A (0:04)

Welcome to It's a Good Life with Brian Buffini, founder of America's largest business coaching company. Producer David Lally here to wish you a Happy St. Patrick's Day. I know it was yesterday, but to celebrate the special time of year, we're bringing back one of our favorite episodes, the Celtic Secret. Whether you're Irish by birth or just at heart, I hope this episode resonates deeply with you. So sit back and enjoy the Celtic Secret. Well, the top of the morning to you, and welcome to today's episode, the Celtic Secret. Lots of books about secrets these days and the secret to this and the secret to that, and the truth of the matter is there really are no secrets to success. There's ancient principles that have been around for a long time. They get repackaged and repurposed and a new book and a new idea comes out and the next thing you know, it's a great secret. But have you ever noticed how Irish people are beloved all over the world? Has that ever kind of struck you as odd? Have you ever seen, for example, the parade of nations in the Olympics and there's countries walking in with flags and underneath it'll say 60 million people. And you've never heard of the country or you kind of have. And then in walk the Irish and they'll be holding the Irish flag and it'll say, Republic of Ireland, 5 million people. And the stadium will explode. And all of a sudden people are interested and the cameras spend all kinds of time focusing on them. Have you ever noticed that 23 US presidents claim Irish heritage? Which is a great way to get elected in America, by the way, is to say you're Irish. Why in the world is that? There are Irish pubs in every country in the world. Some of those countries, they even have a ban on alcohol. We're everywhere. We're not supposed to be the Irish. So why are the Irish so beloved? You know, I have often asked that question because we're kind of feisty, not always the easiest to get along with. As a nation, we can be very pessimistic. No question about it. Irish people have great skills in that area. We have teams named after us called the Fightin Irish, not the Get Along With Everyone Irish. So why is it, with all our foibles and all our feistiness and troubles and difficulties in our land for centuries, why is it Irish people are so beloved? Well, it's the Celtic Secret. And I'm going to let you in on that secret. Today the Irish are supported all over the world. And isn't that what you want, to be accepted and supported. And it's ultimately because we have an ancient Celtic approach to gratitude that defines us as a nation, that makes us hospitable as a people, that makes us gregarious and fun loving. And it's why we're so accepted and so supported, and it's our approach to gratitude. I often talk about how I've spent my life teaching my kids please and thank you and how it was a non negotiable. And that was drilled into me not only by my own family of origin, but by the culture. I grew up in Ireland. Irish people, when I was growing up in the 60s, 70s and 80s, we didn't have anything. A very, very poor nation, economically poor. I always remember when Live Aid came up and Ireland by percentage contributed more to people starving in Africa than any other country in the world. And yet economically we were disadvantaged as many of the countries we were helping out. So how is this the case? Well, I will say to you that deep inside our DNA is a robust embrace of gratitude. Our phrase that we use in Ireland is Gurv Mila Mahagut. I'll say it a few times, it's a fantastic phrase. I was going to call this podcast this, but then I realized a bunch of Yanks and Canadians would go, what's he saying? Gurav Mila mah aghot, loosely translated means a thousand thank yous. It's interesting that Irish, we're very expressive on certain things, whether it be thank yous, whether it's welcome. If you ever get a chance to tour our facilities here in Carlsbad, the podcast studio is. We've got this big podcast area and the studio and there's a sound room where Danny and David hang out and all that stuff. But there's a ramp that walks up into the studio that says cade me La Falcha 100,000 welcomes. So it's remarkable in our language of poetry and expression, the thing that we're really good at in Ireland, not just in telling stories, but we actually are very expressive about certain core things. Welcome. Kayd Mila, a hundred thousand welcomes. And Gaurav Meela Mahagat, a thousand thank yous. We don't just say thank you, we say a thousand thank yous. Why is that such a big deal? Well, we're going to talk about it today because we're going to talk about the word gratitude and what it actually means. And an expansive approach to gratitude is the way to go. You know, today when people say gratitude, they think of Yoga pants and sitting in a room and little namaste music and meditation. And I need to experience gratitude and I need to embrace gratitude. And my essence will grow. Okay, all that stuff has value to some degree, but I'm talking about something bloody different. I'm talking about an expansive view of gratitude on how you live your whole life. It changes your perspective, it changes your outlook, it changes the grit that you want to have as a person. When you lead and come from a force of gratitude. Gaurav Mila Mahagat A thousand thank yous. It's an expression of the heart and mind. It takes over everything. And what it does is it allows you to take on unbelievably difficult things. And the Irish have had to endure unbelievably difficult things. The last developed nation in the world to experience a famine. A famine is the most. It's the lowest of the low things. It's. It's worse than war. War is understandable force of one nation against another. But we're talking about famine. We can't feed ourselves and die. So a country of eight million people went down to about three and a half million people because so many people died and then so many people left. And by the way, a lot of people died leaving. And one of the reasons the Irish were accepted all over the world is we came in, we were the very essence of the poorest. We were ambitious, we wanted to change our life. But we came with this spirit of gratitude even in the midst of this terrible stuff, and it changes everything. So today I have three points for you, as I always do, I'm going to talk about the downside, what happens when you have an absence of thanks. We're going to talk about the Celtic secret and then we're going to talk about the practice of gratitude. So you can have this power, you can have this secret sauce in your life and you can experience support and acceptance wherever you go. So gratitude by definition is the quality of being thankful. It's a readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness. Brilliant definition. The quality of being thankful is a readiness to show appreciation for and to a return kindness. So brilliant stuff. And are you ready? Are you ready right now? Are you ready when this podcast ends to express gratitude? Express write a note, send someone a text affirming in a call, are you ready to show appreciation? You know, people who don't show appreciation are the same as people who don't feel it at all. And I've talked about this before, that someone who doesn't show gratitude is called an ingrate. An ingrate used to be like. It'd be like. It's almost like a inhuman quality to have. But someone who doesn't even show appreciation, I see it all the time. Ingrates are everywhere. They're in restaurants where the server brings food, server brings a drink, and there's nothing said. If you don't communicate gratitude, you're the same as the person who doesn't feel it. And you just stole something from somebody and you stole from yourself. Your own heart, your own mind, your own spirit that you think it's okay to sit there and someone serve you and not say a freaking thing. You're an ingrate or you're practicing as an ingrate. It's time for a bit of a shake up here. I'm going to bring to you what's actually in the marketplace today. And if you'll embrace it, the Celtic secret will be yours. So first and foremost, let's take a look at when we don't practice gratitude, the absence of thanks. So first of all, we end up with a self centered focus. If you feel gratitude and do not express it, you're the same as the person who's incapable of it. American author William Arthur Ward said, a complaining tongue reveals an ungrateful heart. Shakespeare said, how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child. Oh, people are playing defense with their children. They want their children's acceptance. They want their children to like them. It's little Johnny and little Jane get everything they want. Let me ask you this. Demand gratitude from them until such time they're out of an age to make that decision for themselves. Demand gratitude because without it, you're causing them to have a weakness of spirit, a smallness of perspective, and a great loss of power. The next piece is an erosion of relationships. Relationships built on thank you and please are more likely to succeed. It turns out gratefulness, not romance, is the key to a happy couple. If you look at it today, everything's romance. This and romance novels and romance shows and romance on Netflix. And the truth of the matter is what sustains and all the studies show is that gratitude in a relationship is more powerful than romance. The romance comes and goes. The gratitude never ends. Never ends. Was my wife's birthday recently. Now let me say this. I buy so many flowers, not only for my wife, but for other people. I buy so many flowers that the flower shop gave extra gifts to my bride for her birthday. They brought chocolates, they brought candles, they brought this and that, and they're like, this guy's our best customer. We want to show you extra gratitude. My wife's been receiving flowers from me for 33 years of marriage. There is never a month goes by, but I mean, I would say I'm pretty good. Almost every other week she received that bouquet of flowers like it's the first one I ever sent to her with gratitude. I'm telling you, you want to talk about having a successful relationship, that's where it's at. I don't take her for granted and she doesn't take it for granted. And gratitude is expressed on both sides. Mark Twain said, if you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. And I've seen this again and again. I see this for our coaches that have transformed people's lives in double and triple. You know, I interviewed a woman the other day. She had a great story. Her income has gone up 30 times 30x since she started with us. And she was in dire straits when she started with us. And now her life has transformed. Her family life's been transformed. She says, I just feel this immense sense of gratitude to you and your company and to my coach. And it's, it's when she expressed that to me, it's like, this is why I do this stuff. Her expressing that gratitude, that's what gets me up in the morning. That's what gets the coaches up in the morning. When she expressed gratitude for what's happened in her life, it gives energy and spirit and mission to all of us. The worst regret we have in life is not for the wrong things we did, but the thousands of right things we did for the wrong people. That's brilliant. George Bernard Shaw said, if you're incapable of gratitude, you're incapable of any noble sentiment. Even animals are grateful. They can wag their tail. Many of them show more gratitude than people do today. I know that's hardcore and I know I'm coming out off the top shelf today, but here's the thing. This is not your yoga instructor's exercise on gratitude today. This is a power force that people don't tap into, that their lives are less, their spirit is less, their marriages and relationships are less, their kids are less, their businesses are less. Why? Because they're focused on me, me, me. They have the self centered focus. They've eroded their relationships and they have this sense of entitlement. Why? Because they're not leading. Leading from a place that the Irish knew about millennia ago that no matter what the circumstances are, a sense of gratitude is where it's all about. Now, so many people, when I talk about this stuff, often think I'm talking about someone else because it's very hard to hold up a mirror to ourselves and realize sometimes we're the one who's not expressing gratitude. And I heard a poem, oh boy, it's gotta be more than 30 years ago by a lady named Valerie Cox. And I'm gonna read it to you. A woman was waiting at an airport one night with several long hours before her flight. She hunted for a book in the airport shops, bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop. She was engrossed in her book, but happened to see that the man sitting beside her, as bold as could be, grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between, which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene. So she munched on the cookies and watched the clock as the gutsy cookie thief diminished her stock. She was getting irritated as the minutes ticked by, thinking, if I wasn't so nice, I would blacken his eye with each cookie she took. He took one too. When only one was left, she wondered what he'd do with a smile on his face and a nervous laugh. He took the last cookie and broke it in half. He offered her half as he ate the other. She snatched it from him and thought, oh brother, this guy has some nerve. And he's also rude. Why he didn't even show any gratitude she had never known when she'd been so galled and sighed with relief. When her flight was called, she gathered her belongings and headed to the gate, refusing to look back at the thieving in grate. She boarded the plane and sank into her seat. Then she sought her book, which was almost complete. As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise. There was her bag of cookies in front of her eyes. If mine are here, she moaned in despair. The others were his, and he tried to share. Too late to apologize, she. She realized with grief that she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief. Sometimes we don't know how we're projecting ourselves onto other people. The Celtic secret. You know, we say the word Celtic, Americans say Celtic like the Boston Celtics. Now, this is ancient and we were the Celts, C E L T S and we were violent people and warring factions and whatever else. But even in the ancient Celtic traditions and writings was massive appreciation and gratitude for the basics, for the sun in the sky, for the moon in the sky, for the stars in the sky, for the land, for the Rain for the animals they had, for the crops they grew, for the families they had, the children they had, the communities they left. It's very, very personal for me, the word Celtic, because in 1924, my grandfather Harry Buffini emigrated to America on a boat called the Celtic. I think about him all the time. That ship was built in 1906 and it was the largest ship in the world until the Titanic came. The same freight liner and everything. And I can imagine like it was only a short period of time, a few years since the Titanic went down. And here was a man who had the guts to go to America on this big, long transatlantic journey where a number of his friends and people he knew would have died on the Titanic. And he went across on this ship called the Celtic. In fact, that ship later, years later, brought his wife, my grandmother. And four years after that, that ship went down and was actually ruined off the coast of Cork and was beached. So what the guts he had to get on the Celtic. In fact, my uncle Jimmy, who sponsored me to get my green card when I came here in 1986, he had a bar in New York called the Celtic. So this is deep inside my DNA. My grandfather went back to Ireland in the late 30s. That's when my dad is American born, but he's Irish for the last 80 some years. But the fact of the matter is I became a citizen 75 years to the day that my grandfather became a citizen and it was the Celtic that brought him here. Decades later would set up my opportunity to come to America, get my Korean card sponsored by my Celtic onan uncle, and then ultimately get my American citizenship, which changed my life and my family's life. So what is the Celtic secret? Here's the first part of it is you keep an outward focus. You got to keep an outward focus. John Ortberg, brilliant speaker and writer, says, gratitude is the ability to experience life as a gift. It liberates us from the prison of self preoccupation. And self preoccupation is now built into Instagram and Snap and Twitter and TikTok and Influencer life and all the TV that follows that we become self preoccupied. The Dalai Lama said, if you shift your focus from yourself to others, extend your concerns to others, and cultivate the thought of caring for the well being of others, then this will have the immediate effect of open up your life and helping you to reach out. Think about brilliant business practices. Is someone who's totally focused on their customer. What's the needs of my customer? What do I have that can provide a service to my customer. How can I do it better than anyone else? And how do I do it in such a way that I'm also thankful for their business? Again, I've spoken on this subject a lot of times, but right now I'm in a sea of ingratitude and a sea of self centeredness. And I see people struggling in their business and struggling in their life and it's because they are self, self, self, self all the time. Don't even realize that they're being ungrateful. Research studies have found that people who focus on things they grateful for, feel better about their lives, more optimistic, and experience health benefits compared to those who look at their daily challenges or just talked about events that didn't affect them positively or negatively. So we got to keep that outward focus. The second aspect of the Celtic Secret is deepen your relationships. And the patties do a great job of this. That's where the pub filled a central role for Irish people. And people always associate the drinking with the Irish. And there's no doubt there's drinking done there and there's been a lot of drinking done excess there and I'm not a proponent of that. My wife's never had she had one alcoholic beverage in her life, which was champagne after they won some world championship in volleyball and she said, I did it with a bad attitude. My wife's a teetotaler. When my wife, since she's been coming to Ireland, let's see, I first brought it there in 1992. She'll tell you she loves going to the pubs and the reason she loved going to the pubs, it's the center of the community and it's where the conversations and the stories happen. The Celtic Secret is to deepen your relationship through connection and then expression of gratitude as you're with those people. Henry Ward Beecher was an American clergyman. Said gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul. The fairest blossom which springs from the soul. And I think that's the thing about Irish people. People feel their soul. It's why we have so many Irish bands. Not just you too, but dozens and dozens of musicians and writers that have touched people all over the world because people have been able to feel the Irish soul. Kristen Armstrong, a three time Olympic medalist, says, when we focus on our gratitude, the tide of disappointment goes out and the tide of love rushes in. A great article written on this was the simple way to make your relationships better and happier. Said expressing gratitude releases oxytocin or the love hormone, which Builds a greater connection and bond between people. So we need to keep the outward focus. We need to deepen our relationships and then live life with an open hand. Live life with an open hand. And the Paddies had to do that because we had nothing coming and we didn't know where the next thing was coming from. Another little aspect of what was key in Irish life. I don't hear it as much as we used to. Ireland's become a very prosperous country now and two things will test you in life, success and failure. And Ireland right now is being tested by success. It's become very prosperous. But it used to be. Another Celtic secret was when you'd somebody say, well, next year we're going to open up a business. They say, well, God willing or next year we're hoping for a bumper crop. Well, God willing. It was always part of that because it allowed that. God willing allowed people to hold it with an open hand. Oprah said, be thankful for what you have. You'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have. You'll never ever have enough. Henry Nguyen, who's a Dutch author, said, the discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy. Aesop said, gratitude turns what we have into enough. So whatever you have, like I'm honest with you, I mean, growing up, I don't know how my parents did it. We really struggled at times in our life. But my mother, not only could she feed the kids, she'd have out of the same meal. She'd have food for the neighbors and leftovers for the neighbor's dogs. I don't know how she did it. I honestly don't know how she did it. And that's why that gratitude and that outward focus and the relationships and the open handedness and that's ultimately why I've also seen that Irish people have traditionally been the most generous of nations. I mean really fabulous stuff. And I think that comes from a spirit of gratitude. And I really think Garev Mila Maggot A Thousand thanks is still in the hearts and minds of the culture I came from. It's a powerful thing. Now let's just talk about the practice of gratitude. Here's a couple of how to's, right? We always talk about mindset, motivation and methodologies here. Well, here's some methodologies. First of all, take a walk. Take a walk. At our office here at Great Celt himself, Mr. David Lally our executive producer, he's always let's go for a walk, let's go for a walk. Now. Sometimes it's an inopportune time for a walk and sometimes his walks have turned into massive hikes. But he's always wants to take a walk. Henry David Thoreau said an early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day. Reba McIntyre says I have a lot to be thankful for. I'm healthy, I'm happy and I loved I and I reconfirmed that on a walk. Second write a note. Write a note. Buffini & Co. Produces over 10 million thank you notes a year for our members and we have this year we set a record of the quality of production. Our just average client had a record year outstripping our competition by more than a factor of ten. The average client in our one to one coach and made 460 grand and took five weeks off. Our leadership coaching clients made 778,000 and eight weeks off. So we measure production and time off. You know what's a central part of all that success and all that coaching is our personal notes thank you notes. As part of the resources we give people and we give them great marketing and now we have all kinds of cool social media stuff we give them and their mail outs and this and that. But in the middle of all this is these personal notes. Old school personal notes. The chance to express gratitude. Dr. Martin Seligman said he's a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania. He tested positive psychology interventions. That's really what he's known for. And he had participants write and personally deliver a letter of gratitude. They immediately exhibit a huge increase in happiness scores and benefits that lasted for quite a while. So the fact of the matter is writing a note and sending a note to someone and expressing that gratitude just doesn't change them. It changes you. It raises your level of happiness. If you want to be happy, get your eyes off yourself and onto somebody else. Bless someone else. Thank somebody. Thank somebody for the work they've done. Thanks somebody for the service. Thank somebody for who they are and what you love about them and become that person. I've been teaching this stuff for three decades and I'm finding to be more valuable today than ever before. And then lastly, like I've been doing on this broadcast all today is say it loud. Don't whisper and mumble. Say it loud. Zig Ziglar said, gratitude is the healthiest of all human emotions. The more you express gratitude for what you have, the more likely you will have even more to express gratitude for William Arthur Ward said, feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. And Oscar Wilde, another great Paddy, said, the smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest of intentions. So we talked about taking a walk, writing a note, saying it loud. This is a secret of the Irish. I hope the Irish people that are listening to this are reminded of is our unique selling proposition, our land of the welcomes. And it's a grateful welcome. Irish people are delighted you come. We're delighted you're here. We're delighted you have a good time. And that's why so many people end up going to the Emerald Isle. It's what's brought us from the lowest of the low, one of the poorest countries in the world, to one of the richest countries in the world. Now, that's the smallest evidence to me of success is riches, but it's important. It'll test the Irish because success will do that for you, because you can become entitled by it. But I believe it's deep inside the DNA. It's a Celtic secret. It's defined a nation for millennia. It's defined me as a person. I see everywhere I go, the lack of gratitude, and it hurts my soul because I know that people are missing out. You want to expand your soul, expand your heart, expand your life, expand your business. Practice gratitude. Practice gratitude. Today we talked about the absence of thanks. We talked about the Celtic secret, and then ultimately the practice of gratitude. I hope you're grateful for this podcast. I'm grateful to be able to do this work. I'm grateful to you as an audience that keep tuning in. I'm grateful that many of you take this stuff to heart and practice it. And I have to say thank you. I have to say Gurav Mila Mahagat to my mam and my dad, who've raised me and built this stuff into me. And we always leave with my mother's Irish blessing. And if you listen to it with fresh ears, you'll hear that it's an expression of gratitude and part of that Celtic secret. God bless you. Thanks for joining me today. We'll see you next time. May the road rise up to meet you and may the wind always be at your back. May the rain fall soft upon your fields and the sun shine warm upon your face. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the hollow of his hand. See you next time.