Happily Ever After: The Life-Changing Power of a Grateful Heart (20 page)

Every year at Christmas, I send out about three hundred Christmas cards, and we get about that many in return. Wanting to showcase the happy faces of our friends and family every winter in our home, I decided about seven years back to start taping them to our pantry doorway. They now take up not only that, but the side of a cabinet as you come up our entry stairs. Around April or May, I start feeling like holiday cards may not be appropriate decor, but I usually push it back because I love seeing the smiles of the growing families of my very missed friends. Whether it’s a week or a month or half of the year, find a place to display those cherished faces and don’t apologize for wanting to have a visual reminder of your blessed friendships to anyone. I don’t.

Never enter a new experience thinking, “I didn’t come here to make friends.” Open your mind and your heart, and think about the true friendships of your life. Had you closed off your mind and isolated yourself from getting to know anyone new, would you still be able to call them your pals? As the actress Shirley MacLaine once said, “Fear makes strangers of people who would be friends.” Don’t let fear or stubbornness or a bad attitude keep possible friendships at bay. You deserve friendship. You deserve one of the greatest joys of life.

The Business of Being Happy

Do not be fooled.

Success is not the key to happiness.

Happiness is the key to success.

—A
NONYMOUS

CHAPTER SEVEN

H
AVE YOU EVER BEEN AT WORK AND FELT SO ANGRY
that you could swear your head grew horns, your eyes grew daggers, and your ears puffed out smoke? Maybe you felt so blindsided by a superior’s criticism that you felt like a smashed bug on the bottom of their shoe?

My husband certainly has—on the day he was hired by the Vail Fire Department. After working as a resident there for ten months, Ryan finally got the offer for a full-time position. He was thrilled, at least until the fire chief he would be working under decided to share his blatant honesty. “Just so you know,” Ryan remembers him saying, “you weren’t my choice. I don’t believe that guys with college degrees will last very long. I don’t think you’ll be successful here.” Talk about laying out the unwelcome mat.

Undeterred, Ryan stuck to his guns, and now, after ten years and a steady climb up the ladder, he eventually achieved his current rank of lieutenant. He sure proved his old boss wrong! But I know for a fact that Ryan didn’t work as hard as he did because of that negative incentive. It’s in his bones and his blood and his upbringing to be the best he can be. I can only imagine, though, how much more fulfilled he would’ve felt all these years if he’d had the chief’s support . . . or had at least been spared the knowledge of his utter disappointment.

At work, just as much as at home, everyone needs and wants to feel valued. Whether it’s taking out the trash, asking a client to hold while his or her call is connected, or ringing up a customer’s purchases, all jobs are important, and every employee should be recognized for his or her hard work and dedication. Otherwise, employers run the risk of losing their employees’ motivation, or never getting it in the first place.

Charles Schwab once said, “I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among men the greatest asset I possess. The way to develop the best that is in a man is by appreciation and encouragement.” I couldn’t agree more, which is why I feel it is necessary to address this important part of our culture.

Of the 8,765 hours in a year, the average working American puts in 1,695 hours for “the man.” That’s about 19 percent of your time. Sure, you may think you have 81 percent of your time left over, but with an average of 33 percent spent sleeping and another 2 percent in the bathroom, you have only 46 percent of those precious hours left for everything else you need or want to do. If you are a small-business manager, a poll done by Staples shows that for you it’s even worse. Not only do you clock in at the office or shop or studio or wherever your work takes you, but much of the precious time you have away from the workplace is spent on business affairs as well: even while driving, using the restroom, or spending time with your family. And in today’s economy, where smaller staffs require workers to be more and more productive, the statistics are probably similar for just about everyone who has a job these days, management or not.

Since work takes up so much of our lives, it’s vitally important that we not only find satisfaction in the job itself but in the appreciation we receive from coworkers and superiors for a job well done. At least, that’s the hope.

L
OVE
W
HAT
Y
OU
D
O
, D
O
W
HAT
Y
OU
L
OVE

Finding a job in this day and age is difficult. Finding a job that is satisfying—almost impossible. Until I was about twenty-six years old, my goals all centered on becoming a career woman. I wanted to have babies at some point, but I thought that being a card-carrying member of the professional world would be the best way to feel intelligent and valued and important to society.

With that in mind, I worked hard to make honors in graduate school, and even harder when it came time to start searching for “the perfect job.” I wanted what Confucius talked about: “Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.” I got lucky when a spot opened up at Miami Children’s Hospital, since I would be working with both inpatients and outpatients—exactly the location, specialty, and variety I was looking for.

Unfortunately, though, I soon found myself bored and searching for more. Going into it, I knew I was applying for a means to an income. Selfishly, though, I also wanted perfection. I loved the patient interaction and coworker friendships (even the rum cake we had each month in celebration of birthdays), but I soon learned that physical therapy wasn’t always about helping people. It was just as much about piles of paperwork—boring paperwork. Day after day, I fought the urge to not get out of bed in the morning, and most likely still would be doing so today just to fulfill my obligations and continue to pay off my hefty student loans.

But after my experience on
The Bachelor
and seeing how much fun the people behind the scenes in TV land were having, I wanted what they had: to enjoy heading to work every day.

For a short time after the show wrapped, I returned to the hospital to pay the bills, but when the producers asked me to come back for seconds as the Bachelorette, I knew I had to take that leap of faith and satisfy my curiosity for life beyond the walls of the physical therapy department.

I put my PT license into “inactive” status and headed out to California thinking I was meant to be there—at least at that point in my life. It was scary. I had put so much time and effort and money into becoming a therapist and gave it all up with only the hope that Mike Fleiss could make ABC buy in to his idea of
The Bachelorette.
Until that happened and I signed on the dotted line months later, I dabbled in hosting and correspondent work, and I won’t lie—I had an absolute blast.

But when I met Ryan Sutter, my focus changed again. It soon became all about being with him and the life we were hoping to create together. Luckily (and I mean
really
luckily), the paycheck that came after we agreed to televise our wedding allowed us to start our lives with a bank account that wouldn’t require my returning to the daily grind I had known in Florida.

Every so often, I felt a twinge of regret about not following through with what I had so fervently educated myself in and not continuing to try to make a difference in the lives of my pediatric patients. Those regrets didn’t last long. Once I was blessed with children of my own, I realized that what I truly wanted was what I had fought against for as long as I could remember: to be a stay-at-home mom.

Since I was a child, I had wanted to follow in my mom’s footsteps—get a good education, provide for myself, and even get dressed up in business attire to head to work every day. I thought it was enlightened and admirable. I was so opposed to old-fashioned feminine stereotypes, I even ended a
relationship on the verge of engagement because I thought my boyfriend saw me only as a baby breeder and homemaker. I felt that would make me seem inferior and unsophisticated.

With age and a lot of time spent getting to know the real me, I now find those roles to be incredible opportunities as well as surprisingly powerful. I may have lost a little mental acuity to the fog of mommy brain, but my clueless brain, as I call it, still knows what’s important, and I don’t think there is a more important job on the planet than raising a couple members of our next generation.

That’s not to say that I look down on people with children who need to or decide to spend their workdays behind a desk, in front of a microphone, serving drinks, or in an apron or military fatigues. Everyone’s gotta do what everyone’s gotta do and I have mad respect for all the parents out there who work their tails off to support their families. The challenge for everyone, though, is finding something to devote your time to that is beneficial not only to your family’s bank account, but also to your personal passion account.

My advice: Keep evolving and keep searching for contentment. Years and experience may change you, so be ready. As you grow, establish new goals and embrace new paths. I didn’t reach the gateway to my present occupational path until I was thirty-four years old. And who knows: it may not even be my final professional path. I’m ready for it, though—ready to create a happy (work) place wherever life may take me.

W
ORKING
H
ARD
T
HROUGH
H
ARD
T
IMES

For many, appreciation for the time you put in at work doesn’t come easy, or fast, or maybe even ever. But for some of the
self-proclaimed lucky ones, they recognize at some point on their timeline the true gift of just being employed, even if it’s far from a dream job and it’s bursting with challenges. Instead, they realize, that job keeps food on the table, a roof over their heads, a sense of security, and that job has either changed or saved their lives.