Our interview this week is with the host of The Gratitude Podcast, Georgian Benta.  The Gratitude Podcast has been downloaded over a million times and is top rated in its category.  I really appreciate Georgian for taking the time to do this and for the opportunity to share The Gratitude Podcast!

Hi, I’m Georgian! I’m not a grateful person. Well, at least not all of the time…

You see, there are people that are naturally grateful, positive, outgoing and I’m happy that they are, but they are few.

Most of us have to make a conscious effort to be grateful, we need an experience or some contrasting story that we hear about to remind us that we can be grateful and that we really should be.

My goal with this project is to inspire those that find it harder to be grateful, to choose to live a life filled with gratefulness or at least to get a boost of this amazing feeling when things don’t seem to go the right way.

What does being grateful mean to you?

Listen Now

Gratitude is a tool for life. It’s a gift that enhances our happiness and helps us get back into our inner power when life gets us down. Being grateful is a choice that we can all make to make our life much more fulfilling. Like former guest on the podcast, Brother David Steindl-Rast puts it, gratefulness is the great fullness of life.

Right now, in this moment what are 3 things you are grateful for?

Right now I’m grateful for finding my own way of working that serves one of my fundamental values: freedom, the beautiful view I have from my home office, the beautiful sun rays coming through my windows in this sunny autumn day, the colourful leaves on the trees I’m blessed to see when I look outside and the coziness of being in a warm safe environment of which temperature I can control easily to my pleasing. I’m grateful for an amazing year, in which I’ve traveled more than I did in my entire life having seen many new countries and having experienced lots of new things that will forever be in my heart, I’m grateful for having launched the iOS app for The Gratitude Podcast, it’s been a long road to get here, with lots of challenges, but now it’s out there and listeners can tune in and interact with me and other listeners more easily now.

Who is the first person that comes to mind when you hear, “Someone in my life that I’m grateful for and why?”

I’m grateful for my granny. She’s no longer with us, but she lived a long, challenging but beautiful life. She lost her father when she was 7, went through 2 World Wars and had to take care of her daughter (my mother’s bigger sister) while my grandpa was a war prisoner in Russia, not knowing whether or not he will return (he did after some years), she had cancer in her 60s but got to 93 years of age. In spite of all of this, she was a joyful person, with lots of friends, loved by everyone, keeping active even in her 90s. Since my parents were working a lot, I lived with her and my brother and from many points of view, she was like a mother to me. I’m grateful for her because she loved me very much and was always very generous with me even though she didn’t have much (I felt spoiled), and I’m grateful for the positive example she gave me just by being herself.

What is your morning routine like?

Before getting out of bed I think about the things that I’m grateful for, sometimes 3 things, other times 7, other times I go on for however much feels right. Other than this, I can’t say there’s something I’m doing every single day, but a gratitude meditation (I actually use a meditation that I recorded and shared on the podcast), writing in the gratitude journal, breathing in fresh air and looking at the Sun, yoga, are some of the things I do as well.
My philosophy on gratitude is that we should try to integrate it as much as possible in our daily lives, not just in the morning or evening, even though they’re important times to practice gratitude.

What inspired you to start The Gratitude Podcast?

After a situation when I felt I hit rock bottom I prayed, a lot. The answer was an amazing feeling of gratitude, like everything was new, I felt the same appreciation for the city I was living in like I felt when I moved here, it was the same with the rented room I was living in at that point, and I was so grateful even though nothing changed on the outside. That feeling lasted for a while, but it faded away slowly and I wanted to relieve it, it was so empowering and beautiful. I began searching for online resources to find out more about gratitude and to keep myself more in this amazing feeling. I couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for and I decided to create it, since I had the entrepreneurial spirit. That, coupled great with my innate curiosity and desire to meet inspiring people from all around the world made The Gratitude Podcast a reality. I also wanted to share with other people what I’m learning and create a resource for those like me, who want to experience this beautiful feeling more often.

Your mission was to inspire 100,000 people to discover how to feel gratitude and a happy life. As of this interview, your podcast has been downloaded over 1,000,000 times! Can you share with us how it felt to hit not only your mission statement but then hitting it 10 times over? And what is your mission statement now?

I felt like a millionaire. But a different kind of millionaire. When I was younger I thought money would solve all problems. While money can make life much better from many points of view, it’s not everything. Emotional abundance and making an impact are a form of wealth that often leads to much more fulfillment that money alone can provide. Reaching 1m downloads doesn’t mean I reached my goal yet, I’m still aiming at 100,000 constant listeners of the podcast, that would mean at least about 2-3m downloads every month. So there’s a long way to go. I could say I’ve reached 100,000 people, but I want to reach them directly and constantly to make the kind of impact I’d love to be able to make.

If you could only share one of your interviews from the podcast which one would it be?

Liston Now

That’s a really hard question to answer. I think there are more than 150 interviews on the podcast already, choosing one isn’t easy at all. A really fun one was the one I did with JP Sears, the famous online comedian, it’s about appreciating our weirdness among other very inspiring topics.

What is your process for finding people to interview?

I’m always on the lookout for people that believe in the power of gratitude and are using it in their lives, so when I find someone I get in touch with them to find out their story and how they use gratitude to make their life beautiful. I’ve had cancer survivors that used gratitude to help them heal, millionaires that used gratitude to climb the success ladder, academics who study gratitude and many many people with amazing stories about gratitude. I like to keep it diverse and have people from all walks of life, races, places in the world and religions. Now, I’m fortunate enough to have lots of inquiries to choose from, so I spend less time on reaching out to possible guests.

What is your affiliation with the 365 Gratitude App and how did you get introduced to Justin Sebastian?

Read our interview with Justin

We were in the same space, me and Justin. I’ve been wanting to create a gratitude app. I even applied for a grant to make it happen, and in the process of preparing the necessary information for it, I studied all the gratitude apps that were out there. Justin’s 365 Gratitude Journal was the best and it was the closest one to what I imagined the app to be. When I received the negative answer for the grant, I thought to myself that I don’t need to be the one creating this app, I can collaborate with Justin and help him make an even bigger impact with his app while he’s helping me make a big impact with the podcast as well. We both had the same vision, so why not join forces and make a bigger impact together.

(Listen to The Story Behind The Popular 365 Gratitude Journal App – Justin Sebastian episode 98 on The Gratitude Podcast HERE.)

Are there any other affiliates you would like us to check out? Sites, Apps, Bloggers?

Well, there are many, but honestly, the best way to get to meet them and choose the ones that work best for each of our readers, is to look in the archives of the podcast and find what best resonates with them. There are artists, authors, speakers, monks, kids, that are doing awesome things in this field. Of course, we shouldn’t forget about www.gratitudespace.com which is an awesome resource.

In closing, what is one suggestion that you can give our readers that can help them incorporate gratitude into their daily lives?

Start out with feeling the gratitude when you say “Thank You!”. We, being well-raised citizens of this blue planet have been taught to say thank you quite often but were not taught to feel the gratitude. It’s about time we feel grateful when we say the words. Think about why you’re grateful, why you’re saying the words, how has that person contributed to your life, how does it feel, enjoy the feeling of gratitude and how it feels in your body. You’ll realize more and more that you have many reasons to feel grateful each day, no matter how small they are. J. F. Kennedy said, “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”

Conect with Georgian and The Gratitude Podcast:

georgianbenta.com / Instagram / Youtube

Listen now