The 6 High Performance Benefits of Gratitude

Your path to high performance starts with gratitude.

It allows the best of the best to perceive things differently. Anyone who has a thirst for improvement can access that sacred space where beliefs, focus, trust, accountability, and gratitude converge. High performers like the Blue Angels know it very well. They have learned how recognition can pave the way to our destiny by expanding our vision. It can change the world around us. 

 It would be easy to think that the Glad To Be Here mindset comes from success. However, look at it in reverse. The positive mindset of Glad To Be Here activates high performance, not the other way around. Here is how it works. 

 On the Blue Angels, during our debriefs, we always closed our opening comments with the phrase "Glad To Be Here." Take a close look at this fascinating expression, and you will quickly notice that it radiates respect and gratitude. Our flight environment did not allow the slightest margin of error. So, every time we came back, our hearts filled with gratefulness. 

 These days, the growing body of research on gratitude keeps confirming the deep benefits it can generate. It reveals itself as a gateway to high performance. 

 So, here are the six significant windfalls I promise you will encounter in your journey to high performance; 

 Benefit # 1 It broadens your scope of vision: 

When everything is going well, you might think that these are the times when the Glad To Be Here mindset comes most easily and is most useful. It will be most beneficial in times of hardship and challenges. You have to remember to use it, though. If your mind has always leaned towards looking for what goes wrong, you might forget the Glad To Be Here mindset. Gratitude will help you reconnect with that inner gratefulness and widen your scope of perception, right when you need it most. Right at that crucial moment, when your attitude would have shown you a challenge or an obstacle, gratitude will transform it into a golden opportunity. 

 Benefit # 2 It fuels your journey into higher performance:

By reminding yourself about the sources of your gratitude, you will also vaporize any fear and feeling of immobility within yourself. Doubts will vanish. Glad To Be Here acts as a differentiator, helping you transition on a much higher plateau of high performance.  

 Benefit # 3 It imbues your life with expansion and growth:

Right when you start to feel the thrill of high performance, everything within your life begins to reflect that feeling of development. Your mind gains more exceptional ability to perceive opportunities around. You start to express greater creativity and innovative powers. Solutions to challenges and obstacles begin to emerge more naturally in your mind. You are genuinely embodying the Glad To Be Here mindset.   

 Benefit # 4 It transforms your surroundings: 

Then, from that point, your Glad To Be Here attitude begins to spread to everyone around you. Its cascading effect expands all around. It inspires and encourages everyone around you. You start to feel the urge to share it. That alone has excellent benefits for you, and for the person receiving. You don't keep the feeling just for yourself, inside to make yourself feel good or elevate your performance. You want to share it with the world around you. A transformative effect on your surroundings will arise on its own. 

 Benefit # 5, It galvanizes trust exponentially in yourself and others:

That great positive environment of Glad To Be Here, then spreads around contagiously, creating an atmosphere of trust within yourself and with others. It will feed on itself and will expand exponentially, with an extraordinary and unprecedented impact on your journey to high performance. It will benefit your path to high performance, but also those around you who have joined you on the same route.    

 Benefit # 6, It elevates your beliefs exponentially in yourself and others:

Inevitably, your expectations in your capacity will expand. However, you will also have the highest faith that those around you are also able to reach the highest standards of high performance. It's a collective journey.

 Such are the powers of the Glad To Be Here mindset and gratitude. Reflect on these benefits and practice them.

 The Glad To Be Here Wake Up Call 

Now is the time to start. I want to share with you a vital activator of the Glad To Be Here mindset. You can begin your journey to High Performance as early as today. It starts from the very first instant you open your eyes and ends with the very last moment when you are about to join your dreams at night.

 The easiest way to adopt the Glad To Be Here mindset as an individual is to do what I call The Glad To Be Here Wake-up. It's easy and straightforward.

• Every morning, right when you wake up, ask yourself, "What am I grateful for?"
• Go back and review the past 24 hours, what happened there.
• Then project your mind forward, and look at the day ahead, "What's coming that I can be grateful for?"  

" Research has shown that if you repeat a habit 64 times, it becomes embedded in your behavior. " ~ John Foley

 When you create a habit, you change the neuroplasticity of the brain. Talk about the process with your friends and family, and it will spread positivity throughout your environment. In trying to explain it, you will internalize it and make it personal. That helps this mindset become a way of life, something well beyond a simple statement. 

~ John Foley is a former lead solo pilot of the Blue Angels, a Sloan Fellow at the Stanford School of Business, a best selling Author and an expert in the how of High Performance teams. His Fearless Success System has transformed 1000’s of organizations around the world.