365 Days of Thank Yous - Review

I read this book by John Kralik after being really intrigued by Lori's blog post about a review she read of it. I included her project to write 365 thank yous in 2011 in a blog post I did on January 2nd on new years projects I found compelling. My first step toward deciding if this was a project for me was to download the book to my kindle. It is a fairly quick and easy read. The author tells his story well, and is not afraid to be open and honest about his demons and troubles. I am going to give away some of the secrets in the book but don't think this means you shouldn't read it - the real value of the story is seeing the transformation the author goes through during the process of writing his letters and finding his gratitude. It's both profound and inspiring!

Here is a little about the mechanics of 365 Thank Yous:

- Mr. Kralik wrote rough drafts of all his thank you notes. He didn't have a lot of experience writing thank yous and wanted to get them right. I found this an interesting practice, as I usually just jot them down.
- While he found many people to thank in his business (he owned his own law firm) and personal life, eventually he sort of had to create reasons to write thank yous. For example, he joined team in training through which he raised money for leukemia research. I'm not judging him - I think it was a great idea, and one that benefited him personally as well.
- He didn't write a thank you every single day, and actually didn't start until Jan 3rd. Sometimes he would write in batches for the week, sometimes he would maintain the daily practice for months at a time. For those of us who are slow to get to our new years' projects, this sort of flexibility is heartening, as is the fact that
- It took him 15 months to complete. 365 thank yous do not necessarily have to fall into a one-year window.