“When you are grateful, fear disappears, and abundance appears.” Tony Robbins
Last week, I told you I was practicing taking a break. Based on how often she received my email or Slack messages, my co-founder Amy told me she’d give me a D on my taking a break report card. However, if I were to give myself marks for what I learned—learning is the essential unit of progress—I would give myself an A.
I had a lot of time for self-reflection, some of which I will share another day. And there were a lot of emotional ups and downs, which I think are common when we are making progress at the launch point of a curve. But what I want to talk about today is the gratitude that I felt this past week and building the neural pathways when what you appreciate, you get more of.
We each have different love languages; my husband knows mine is service.
So, his offer to me was, “Make a list of all the things around the house that you want done, that we haven’t had time to do, and I will do them.” That list included: replacing light bulbs, doing an asphalt patch in our driveway, reattaching a piece of siding outside my office window, and hanging pictures. The house looks better. And one day, he went to work a little late to make crabcakes for us! I feel loved.
Then, my daughter made a delicious meal of ribs, potato salad, corn, and an amazing German chocolate cake (take a look on Instagram).
Throw in several bouquets of flowers, Crumbl cookies, lovely birthday greetings, a last-minute, I-think-I’ll-be-spontaneous reflexology session, a clean bill of health from the physical therapist (yes, I am going to ski again this winter), and lots of time to sit on the porch and read, and it was a great birthday week.
It’s easy to pay attention to the things that don’t work, so I am memorializing all the things that really did work and the kindnesses and love that were expressed to me.
What about you?
What are things that people do for you that feel like expressions of love?
What are your love languages?
Since ChatGPT was released in a usable format, the world’s been abuzz with the potential and pitfalls of artificial intelligence. Give it a name, a couple of memories, and emotions, and AI will spit out a sonnet for your loved one. Much, much faster than it takes us to write one. Chris Duffey, strategic development manager for Adobe, is our podcast guest this week, and he has a different take.
Human brains, he says, are the most powerful computers we know of, and built with a code we might never crack. The AI revolution isn’t about replacing us, but about amplifying the magical powers we already have.
So, what does AI mean for us? I hope you’ll join us and listen to Chris articulate the possibilities.
Thanks for your response on Smart Growth—I will reach out to the winners of free copies in the next few days.
My best,
Whitney
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