Hey,
It's Doug and today's meditation comes in the form of a story.
I still want you to close your eyes though,
I still want you to get into a comfortable seat.
Get settled,
Get comfortable,
Get ready to receive.
This story is designed not just to make you feel good,
But to fire up your gratitude circuits of your brain.
If you'd like to learn more about how and why that's important,
Check out my course,
The Science of Gratitude.
After hearing this story just once in full,
You'll be able to recreate this gratitude feeling and excite your gratitude neurons just by contemplating it for one minute.
That's right,
That's all you need.
You do have to listen to it in full first and it's a good story,
So listen up.
From your comfortable seat,
I want you to enter the world and story of Nicholas Winton.
Nicholas Winton was 29 years old when his friend failed to show up for his annual skiing holiday.
His friend in question,
Martin Blake,
Urged him to come to Prague to see just how bad things had got.
This was 1939 and the Nazis had just taken over part of Czechoslovakia,
Forcing thousands of Jewish families to flee further west.
They had left everything they knew behind them and set up refugee camps in Prague.
Families were broken up,
Destitute and feared that the Nazis would soon be coming after them.
Winton was appalled to see the state they were in and after meeting his old friend Blake,
He realised that almost nothing had been done to protect the children who were caught up in the situation.
Winton had to do something.
So he dropped everything,
Including his job,
And headed back to the British government.
Now the British government had already relaxed immigration laws,
Allowing Austrian and German children to enter Britain to protect them,
But there was no such deal for children from Czechoslovakia.
Winton had returned to change exactly this.
He approached the British Home Office but was told that any applications needed to come from the Czech consulate itself.
He then approached the Czech consulate,
But they were wary not to push the government too hard.
Determined as ever,
He stole a notepad from the Czech consulate.
It had the official emblem on the letterhead.
He then convinced a printing company to stamp the notepad to reflect that he was the head of the children's section,
A made-up job and a made-up title,
But it looked official.
Taking his new forged notepad to the British Home Office,
He pleaded his case.
They agreed to accept children from Czechoslovakia on the immigration deal known as Kindertransport.
The condition was that each child needed to have a foster family ready,
£50 cash and transport needed to be paid for.
Winton was very organised,
Keeping a ledger and photos of all the children and their foster families.
He raised the funds and managed to get the first trainload of children out of Prague the very day the Germans invaded.
He managed to get another seven trains out before the Nazis put a stop to them.
In total,
Winton saved 667 children's lives,
And that's where the story stops,
For a while.
You see,
Winton didn't want praise,
He also didn't want the confidential identities of the children known,
So he put his ledger away in a loft and never took it down again.
The children grew up never knowing who was behind their rescue,
And Winton never knew what became of them.
Fast forward to 1988,
And Winton's wife attempts to clean the loft and get rid of any excess.
She stumbles across a ledger,
And in doing so uncovers a life of her husband she never knew about.
But now she keeps a secret of her own,
She informs the press of all he did.
They in turn invite him to a film studio to discuss his remarkable story.
The TV host reports on the story live,
And then shows a photo of Winton carrying a child in 1939.
It's a beautiful photo,
I urge you to go see it.
She then informs the audience that the woman in that photo is seated amongst them.
The camera pans to her.
The host now informs her that Winton is sat beside her.
Winton and her are visibly shocked.
She begins to cry,
And so does he.
They embrace with 40 years worth of gratitude.
The host then asks for anyone else in the audience to stand if they were a child that Winton saved.
The entire rest of the studio audience stands up.
A bewildered and clearly overwhelmed Winton is still sitting.
He turns to his left,
Then his right,
And then all the way around.
Everyone around him is applauding and crying,
Reaching out to touch him just to say thanks for everything he did.
He breaks down with emotion and embraces them.
He received several awards and even a knighthood for his actions,
But none of these garnered the same emotion as when the children,
All grown up,
Were saying thank you.
Man,
That story gets me every time.
I cried when I read it,
When I watched the video,
When I wrote the script,
And when I deliver it.
We are never as alive as when we feel connected to others.
Remember that.
So I want you to take this story with you and remember the power of doing good things and remember the power of saying thank you to those who deserve it.
When you're ready,
I want you to go out into your day and know that there are other Wintons out there and I want you to remember that you could be one of them.
Now in listening to this story,
Your gratitude circuits of your brain are fired up.
If you want to enter this state of gratitude again,
All you need to do is think about this story for a minute or so.
That's the power of gratitude.
The really beautiful thing is that while you listen to this story,
While I tell it,
Our hearts and breathing are synchronized.
Isn't that incredible?
So my last bit of advice is go out and earn some gratitude.
Go out and give some gratitude whenever you possibly can.
Namaste.
