Episode 87: Flourishing Friday: Gratitude Revealed With Louie Schwartzberg

The origins of Gratitude Revealed

As the child of Holocaust survivors, Louie grew up constantly reminded of the need to appreciate the little things in life: food on the table, a roof over your head, having a stable job, and the miracle of having children. As a young adult was called to tell stories about how people overcome adversity, even while experiencing joy in their lives.

With a passion for social justice and after studies at UCLA, he quickly fell in love with photography and the ability of film to capture people’s emotions. He now sees his work as a part of a greater movement to change the world through beauty and positive emotions that arise through experiencing nature.

Gratitude shifts our relationship to “mundane” things

Emiliya and Louie talk about his new film Gratitude Revealed (coming Sept. 16, 2022)  and Gratitude HD, a short film that’s not only a positive intervention in and of itself, it’s a part of the CAPP curriculum. When Louie shared Gratitude HD at his TEDEx talk in 2011, he wasn’t expecting it to go viral on YouTube. Louie and Emiliya talk about how the film has appealed to young people and the growing movement to counter the negativity of the news cycle with the positivity of the beauty of nature.

We protect what we love

Even though Louie’s films evoke positive emotion, helping people revel in beauty, he hasn’t studied much about positive psychology. The gratitude felt in the beauty of nature and the miracle of life function as nature’s natural protection mechanism, because we protect what we love.

Emiliya sheds light on the neural mechanisms behind Louie’s work. It isn’t enough to have good things happen, we need to attend to them through savoring to get the full benefit. Gratitude creates a natural feedback loop between feeling being the recipient of goodness and doing good for others.

Louie’s Bio & Links:

Louie’s Bio: Louie Schwartzberg is an award-winning cinematographer, director and producer whose notable career spans more than four decades providing breathtaking imagery using his time-lapse, and cinematography techniques to tell inspiring stories that celebrate life. Louie’s theatrical releases include Fantastic Fungi, narrated by Brie Larson, the 3DIMAX film Mysteries of the Unseen World with National Geographic, narrated by Forest Whitaker; the theatrical feature, Wings of Life for Disney Nature, narrated by Meryl Streep, America’s Heart and Soul for Walt Disney Studios. His Soarin’ Around the World ride film is one of the most popular attractions at Disney Theme Parks worldwide. Louie‘s three TED talks have over 65 million combined views. He is the only artist to be inducted into the Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Foundation’s Invention Ambassadors Program. In 2017 he received the Debra Simon award for Leadership in Mental Wellness from Global Wellness Summit. He was Oprah Winfrey’s guest on Super Soul Sunday, and his Gratitude Revealed programs premiered on the OWN online platform. Louie received the 2020 Grand Visionary Award from the American Visionary Art Museum, in addition to many Clio awards and Emmy nominations.

Gratitude HD & TEDEx SF – Louie’s short film that doubles as a positive intervention (and is a part of The Flourishing Center’s CAPP Curriculum). https://youtu.be/gXDMoiEkyuQ

Louie’s website Moving Art: https://movingart.com/

Gratitude Revealed Website: https://gratituderevealed.com/

Sponsored by CAPP

This episode is sponsored by the Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology (CAPP) Program. Celebrating it’s 10 year anniversary, with over 1700 practitioners in 55 countries, CAPP is the world’s premier practitioner training in positive psychology. Discover more about CAPP at https://theflourishingcenter.com/capp