How Feeling Thanks Boosts My Business and Presence
This week is Thanksgiving in America. I love that this country I’ve made home stays one of a few nations around the world devoting an entire holiday to giving thanks. (How lovely. And perhaps more countries can follow suit?) As a mental fitness practitioner and coach, I find that feeling thankful daily helps me feel more confident, calm, and centered, especially with high-stakes situations and presentations and especially when I coach. Here are three ways that gratitude focuses my mind while building more focused, potent, and effective strategy, which helps me also in business.
Pause. Take Stock of What’s Working Well.
Like many foreign-born leaders I coach, my ambitions often override my confidence and presence by putting me on a constant quest to achieve, without much pause at all.
For context: I’m a New Zealander who came to the U.S. in 1996 at age 26 on a one-way ticket, not from New Zealand though. I came here from Tokyo, Japan where I’d worked for almost five years. I had only $10,000 saved over four jobs in my last year in Tokyo and yet San Francisco, a famously pricey city, became my first home for seven of the 27 years I’ve lived here. Ambitions help fuel any success, but with some urgency attached. As one dear Ethiopian entrepreneur and coachee said to me, “We’ve left everyone we love and everything we know behind. We must make it big, or go home.” I felt this way at age 26 when moving here and (now in my fifties and in my latest career reinvent) feel similarly today.
Many ambitions — perhaps too many ambitions — occupy my mind. I want to master coaching (by certifying as an MCC coach). I yearn for more time to reach even greater audiences through my writing, especially those who can’t afford or cannot access a coach. I want to write memoirs. (I’ve three in the hopper currently) and am two thirds through a guide I’m co-writing with a dear friend and colleague on personal branding.
These goals, as I write them here, feel fantastic, viable, and exhilarating — part of my legacy and life’s purpose. And yet without taking stock of what I have achieved and what is working well in my life (personal and professional), I can feel rushed, impatient, and not grounded. The opposite, what I hope and want to feel, is celebratory, peaceful, prideful, and appreciating those who love and uplift me.
In not pausing to feel thankful, I might overlook vital moments, like the sweet way my teenage sons smile at me when I walk into the room and the endless support from my friends and husband. When over-indexing on goals, I forget to marvel that I’ve grown my practice to capacity in a short time and helped bring positive powerful changes in the outlook and lives of many. I forget to appreciate health and just being alive and having work I adore during a choppy economy. Pausing to feel thanks can shift and override all of that.
Notice What Shifts
When I take and make this time, share it with my coaches, and in my journal, I may:
- Feel more centered, calm, and focused on what’s most important and abandon what’s not.
- Discern where to focus my energies and how to edit my boundless ideas. (I often have too many, which can sometimes distract)
- Manage my time better, even moving timelines for goals to feel less rushed and frantic.
- Slow my mind as I work to feel more still. All of which helps me relate and listen better to those I care for, including those I coach.
Ask What’s Working and What’s Beautiful — Perfect?
How to create and maintain those pauses? To invite this peaceful feeling brought on by thanks, I might:
- Ask myself or one of my fine coaches might ask me: “What’s working well, right now, without changing a thing?” And /or: “What do you /I want to celebrate?”
- Ask “what else?” Until nothing more comes.
- List what’s working in a journal or write it all out with colorful pens throughout a page. (The visual effect of what comes to you will feel shocking — in a good way — overriding any self doubt of what’s failed or incomplete.)
- Notice what shifts in your body — ask about it. “How does it feel, just to air that?” Get in nature to get curious and to elongate the feelings.
- Paint and capture the celebratory feelings through abstract botanicals, portraits with liquid watercolors or Japanese brush pens — thinking about the joy from the day, love for my family, and floating in creativity. Art unlocks the gratitude and brings hope and clarity for what’s next.
- Block off the time. I’ve mentioned I block off Wednesday afternoons to reflect and take stock and celebrate any success as part of my self care. I do the same on my weekends and rarely work beyond 7 p.m. on week nights for thankfulness and to connect with those I love.
Connect with My Inner Child
One deeper loving activity comes from celebrating with my inner girl how far we’ve come. I learned this delightful activity through certifying as a mental fitness coach with Positive Intelligence and from my mentor Shirzad Chamine. The activity’s simple — but powerful.
- Find and study a photo of your childhood self — one embodying the essence of you today.
- Pull from this picture qualities you possessed then and still possess today and create an “I am” statement with those words. Repeat this statement often, especially when feeling disappointed or frustrated, even overwhelmed with endless to-do lists and perceived failures.
- Connect with this inner child when you’ve a lot riding on an outcome, like a persuasive presentation, a job interview, a client meeting, or a big decision. Envision that young person beside you and marvel at how far you’ve come since those days. Use kind doting words, like: “Who would have thought!?” “Look at us.” “Didn’t we do awesome?” “How did we get to this crossroad?
The resulting feelings that come from this delightful practice? Purity. Acceptance. Confidence. Courage. Pride. Joy. Fearlessness. In pausing to celebrate how far I’ve come since growing up in New Zealand’s wilderness, I feel grateful for just being here in this moment and less attached to whatever happens next. I switch from empowering someone or something else to define or solidify my self worth or to validate my skills and talents. I feel complete and worthy without it because coming this far feels extraordinary. And with that, I exude presence.
So there you have it, how and why I strive to cultivate thanks throughout my year not only Thanksgiving week. I’m entering Thanksgiving tomorrow in my cool Wisconsin home state. Our birch trees now lose their final leaves in the gentle wind. The temps nudge closer (in Celcius) towards zero. I’m grateful for many, many things. This week’s musings have reminded me of the power of positive thoughts to override fixed and limiting mindsets, especially when tied to our endless yearnings and ambitions. Happy Thanksgiving my friends.
Debbi Gardiner McCullough coaches and trains immigrant leaders to become more confident, concise, and mentally fit communicators. From Wisconsin, she owns and runs Hanging Rock Coaching and coaches worldwide with BetterUp.