Gratitude isn't just a feeling - it's a practice of noticing. Let's see what we notice!
Christy opens with friendly greetings, explains the schedule change from Wednesday to Friday, and shares feeling grateful and upbeat about the day and weather. This short intro sets a warm, personal tone for the talk.
Christy summarizes the conference logistics and busyness of the day, noting the large attendance, her role organizing it, and relief that it went smoothly. This section gives listeners context for why gratitude is on her mind.
She shares how reconnecting with alumni and colleagues at the event brought feelings of warmth, gratitude, and familiarity, describing hugs, compliments, and support she received. Listeners get a concrete example of how community interactions can boost well-being.
Christy discusses the nature of communities—that they arise from each person's contribution—and reminds viewers that everyone brings unique value, even if they don't always participate. This reflective section encourages recognition of one’s role and gratitude for others.
She urges viewers to notice how they and others contribute to community and to express thanks, then closes with appreciation and a weekend sendoff. This ending gives a simple action viewers can take after watching.
Hey, Cadre Sphere. Hi, hi, hi. Christy Larson here joining you on a Friday, which is odd for me. My Wednesday was incredibly busy getting ready for a conference that I had yesterday. So I am grateful that you allowed me to change over to Friday. It doesn't feel like Wednesday. It feels like Friday. Hi, Kelly. Nice to have you. Feels like it feels like Friday. It feels like it should be Friday. And glad it's not Wednesday. Absolutely. Which is my normal day that I'm here with you all. But I am grateful to be here with you.
I am grateful it is Friday. I'm grateful the sun is shining like so many things today that I'm feeling really, really blessed and really grateful for. The conference and anybody that's joined me before kind of knows a little bit about my work up to this place. But the conference yesterday had just over 600 attendees that I was running and It was busy. I am not an event planner. This is the first big conference that I've done and there was a lot of moving parts and a lot of moving pieces. I was kind of running around pretty much the majority of the day.
I think my watch said I had over 16,000 steps, which means that I was up and down a hallway so many times and was running around. happy that it's Friday and it's over and we got through it and there was no major catastrophes. So that was all really good. But I'm really happy to be here with you. As always, I appreciate the Cadre Sphere so much and the community that has been built here. So grateful to see you all at yesterday's event. This actually is a nice kind of I'm glad that I kind of put this idea in my head about noticing gratitude because yesterday at this event that I was that I was running this conference that I was running there was So my previous life before I started this job that I'm at now, I worked at a school, adult education for career transitioners, and we built a really solid and really awesome community there.
And I keep in touch with over 2000 of the alumni from there. I am a huge supporter and a huge cheerleader for them as they transitioned and are now leveling up in their careers. And so yesterday I had an opportunity to see many of them. There wasn't many to me as there was a handful, probably six to 10 of them there total and a couple former instructors that came and gave talks at the conference and people that I kind of convinced to come because I knew they'd be great addition to the conference.
And so I got an opportunity to see some just really cool people that I really, really adore and really love and It warms my heart when I see them. And so yes, at yesterday's conference, it kind of brought that feeling back of my previous job and how that sense of community really creates warmth and comfortability and familiarity. All the words that I felt like I needed yesterday and they were delivered kind of at my doorstep as I was running around and felt you know, a little out of my element and having people say, this is great, you're doing a great job was really was I was grateful.
I was really grateful. And I noticed every single moment of that. And that's kind of what I wanted to talk about today. And I'm glad this happened yesterday at the conference because it's fresh in my brain. But just that feeling of being noticing happy faces and engaged attendees and people conversating and being happy to see one another. Lots of hugs, lots of how have you been? Lots of support. And it's just noticing all of those things is it made me really grateful to be part of it just simply because I knew it was I didn't create it, but it was an opportunity for me to create space for that.
And I felt really blessed and really grateful to be able to do that for people. I think in today's world, especially for those of us here in Minnesota who have had such a rough go with this year, we need it. We need people around us that bring us up and give us warmth and make us feel comfortable and be in familiar spaces, right? We need that. And I think noticing it and watching it and observing it and learning from it and doing it and being part of it was, I was really grateful for that yesterday.
So, you know, communities, I was thinking about communities a little bit this morning and I was thinking about communities don't really, nobody builds a community. Communities are built on every individual participant inside or contributor inside that community and everybody brings something, which is what makes that community. And I think that that's really important to remember and also to recognize in ourselves that if we are part of a community, whether it's your church community or your school community or your town or city community, whatever community that is, you are contributing and adding value, experience, your background brings something, your culture brings something, your religion brings something like all of those pieces of you bring that to the community.
And that's what the community is built on, right? It's built on every single person and what they're bringing. And it's no matter how small, no matter how large, we're all contributing to a community in a certain way. And that adds value. And I think that's really important to recognize. And I think sometimes we forget to recognize that, that we can be part of a community and maybe one day we contribute nothing. You know, we stay holed up in our house or we do that thing or we don't go to church that week or whatever it might be.
But every time you engage with that community, you are contributing something. And I think that's important for us to remember. And yesterday that brought light to me, right? Every single attendee who came to that event was bringing something and it made the community of that conference shine, bring warmth, bring comfortability, bring familiarity, insert words here and I was really grateful for that. I was grateful for every single person who brought themselves and contributed in whatever way they contributed and although I wasn't able to recognize all 606 contributors in that and the ways that they contributed, I know that they contributed in the way that they do best.
So I encourage you to to think about the ways that each individual member of your community is contributing and maybe be grateful, maybe recognize them, maybe say thank you. That might be your way of contributing. Take care, cadre sphere, be well, and Notice the way that you're contributing or recognize somebody else for contributing. I appreciate you all. I think you all are uber fantastic and I look forward to seeing you next week. Have a great weekend.
