Episode #95 Graticise™365 with Sharon Saraga-Walters
Gratitude is being ready to show appreciation for and to return kindness, to be thankful. Today’s guest, Sharon Saraga-Walters, explains that when combined with exercise, gratitude has the power to change your outlook and your life and can make you feel empowered, healthy and creative!
Listen today as Sharri Harmel speaks with Sharon about Graticise™365, her program that combines gratitude with exercise, to help you prosper spirit, soul and body. Sharon Saraga-Walters has over 35 years experience operating and promoting her own businesses in health and wellness. She has a passion for exercise and gratitude, and that passion inspired her mission – changing the world with gratitude, by making gratitude an action, not a re-action.
Resources and links in this episode:
Visit Sharon Saraga-Walters at her website, https://www.graticise365.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Graticise365
Instagram: @graticise365 https://www.instagram.com/graticise365/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonsaragawalters/
Books by Sharon Saraga-Walters:
Extraordinary Women magazine is the “must-have” digital magazine for women looking for inspiration, tips, and support to create a fabulous business, or just the next chapter. In a nutshell, for women who are ready to make their dreams happen.
Subscribe today! Extraordinary Women magazine
Connect with Sharri Harmel
Find this episode (and more) on your favorite podcast player at Extraordinary Women with Sharri Harmel
TRANSLATE with x English
TRANSLATE with
COPY THE URL BELOW
Back EMBED THE SNIPPET BELOW IN YOUR SITE
Bing Webmaster PortalBack
Episode #95 Graticise™365 with Sharon Saraga-Walters
Sharri Harmel: Hi, Sharon let’s charge right in, because I’ve got your book right here and while most of us maybe were not all that productive during the pandemic, obviously you were, so charge in. Tell us about this book and what’s behind it.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: This is my third book. And it’s one of my favorites, just the exercise and gratitude. That is like my superpower. I call it all the aboves, you know, it’s something that I’ve been doing for so many years and yes, the pandemic did allow for this book to unfold. I’m also a massage therapist and so, during the pandemic, I wasn’t working for about a year.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Thanks to my wife who helped with the editing. It allowed me to finally sit down and do the work. Thank you for sharing, purchasing the book, and your wonderful comments about it. It’s been a dream and it’s just amazing.
Sharri Harmel: Wow. And I think the book is fantastic, but talk a little bit about this combination of gratitude and exercise. Because truly, were you always a woman that was grateful or is that something you had to learn? So
Sharon Saraga-Walters: So looking back, I say many of my talks that it came to me one day. I really do believe I was born with more gratitude in my DNA. I really do. And through the years, I always knew that I’m very sensitive.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: And so gratitude was a really safe, wonderful place to land through anything the good times, the not so good times. It was always the thing that helped me. I would look at things and I would express and go through some situations, but I would always come and finish it off with gratitude. That was always the way I was.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: And still am. It was something that was very comfortable for me. Yeah. And I always say that gratitude just, it made me feel more kind and loving and I love the person that it’s made me to be through all these years and will continue. It just gets better and better. I’ve landed on this wonderful place with gratitude and now exercise.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Even in the book, I was a tomboy growing up and then I was a couch potato in high school. and then in college, in fact, I gave out of gratitude to one of my friends in college who got me out running and I didn’t like it. But I did it because it started to make me feel really good. And that’s the thing I say, exercise really makes me feel empowered and healthy and energized and creative.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: All my creative ideas have come while I’m out running or walking. All of them.
Sharri Harmel: You know, Sharon, that’s really interesting because I say this, I should be exercising more, but the switch of how to look at exercising. From an entirely different place. You just use some words I’ve never heard before or thought about in the context of me exercising more, I think of losing weight or being healthy at something that I should be doing, you know, all of that, but you just used word empowerment and creativity.
Sharri Harmel: So talk about how does that happen? How do we get that?
Sharon Saraga-Walters: I didn’t know about that. I used to not like exercise. I really didn’t really. Yeah. When I was in college, I didn’t feel energized. I was just kind of flat mm-hmm . And what I noticed is when I started to go out and walk and exercise, how much better I felt it was something, wow.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: It made me, I don’t know. I felt better about myself and that was really big. It was like, whatever I felt it helped me. Yeah. And the other thing was. Then these ideas started coming through to me, you know, it was just really interesting. It was like I was in that state that allowed me to just start the Zen state, whatever that state is.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: I don’t know there’s a name for it, but the state that I got to be in for ideas to just come through, it was just flowing flow and flowing.
Sharri Harmel: I find that really interesting. And this may be totally off topic, but are there any links to depression and exercise?
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Yes. With exercise? Absolutely. Yeah. And, and there’s increased endorphins and that as we age, sometimes we have to fight because life doesn’t always end up even close to what we expected and therefore, how do I get through this without.
Sharri Harmel: Like you said becoming a couch potato or eating bad things as a comfort rather than exercising. Yeah. It’s really interesting. It’s super important for women. It sounds like many ways, you know, I just think it’s anyone and you even talking, you brought in the age thing and oh my gosh, there, as we grow older using our bodies more, and I must say, I never thought about how I used to use the exercise.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: I never did it for weight loss. I never thought about that. But yet I never was skinny. I was never in the back of my mind. I knew I to exercise to be fit, I guess, or to be healthy. Yeah. Yeah. But I didn’t go into that extreme. It was more selfishly around, like I said, the empowerment and the creativity.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Yeah, I think exercise is really so multi-layered because especially for those of us that played sports and loved sports, there’s a motive there that has nothing to do with fitness and has nothing to do with, you know, losing weight or whatever it might be. It’s a game and you absolutely love playing tennis or it’s golf or it’s swimming or whatever.
Sharri Harmel: And some of those things become more difficult for. Even running we age and things start to happen over time. It’s like this shift of maybe I’m not doing this for the game, or maybe I have to create a different game. Now I took your quiz and I love your quiz. So everyone go and take Sharon’s quiz because it was super enlightening.
Sharri Harmel: I never thought. Do you have a morning gratitude routine? Are you grateful for the water and the shower? There’s a presence to all of those questions in the here and the now. That’s amazing. How’d you come up with this quiz?
Sharon Saraga-Walters: I’m so glad you brought that up. So it’s the G fit test. It’s what is your gratitude fitness level?
Sharon Saraga-Walters: I would say a lot of my gratitude ideas and so forth that came from the book called the magic by Rhonda burn. I read her book that was like 10 or 12 years ago. That’s what really started my more awareness about gratitude because in her book, she talks about the simple things. To be grateful for. And that was a start for me.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: I felt like I was really grateful, but I realized how so much of the things I took for granted. And then I came up with my own in that book, but the simple things that we don’t really think about. And it stopped me in my track. Yeah. And I said, wow, I really needed to look at that. I’ve combined being a fitness trainer that had my own fitness training business.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: And, but that’s when I combined my two greatest powers and loves in my life. And that is gratitude and fitness. When I came up with those exercises in the “28 Day Gratitude Workout” book.
Sharri Harmel: and 18 of those questions are in the questionnaire that you said and you know, what’s amazing. And as you saw too, the simple things that we don’t think about.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Yeah for me, I don’t go in the shower without feeling gratitude for the water down the shelf. It’s automatic and, and that starts to happen more and more and more. The things that really hit me were the water in the shower. Yeah. My car, I never gave acknowledgement to my car. Right. So now I’m washing it or when I’m driving, I go more.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: But the third one, I would say that was really big for me was my closet. Not appreciating all the clothes and shoes and so forth in my closet. Yeah. I now go into my closet. If I start complaining about the clothes, I take a look at it and see what I’m wanting to get rid of when I may wanna rearrange mm-hmm
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Those were really things that I just had never thought about.
Sharri Harmel: No, we walk through life preoccupied. it sounds well, it sounds really …
Sharon Saraga-Walters: crazy. well, I will even go further in that. My statement was I felt not awake and asleep before I got into this work. That was how I felt.
Sharri Harmel: Yeah. Absolutely. One thing that popped out at me is what a great parenting experience. Or even if your, if people have grandchildren or whatever, I mean, this is something to some extent. Can be taught even around the kitchen table or at school or in the car or whatever. We all try to be good parents and we try to be the best we can be in whatever situation we’re in, but this gives a framework to say, okay, kids.
Sharri Harmel: Let’s get present here because children aren’t a whole lot different than the grownups that surround them. And they’re always thinking about where they’re going next, what I’m doing next, who I’m seeing next.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: You know, that’s true. And you know, I think having the parents get hold of this kind of work mm-hmm and incorporating it within themselves. And then it’s a natural with your kids. I really do believe that. I don’t think I could do that. I’m not a, I’m not a parent. I don’t have children, but if I were, I would find it so more powerful if I had embraced some of these concepts and living them and doing ’em and then introducing them to my children.
Sharri Harmel: Yeah. It’s really interesting how different we’d be as humans. Let’s just take United States. Uh, most of the miseries happen because we’re not present. Yeah. We’re wanting something to be other than what it currently is. But talk a little bit about your background. Cause you mentioned you’re a massage therapist. You mentioned, you know, being a fitness trainer. Tell us a little bit how Sharon evolved.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: My parents under retail stores. So I immediately got a great training about being with people and talking with people. I mean, since the time I think I was 10 years old, I was talking and waiting on customers. So that was really a great gift that I was given to be able to interact with people.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Then I got into this thing about my body. I don’t know, health and my body seemed to take on a big role for me. This was after high school. So I’m gonna say college is when it really started. Okay. Um, and I didn’t know what I wanted. I was going into business school and college and I’m like, yeah, no, I didn’t want that.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: And so then I found a degree. It was in health promotions. Cause when fitness was just becoming bigger and bigger, this was early eighties. So there was a degree called health promotions and it was all about wellness. It was about nutrition, exercise, kinesiology. I loved it. That spoke to me. I got my degree in that after I graduated, I worked in a wellness center and at that point there was one of the clients at the wellness center.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Her husband was a cardiologist, one of the finest in the area where I was from in Jacksonville, Florida. And she said somebody needs to come to my home and get my husband to exercise thought. Now that’s a great idea. Yeah. And this is for fitness trainers were not even in existence, then it just wasn’t happening.
Sharri Harmel: The birth of an industry.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: It’s interesting. Really? Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting. So I said, I love that. I’ll do it. And that was a start for me. I was a fitness trainer. I had a business called One to One Fitness. It took me for years till I finally met my first trainer and it was in LA. I had to go to a conference.
Sharri Harmel: So were you working for yourself this whole time?
Sharon Saraga-Walters: I’ve always created my own things and I’ve always, yes. I’ve always worked myself and I’ve always been the creator of whatever I’ve done. And, and I’ll say with that as well, is that what I’ve done? My whole life is whatever has really empowered me and made me feel so much better.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: That’s what I go out and do. Mm that’s. That’s my work.
Sharri Harmel: So about you get to that mindset though, because so many of us, especially at that time period, you and I are not that different in age, we did what we were supposed to do. Not me. I love that.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: I think my parents instilled that because they were entrepreneurs too.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: They were self employed. I think when you’ve learned to be self-employed you don’t have anybody telling you what to do or how to do it. You become your own person and you create your own ways and that’s all, you know, that’s okay. That’s what youve learned. So that’s been me. I always.
Sharri Harmel: Got that, but how interesting.
Sharri Harmel: I never even thought about that, that as an entrepreneur. So a number of the people who listen to this particular podcast are women who maybe had careers in a corporate setting or have stay-at-home moms raise children. And now they’re launching their entrepreneurial life. If you wanna call it that, it’s an interesting concept.
Sharri Harmel: One of the things you have to get accustomed to as an entrepreneur is no, one’s gonna tell you what to do. it’s, it’s up to us. It’s a lot of freedom. It can be scary. Okay. But there is freedom in learning how to trust your inner voice and your ideas. And also you may need to share with other people, your ideas, just to feel more comfortable with it.
Sharri Harmel: Okay. Have you always had entrepreneurial people around you?
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Yes, I think so. I would say so. Yeah.
Sharri Harmel: Yeah. That’s really amazing. Do you think Florida was part of that?
Sharon Saraga-Walters: I don’t think so because I’m in Colorado and I’ve got the same thing. I have entrepreneurial.
Sharri Harmel: That’s hysterical. So what’s it like now I’m all over the place here in this conversation.
Sharri Harmel: But one of the other things that I think is so interesting about you is that you moved from a state that you grew up in, I’m assuming and created a life and a home. And now a whole new friend set in the Colorado area that you’re at. So what was that like? And what did that take? How did you work through that personally?
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Well, I’d been in Florida for 59 years. Okay. So my wife, she really wanted to move and, you know, I think because having a partner, a spouse I think that helps a lot. It really does. Okay. I don’t, I would’ve never made this move. Leaving my family, my friends, my work. That was big.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: So when we arrived here, I was like a deer in headlights. I was scared. I was, I really, I was, I didn’t know what I was doing and she saw it and thank goodness. I’m very fortunate. She got us traveling all around Colorado to fall in love with it. Wow. Making me feel as comfortable as I could. Just right off the bat really quickly.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: I believe that it really helps to have somebody, if is that dramatic of a move mm-hmm and right under somebody, that was my experience. Just exploring the places. What happens now to see it in this experience. I wouldn’t trade it for the world now, three years ago, I would’ve never told you. You wouldn’t have said this.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: It was the greatest experience. I had this new chapter experiencing a beautiful, beautiful place. I may have never experienced that had I not taken that move?
Sharri Harmel: Yeah. So embrace. I hear. Was saying then embrace those difficult experiences and don’t turn and run. When you’re sitting there in panic mode, deer in the headlights, as you call it, don’t run.
Sharri Harmel: Try to find the people that can help you settle in. Not everyone moves with a partner, not everyone moves with a really supportive partner. So it’s like, how do we work through that? And so many people are moving all over the place. I mean, that’s kind of the way it is today. Hardly anybody’s space where in fact, they grew up or spent the first 50 years.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: The other thing that came to me when I realized later was I love being in Florida and I love the people and everything, but I realized I was in a rut. I didn’t know until I got here. I really didn’t. Yeah. It really came to me that it was, I had really gotten into a comfortable place and it felt kind of like a rut and yeah, when I got here, it was like this new found energy to meet new people, to try new things.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: It was like moving from one place to another. There was so many great things that came from the move.
Sharri Harmel: Yeah. And to some extent we can do that, even staying put, but I think pushing yourself to new experiences are what changed you. Did you use your book in the process?
Sharon Saraga-Walters: We’re on our fourth year here, but I did use the other books that I had, the 20 Day Guide to Work Out and the Thursday’s Notes.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: So those two books were, had already been written and yes, what I’m doing with it and studying it myself and, and actually doing it because of the power that it had. Yes. I would’ve never done this one. I would’ve never met my wife. I believe, and I would’ve never made this move either or any of it because my choices and my thoughts and everything changed so much from the work of gratitude.
Sharri Harmel: Yeah. That’s really interesting.
Sharri Harmel: So how does someone go through this book? Because in the very beginning, if you’ve never done gratitude, you’ve never really embraced it.
Sharri Harmel: Let’s say you take your grad fit quiz and you come in down in that zero to 40 points or whatever it is. I was not far out of there. I was, I scored a 51, so I just got into the next category, tell someone whose gratitude has not been a big part of their life. And they look at this in. This feels so sequential, this feels so structured.
Sharri Harmel: How am I going to do this?
Sharon Saraga-Walters: These are great questions. I’ve never been asked, but I wanna first, I wanna back it up about the GFI test that you’re speaking of, one of the things that has come to me because people find they get competitive and disappointed in the numbers. So, no, it happens every single time.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: It’s constant. So I actually did this with a group of women. It came to me that I had a system. I would have different simples. Right. So what I had done for zero and one, I had them put their hands on their heart. That was the answer. Instead of the number I got different hand motions. Wow. For people to use, rather than the numbers I got rid of the numbers.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Oh, interesting. The next one was thumbs up a high five and like prayer, Namaste. So I transferred each one of ’em forget the numbers to do that because I noticed how the numbers affected them. Actually, I’m really thinking about transforming that a little bit and move putting the hand signals in. I love that.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Yeah. I wanted to share that real quick, just as people could do that, you know, whoever take the test, but that will. Soften the numbers yes. Of that. As far as the book. So this is really good. Yeah. Cause no one’s ever asked me this. I would say, read through the book and see how it shows up for you. If you feel like it’s over your head and you’re not yet there, I would actually recommend going to the “28 Day Gratitude Workout” book.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Okay. Because that one goes back to the GFI test. It’s basic. It kind of starts you off and you might be able to go kind of back and forth a little bit if you feel like it’s too much. Okay. I love my latest book. I really do. You seem like it spoke to you right away? Mm-hmm I think I’ve given a really good explanation of the steps.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Step one is the wake up step two is the warm up then the workout and the pool down, but then I give examples and then you go to each day, there is a short. Prompt of how you can check off things in the wake up and the warm up. Yep. My favorite I’ll tell you the newest one, the workout. What I’ve been finding recently, I’ve been hearing from other people is we do real good in the morning, but in the afternoon is when we fall short, we lose the thought process about looking for things to be grateful for.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: I’m really glad that the workout has been in there. Again, I come up with these names and they come through me and I’m like, okay. Yes. So I call them “tude reps, grad reps. And so I say in the book stop and give me three G reps. Three gratitudes throughout the day that you notice. Yeah. And I love that one.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: I really do. I, because it keeps people back in the game. Yeah. With gratitude. And when they write those, then I have the areas, something, you received, something you noticed and action, you might have taken. And the last one, which I love is celebrating yourself. That was one that I realized was really missing for me.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: And I added that one at the last minute. And I’m so glad I. Can you imagine people as you are, and I’m doing it too every day, since January, every day, I missed every day love. And the difference that is made of acknowledging, celebrating yourself and just really noticing, and then ending your day with the cool down writing, just a very short reflection of your day.
Sharri Harmel: I just think this is so cool on so many levels because some of us struggle with weight. What’s going on is that’s not good is in the evening or it’s in the late afternoon when we need that sugar hit or that coffee hit or whatever it might be. Some of us are just struggling to build something or shift something or change something in our lives.
Sharri Harmel: That’s why I think I liked your book so much. It really allowed us to pull back and just go one day at a time and even parts of a day at a time, this might come really easy to you, but it doesn’t to me. And so consequently, sometimes I feel that overwhelm myself because I can see the long game, but I can’t see the short.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s why also I left the date and the book empty mm-hmm so if somebody is going through and then they may be going on vacation or they just, they need a break mm-hmm , then they can come back mm-hmm and then they also have all the, they can look back on, it’s like a journal for that, a short journal of what they’ve done and look back at that.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Yeah. And the other thing that I actually even forget to, and I don’t wanna forget it is in the book. I give an exercise, every single day. And the highlighted top right area. Yeah. I’m making sure that I look at that as well. Yeah. So that you have different exercises to add to that you get to do.
Sharri Harmel: That’s so cool.
Sharri Harmel: And so many of ’em, so often we don’t think of the people who have impacted us in our lives. Throughout our lives. I mean, one of them was one of your questions on the, the grad fit test or not test, but quiz was about sending a note of appreciation to somebody from your elementary school or those school days when we were young.
Sharri Harmel: And somebody touched us in a positive way, whether it was another child or it was an adult that might have touched us in some way. And I thought, how incredibly beautiful is that? What’s a gratitude. Because that’s in your fifth test. And I thought, well, that sounds intriguing. I love the gratitude jar. I was making them for everyone.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: I got my inner Martha Stewart. I just became a gratitude jar baker. So what you can do with that, if you have a jar around your home, mm-hmm , um, you can go to any store, they just have to have it so that your hand can fit through the jar. So you can pull in and out notes. That’s the only thing you have to do any jar that really speaks to you.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: I actually have a jar that I blinged up. I’ve got letters that stick on that say gratitude jar around it. So I did that and I still have one. I have a very extravagant one. It’s really something that I did love. What you do is every day, write down one gratitude on a little piece of paper and then fold it up.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: And a little piece and then put it in your jar. Then day after day, it’ll start building, building. If you’re having a really bad day, start pulling ’em out and read ’em. Wow. You may have to read all of them or just a few of them, whatever it takes. And then you just continue that process over and over again.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Yeah. Get it’s another way to write gratitudes and do just fun and kind of like a little game, a little bit, and it’s clear, or some of ’em are clear that you could see it building, building, building. Kind of an anchoring of seeing, you know, writing it and then putting it in. But I also used to give them as birthday gifts, as anniversary gifts for couples and individuals.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: I gave so many, I made ’em for people as a birthday gift.
Sharri Harmel: Oh, I love that. For starters, I put five or 10 in. Oh, my gosh. I think that’s just what a beauty, you’re right. What a beautiful gift. I’m just thinking about a wedding gift for couples to show each other gratitude. It’s incredible. Was your wife always into this or did you teach her?
Sharon Saraga-Walters: You know, she’s a really spiritual person. She is. Okay. And she actually wrote a book years ago, a small one. It was called the divine. She had spirituality in. But she’ll tell you that. No, I’m the gratitude one and, and I enhanced it in her, so yeah, I took the gratitude piece, but the nice thing is she was extremely open to it.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Yeah, exactly. We taught workshops together in Florida and she was actually quite a lead in that one. Yes. So she, oh my goodness. Very cool. Yeah, she’s a motivational speaker. So anything that speaks to her, she can grab into it and go for it. Right. She’s very involved with that. And I don’t take that for granted at all.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Because it’s really a blessing when somebody that you’re in connection or relationship with that can really embrace these. Partner with on many different levels.
Sharri Harmel: Yeah, it’s great. And sometimes people, you know, and I want those of you that don’t have partners, you know, or supportive partners to recognize that sometimes that supportive person is not necessarily your spouse or your life partner.
Sharri Harmel: But as somebody else, but your point is we need to find those people. We need to find like-minded people in that way. They don’t have to be in the same kind of field. And sometimes even not being in the same field is makes it more interesting.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Oh, absolutely. You know, I really love having girlfriends getting together a few people, having groups in any place, coming together, I really love that, you know, at least one or more.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Even to do this strategized work.
Sharri Harmel: Absolutely. Yeah. Mm-hmm so going forward because I also looked and I think you have a course on online course.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Yeah. It’s with the “28 Day Gratitude Workout” book. Okay. They go to, and, and in the future, down the road, I’m looking at doing a virtual course.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: I want to have it like on Zoom or something, because I want to have interaction. I’m all about interactive and you are too, you know. I’m working on having some kind of course that it would be interacting virtual.
Sharri Harmel: So do you still work with people one to one?
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Not as much. I mean, I could, but I’m noticing I really love the group dynamics. Oh, I really that’s something I’m really noticing that I’m enjoying. Yeah. Yeah. I’m getting a lot more. I was a fitness trainer and then massage therapist, and I love both of those, but those were all one on one. So I noticed that I’m really enjoying the energy and the group dynamics and the impact that a group makes mm-hmm so I’m really enjoying that more.
Sharri Harmel: Yeah. So what do you think though? You know, from a business standpoint, it makes sense to think about, you know, scaling as everyone uses that phrase and working with groups versus one to one, because it’s really hard to have enough hours in the day and have anything left for you. If you just do one to one work.
Sharri Harmel: But talk a little bit about the benefits to us. When we work in a group, let’s say, I’m your client and there’s five other people in the class. Mm-hmm what are the benefits? What happens in groups? That doesn’t happen one to one.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Oh my goodness. Well, just the ideas, the answers, the sharing that come groups that brings it to a whole nother level.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: You’ve just one on one. You just got one person that’s mostly listening, but when you’ve got a group. Yeah, friendships are formed and more lessons and growth are available to us. Yeah. And ideas.
Sharri Harmel: Yeah. I think Sharon, that’s a really good point to have made because often people think one to one is like the premier and because it’s usually the most expensive mm-hmm and they think that’s, I’m gonna get so much more if I do one to one and actually what I’m hearing you say, and I’ve found the same to be true.
Sharri Harmel: So much more happens in group settings. That’s positive. Mm-hmm , that’s really wonderful that you don’t get one to one. So are you the kind of person that plans out. You know, when I’m going to launch, when I’m going to do X, I mean, do you plan out a year, six months? How far, how do you go?
Sharon Saraga-Walters: I’m getting better at that. My wife is a development person, so she is, has helped me a lot more on that one. You know, I would say right now the virtual course, maybe I would say by September, I’ll have that. Okay. And it may be before then. I’m very creative and unique. These ideas have been in me for a long time, even this, the group.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: And, um, it could happen in a week or a month, but it will be 2022. Absolutely. Okay.
Sharri Harmel: And how can people keep up with you?
Sharon Saraga-Walters: One way is my Graticise365.com website. It has all the books on there. We have a global Gratitude Summit that we did back in 2019 and 2020. It has over 30 amazing people that we interviewed all about gratitude. So that is now free to anybody to go to. And it’s amazing.
Sharri Harmel: And that’s tell me the website again,
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Graticise365.com. I also have a Facebook page, Graticise 365, that I give a new exercise every single day.
Sharri Harmel: Wow. That’s fantastic. So there’s lots of ways here to educate ourselves while we wait for you to come up with the. The virtual course, and you might have to do more than one!
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Well, sure. And let me say that if people get the book and they want to start doing a book group, you know, reach out to me on the website and we can see about that!
Sharri Harmel: Okay. That’s fantastic. Wonderful. Wow. This was so great. Oh, so I’m thinking of myself. And I’m not looking at my numbers as negative. I’m gonna make a gratitude jar. I love that. I’m slowly going through the book and sometimes I have to go back and do another day and whatnot. Your idea is really, they seem so simple, but they’re actually change the individual, which changes the group, which changes the family, which changes the community because we don’t just show gratitude within our own homes.
Sharri Harmel: We change everyone we interact with, which is really amazing. Thank you, Sharon. So well, and I wanna say thank you to you and, and I want to share this with others too, because you know this story that when you and I met, I didn’t know.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: The word extraordinary was never in my, my being, my vocabulary, nothing. And I didn’t. I didn’t know to be true, that I never used that for myself being an extraordinary woman. And thanks to you in what you were doing. I became aware of it and now it has become me to be that extraordinary woman. So thank you so much for that.
Sharri Harmel: You are extraordinary.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Every single one of us are, but how many of us really are aware of that. I’m this pretty powerful woman, that wasn’t a word I used. And I’m so grateful that I do have that word now in me.
Sharri Harmel: Oh, I love that. Yeah. It’s fascinating to me though, that here you are extremely successful, as you said, very empowered. And yet when you thought of that word extraordinary, you said no, that can’t be.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: I was reaching out to all my other extraordinary friends. I remember I was telling them, you gotta, you gotta meet her. You gotta do this. And not thinking about inward about me. Because it just wasn’t a word for me, because even I just had a talk with a gentleman who brought up the word charisma.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: That was not a word in my vocabulary either. And he talked about how charisma is sharing your passion, your knowing of something. He used that as charisma. I’m like, oh my gosh, there’s the second word that is now come into my life. So it’s amazing how words work, and thanks to you those are really important.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: How we don’t think about it when the time is right when it’s starting to come to us, it’s really a gift. Good.
Sharri Harmel: Well, and inside that gratitude jar are words. Words that evoke emotions and feelings that we have about ourselves and the world around us. What a beautiful way to merge both of our work.
Sharri Harmel: I think it’s really very, very fun. Thank you for coming today. And I know everyone enjoyed this and down in the show, notes will be all the information as to how to connect with Sharon. If you’re not already connected, get started, make your gratitude jar. I love this. So thank you. Thank you so much.
Sharon Saraga-Walters: Thank you.
Sharri Harmel: Well, that was an amazing conversation. I hope you felt so too. I met Sharon back when she took one of my courses, which was titled “Three Weeks to Dream Readiness.” And honestly, we are both better for that meeting. I’m embracing graticise in my life, which is changing the way I think, and learn.
Sharri Harmel: And I’m learning to really embrace each day, one day at a time. And ladies that has changed my life. And Sharon learned that she is an extraordinary woman and that is a phrase that I want each and every one of you to try on and wear every single day and now is sharing us all kinds of really exciting programs coming out, sometime towards the end of 2022.
Sharri Harmel: So sign up on her website, join her Facebook page and you know, let’s make 2022, the start of our new way of being, make that gratitude jar by Sharon’s book and every day. Share some new realization of yourself, maybe a little accomplishment that you’re proud you did just today.
Sharri Harmel: Now, if you enjoyed this episode, I’d love if you could take a minute to rate our podcast and subscribe, because that matters in the podcast world. We’ve got lots of super interesting conversations coming up. And if you subscribe, you’ll automatically get a notice of each new podcast, which comes out every Monday. I so look forward to our conversation next week. And as you can see, I’m now back in Boston for a couple of months, so I will end today’s podcast with, See You Soon.
TRANSLATE with x English
TRANSLATE with
COPY THE URL BELOW
Back EMBED THE SNIPPET BELOW IN YOUR SITE
Bing Webmaster PortalBack
Did you enjoy this episode?
• Don’t miss an episode, subscribe via iTunes, Google or Spotify.
• Please leave a review in iTunes.
• Be sure to leave your comments below.
