Hi, I’m Georgian

You see, there are people that are naturally grateful, positive, outgoing and I’m happy that they are, but they are few.

Most of us have to make a conscious effort to be grateful, we need an experience or some contrasting story that we hear about to remind us that we can be grateful and that we really should be.

My goal with this project is to inspire those that find it harder to be grateful, to choose to live a life filled with gratefulness or at least to get a boost of this amazing feeling when things don’t seem to go the right way.

Why?
Well, in my own experience, I’ve discovered that it’s not the material things that make us happy, but it’s our attitude towards them, how much we appreciate things.

It’s the same with relationships. If we’re grateful for the people in our lives, they bring us lots of joy and happiness, but if we’re always complaining about them (I know we both have enough reasons to complain about people), well, that will only make us more bitter.

Also, I’m based in Romania, but most of my listeners live in the States, Australia, Canada and UK. I live in a country that has the second highest emigration percentage in the world (17% in the last 15 years), and the first one is Syria. You could say that people don’t like it here much and being grateful here compared to other countries can be a challenge. This being said, I want to bring perspective for people listening to the podcast. I want to inspire them to see that if I’m able to find gratitude here, for them, it can be a much easier task.

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Media & Features
The Gratitude Podcast has been featured as one of the Top 10 Positive Thinking Pdcasts to Fuel Your Forward Motion by Rick Huggins on Epic Life Vibes.

Been interviewed by Lauren Zalewski, the founder of the Attitude of Gratitude With Chronic Pain.
Been interviewed on my good friend Yenny Stromgren’s podcast, Everyday Light Warriors.

Been a guest on Happy Mind Travel, a Hong Kong based podcast focused on the psychology of happiness:

Talked about building the gratitude habit on the australian podcast Ideas Architect with Geoff McDonald: http://geoffmcdonald.com/georgian-benta-build-gratitude-habit/

Personal experience
From a more spiritual standpoint, my motivation for this project comes from a very personal experience…
It was a winter night. I felt like a hit rock bottom. My business wasn’t going the way I hoped, I barely had enough money to pay the next rent on my room in a 3 bedroom apartment and I was in one of my lowest moments of my life.

I needed to do something about it, so even though it was freezing outside, I got dressed and I went by the riverside to take a walk and pray. I was so demoralised as I was taking the first steps outside, I couldn’t believe it; but in all that desperation, I still had some hope that God didn’t forget about me and that if I pray, I will get an answer.

I prayed on and on, asking God for His help and guidance. Nothing happened…

The cold seemed to get to me and I decided to go home.

When I was walking towards my flat, an amazing feeling got in every cell of my body. It was like everything was new. My perception of the world, of my world changed in an instant. I felt like it was the first time I had been in Cluj (the city I live in), like it was the first day I moved into the apartment I was living in at the time, an amazing feeling of deep gratitude for everything that I had and for all the small things that made me smile and that made me happy at one point that I forgot about or took for grated.

I knew right then and there, that this was the answer to my prayers, and it was overwhelming.

This experience is so fresh in my memory and the emotions are so close to my heart I consider this a gift that I’m very grateful for and I want others to enjoy the same perspective I have been given at that time.

For the more practical minded
By now you might think I’m a just spiritual idealist and that this “gratitude thing” isn’t good for practical matters. Well, my experience has taught me differently.

I left the office, and also left the business. After a long meeting with my business partners at the time, I concluded that I’m going to choose another path for myself. It was a hard decision and it wasn’t easy to take it, but I was disappointed about how much my work was appreciated and chose something else for myself.
I had a lot more free time on my hands and I chose to invest some of it in creating new habits. A major habit was GRATEFULNESS, of course.

Long story short, in a few months I got a new business partner that I still work with today that really appreciates my work.

My income pretty much tripled in that period.

I fulfilled my dream of taking my parents to Vienna in December. It was a wish they had for a long time and it was an amazing experience.

Had a lot of beautiful experiences come my way, I won free tickets at conferences I was interested in, lots and lots of other good stuff, I almost felt like it’s too much.

Conclusion and invitation
The thing is, gratitude works, it gets you into positive experiences, invites appreciation, makes you feel good, its waves permeate the physical, the emotional and the spiritual realms, it’s the mother of all virtues and it belongs in your heart.

I hope that through my work you’ll find more moments of gratefulness in your day to day life, or, even better, choose to live your live in gratitude.

My vision is to inspire 100.000 people to focus on gratitude and on what makes them grateful in their life. Help me spread the word and share what you find on this blog with your friends and family, with the ones that need it most.

Thank you for reading this and thank you for letting me be part of your life (one lived with gratitude in your heart and joy in your soul)!

Georgian Benta
Founder of The Gratitude Podcast