Perception of Gratitude: Become a Grateful Dad

"True gratitude isn’t just about being thankful for the blessings—it’s about being grateful for the storms, the losses, and the struggles. It’s about shifting your perspective from ‘Why me?’ to ‘Thank you, God, for choosing me.’ And when you do that, you don’t just survive life… you become stronger, wiser, and ready to help others do the same."

Transcript

Ryan Daniello: 0:01

Welcome back to the Grateful Dad Podcast, where we explore what it means to be a father, a leader, and a man of faith. I'm Ryan, and today we're talking about something that has completely transformed my life. The power of gratitude. Not just gratitude. When things are good, that's easy. Not just gratitude. When life is comfortable, that's expected. But gratitude for everything. For the pain, for the heartbreak, for the things that nearly broke us. Because if there's one thing I've learned, it's true. Gratitude isn't just found in the blessings. It's found in the breaking, too. And when you start to see everything as something to be grateful for, you stop asking, why me, God? And you start saying, thank you, God, for choosing me. So today we're going deep. We're talking about the perception of gratitude, what it means to be grateful for the hard things, how it shapes you as a husband, father, and leader, and how this mindset shift can change everything about your life. This episode isn't just about changing the way you think. It's about changing the way you live. Let's get started. All right, here we are. Grateful dad, episode three. Again, I'm gonna say you guys rock. Episode two came out, and it did better than episode one. I mean, people from all over the place are listening to this, and I still haven't put it out to the masses yet, not because I'm not confident that it's gonna do well, but I'm just kind of, you know, I don't know, call it, Jesus, take the wheel. I'm going to put it out there, but I'm just kind of slow rolling it a little bit. Call it a soft opening, if you will. I'm looking forward to having, you know, if a flood of people come in there to be enough content here for people to, you know, kind of binge if they want to. I don't know what the episode lengths are going to end up being or if, you know, I'm not really kind of trying to box it into how long each thing is going to be. Some episodes may be longer, some may be shorter, but I'm excited just to get these messages out. And speaking of episodes, today is. We'll call it. The mantra of the whole podcast is about perception and having a perception of gratitude. So, I mean, it was transformative for me, just kind of writing this episode out and building it. And I hope that I have the same effect on you listening to it that I had on myself building it. So with that being said, let's get into it. I Believe it is a God given gift to exist. Every single day you wake up with breath in your lungs is a gift from God. Not one of us is here by accident. Not one of us is here on this earth without purpose. And I believe that God expects us to see life this way. That when we wake up in the morning, he wants us to recognize that just being alive is a miracle. I believe that he expects us to take the gift of life he has given us and use it to spread his light in our homes, in our families and in our communities. But here's the thing about life. Life is hard. And not just for you, and not just for me. Life is hard for everyone. I don't care how successful, wealthy or happy someone looks. Every single person on this earth suffers because suffering is a part of being human. It is written into the story of every human being. And no matter how much we want to run from suffering, how much we wish we could avoid it, it is unavoidable. And here's the thing about it's one of the most powerful tools for connection that God has given us. Because pain, pain makes us human. Pain is what connects us. Pain is what makes us able to help others. Pain is what brings us closer to God. And the crazy mindset shift. You can't just choose to be grateful for the good parts of life. You have to be grateful for all of it. The pain, the heartbreak, the mistakes, the moments you wish never happened. Because those moments, they shape us, they refine us and they test us. They strip us down to our core and force us to ask, what kind of man am I going to be? And that's the question every single one of us will have to answer at some point. But here's the truth. The world teaches us to be grateful for what we gain. God teaches us to be grateful for what we endure. And if you can learn how to be grateful for both for the blessings and the battles, you will become unshakable. But here's the tough part. How do you find gratitude in some of the worst things that happen to you? How do you look at loss, heartbreak, pain, suffering, and say thank you, God? That's what we're going to talk about. If you've been listening, you know that I lost my friend Jeremy on July 30, 2024. It was a normal day. Nothing felt different. We were here at work. I was in my office on a zoom call and he was back in the shop breaking down from a prop job he just did, going to get in the shower, then suddenly Everything changed. Jeremy collapsed and had a sudden heart attack on the shop floor. His son came running into my office and said, my dad's on the floor and he needs your help. And I ran out there as fast as I could to help him. And in that moment, the world stopped. I was the one giving him chest compressions. I was the one on the phone with 911. I was the last person to see his eyes open. And for months afterward, I couldn't escape that moment. I kept seeing him on the floor, my hands on his chest, one hand over the other, pressing, going, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I kept feeling the helplessness and the fear and the absolute devastation. Every day I would replay the scene in my head over and over again. And I'd be watching him die in front of me over and over again. I couldn't walk by that spot in the shop where it all happened without reliving the whole incident in my head. Panic attacks would shut me down and mental breakdowns would bring me to tears in the middle of my office. There were days where I got virtually nothing done because I just sat in my chair in my office and cried all day. And the question that consumed me was, why me, God? Why did I have to be the one there? Why did I have to see it? Why do I have to have these feelings? Why does this have to ruin my life? I was angry. I was broken. And I was lost. And gratitude. That was the furthest thing from my mind. But over time, something started to shift. I realized something that changed everything. I had no control over what happened. Only God did. And that realization led me to a choice. I could keep asking, why me? Where I could start saying, thank you, God, for choosing me. Thank you, God, for putting me there. Thank you, God, for putting me in. Because here's what's true. God's plan can't be stopped.

Isaiah 14: 8:51

27 says, the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him? Jeremy's passing was going to happen. I didn't get a say in it, but what I did get a say in was how I responded to it. And I realized that God chose me to be a part of that story. He wouldn't have put me in it if he didn't know I could get through it. He chose me to feel that pain. Not to break me, but to transform me. He chose me to walk through that suffering, not to destroy me, but to make me stronger. And here's something I know now. My pain makes Me aware of your pain. And your pain makes you aware of someone else's pain. And someone else's pain makes them aware of yours and mine. And when we recognize that something beautiful happens, we can connect and we can build and we can sharpen each other. So iron sharpens iron. Man sharpens man. And God doesn't just bring us through storms just to watch us struggle. He brings us through. So that way we can be a light for others. So that way our test can be a testimony to somebody else. So let me ask you, what if the thing that broke you is actually the thing that God is using to shape you? Because once you start to see it that way, it changes everything. This shift didn't just change how I saw Jeremy's passing. It changed everything. Every mistake I've made, every person I've wronged, every loss I've experienced, every person that's wronged me, every painful moment I've ever gone through, I've come to realize that every single one of those things shaped me. And instead of resenting them, I'm grateful for them. Because God chose me for them. Because he knew I could take it. Because he knew I could come out on the other side stronger. And that's what I want you to take from this. Pain isn't just something that we survive. It's something that builds us. The choice is yours. Become bitter or become better. And I've made my choice. That's why I'm here today. That's why I started the Grateful dad podcast. That's why we're building this community. That's why I wake up every day and thank God for breath in my lungs. And that's why every episode, I'm going to thank you for being here. Because gratitude, real gratitude, isn't about waiting for good things to happen. It's about seeing the good in everything that has happened. And when you shift your perception of gratitude, you become a Grateful Dad. SA Easter egg time. Haha. So, dad joke time. Because I'm three episodes in and I haven't done a dad joke yet, and it is just killing me. So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna tell you my dad joke, but then I would love it if you would email me your favorite dad jokes. And I'd love to put some of them on here as we go along because I'm gonna build a segment for dad jokes. I just didn't want to put it in that episode because I felt like it would disrupt the message there. So dad jokes here right now. And my dad joke is, what did the pepperoni say as he was walking out of the hospital? I'm cured. Have a great day.