Don't Push Too Many Trolleys

11Mind Your Manners

While I was growing up, my parents were always very strict about having good manners, whether we were at home or out and about. We were taught to say thank you to each other, to friends, to shopkeepers and to anyone else we came into contact with who did something useful or nice for us. If someone holds a lift door for you, you say “thank you”; if someone serves you a drink, you say “thank you”; if your mother cooks you a meal, you say “thank you.” This was ingrained in us from a very early age and slowly became automatic behaviour.

Samantha and I have tried to raise our children the same way.

But saying “thank you” is just the tip of the iceberg, the important aspect of this attitude is to feel grateful.

When you feel grateful for everything you have in your life, whether it is good food, a steady job, good friends and close family – or all of these things – you start every day from a positive place and everything else is gravy. Every challenge is just a challenge, not a disaster; you can take knockbacks in your stride.

This attitude of feeling the gratitude for everything that you have in life follows on nicely from the emphasis I encouraged you to put on ambition over greed in an earlier chapter. Greed is all about never having enough – which also means not being grateful for what you have. Ambition is all about taking steps to build on what you have achieved, which means being grateful for each new achievement.

The Value of Gratitude

Gratitude feels ...