Nov. 26, 2025

Why Gratitude Gives Leaders A Head Start

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Send us a text We share a candid reminder that gratitude is not fluff, it’s a force that makes leadership steadier. By reframing complaints through global perspective and practical habits, we show how leaders gain clarity, courage, and momentum. • the pull of negativity and how it distorts judgment • the what if lens: life happening for you • global context of odds and freedoms • law enforcement examples that sharpen perspective • practical gratitude habits for teams and leaders • how gratit...

Send us a text

We share a candid reminder that gratitude is not fluff, it’s a force that makes leadership steadier. By reframing complaints through global perspective and practical habits, we show how leaders gain clarity, courage, and momentum.

• the pull of negativity and how it distorts judgment
• the what if lens: life happening for you
• global context of odds and freedoms
• law enforcement examples that sharpen perspective
• practical gratitude habits for teams and leaders
• how gratitude makes tough problems simpler
• humility, stewardship, and clearer communication

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Chapters

00:00 - Welcome And Thanksgiving Frame

00:23 - Gratitude Over Negativity

01:08 - What If Life Is For You

02:07 - Perspective: Odds You Already Beat

03:23 - Freedom, Choice, And Speech

05:03 - Global Contrast: Philippines Story

06:16 - Turning Gratitude Into Leadership Strength

06:45 - Closing Thanks And Invitation

Transcript

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Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates, where leaders find the insights, advice, and encouragement they need to lead courageously.

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Welcome back to the show.

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I'm so honored you decided to spend a few minutes with us here today.

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And we are filming this on the eve of Thanksgiving.

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And I wanted to give you a few thoughts about Thanksgiving and specifically a few thoughts about gratitude.

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Law enforcement and leadership specifically, I think we often get caught up in a cycle where gratitude is sort of left off that list, right?

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We enjoy complaining and griping and talking about the things that are negative in life.

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But I think on this Thanksgiving, what comes to mind is the power of gratitude.

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I don't have to regurgitate what the studies say.

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There's study after study after study that talk about how displaying gratitude will help you mentally, will help you physically, uh, will help every aspect of your life.

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And while there are plenty of things that I could talk about on how to display gratitude, whether that's writing your gratitude down once a day or before you go to bed, thinking about the three things that you're grateful for, I think what I wanted to focus in on is how unbelievable and unique it is to be where you are today, regardless of your circumstances.

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I want you to think about this term of what if.

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And what if we stopped in the hustle and bustle and we just realized that life is not happening to you, it's happening for you.

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What if we realized, regardless of the position you're in, that this moment in time is for you?

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And we can begin with the fact that you are listening to this today.

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The fact that you're all here today is a gift that God's given you that simply cannot be measured.

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I mean, you've already beat the odds.

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There are 195 countries and over 8 billion people in the world.

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You could have been born anywhere.

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And if you're in the United States, listen to this, you've got to understand that you had nothing to do with that.

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The gratefulness of being in this country, and despite what people may say, trust me, it's the greatest place to be, and it's the greatest profession to be in law enforcement, not in some other country, but here in the United States.

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You could have been born anywhere.

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In fact, in 40 of the countries, the average salary is $1,000 a year.

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You beat the odds.

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What do you think about that when you want to complain about salary, right?

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In 80 other countries, the annual salary is below $10,000.

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You beat those odds as well.

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45% of the world's population today doesn't have basic sanitation facilities, including modern plumbing.

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And if you're listening to me in Alabama, that doesn't even include you.

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You have modern plumbing.

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I've been there, it's beautiful.

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10% of the population suffers from chronic hunger and malnutrition.

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25% of the population lacks access to safe drinking water.

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You beat those odds.

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Did you know that as many as one-third of all marriages across the world are arranged marriages?

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Maybe law enforcement could benefit from that, but I'm just joking.

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Think about that.

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You get the power of choice when it comes to one of the most important decisions of your life.

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You beat those odds.

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Over 40 million people in the world live in some form of slavery.

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This isn't on your worry list.

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How about your thoughts and opinions?

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Just three countries on the planet have a strong practice and law supporting freedom of speech.

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Sweden and Australia.

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But none of those are as strong as where you set today, more than likely, the United States of America.

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I'm not trying to diminish the problems that you have.

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We all have them.

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It's part of this thing we call life.

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But I want you to understand when you talk about courage, you talk about leadership.

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You have such a head start today.

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You've been blessed beyond comprehension, and your foundation is nothing that you did.

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You didn't control any of it.

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You just so happen to be living where you're living, working where you're working, around the people you're around.

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I've been to several countries around the world training and consulting.

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And I've been to the Philippines twice.

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And I've trained their officers and consulted with their command staff there.

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It's a national police force.

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And the last time I was there, those officers were making about a hundred dollars a month.

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In fact, homelessness was a real problem within the agency.

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Such a problem they were actually building dormitories for their employees to live on.

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Why was I training them and why were they working in those conditions?

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And why wasn't I?

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Simply by the grace of God.

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I had nothing to do with it.

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I could have just as well been born there and living there and working in those conditions, but I wasn't.

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Right.

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So I think as we think about Thanksgiving, we often miss so much.

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We all get caught up in the food and the things going on.

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Maybe you're working, and you know, and we we complain about this and we complain about that, and all you got to do is go to your social media and see all the complaints, and you get suckered into it, right?

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But I think what I'd like you to remember on behalf of myself and this courageous leadership movement is how fortunate we are to be able to speak, to be able to engage, to be able to meet each other, to be able to speak freely, to be able to be comfortable compared to so many other places in the world.

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And if we did that, I think leadership becomes a lot easier.

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I think the problems we deal with becomes a lot easier.

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And I believe it could be the beginning of a change that we all need.

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It's definitely a reminder for me.

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Hopefully, it's a reminder for you.

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And on this Thanksgiving weekend, from me to you, thank you for what you do.

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And God bless each and every one of you.

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Thank you for listening to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates.

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We invite you to join other courageous leaders at TravisYates.org.