Here we are again, at the end of the week – how quickly time flies!  Ready for some attitude of gratitude?   

Mark Sanborn, a popular business speaker and friend of mine says, ”focusing on the blessings and good things in our life isn’t a form of denial.  We still know the challenges exist.  Gratitude, does somehow, recharge our batteries and provide new energy with which to face the challenges.”  Well put Mark – I totally agree!  (Photo:  Shelly)

If you’re a Superbowl fan, you’re about to preview a cute, funny and memorable 30-second TV commercial that will be airing this Sunday.    

It is raising awareness in a big way – embracing diversity with a unique twist – take a look at this and you’ll see what I mean:

Thanks to PepsiCo for creating a brilliant yet all-encompassing video.  It is already the talk of the marketing world because no one has ever done anything like it before.  How could it not generate buzz?  It’s memorable, unique and universally accessible to everyone.  I’d love to have PepsiCo hire me to speak professionally at one of their events – I’d be a perfect motivational speaker for them – they’re my kind of client!  

Other things I am exceedingly grateful for this week:

• While I have very good speaking capabilities and can use the phone, I still can’t understand spoken language without lip-reading and/or reading text messages.  If I want to use the phone, I’d have to use a relay service where an operator types to me via TTY the hearing party’s response.  As you can imagine, this slows up conversation in a big way.  Who needs that when we have email?  Email is the best thing since sliced bread - it represents my gateway to the rest of the world.  Unfortunately, it has its downside – it’s highly addictive.  I check my emails a million times a day, probably making me a certified emailaholic.  Luckily for me and countless of others, someone has come to our rescue with some fine, fine tips.  Tina Su, a fellow recovering emailaholic from Think Simple Now, wrote a great piece on how to combat this deadly affliction with How to Delete Email Addiction.  Thank you Tina for saving my life!
• The Stephen Hopson Interviews is fast gaining traction, attracting guests from all over the world.  The Part II interview with Shaun Boyd of LifeReboot this week was well received, bringing in several hundred new visitors to Adversity University.  If you read it, any skeletons you may have had lingering in your closet probably paled in comparison with Shaun’s shocking, yet profound answer to one of my questions.  I am thankful to have found a new way of bringing together people in an inspiring and accessible format.  To those who have been and will be interviewed, thanks!
• Another round of gratitude goes to Andy Bailey, the brilliant creator of the CommentLuv plug-in.  Last week, I installed it to reward commentators with an automatic linkback to their last blog post.  One day a commentator had forgotten to uncheck the CommentLuv box because she didn’t want the most recent article from her blog backlinked for personal reasons.  She asked me to manually delete it for her.  As I was doing that, it got me thinking:  Is there a way to leave the CommentLuv box open, giving commentators the option of checking it themselves?  I asked Andy about that.  The answer was no.  Since it was not a big deal, I thanked him and promptly forgot all about it.  Two days later Andy gave me the surprise of a lifetime with a custom-made plug-in for us!  I was like, “WOW – no one ever surprised me with a gift like that before!”  If you look below, you’ll see that the CommentLuv box is now blank, giving you the option to enable it if you want a linkback to your last blog article.  Thanks Andy - may the universe reward you with a surprise gift of its own kind!      
• Finally, but not least, I am grateful for The Shack. It’s a riveting self-published fiction book about our relationship with God, each other and the rest of humanity.  It has generated incredible word-of-mouth buzz, becoming a top Amazon seller in the process.  I am on a second reading of this book, using my yellow highlighter like crazy.  The Shack inspired me to renew my connection with the Divine in a new light.  It is one of those rare books of fiction that can actually change your life in a very significant way. 

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