Jim: 0:01

Welcome to Real Men Hug, a podcast for men and the women who love them. I'm Jim.

Ben: 0:07

And I'm Ben.

Jim: 0:09

Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Never gets old, Ben. Never gets old. Never ever. I am grateful for the time that we have spent together, Ben.

Ben: 0:26

It's a lot of hours, if you think about it. A lot of

Jim: 0:28

hours. Is this number 20? Is this the big 2 0?

Ben: 0:32

Is it?

Jim: 0:33

I think it is. Mmm. Doubt about it.

Ben: 0:38

I don't know.

Jim: 0:39

Episode 19 was with Dr. Matt. This is episode 20. Wow. Can you believe it?

Ben: 0:48

I can't. Apparently,

Jim: 0:49

apparently not. You thought we were stuck

Ben: 0:51

in the past. They can, we're on episode 19.

Jim: 0:54

18 is impressive. I mean, that's a legal adult right there.

Ben: 0:56

Yeah. Andy and I just celebrated our 18th anniversary. Oh,

Jim: 1:00

very nice. Congratulations.

Ben: 1:03

I'm grateful for my wife and the 18 years we've spent together.

Jim: 1:08

Yeah, we're talking about what we're grateful for because we thought that would be a good topic.

Ben: 1:13

How often do you find yourself expressing gratitude?

Jim: 1:17

You've heard me share my door knocking experience. It was traumatizing, You can make a big difference just by not being a jerk I actually think of door knocking that somebody told me right away, I'm, I am not interested, but I would like to pray for you. If you're interested, I understand that you have other doors to knock on. So I'm not one of those guys that's going to grab your arm and hold you. But if you feel like you need some encouragement, I'd be happy to spend a little bit of time with you. so To have somebody, instead of treating me like a nuisance, actually taking the time to sit down with me and pray for me, it was huge. when you can do something with a kind heart. And, and take a minute just to take stock of the person in front of you. Not the answer you were expecting, huh?

Ben: 2:11

No, I didn't expect that to go into door knockers. recently we had an electrician that came out and he did a number of jobs and he was Very, very good at what he did. Now you would think that perhaps the amount of money we paid him would be thanks enough for the work that he did. But I just felt compelled on Saturday to send him a text. Thank you so much for the work you did. I've used the outlets you put in several times, and it's so nice that we don't have to flip a switch in the garage to make our garage door openers work. It's a great convenience. It's made life a lot easier. I appreciate you. I'd like to think that I made his day a little bit brighter, but even if I didn't, I have that satisfaction of expressing gratitude, Your bit about the door knocking it's all making me think about gratitude a little bit differently.

Jim: 3:13

Yeah, your average person, I really do feel like probably is underappreciated. You can change somebody's life. It makes a huge difference. So yeah, that other side of gratitude is What you can do to impact somebody else is that is huge.

Ben: 3:30

Receiving gratitude, it can change a terrible day into a good day. I mean, just hearing thanks from somebody who's genuinely saying that. That's really interesting.

Jim: 3:43

When you think of gratitude, we have been talking about a very specific part of it, being grateful for a particular individual, using your electrician example. But I think the original. Topic was proposed as sort of a, it's really easy to get mired in depression or get mired in a complaint culture or how social media has a tendency to spiral us towards negativity and all that kind of stuff. That gratitude can be a counter to that and is even something that chemically can alter your brain to the extent that. Like you just start feeling better just for being grateful for stuff. So when I'm grateful for the food that's in front of me, rather than I am awesome and I worked hard and paid for this and nobody owes me anything, I don't know anybody, anything, cause I'm awesome. And that's why I have food.

Ben: 4:44

I'm a self made man.

Jim: 4:46

Yeah, I get what you're saying. And I do think that. It's fun to talk about that there's the other side of it, but I don't think it's I think it's the opposite of selfish to be grateful for things. In your life, right? You know,

Ben: 5:00

absolutely not. It's just easy to think of gratitude as something that only benefits me. Right. And that's just a short sighted view of what gratitude truly is.

Jim: 5:12

Yeah, I love that Ben. No, absolutely. You're spot on with that I think that it can make a huge impact on the people around you, especially the people that are closest to you when we were in South Carolina and we were just going through everything really slamming us, one of the toughest seasons in our marriage, we have young kids, we're completely displaced from anything and everything. And we just felt lost and depressed. Then what do we do? And it was so easy to make a list of all the horrible things that had happened that you could do in a heartbeat. But trying to think of something to be grateful for was actually really tough. And so I challenged myself, I don't know why it popped into my head, but I'm like, what is something that I can use as a token? And one of the, if not the first thing that I thought of was Jenga blocks. Because I thought I can write what I'm grateful for on this Jenga block and then build a tower of gratitude over the year.

6:25

Wow, that's awesome.

Jim: 6:26

There are 54. Jenga blocks in a tower.

6:30

So that's two weeks where you did two blocks

Jim: 6:33

inconveniently, two extra ones in your Jenga tower, but it actually ended up being really neat because at the end of the year, my wife and I, after doing the 52nd week of Jenga, of gratitude. What are we grateful for this week? We both came up with the one thing, the one highlight of the year that we were most grateful for. So what initially was a frustration that it didn't work out a perfect 52 cause I loved the building a tower idea. It actually ended up being really neat. And every week I would think of something to put on that. And what was even more neat is I found over time, my wife was excited and wanted me to ask her and involve her in that conversation too. Cause she also wanted to think about, okay, what is it that I'm grateful for? Because we were both just going through it and that exercise in gratitude. I really think saved us in a lot of ways because we were in such a dark place that it seems like a silly thing, but that Jenga tower was an anchor to our sanity. And I know for me. Focusing on that gratitude really did change my mindset and helped me be a more positive person.

Ben: 7:57

That, experience in South Carolina, wasn't necessarily a shining highlight reel of life for Jim Van Stensel. That causes my brain to think about gratitude from the perspective of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, sometimes I think that the ability to even be grateful you need a certain base level of needs that are met. what do you think?

Jim: 8:29

I would actually argue the opposite, that the more privileged you are, the harder it is to be grateful there's a certain level of humility that you need to be truly grateful. The whole Maslow's hierarchy, if you're homeless and you're struggling to find something to eat, then it's tough, right? It's so much easier for them to be grateful for something as simple as a hot meal. I'll throw it back at you do you think you can be grateful, but at the same time feel like you deserve it? Cause you're the best kind of thing.

Ben: 9:07

I think it takes a certain level of privilege or even dismissal of that class of people to say that. So I'm not disagreeing with you necessarily, but having been around people who have nothing, who are homeless, who are destitute, I don't want to paint too broadly with a huge paintbrush here, but if you come to a point in your life where you are completely destitute, and you have nothing, you have no one, you are at the end of your rope, gratitude is like the last thing on people like that. It's the last thing on their mind And I think that there's also a certain aspect of there's conditions that keep people on the street that keep people in those Circumstances and until you've dealt with those things, whether it's a mental health condition or a drug abuse or whatever the case is, it's like that also stands in the way of gratitude. So I don't know. I think it's just too much of a simplification to say that those who have less than us have an easier time being grateful, right? Because I don't think they can truly experience gratitude in their lowly of circumstances. Privilege does not necessarily, dismantle gratitude. I know people who have a lot of privilege and who have a lot of abundance in their life, but they also are some of the most grateful people that I know. Some of them have come from positions where they did not have that. Spoon fed to them their entire lives.

Jim: 11:01

I don't disagree with anything you said. I actually think that we're both kind of missing the point that the other person is trying to make. I think When you were talking about somebody who is truly in that desperate situation, what I'm hearing is somebody who doesn't have a support system.

Ben: 11:19

Yeah. I mean, and it could be that they burned their support system because of their life circumstances. one thing that comes to mind with that thought track is just this tendency that I've become aware of in myself. And I see it all over the place. It's usually well meaning people, but it's this tendency or this trend to tokenize people groups for a learning example, for an illustration, it's almost like constantly having a sermon that you're giving or a message, and you're just using. people and their experiences and whatnot to make a point. And I think that just takes away from this idea of gratitude. Because if the needy or those who are less fortunate, the only time that we think about them is when we are grateful for the things that we have. You know, we hear things like, well, look at those who live on the street. You should be grateful for X Y Z. Oh, yeah, and I'm like You're not wrong, but man That's very dismissive of the people who live on the street. So I just have a real problem with people who tokenize the, the circumstances in other people's lives and use them as a rationale to justify or encourage gratitude, like that just doesn't feel like genuine gratitude.

Jim: 12:51

When I was thinking of somebody who is low on that. Maslow's hierarchy. I was thinking of both my own personal experiences and anecdotes from mission trips and going to some of those third world countries where you have people, they don't have electricity, they don't have indoor plumbing. They all live in this. Tiny shack together and they are happier than your average American because they have each other and because they have everything that they need. I think that's where my mind was going to with gratitude, not to the person who has completely driven off anybody and everybody that they care about, or who was thrown out of, of that system, some outside of their own control. I wouldn't disagree with you there that I think that person. I would absolutely agree it is privileged to, to be able to say, well, you should be grateful because you normally don't get a sandwich and today you did. So that's, that is not what I was trying to imply. Kind of the opposite that I just think that I think that there is something that we can learn to people that you might initially perceive as less than that. It can be more tough to be grateful for something when, you don't have that perspective of what it's like to not have that thing, It's like you're suddenly very grateful for the capacity to breathe through your nose. When you have a cold, you're like, oh my gosh, I cannot wait until I can breathe through the nose. But if you've never had that, you don't realize. How great it is to be able to breathe through your nose or like my wife has terrible migraines. I am grateful that I don't have near daily headaches, but if my wife was cured tomorrow, you can bet your ass that she would be more grateful than I am to not have those headaches or not have back pain, you know? So I guess I think that's more what I'm trying to. To get at, but that's a helpful conversation. Cause you're right. I think it's really easy to lump people into categories and be like, well, those people aren't grateful and jump into that tribalism that we have chastised so much in other, in other episodes.

Ben: 15:12

Yes, if we're just using those that are less fortunate than us as a measuring stick for our level of gratitude, we've completely missed the boat and we're not seeing that big picture of, well, what about that person and their experience? Is there anything in their life that they can truly be grateful for? And. Instead of tokenizing or sermonizing or, you know, using them as a teaching point, why aren't we, going to them and getting to know them as a person and finding out for ourselves instead of cheapening that relationship. And again, all of my comments and tangents and the things I bring up with gratitude are based on my lived experience and every Sunday for the last. almost four years, we've been attending church and rubbing elbows with people who are homeless. And it's just really shifting my perspective and helping me to see how I've approached certain people groups with a certain level of privilege. I do have a lot to be grateful for. And I want to Be the type of person that not only is grateful for those things but also creates opportunities and offers resources and It helps people find a life where they also can experience gratitude.

Jim: 16:44

That's interesting. So you initially brought up like, Hey, do you think that somebody who has nothing, can they be grateful? Which then spawns a conversation about if you're extremely privileged versus not privileged at all. And then ironically, sort of our own. Self judgment on, Hey, maybe it shouldn't be a litmus test. Gratitude really shouldn't be something out of a comparison to anybody else. Gratitude is a way to remind your brain that it's okay to just be thankful and happy that you have this hot meal in front of you, whether you have always had hot meals and never had to worry about food or if it's a daily struggle, that gratitude is an individual journey that we all find ourselves on and that we sabotage by comparing it to other people's journeys.

Ben: 17:40

Yeah, and I think there's other ways that we can sabotage too. We've talked about a couple of them already. We talked about entitlement. That view that I deserve this. But what about things like indifference or resentment. How do you handle those? Because honestly, in my own experience, I can think of times where I have resented people. I'll see somebody who maybe has something that I feel like I deserve and I don't have it. So in those moments where we feel resentment creeping in, what do we do to stop that?

Jim: 18:23

Comparison is the thief of joy. Something that my counselor said to me once was, if you didn't have anybody to compare yourself to, you would be fine. And I'm like, well, I mean, that's true to some extent, but it was like, no, no, no. Even if you compare yourself to a hundred years ago, the most rich person wouldn't have some of the experiences that we have today that we just don't have. Expect. We even have sort of this time snobbery. So even the fact that you were born in 1983 or whenever it was, that 84. 1984. That's. Privilege right there. So going back to your initial question, I think when you do compare yourself to other people, it's really easy to be resentful and for that gratitude to fall by the wayside. But if you remember that gratitude is that individual journey rather than how you rate and compare to other people, it's a helpful exercise to think, I'm okay. It's true. If I wasn't comparing myself to other people around me, then I probably would be okay. It's that comparison journey that I think it's helpful for me to consider what is important to me. And do I have those things? And even if I don't have all of them, I can choose to be grateful for the ones that I do have. And either work on the ones that I don't or accept the fact that those things aren't going to be there or I can lean into bitterness and comparison and nothing has changed other than I'm more miserable than I was before. I do recognize that even those statements come from a position of privilege for sure.

Ben: 20:27

Are you grateful for real men hug? Well, the best thing that you can do is tell a friend.

Jim: 20:34

Speaking of gratitude,

Ben: 20:36

we are pressing pause on the conversation to just convey to you. We're grateful for you and. We want to invite you to share this show with somebody else. Who in your life could stand a dose of encouragement or, hmm, I didn't think of that before.

Jim: 20:55

I dare say we are grateful for you and what would really fill us with a heart of gratitude is if you would pass on the show and refer us to a friend.

Ben: 21:04

We love it when we hear stories of people telling us that they listened because their friend said that they should check it out and they did and they loved it. Tell a friend today.

Jim: 21:15

Thanks so much for listening to the show pass it on share the love. Thanks so much for listening to real men hug Back to the show..

Ben: 21:25

The standing in life to have things to be grateful for yeah is something that not everybody has and I think that's what throws me off because I in a given week I rub shoulders with CEOs CFOs chief of staff vice presidents of companies and privilege everywhere And then Sundays and other times during the week, I'm rubbing elbows with the opposite and it just has me like in this weird middle zone of, what is gratitude really? What is the definition or what is an understanding of gratitude that both sides would agree on? That's what I'm after.

Jim: 22:13

It is an interesting thought too, isn't it? Because a lot of it is framed by even our country, right? Like, because we are such an achievement oriented country. You, what do you ask when, when you meet somebody, it's like, Oh, what do you do? That's the first question. That's so we're sitting here talking about gratitude and it's interesting, like what comes to mind, like, Oh, I'm so grateful for. And a lot of times it might be some physical. Object or monetary, whatever it's interesting that even the gratitude is shaped by that sort of achievement oriented thing that I think, for instance, Dr. Matt was on our show, um, in our last episode and he expressed gratitude for the fact that he was passionate. about working with gifted kids and working with people with ADHD and he was grateful for the Platform that he had that he's been able to travel Internationally to talk to all these groups of people But I also know somebody who is a great counselor and is of similar age And struggling to pay the bills, barely making it in life. Does that person have less to be grateful for if that wasn't their goal in life? Or if that's not something that's important to them? It's interesting that gratitude a lot of times can be achievement centric we compare ourselves to other people and we are grateful if we are equal to or greater than our immediate peers. Can we not be grateful in that position of less than, or just grateful for those non tangible non monetary things that I think for most people, they would agree that that's more important in the first place. You mentioned earlier there was some other potential obstacles that I'm just kind of curious what other things you were thinking of?

Ben: 24:23

There's two more that really come to mind. One of them we've unpacked already, but it's just that entitlement idea. I think that is one of the biggest obstacles to gratitude is just this perspective of, well, I worked hard for this and I deserve it and I should have it. And I think it's, it's difficult to be grateful when you feel entitled. However, I also think that it is nearly impossible to truly experience gratitude when you are struggling with indifference. That is is my biggest hurdle in life. It's not that I feel like I don't have enough. It's not like I feel like I have too much. It's just this thought of meh is what it is. Just indifference, not really motivated to change anything. Not really motivated to acknowledge the things that I'm grateful for. It's just this thought of meh is what it is. That is my biggest roadblock to gratitude. I think that is probably a mix of trauma, when you have faced a significant load of trauma and you've carried it for so long, you just kind of learn how to function in the world. And you just get the things done and you don't really feel A whole lot other than blah, right? And I think in those circumstances, gratitude can be an amazing cure, but it's, it's trying to find a cure for cancer. I mean, it can be so hard to, pull out in those moments of indifference.

Jim: 26:06

It's interesting to me that you, you label it as indifference as opposed to say resentment

Ben: 26:13

I think burnout is a cause of it. I do think that we each have A certain capacity for emotion, for trauma, for all of those things that when we reach that capacity and we've hit our max, there's just no room for anything else. If you were to light a candle and that candle burned and burned Until there was no more wax and it was just a wick and you light the wick, but then it immediately goes out that's very much what I would like in my experience to I've been in seasons where Gratitude simply wasn't possible because nothing was sustainable. Sure. Nothing felt like it was forever. It was just Survival, lighting the match and holding it in your hand to light the wick until the the match just burned and hit your fingers and then your fingers got singed. That's what it feels like sometimes. Indifference because of exhaustion, because of burnout. And there's just not a capacity left to be able to express gratitude.

Jim: 27:29

I, I love the imagery that you're creating in my mind. I'm a big analogy guy and you're talking about burnout and. When you're at the end of the wick, it's not gonna burn anymore because you've already used up all of the wax got me thinking the Maslow's hierarchy things in your life are like oxygen and When you don't have them, there's no oxygen, and the longer you've gone without that, the less oxygen there is, There's a difference between a quick two week trauma that then resolves itself versus something that you've been battling for five years or 10 years or God forbid, 20 years, because there's just no oxygen left. I'm curious as you reflect on that that. indifference from trauma. Does it feel like that to you? Or it's just like, there's just not enough gas in the tank to even, even if I wanted to be grateful, there's just not that igniting source for me to be able to do that.

Ben: 28:32

Yeah, it, it has felt like that. Truth be told, expressing and putting words to that indifference is. is challenging, and it almost feels like I'm in a therapy session two episodes in a row. But this is just the season of life that I find myself in. We've walked through some crazy deep valleys, and now that we are kind of on the upswing and climbing out of them, I'm getting back to the top and I'm just like, I'm tired. I'm grateful that I'm climbing out of this and we've made it through and it looks like things are shaping up better. I mean, I feel like I should be grateful for those things, for the change. But I'm finding as I continue to climb up and out and into what's next, it just feels like. I need new wax or I need a new gas tank. maybe it is gratitude. I know in the past we've done things around Thanksgiving as a family where we just took stock of all the things we were thankful for and wrote them down and there is something very medicinal about doing that. So I think I'm prescribing myself some gratitude time just to really take stock of that stuff.

Jim: 30:02

Yeah, I think gratitude can be. Helpful with indifference and with resentment too, and bitterness and comparison, all those things. It's a pretty amazing tool if you think about it, it's just, it can be really hard to do. Given life circumstances, and I think that's why both of us on the show at some point or another have been like, either a friend or a counselor says, well, you just need to be more grateful. Sometimes it leaves a bad taste in your mouth because without someone walking besides you and recognizing the fact that you don't have any wax left and your candle is underwater and your Bic is out of. It is out of all of the lighter fluid. I think when someone can see you in the position you are, including yourself and recognize that it may be more tough, but it doesn't change the value of being grateful. I know for myself recently, especially when I found out that I was going to lose those 3000 experience hours over some ridiculous clerical thing with the state. I mean, that just tore me apart. And it was during that time that I actually started asking my kids around the dinner table, like, what are you guys thankful for today? I just needed to hear it. And I needed to say it myself. To remind me that, you know what, it's not the end of the world, things are still okay. And it's just something that I've really enjoyed sitting around the table. And hearing the things that my kids say brings me joy. Sometimes it's something simple like the dog. they're grateful for Keanu or they're grateful for, you know, the pancakes that they're eating for dinner or whatever it is. But sometimes it's just something out of the blue It just really warms my heart and it reminds me that I really do have a lot more to be thankful for than I think I realized. I think you can do it at the table. If you're a journaling kind of person writing it down. Pre show we were talking about this and you said there's like a brain chemistry component to expressing gratitude. I'm curious cause I haven't done as much research on that side of it.

Ben: 32:15

There was a podcast that was all about the brain that I've been listening to. And one of the episodes was about how gratitude, genuine gratitude, when experienced by a person authentically, and it's not based in should haves or anybody telling you how to feel, that it can have a tremendous impact on your brain chemistry. When we experience or express gratitude, the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in the higher level thinking, decision making, social interactions, It can improve our functioning in that area. So if we're struggling with relationships or if we're struggling with moral judgments or questioning what we should do next in our lives, pausing, To express gratitude and acknowledge the things we're grateful for Can help you steer your brain towards being more efficient and effective in using that part of your brain to make those grounding higher level decisions, so gratitude It utilizes your prefrontal cortex, and then just as important, there's this part of your brain called the anterior cingulate cortex, otherwise known as the ACC. This is a part of your brain that helps you regulate and process emotions. And one way that you can activate this part of your brain is by expressing gratitude. Now, it's the same part of your brain that's activated by any other emotion, such as anger or indifference or whatever it is that we talked about already. But it can be activated by gratitude, which suggests that gratitude can help regulate your emotions. and increase your feelings of connection and empathy. When you choose to engage in thinking about gratitude, it's almost like medicine for your brain. And there are actual hormones and neurotransmitters that get released as well when you express gratitude. They've done brain studies on people and observed what happens as they're reflecting on what they're grateful for. dopamine, which is like a feel good neurotransmitter, gets released when you express gratitude. Serotonin which is key in mood regulating, and even oxytocin, the bonding hormone, gets released when we engage in expressing gratitude. Gratitude is something that I've been doing a lot of thinking, reflecting, and researching on. I think my homework and takeaway is To just practice it. Yeah, don't let it be a paralysis by analysis Situation of knowing all the things about gratitude, but never Allowing myself to experience it.

Jim: 35:35

I love that. It's always interesting to hear the health studies that they do, because if you think about it, right, if you're, if you're stressed and not doing some of that gratitude, your blood pressure raises. Anecdotally, I've heard when people are sick, your demeanor and attitude and belief can all have an impact on that recovery time. Just like you mentioned earlier with the barriers to gratitude, I think one that I would add in there is negative self talk. If you're constantly telling yourself,, that you don't deserve it or that you're a bad person or that nobody likes you or Whatever the case may be, it's real tough to be grateful because you've got your brain constantly telling yourself that you shouldn't be grateful for something. And so that's something for me that I think focusing on positive self talk. Is a key step in the journey of being grateful for the things that I have

Ben: 36:38

well, I can't think of a better way to close the show than to express what we're grateful for. So I'm going to go ahead and give my gratitude muscle. a workout because it's been a while. Stretch it out a bit. Yeah, pull it out of the closet. Try it on for size. Make sure it still works.

Jim: 36:58

Try not to pull a muscle.

Ben: 37:00

Right? No kidding. I am grateful for All of the amazing people who are in my corner that, show up at just the right time. Whether it's my friend Jim, who is just a consistent figure over the last 20 years I just know Jim's in my corner, and I'm in his corner. And That's something that I will never take for granted. And all the other people, whether it's my wife, my kids, my church family, my work people. I just have so many amazing people from all different walks of life. And I get to learn from them and celebrate with them and hurt with them. It's pretty amazing to have that kind of a circle. around me, doing life with me. So I am grateful for my people and the fact that I'm not alone in this world. How about you, Jim? What are you grateful for?

Jim: 38:04

I think I'd have to say similar. When I really think about what I'm most grateful for, it is that support system that we talked about that I am immensely grateful for my wife and the support that she's been over all of these years. I think that unconditional positive regard that they talk about in counseling. Just when you have somebody that has your best interests at heart and that is going to be there for you. Obviously every marriage has its ups and downs, but at the end of the day, we've were there for each other and having that constant source in my life that I can lean on is, is huge. And even just my family of origin, I work with a couple of my brothers and my dad. It's just such a blessing to have people that care about you. You can disagree and you can fight and you can be on opposite ends of whatever argument you want. But at the end of the day, they'd still show up for you and they'd still be there if you, if you really need them. Even my sister in Colorado, I don't get to see her physically very often. We talk over that Marco Polo app, a lot of times we're able to encourage each other. And if nothing else, Dave off the boredom of a long drive. So it's just such a blessing to have people that, that care about you. When I'm really getting down on myself and struggling to flex that gratitude muscle, I just have to remind myself how grateful I am for the people that Are in my life, including you, Ben. I've absolutely loved recording this podcast with you and being able to spend more time together, one or both of us has a counseling session either in or prior to the, before the recording. Yours

Ben: 39:56

was before, mine was during, you know, I'm grateful for it nonetheless.

Jim: 40:02

We should assign homework. That's our homework for you today. Turn off that negative self talk for a moment, try to replace it with something good and think about what you're truly grateful for in your life and maybe find a way to incorporate that into your daily routine. Gratitude is the new drug who needs those mind altering substances when you can do the same thing with just a bit of gratitude. That's right. I'm high on gratitude.

Ben: 40:32

We just

Jim: 40:32

both

Ben: 40:33

did the same thing.

Jim: 40:34

They're the biggest nerds.

Ben: 40:36

Real men hug, but they also get high on gratitude.

Jim: 40:40

High on life. Oh yeah. And then just end the show.

Ben: 40:48

You started it. So I guess I end it.

Jim: 40:51

Oh no. We ended the show. We gave them homework and yeah.

40:56

It's ended. It's landed. The plane has landed. I

Jim: 40:58

can drive home. Also, you live so far away. Why did you have to move? You tripled my podcast commute, Ben.

Ben: 41:06

I'm sorry, Jim.

Jim: 41:07

I chastise you. I'm not grateful for your new house