PLENTY

Have you ever known anyone that focuses more on what's missing than what they have?  Yeah, me too...

We live in a world that constantly reminds us of what we don't have...More money. More success. More recognition. More followers. More square footage. More everything!!!

Join Dave form some PLENTIFUL conversation about:

• What Does "Plenty" Mean?
• The Human Brain's Favorite Hobby
• The Science of Gratitude
• Five Advantages of Looking for Plenty
• Five Bad Things That Often Lead to Good Things
• Why Some People Never See the Plenty
• Plenty Creates More Plenty
• Five Ways to Enjoy Plenty When It Doesn't Feel Like Enough

There will be hard days. There will be losses. There will be disappointments.

Nobody gets through life without scars.

But there is also laughter, Friendship, Music, Sunrises, Dogs, Children, Second Chances, Road Trips, Inside Jokes, Unexpected Victories, and lessons learned the hard way.

Whether you're celebrating a victory or surviving a setback...Look around...there is still plenty to be happy about.

Giddyup!!!

Email David@Otalks.com or OWD@Otalks.com for comments, questions, or ideas for content on an upcoming O'talkin' with Dave podcast.  Otalks.com

Check out OtalksOfficial on Instagram and TikTok

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to O'Talkin' with Dave. Coming to you from his fortress in Sin City, where what happens in Vegas is talked about everywhere. Put your hands together for the pastor of positivity whose glass is always at least half full. Here's Dave.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Hey, how are we doing out there? I hope you're great. I am top shelf and ready to go. I've been thinking lately, some memories. I've been back to the South, and some memories have come up that I hadn't thought about in years. Years. And one of them was with my dad's mom. We called her Momo O'Connor. That's her formal name. We just called her Momo. She was the only one in the room. But I remember after her husband passed from time to time, it got, this is late 60s, early 70s. It got to the point to where she needed to be put in a nursing home. Now I do air quotes for nursing home because this is rural western Kentucky in the early 70s. And they're not the assisted living convalescent centers that we have today. No, not at all. But I remember we would go to Kentucky regularly as a family, my mom, dad, me, my two sisters. And part of the time when we'd visit my Aunt Evelyn usually was we'd go by and see mama at the nursing home. And she was oh, she was something else. I'll talk a little bit more about her in a minute, but she was just real thin, always was. But she couldn't talk well because of some circumstances with just life. And so she didn't talk a lot. It wasn't your normal back and forth conversation. But also there was always a worry about her weight. When we would get there, they would tell us how much she weighed and or whatever that was either good or bad. And questions around, are you eating? Are you getting enough to eat? And she would always say, plenty. Plenty. And we would bring her outside of the facility and take her to eat or whatever. Did you get enough to eat, Mama? Plenty. That's what she was at. Partly because she didn't talk, couldn't talk a lot, but also that word summed it up. Plenty. We live in a world that constantly reminds us of what we don't have. It's what we don't have. We need more money. We need more success. We need more recognition, more followers. Not that's a bad thing. Oh, in our house, we need more square footage. We need more of everything. Yet the happiest people I've ever met weren't the ones with the most. They were the ones who noticed they already had plenty. Plenty. What does plenty really mean? It comes from a Latin word. I know people hit me up with all this stuff. You say where it comes from, we don't care where it comes from. I just want you to know I'm not making it up. It comes from the Latin word plenitas, which means a fullness, abundance, or completeness. Plenty. A full or more than adequate supply of something. I love that word. Most people use the word when they're referring to possessions or plenty of food, plenty of room. I got plenty of money. You don't hear it that much, do you? I don't hear that word outside of the South. I heard plentiful. Yeah, but plenty. Most important use of the word isn't about possessions at all, though. It's a perspective. I've grown to know it as a perspective. I love plenty of laughter, plenty of memories, plenty of opportunities, plenty of people who love us, plenty of reasons to keep going, and plenty of reasons to not quit. Never quit. You can stop, but don't quit. Even in the darkest moments, there's usually far more right than wrong. And the problem is that the pain is louder than the gratitude. Gratitude a lot of times is quiet and hard to notice, but pain screams for attention and usually gets it. Usually gets it. Our brains are not designed to make us happy. Our brains aren't and our minds surely aren't. They're designed to keep us alive. And we talk about this a lot. Survival. That's what they're taught. Psychologists call it a negativity bias. It's just pure old survival. Where are my enemies? What's a threat? What could possibly go wrong? Oh my goodness, let me make up all this stuff. We talk about that during Worryless, a podcast or two ago. And that single criticism will outweigh all the compliments we get. That's what we focus on. That's the way we're wired. I'm not hacking on anybody. We're wired that way. One bad event will overshadow a hundred good ones. I remember many vacations where we had a great time as a family. I'm talking about me as a bambino now. We get back and oh, did y'all have fun? Oh, it was so much fun, blah, blah, blah. But we ate at this one place. I'm sure their shrimp were frozen or something like that. They talk about the traffic. Oh, the traffic was horrible on the way home. What about the week we spent at Panama City? What about that? What about this golden tan we have? And you're going to talk about traffic on I-65 going through Birmingham? Yeah. It's almost like the brain is a smoke detector. You only hear it when danger or something negative happens. It's beeping at you. It notices the smoke detector does not notice what's going right. It's what's going wrong. Which is useful in the case of a fire, but most of the time, hey, I'm not saying I want my smoke smoke detector to talk to me like Alexa does, and she's probably listening right now, and just pontificate on all things positive. I've almost got her trained to just talk about the positive. Every day I'll say, give me something good. Give me some good news. Very confused electronic AI situation. She does it. The brain is useful. That's how we survive. There's a bear coming at me. I want the brain to notice that and act accordingly. But it's not so useful when you're sitting on a beach worrying about something that happened, hasn't happened yet, and probably won't. So much research done on this. Decades. Studying gratitude, people that are grateful, people the glasses have full, and the results are remarkable. They are. Studies have found that grateful people tend to experience more positive emotions, recover faster from setbacks. That's huge. They recover faster and then maintain stronger social connections, a stronger circle. It's obvious. Who you want to be around, a positive person or a negative person? But people who look for a reason to be thankful usually find them. And by usually always. People who look for reasons to be miserable always find them. Yeah. So what are the advantages? Let's talk about it. Looking for plenty. We've got plenty, but you gotta look for it to find it. I talked about you recover faster. That's one reason to look for plenty. Bad things still happen, but you still don't stay there as long. You visit the problem. You visit the problem without moving in. That's it. You visit it. Okay, yeah, it needs to be addressed. You can't just turn your back to it. It's real, it needs to be addressed. Then you move on. Exactly. You may carry a little of it with you just to remind you, but you move on. Meaning it doesn't stop you dead in your tracks. And you recover faster when you're looking for plenty. You make better decisions. Second reason. Because fear will narrow your thinking, narrow your focus. Gratitude, looking for plenty, expands it. And people who focus on abundance, they see more options instead of dead ends. Here's a way out. I got three different ways I can do this instead of, oh, I'm screwed. What am I gonna do? What is we gonna do? So you make better decisions because you're you're focused, more opportunities. The third thing, you build better relationships, and this cannot be understated. Nobody likes to spend time with a human thunderstorm. We all get dramatic from time to time, and oh, you see these people cluster together. It's like a storm front going around. It's oh, look at that. Hey, you want to in on this? They'll allow more thunder and lightning for sure. Oh, oh yeah, it's horrible. Let's talk about it. Isn't this great how bad it is? But it's exhausting. People naturally gravitate toward those people who appreciate life and appreciate other people, not just for their problems or their drama or their angst. Your relationships are better because they're with higher quality people. Yep. Fourth thing, you notice more opportunities. That grateful gratitude invested mind, it scans for possibilities. What is it? What's a good one? I remember we used to go, we used to go, I was talking to somebody the other day. Used to go, that's a good southern word, by the way. We would go pick blackberries when I was a kid. Yeah, blackberries, wild blackberries, not these tame, big, tame ones, tiny little blackberries, and blackberry, blackberry briars. Say that five times fast. But we would do that in order to go, though. There were some problems. The briars, they were they were sticky. They were stickers, they would cut you up, man. So we would use gloves, which made it a little harder for little hands, I was little at the time, to pick the blackberries. But it kept the stickers from getting you. Also, you're in warm weather and blackberry briars, sweet blackberries. What likes that? Snakes. Birds and lizards love them. Snakes love birds and lizards too. So you had snakes and you had sticky briars. A lot of people just focus on the snakes and the sticky briars, and maybe didn't even go. Or had a horrible time because they were scared the whole time. Let me tell you something. When they were eating, I talk with a southern accent because I've been in the south for two weeks. When they were eating, not eating, when they were eating that blackberry preserves or jelly or that blackberry cobbler, oh, with top and bottom crust, yes, the only way. They loved it. It was great. Whether they picked them or not, I loved it, and it was worth getting my hands stuck a little bit, or the fear of a snake, or the inconvenience. You had to wear long sleeves too, and it was hot. In order to get the best things, you have to put up with a few bad things, but it's worth it. So these positive minds, people looking for plenty, they understand that you keep your mind on the, your eye on the prize instead of all these negative things around. That can be at home, work, play, or picking wild blackberries. So there's more possibilities here. Negative people scan for possibilities. They scan for the negative side. I said that backwards. Negative people scan for danger or bad things. Positive people scan for possibilities. Which one do you think is gonna open more doors for you? Yeah. Also, I think one of the best things about looking for plenty, you enjoy life while you're living it. Most people spend their entire lives waiting for happiness, waiting for something good to happen. When you are looking for it and looking for plenty, you learn to enjoy every chapter instead of waiting for that perfect ending. The perfect ending may come eventually, but that's not till the end. And then if you wait till the end to enjoy it, it's over. Yeah. So it's an all of this looking for plenty is a net positive over and over again. Yeah. It's not all good. No, don't be don't be heading the clouds here. But it's not all bad either. It's both. It is both. Think about it. Youth brings all sorts of energy. Let's go. Let's run. Let's ride our bikes. Let's have a good time. But little wisdom. We didn't know any better. Oh, how many times did I hear that? We just didn't know any better. I think I heard that last week, though. But youth brings all the energy, but hardly any wisdom. Middle age brings wisdom, but then your cartilage is beginning to go a little bit. Yeah. You got the you're learning. You're learning. But right when you, what do they say? Healthy bodies are wasted on the young. And then retirement. I'm not retired. I've never planned to retire. We'll see, but I hear retirement brings freedom, but then it usually requires readers or getting somebody to read the menu to you. If you forget your glasses, just go back home. That's the way I am right now. So every stage gives you something. And every stage takes something. The mistake is comparing what you've lost to what you've gained. And this is, it's probably another one of the things I did that 30 things I would tell 30-year-old me. That's one of them. And when you look at it, we focus on what we've lost instead of what we've gained. And it's net positive almost all the time. Sometimes you just have to look for it. There's plenty there. At home, what do we argue about? We argue about dinner. What are we going to have for dinner? Where are we going to go for dinner? At work, yeah, you got frustrations and accomplishments. And at play, losses and victories. Hey, there's no perfection there. There's not. But when you add it all together, most of us are operating with a net positive. I dare say all of us are, eventually. Now, I know some of you right now are saying, but Dave, you just don't understand. No, I don't. I've lived a charm life and I've had a lot of pain. I've made a lot of bad decisions, but it's still a net positive for me. And some of you may be in a situation, I'm not judging anybody, where it's just hard to find it. Let me tell you something. Not only is it there, it's building. And eventually you'll be to a net positive. But I don't want to get ahead of myself. Yeah. Timing is the key there. A lot of times it prevents us from seeing that moment that gives us plenty. Or that person or that situation. Or that part of the story we didn't hear that turned it from a negative to a positive. There's all types of bad things that have happened in my life. Like the Chinese farmer said, maybe. We'll see. That turned out to be great. Let's think about a few that in most people's lives. Losing a job. Most people will admit the best thing ever happened to me was getting fired from that job. It forced growth that never would have happened otherwise, or an opportunity I never would have pursued. And that could be downsizing, it can be COVID, it could be any number of things that caused a career change. At the time, oh no, that's my identity. Many times, it was the beginning of a new, more plentiful chapter. Failed relationships. We have them all the time. I can see, and I've talked to people where the heartbreak felt unbearable, can't go on. What really happened is the lessons became invaluable and prepared them for the rest of their life and prepared them to appreciate all the different things. Usually it's freedom, control, and resolve, which I know a little about. But a failed relationship. Oh, it's the end. Oh, baby. It's the end of something that needed to end. Rejection. Nobody likes rejection. What are you kidding me? I not only want to be picked, I want to be picked first. Second is first place for losers. But you get rejection. This is going to lead to the opportunity you didn't understand. And it often creates an opportunity you were supposed to have. You weren't supposed to make that team. You weren't supposed to get picked for that job. You weren't supposed to go out with that person. It wasn't rejection. It was holding your place in another line. Failure is another thing. Oh, failure? Are you out of your mind? What good can come from failure? I failed many times. I failed because I didn't have the skill level I needed. Hello. It revealed to me the skills I needed to improve. If I hadn't failed, I wouldn't have improved to this level or to that level and achieved the skills required for that job, for that golf scramble, for that group of friends I wanted to be a part of. Any of that. It takes failure many times in order to win. How about relocation? Oh. And I've moved, what, eight times in my life? Maybe more. First, goodness, the first four years I was married, I moved every six months. Not necessarily across the country. I waited a little bit. Then we started zigzagging across the United States. But this doesn't have to necessarily be geographically, geographical relocation. That's a lot of syllables and two words. You count them, I'm too tired. But moving away from what's comfortable, that often leads us directly toward what is possible. Some people just that they don't understand that. It's getting out of your comfort zone. Negative people, they don't change. They want to stay right there in that sea of negativity. But people that are looking for plenty, it's all around you, but it's also over there too. Plenty of what? Look around. Sometimes it's a mindset relocation you need. And you don't do that usually voluntarily. But some people never see it. Some people just can't. Bless their hearts, hashtag blessed. They just can't see it. And why? Why is that? They don't see abundance. They don't see plenty. Most of the time, because it's what we said earlier, they focus on what's missing instead of what they have. They can't get over it. They just can't get over it. I wanted the G.I. Joe with the Kung Fu grip, but I got Big Jim that just had made a muscle and chopped a board in half. He didn't have any cool clothes. He didn't have any dog tags. He didn't have a five o'clock shadow. No. He looked like, I'm not going to tell you what it looked like. My dad was worried. But I didn't have the GI. I didn't focus on that. No. I focused on Big Jim. I focused on what we had. That my Hot Wheels until dad flushed one of them down the toilet. And that's a long story, but I'm still not over it. However, there are more. There's always more. Don't focus on what's missing. Focus on what you have and what's possible. Another reason why people don't see abundance or plenty is they compare themselves to others constantly. Keeping up with the Joneses. Yeah, but they've got this. Yeah, but they've got that. Isn't my car a piece of crap compared to his car? I'm eating hamburger helper. He's eating steak. I love hamburger helper. But they just don't see it because they're constantly comparing. Here's one that really hurts some people, and I it's a tough one. I may do an O-talk on this. They replay Old Pain. How many O-talks have I done on you've won the war, but you still love to visit the battlefield? And usually you visit those battles you lost. They replay old pain on repeat. It's like my buddy Bill, who had an iPod shuffle and this states us, and he had one song on it. Just that's the only song. It was a cheap trick, too. Oh, bless his heart. Bless his heart. But they replay that. How they were wronged, what they're missing out on, how they were rejected, when they failed. It's constant. No wonder you can't see abundance. No wonder you don't see yourself as having plenty. Or they make a temporary hardship for a permanent reality. It's temporary. But you make it permanent and long term. What is just a weather system coming through? You mistake something temporary for something permanent, and that keeps you down. It creates a fog. You can't see that. No, this will pass shortly and will be better for it. I think one of the best, one of the best analogies of that is just a thunderstorm. Boom, boom. Scared me to death as a kid. But we needed the rain. We needed the rain. And it made everything better. Also, a lot of people will do this, and I get this so much. You're just ignoring reality. Oh, you're always so Pollyanna. Everything's not roses, and I know. Yeah, these people don't see the abundance around them because they feel like gratitude is ignoring their problems. No. Just ruminating over your problems is ignoring your problem because you're not addressing it. A problem talked about is still a problem. A problem acted upon is headed toward resolution, which makes you feel better. And then once it's resolved, you're grateful. See what we did there? Gratitude is not ignoring your problems. It doesn't deny reality. It simply refuses to let reality be defined by one bad chapter. Don't not go on vacation because of the traffic in Birmingham. It's just part of it. So there are ways to notice. How do we notice abundance? How do we notice when things are plentiful? Ask a better question. Instead of why is this happening to me? Why me? Oh, why does it always have to happen to me? It's like, all right, that's a setback, but what's going right? This isn't going well, but hey, I've got all this other that is. What's going right? What's going wrong? Okay, that's quick. What's going right? Wow. We said it earlier. Nine things can go right, one thing goes wrong. What do we think about that one thing? So look at what's going right. And look at what's look at what remains. You may have lost something important, but there's something still there. Start with that. Start with that. Yeah, yeah, you lost something. But you didn't lose everything. Count what you've got, not what you lost. There's some great Mike Max got some great lyrics in his songs about that. And it's the positive and the negative side of it. But look what's still in the basket. The thing is, sometimes it's something small. So you've got to celebrate small wins too. Small victories can build into momentum and large victories. Yeah, if you small victories, if you don't look at them, you get stagnant and you quit. And you don't get to those big victories that were just around the corner. So celebrate the small ones. There's still wins, they still count. And one thing too, compare backward. Occasionally, I talk about don't compare, but occasionally compare yourself to where you used to be. Where you used to be. And then sometimes it's even cool to look at where someone else appears to be. Now I'm not talking out of both sides of my mouth. I'm just saying occasionally, look, hey, I'm not where I want to be, but I'm further along than I was because I used to be there. And a lot of my friends are still there. It's pep talk. You need to be able to do that. Don't do it all the time. Don't depend on it all the time. But sometimes it's cool to take inventory. And to do that, you have to look for evidence every day. The three things. Three things that went right. Three things I accomplished. Three things I overcame. It's what me and my daughter have done for years. We email each other every Friday. Three things you're excited about, three things that have gone right this week. Positive. It's a scroll of things. And you'll discover usually when you try to, when you go to those three, you have to narrow it down to three. Because you're looking for them now. That's the beautiful thing about human nature instead of the negative side. Plenty creates more. Plenty creates plenty. It does. That mentality, it perpetuates itself. People who expect abundance, they notice more opportunities. They build stronger relationships. They take more constructive action. I can do this. I can overcome this. This is like then. And I overcame that. I can overcome this. It inspires confidence in other people. People love to hang around people who have a grateful heart or a can-do attitude. And it creates that in them. It pulls it out and builds a stronger atmosphere, stronger circle. And it creates momentum. It's real. We're not just playing mind games. Of course, the opposite is true. That scarcity, instead of plenty, that's scarce, it creates more scarcity. Grateful mindset creates more gratitude. And then you tend to find what you're looking for. So how do we do it? How do we find plenty when it doesn't feel like we have enough? Great question. First of all, stop moving the finish line. Many people they get they hit their goal only to immediately create a new one. Okay, that's fine. But celebrate it. Celebrate that win. Don't just extend the race. No, it's a new race now. Take time. Celebrate that win. Then start again. Because if you go right past it, you didn't get that lift. You haven't had plenty. You just want more. So you gotta enjoy. Don't move the goalpost here. Hit it and then go again. But also enjoy the game. So many times. I like to practice. At times it got to be pretty rough. But the reason you practice hard is so you can enjoy the game. Enjoy the journey. The farming quote, not every season is the harvest. You gotta do a lot of work just to prepare the soil before the first seed is planted. Then you got to plant, and then you gotta weed and maintain. You gotta respect all of that and then enjoy the harvest. But you can enjoy all of it with a plentiful mindset. I think, I don't, not in a bad way, but I think in a good way, and we need to focus on experiences. Memories often outlast possessions. I've got a room full of junk. Also, last year I think I took 42 trips just to donate stuff. But I have the memories. And the memories, I'll never lose the memories. That's why we keep pictures, isn't it? So focus on experiences. Experiences are stories that we recall and apply. It's so important to remember the good times and remember the lessons. Don't just remember the bad stuff. And then, hey, I was taught this at an early age. Share what you have. Share what you have. It can be words, it can be encouragement, it could be food, it could be money, it could be time, which is probably the best thing. Share what you have because generosity magnifies appreciation and gratitude. It does. And then remember the alternative. Many things we take for granted were once things we prayed for. Oh God, if you'll just give me this. Oh. That's all I want. That's all I need. I'll do all these things for you. If you'll just give me this. Don't forget that. That's a big one. So there are gonna be hard days. Oh, don't we know it? There are gonna be a lot of losses. Oh, still gotta pause the record. There are gonna be disappointments for sure. Nobody gets through life without getting banged up a little bit and having scars. But at the same time, during that, there's laughter, there are friendships, there's music, uh, there are sunrises and sunsets. There are dogs. Dogs that just pets, animals, whatever, but my dogs, they brought so much joy. Children, there's nothing more important to me than my two kids. Nothing more important. Second chances. Second chances are a positive. Whether you give them or you receive them. I love road trips. A fun travel companion, uh, just laugh and cut up. I used to hate it. How many more cities? How many more miles? Oh no. I love a good road trip. Whether it's with a significant other or my bandmates or whoever. You know what I like to? And I should have put this on the unobviously funny podcast, but it's inside jokes. I'm not talking about anybody behind their back. I'm just talking about those little inside jokes you have with people, and you can just think about it and laugh. Or that look when something happens. That's great. Then you have unexpected victories. Unexpected victories, like, man, I hit every green light. I'm hungry. Wait, there's an in and out right there. Those are victories. It doesn't have to be the World Cup. Even there's joy in lessons learned the hard way. Because you got through it and you're still here, and you take that lesson with you. Another one, and I've experienced this a lot in the last year and a half. People who love us more than we realized. That is joy. And the truth is that most of us are surrounded by far more blessings than burdens. We focus on the burdens. Yeah, not because it you don't get out of here without burdens. That burden will let you know how much you really have, how much gas you got in the tank, how much spark you got. Either way, life is full. And fullness is the very definition of plenty. So wherever you are today, homework or play, maybe all three today, whether you're celebrating a victory or you're just surviving a setback, look around. Take your time, look carefully. There's plenty to be grateful for. Plenty to learn. Plenty to enjoy. Plenty to love. Plenty to hope for. And most importantly, there's plenty to be happy about. I hope this is a message that you didn't need to hear, but you wanted to hear and enjoyed. There is never hopelessness. There's always plenty. You just have to look for it and want to see it. I hope this helps. Hit me up, david at otalks.com or davidotalks.com. Let me know what you think. Take the other side. Hey, I'd love to talk to you. I really would. I appreciate you so much. Thanks for hanging out. Thanks for hanging on. But most of all, thanks for O talking with Dave. Giddy up.