How I Hacked My Brain to Feel Gratitude All the Time
Summary
- I've often struggled with feeling gratitude despite having many things to be grateful for in my life.
- Traditional practices like gratitude journals and daily meditations didn't really stick with me.
- A perspective change that I tried and found powerful is what I call the "Grandfather Frame."
- Imagine revisiting your life from the viewpoint of an aged version of yourself — how significant and nostalgic even the small moments would seem.
- I manage Acquisition.com, a portfolio of companies making over $100 million a year, with a focus on adding value and joy to life.
- When reflecting on past pictures, it's easier to feel nostalgia, which to me is gratitude for the past, rather than constant present-day gratitude.
- I'm envious of those who feel grateful all the time – as I tend to approach life from a more practical standpoint.
- I encourage you to try out the Grandfather Frame, envisioning yourself as an 85-year-old revisiting your life and appreciating the mundane activities, the environment, and personal relationships.
- This mindset helps reduce anxiety about outcomes, as the long-term view puts things into perspective.
- It also provides business wisdom by prompting decisions that consider the larger context of one's life and value long-term benefits over short-term profits.
- Reflecting on stressful times, such as when I was sleeping on the floors of my gyms and working long hours, I now view them with nostalgia and appreciate those moments.
- I've transitioned from anger in my teenage years to seeking happiness, to adopting a "Screw Happiness" mantra, focusing less on external happiness and more on internal joy.
- Joy, unlike happiness, comes from within and can be experienced independent of external circumstances.
- The knowledge that life is impermanent fuels a sense of internal joy and the desire to truly appreciate the experience of living.
- A personal anecdote reminds me that life is unpredictable and not guaranteed, emphasizing the importance of cherishing each moment.
- I'm grateful for your attention and the time you've spent engaging with my content.
Video
How To Take Action
A good way of boosting gratitude is by using the "Grandfather Frame." Think about how, when you're old, you'll look back at your life. Small things will seem so important! Each day, try to see everything like you're 85 and looking back. This can make you feel more grateful.
To reduce stress, remember that in the long run, many things don't matter that much. When making business choices, think about what you'd say if you were 85. Would you care more about quick money or the bigger picture of life? Choose long-term value.
When you’re going through tough times, imagine how you’d see these moments when you’re older. Like when I slept on my gym floors, now I see that time with nostalgia. Try to see your hard work today as something you’ll be proud of later.
Lastly, try to find joy from inside, not just happiness from what’s around you. Joy is something you can feel no matter what is going on outside. Remember, life is short. Make the most of every moment.
So, when you wake up or walk by your favorite coffee spot, take a second. Imagine you’re 85 and revisiting this moment. You might find you’re really thankful for it right now.
Quotes by Alex Hormozi
"When I was 20, I wanted to be a millionaire. Now that I'm a millionaire, I want to be 20."
– Alex Hormozi
"It is the most powerful frame that I've encountered."
– Alex Hormozi
"I remember when we used to live here."
– Alex Hormozi
"Isn't this so nice, I remember when we used to have coffee here together."
– Alex Hormozi
"I stopped trying to optimize for happiness at all and just really stopped thinking about it all together."
– Alex Hormozi
Full Transcript
if i were 85 years old and i got to go through a time machine and be back in my body as i am now to experience my life from my 85 year old self it's dramatically shifted how i see everything so let me walk you through it i've struggled to feel grateful for most of my life it's not that i don't have things to be grateful for i have tons of things to be grateful for but i don't feel gratitude and so i've tried a lot of different practices to try and feel gratitude you know the journals and the daily meditations and things like that but they've never really stuck that's not to say that they don't work for some people but i want to share with you in this video is one of the most powerful perspective changes that i've ever experienced if you don't know who i am my name is alex romozy i'm the managing partner at acquisition.com which is a portfolio of companies that does over 100 million a year i make these videos because i hope that you make all the money in the world and you experience all the joy that you possibly can in the process i have spoken in the past about the frame of the veteran which i won't recap here but it's really just having different frames or perspectives through which to see circumstances so that you can improve your experience recently i've been trying to toy with one that would create gratitude there's a clip that went pretty viral not that long ago it's also my number one tweet of all time which is when i was 20 i wanted to be a millionaire now that i'm a millionaire i want to be 20. when i'm 85 years old and in my mind i imagine i will be a multi-billionaire at that point i know that i would give up everything that i have of material wealth just to be poor and 20 again i call this the frame of the grandfather or the grandfather frame and it works like this if you've ever looked at pictures from your past and you look at where you grew up or you look at you know your old room or you look at a picture of you with old friends doing something we tend to feel these feelings of nostalgia and i tried to quantify like what is nostalgia so to me nostalgia is gratitude in the present for past circumstances for whatever reason we're able to kind of look past all of the kind of minutia of how we were feeling our moods and we're able to kind of like see big picture the things that we are grateful for take a pause here i'm sure all of us have tons of childhood [ __ ] and things that we wish were different and blah blah blah blah but there are still elements of our past our childhood our adolescence our teenage years our college years whatever it is right where you feel grateful some of you guys are superstars and are always grateful for everything and i'm you know i'm jelly i don't roll that way it's not like i wake up and i'm like man i just want to count my lucky stars like i just don't that's just not how i function and i've been trying this on and i i hope you do too because it's been it's been really like improving my life i tried to do this i wake up thinking to myself if i were 85 years old and i got to go through a time machine and be back in my body as i am now to experience my life from my 85 year old self seeing it again if i wake up and i feel my body and i'm like oh this is so nice i don't have all the joint pain ah my wrists don't have arthritis and then i wake up and i'm like i remember when we used to live here even when i looked at layla this morning i was thinking to myself man like this is my wife right at the beginning of our marriage you know we're only six years in we wake up and we walk over to you know to have our coffee in the morning which we always do and i'm like isn't this so nice i remember when we used to have coffee here together this is great and i look out the window look how young vegas looks it doesn't have all these buildings and these flying cars like it does now it's it's so underdeveloped compared to what it is today and i feel gratitude for an external just environment which i would never really think that but i know that my 85 year old self will totally appreciate those things as i'm going through the day applying that frame also to business where i can see that you know the ceos of our companies and the people that work within our holding company acquisition.com they're stressed about things and in my mind i'm thinking oh isn't this cool that we get to do this together isn't that fun isn't that neat look how cute that is it is the most powerful frame that i've encountered i think the reason it's so powerful is one it operates almost entirely from a frame of gratitude that for me i can feel for whatever reason gratitude journals the meditations things like that like i don't feel that but thinking about my 85 year old self being able to re-experience life through my 32 year old body it's really shifted how i see things and also decreases the amount of anxiety and stress i have over outcomes because i'm like this isn't going to matter in the long run i also think it helps from a business the term loosely but like a business wisdom perspective because when you think about the decisions you think about it within the larger context of your life and you're not like oh yeah i'm going to make that short term dollars because you're like i'm 85. i don't have anything to prove you know what i mean you think about like the really stressful things that you've had happen in your past i feel nostalgia for the sleeping on the floor that i did at my gyms for how tired i used to be at the end of the day of taking 20 plus consoles for months and months and months on end and rather than feeling stressed about it or resenting the fact that i have to do it like i get to do this i get to make videos talking to a camera look at my 32 year old self go trying to make his content trying to help other entrepreneurs like isn't that cool if i had to characterize seasons of my life i would say i was very angry as a teenager and young adult and then i went from angry to being aware of the deficit between where i was and what i considered to be happiness from there i kind of switched to what i have affectionately called the [ __ ] happiness mantra which i lived for a very long period of time which was i stopped trying to optimize for happiness at all and just really stopped thinking about it all together which i think moved me closer to something that i would consider to be joy you can be joyful independent of circumstance because joy is from within happiness tends to come from external right it comes from circumstance and i think when we look at the grandparents or at least the people that are older that i aspire to be they just have an internal joy they have gratitude for being able to live it one last time because the end of the day like it is our last time i'm being real here like i've had a guy that i graduated with died a few months ago and um he was a really successful guy really smart kid did really well i mean this is really dark but he got randomly murdered and you know he had grand plans for his life and i think to myself i'm like you know tomorrow really isn't guaranteed thank you for your attention i know you have a lot of places that you can put it and i am grateful that you chose to share the moment with me so those nation appreciate you guys bye