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What are you grateful for?  As a life coach, I ask myself and my clients this all the time … not just at Thanksgiving.

And, so often, it’s the people in our lives, good health, and material abundance that we tend to focus on.  That’s all good. 

And yet, there are the miracles of life we tend to take for granted … like the beating of our hearts, which will do their thing some 100,000 times today … the magical thing that is high fidelity recorded music … the seed that waits years before flowering in the desert  … the miracle of the sun rising yet another day as the earth rockets through space at 36,000 miles an hour.

May I offer you this Taoist prayer, which connects us with the essential … the miraculous … the possible.  I think you’ll enjoy it.

A good coach is trained to ask questions … not necessarily to impart their own “wisdom.”  So, here goes.   I want to ask you two questions with my business coach hat on.

In pondering the answers to these questions myself, it’s opened up HUGE things for me … things I haven’t seen before …  new possibilities for my future.  That’s why I’m presenting them to you here.

And, trust me, this isn’t just another visioning exercise.  I’ve done a ton of visioning in 20 years of coaching.  This is different.

It may be obvious, but the quality of your life depends on the state of mind and body you spend most of your time in.  The more time you spend in positive states, the better life is.

Lord knows it’s easy to slip into a state of irritation or disillusionment … anger or overwhelm.  There are plenty of negative emotions to grab ahold of.  And when you’re in an emotional funk, are you really enjoying life?

Here’s a scenario I see all too often as a business coach …

The “service professional” … whether that’s a coach, consultant, or wellness practitioner … does a complimentary consultation with a prospective client.  They’re excited.  They feel as if the session went really well and the prospect got solid value.

I ask them where things stand and I hear these fateful words …

They say you’re either part of the problem or you’re part of the solution. 

Not always true, of course, but it does offer us a lens through which to evaluate our thinking and behavior around any number of issues.  Are we helping or hurting?

Do we choose to complain or even make things worse … or do we open our hearts and think and act constructively … with compassion?

As a business coach who focuses primarily on marketing, I help service providers create a positive impression of themselves and what they can provide for folks as they reach out to people in their target markets. 

But it’s important to understand that when you “reach out and touch” folks in your target market, those touches can be superficial and fleeting or they can be more profoundly affecting and enduring. 

There are lots of ways to create a positive impression, but only some create a lasting impression.  Others create a flash in the pan that vanishes like a wispy cloud on a windy day … like a social media post or an email blast.

Nothing wrong with those.  They just don’t typically resonate beyond the moment.  Why is that important? 

Well, first of all, there’s the depth of the connection.  But there’s more.  What if you get the chance to introduce yourself to folks in your target market and they either don’t need you at the moment or they aren’t quite ready to move forward at that time for whatever reason? 

If the impression you create isn’t strong and lasting, they aren’t gonna remember you when they do need you and are ready.

So, guess which encounters create more deeply affecting, longer lasting impressions? 

Turns out our new puppy is something of a life coach.

Now, he’s not a talkin’ dog, so all the coaching he does is by example.

Four things impress me about the way he approaches life.

There it is again.  That word.  It makes my skin crawl.  As both a business coach and just as a regular person, I literally flinch when I hear it.

What’s more, it speaks volumes about the mindset of the person speaking it.

I do my best to take on the same practices I recommend to my life coaching clients.  Do as I do seems to resonate with folks more than Do as I say.  Go figure.

One of those practices is a morning “meditation” of some sort where I might write my gratitude list or read something inspirational or uplifting.

Recently I was reading passages from a book … Recipes for a Sacred Life by Rivvy Neshama.

She relates a story told to her by her friend, Julia Dean.  It made me cry when I read it and it still grips me days later.

This is a tale of two providers.  One got the business.  The other didn’t.  And you won’t need a business coach to tell you why.

We went away for 10 days at the end of June and had to board our new puppy overnight, as the timeshare property we go to doesn’t allow dogs.

As new “parents,” we were understandably concerned about his having to be away from us for the first time and how he’d fare.  So, I had a lot of questions for the potential service providers.

After much research, I contacted four businesses.  Two never returned my calls.  Hmmm.  Makes ya wonder what’s goin’ on there.

With the two I reached, the experiences on the phone couldn’t have been more different.