I’m hittin’ the highway this morning to spend Thanksgiving with Deb’s fam, but I want to share this story.

It’s about the ex-husband of a co-worker from my long ago corporate days.

I’ll make it quick.

Dude’s name is John Kralik.

In 2007, John’s life was in da crapper.

His law firm was going belly-up.

His second marriage was kaput.

Two of his kids wouldn’t talk to him.

He lived in a stuffy little apartment.

He was 40 pounds overweight and felt like pond scum.

“I had accomplished a tour de force of failure,” John admits.

Then, on New Year’s Day 2008, he was hiking all by his lonesome in the hills above Pasadena (and the Rose Parade).

And he heard a voice come from outta nowhere.

Yeah, like a real Road to Damascus kinda thing.

“Until you learn to be grateful for the things you have,” the voice told him, “you will not receive the things you want.”

John decided to take the voice seriously. So he set a goal to write 365 thank-you notes in the next 12 months.

Thank-you note by thank-you note, he began recognizing things he should be grateful for. And John’s life started to turn around.

Hell, John even got appointed a judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court.

None of this happened real quick. Actually, it happened pretty damn slowly. But it happened.

Nice Thanksgiving story, huh?

Anyway, about three years ago, John Kralik wrote a wonderful little memoir about that year or so in his life. It’s called A Simple Act of Gratitude: How Learning to Say Thank You Changed My Life.

I’m re-reading it this week.

You can still grab John’s book at Amazon. It even comes in Kindle format.

Have a great holiday, and I’ll check back with you soon.

(By the way, you can start to turn things around for yourself by going here…
http://tinyurl.com/n2yz9on