thinking about what you’re grateful for, that I can talk to you all here today. I’m incredibly grateful. So, of course, I hope you’re also grateful that you have cool people here you can just hang out with. Even if it’s only for three or four hours. But the worst-case scenario would be if you didn’t want to be here at all. So, I had a Christmas party at a large German bank—yes, I already mentioned the name, Deutsche Bank.

That wasn’t so cool. Honestly, the Christmas parties weren’t so cool. You can also be grateful that you can just sit at Sam’s, have a beer together. Those are the kinds of things you think about. And the more you think about gratitude… Ah, okay, one thing about Deutsche Bank I have to say. Really, it’s all supposed to be negative. I had a colleague there. It fits the business context, too. He was a really cool guy. He was like a firefighter. Whenever a project went wrong, he’d come along and turn everything around, get it sorted out, almost as if it were about to explode.

Continued

And I got to work on a project with him. I learned an incredible amount from him. It only lasted a few weeks, really, because the project was quite critical. I prepared so much for him. I put a lot of work into it. And then he had to present it to his management. He said, “Hey Reza, come to the meeting.” And for me, it was cool. I was the trainee. When I went along, he said, “Please be quiet, Reza, let me talk.” I was like, “Yeah, yeah, no worries.” The meeting was really short.

The part he presented was about five minutes long. And for the first 30 seconds of those five minutes, he thanked me. He said I’d compiled the data, that I’d worked overtime, that I’d blah blah blah in front of the entire management team. Wow, that’s okay, cool. He was genuinely grateful to me. What he definitely achieved with that was that I worked twice as hard afterward. So it was definitely some kind of mental manipulation on his part, but in a positive way.

Expressing gratitude in the workplace

Because I knew, wow, he didn’t even have to do it, because he already has the image of being the coolest guy around and capable of making any project a success. He thanked me publicly. And I think that’s important in business too, that you sometimes say, thank you for the work, no matter what the work is. Thank you for what you did. That’s why gratitude is such a central theme for me. I haven’t personally studied it extensively from a research perspective, but I recently had the opportunity to interview someone who is researching the topic of happiness.

And she said that gratitude is a meta-strategy, a kind of happiness research. I didn’t know that before, but it makes perfect sense to me. The more grateful I am, the happier I am. And with that, I’d like to conclude. I’m incredibly grateful to be here. Thank you so much. Great people, I hope you enjoyed the presentation. I certainly had a lot of fun. There were also some really interesting questions afterward. It was a very lively discussion, which I think lasted just as long as the presentation itself.

So, I had a great time interacting with the people who were there, and I really enjoyed it. That’s it for today’s milestone episode, the 50th episode of Project Mindset. And I hope we’ll hear from each other again in the next 50 episodes. And until then, don’t forget, mindset is everything.