You know who I've learned things from and some things that I've learned the importance of being polite? Man, and how has that helped my gratitude journey? I learned that from my youngest son. He's 28 years old now, but he started teaching me this stuff like six years ago.
Let's talk about it. Here's the daily great thought. My name is Michael Croes, and I want to talk about the importance of being polite. You know, I've run into a lot of people lately that are not polite, and you know who is probably one of the biggest villains about that?
Perhaps it was me, but you know what? Over the last six years, since I've been working with my son, I have really learned the importance of being polite. It is something that has really helped me. You know, showing appreciation, saying thank you.
It just, it reminds me, when I say thank you to somebody like the lady at McDonald's, and I make them smile, it reminds me of things that I'm grateful for. polite listening. Very, very, very important. It's not all about talking.
Sometimes it's about listening. And I like to talk. I do. But I also like to listen.
I like to hear what other people have to say. I didn't always do that. I mean, I've been on radio for all these years. I'm on my job to go out here and talk.
But now I find myself listening. We had pizza delivered yesterday. Very nice young man came very tall, very, very tall young man. And I said to him, I said, you're very tall.
He goes, I'm seven feet tall. I said, wow, I said, I'm not even going to ask you the stupid question that everybody asks you. And he burst out laughing and he said, thank you so much. But by the way, the answer is no.
And if you don't know what the stupid question is, just trust me. You know, we had a very nice talk. We had a nice conversation. And I got my pizza game a nice tip and life is good.
A genuine compliment, I'm going to tell you something. It just makes everybody positive. And it makes me grateful to be good to other people. It really does.
That is something to think about. Zach and I have this kind of a rule that we go by every day. And the rule that we go by when we're together out in the general world is do a good deed. Find somebody to help with something.
Always do that. Now I did that with Zach constantly. And when I'm not with Zach, I do that constantly. And I've got to tell you, since I started doing that, I spent 45 minutes, day before yesterday, with a delightful senior citizen lady, whose husband was having all kinds of health problems.
And she couldn't take care of her yard. And she needed advice. And I just spent time with her. No money changed hands.
I just spent time with her, advising her about her lawn, telling her what the problem was, telling her the simple solution that she was able to do and take care of. And it's turned out wonderfully. It made me feel good. And when I left there, I just went left there feeling so grateful that I had helped this woman.
I think she was grateful too. But I will tell you it was wonderful. The other thing about that is patience. I am not a patient person, but I'm working on it.
I work on it every day. It really, when you're patient, you can just experience all kinds of positive things. And when you do that, it deepens my sense of gratitude. So just something to think about.
You have these things that happen to you every day that irritates you that pays you off. Well, be patient. Okay, be patient. Understand that the people on the other side of the equation, they're having a bad day too.
When I see somebody who's grumpy, I just try and smile at them. And when you smile, they tend to smile. Now, you know, I've had people who don't smile, but that's okay. Maybe they smiled later, but I walked away feeling good.
And the other thing that is really important in my mind is forgiveness. When you forgive someone, it frees you from the negativity. It really does. It makes you feel better about yourself.
So let's learn to forgive, shall we? You're going to be grateful for that. Help people. Every chance you get, help people.
That's my new thing. I'm writing a newsletter every week for the Tampa Bay Technology Center about tech, basically geared towards senior citizens. And I'm getting, I'm helping people with that. Because every week that newsletter comes out on Wednesdays, so it's coming out today.
Every week that I send out that newsletter, I get all kinds of positive feedback. Number one, I'm not trying to sell anything there. I would like people to join our club. Number two, it's just advice.
And number three, I'm asking for them to be interactive with the people at our club, with our technology club. It's going to be good for them. It's going to be good for us. I'm going to meet new people.
They're going to meet new people. It's going to be cool. I like that. So if you have a positive attitude, you're going to get positive experiences.
And then you're going to be grateful. You're going to be grateful to the world. So let's think about that. Offering help, forgiveness, patience.
Oh my gosh, I still got to work on patience. I work on it every darn day. But patience, being polite. Nothing is in my mind more helpful for me and to the other person.
And for at least me being polite. Because when I'm polite, they're polite. Oh well, I got to get out of here because I got DoorDash bringing us dinner. I've never done DoorDash before.
This is a new experience. You know, and I did it. I'm real happy. We'll see you folks tomorrow.