THANKS IS GIVING (MY TAKE ON GRATITUDE)

Gratitude gets talked about a lot this time of year—almost too much. It becomes a seasonal buzzword, a polite reflex, a nicety; it’s even a ritual sometimes expressed around the Thanksgiving table before the meal. While I love family traditions like this, and any form of sincere gratitude is good, I like to experience gratitude in a more expanded way—-personally, professionally, and especially within Life Architecture.

To me, gratitude is most meaningful when it’s active. It’s not the sentiment; it’s what you do with it. It’s the action and conviction to put it to work because gratitude’s-walk-the-walk changes things—teams, relationships, creativity, even biology.

GRATITUDE’S SIBLING

When gratitude moves, it transforms into something larger. I believe it’s generosity of spirit. I like to think of gratitude as the acknowledgment or affirmation of something shared or given–and generosity as the extension of it, gratitude’s counterpart. It’s the moment when being truly appreciative becomes shareable, actionable, alive.

This movement creates its own kind of circulation, the way light and air travel through a home. The way trust is built between people because of shared experiences, information or an important gesture. Gratitude coupled with confidence and the generosity of spirit to share, is one of life’s greatest energies. It’s a fullness I’m stretched to describe, but I can tell you it gives me pleasure beyond belief to share the gifts that have been given to me. Whether they be physical, ephemeral, intellectual, or emotional, like love.

To me, gratitude is not simply a feeling. It’s a force.

THE PASS-IT-ON PRINCIPLE

What Matters Most

I have a simple rule in life about putting gratitude to work—when someone gives you something, anything—a gift, an important lesson, an idea, even a favor –pass it on and give credit where credit is due.

This extends to design and business too. I always say: I don’t care who’s idea it is as long as it’s the best idea. I believe that whoever shares a winning idea should enjoy the credit or the compliment for it. In creative work, shared credit becomes shared fuel. The act of expanding energy is exactly what makes more of it.

I expand, they expand, the design expands and the outcome, including business, is better for it. It’s a win-win.

In the creation of NB 2.0, some of the most meaningful breakthroughs were born from the people around me — and I love that. One woman on my team introduced a color palette that shifted our entire direction. It was bold and brilliant, and she was absolutely right to propose it. I give her credit for this seismic shift every time the topic comes up.

She also named our digital magazine, The Living Edit — a stroke of clarity that captured exactly who we are and where we’re heading. Her ideas were the best. They deserved to be celebrated, attributed and they will always be part of our company story.

My same philosophy of pass-it-on is also true at home. Every recipe I prepare during the holidays carries a name, a person, a memory. When I serve it, it’s become second nature to share that story. That’s how physical and ephemeral things that we are grateful for stay alive — not by holding them, but by offering them.

When we covet information — even small things — its life-span shrinks. When we pass things on or pay it forward, its arc of life expands. To me, that is the truest expression of gratitude: the grace to understand a sense of responsibility for having received something valuable, and then the capacity, the generosity, to pass it along to expand someone else’s life.

THE G FORCE

Gratitude and Generosity

What the brain knows and we instinctively feel about gratitude is something neuroscience has known for some time: Gratitude and generosity strengthen us from the inside out.

Studies from UCLA, UC Berkeley, and the Greater Good Science Center show that expressing gratitude activates neural pathways that help regulate stress, supporting and calming the prefrontal cortex—our internal alarm system—and increases both resilience and pro-social behavior.

In simple terms: gratitude steadies us. It grounds the mind, softens reactivity, and restores clarity. And when we extend that gratitude outward—when it becomes generosity of spirit—the effect amplifies. Connection deepens. Trust grows. Meaning expands.

It’s architecture at the biological level: an internal foundation made stronger every time gratitude moves.

THANKSGIVING

Gratitude reminds us that we don’t move through life alone—that everything we know, savor, create, or become is linked to someone who handed us something along the way: a thought, a tradition, a recipe, an insight, a moment of kindness, and yes, even a special gift.

This is my philosophy at the heart of this season: gratitude reaches its fullest expression only when we extend it. When we share what was once shared with us. When we acknowledge the person behind the idea. When we allow something we’ve received to take on a second life in someone else’s hands. Gratitude is active. It’s generous. It’s architectural in the way it shapes us.

So this Thanksgiving, instead of asking the familiar question, What are you grateful for? I offer a more powerful one: How are you passing it on? What story will you keep alive? What idea will you give away freely? Who will you credit for the spark they gave you? What tradition will you carry one step further? And, what can you do for others to lift them?

Because gratitude is the beginning. But giving is the next chapter.

From my home to yours—wishing you warmth, connection and a delicious feast this Thanksgiving. May your holiday be filled with beautiful things that deserve to be shared.