Mike Chuter and Kim McDonnell on Thankful.org, gratitude and the social enterprise model Introduction
Being grateful, what a great thing to do. It’s cheap. It’s powerful. It’s good for you. The science is very clear. It’s good for you. And the science is even clear that it’s good for those who are expressing gratitude for. So what a wonderful thing to find an organization that, well, I wouldn’t want to say commercializing, although it has, and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as commercialism brings some good and this brings a whole lot of good.
It’s called thankful.org. There are, it’s an amazing initiative that is covering a wide range of topics and having us focus in a very positive and grateful way to be thankful for so much.
My guests today are the co-founders of Thankful.org Mike Chuter and Kim McDonnell. And they have really expanded this whole area of what we have to be thankful for. And let’s face it, there are a lot we do.
The three main movements that we’re discussing today are thankful for women, which was the beginning of their journey, and has grown into thankful for farmers, which is something that I feel very passionate about myself and thankful for being together, thankful for togetherness. So there’s a lot in this. It’s a very interesting and worthwhile initiative. I hope you enjoy this conversation I had with Mike Chuter and Kim McDonnell.
Podcast Transcript
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:00:07] Hello and welcome to Unstress. My name is Dr. Ron Ehrlich, and before I start, I would like to pay my respects to the traditional custodians of the land on which I am recording this podcast. The Gadigal People of the Eora Nation and pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging.
Being grateful, what a great thing to do. It’s cheap. It’s powerful. It’s good for you. The science is very clear. It’s good for you. And the science is even clear that it’s good for those who are expressing gratitude for. So what a wonderful thing to find an organization that, well, I wouldn’t want to say commercializing, although it has, and there’s nothing wrong with that as long as commercialism brings some good and this brings a whole lot of good.
It’s called thankful.org. There are, it’s an amazing initiative that is covering a wide range of topics and having us focus in a very positive and grateful way to be thankful for so much. My guests today are the co-founders of Thankful.org Mike Chuter and Kim McDonnell. And they have really expanded this whole area of what we have to be thankful for. And let’s face it, there are a lot we do.
The three main movements that we’re discussing today are thankful for women, which was the beginning of their journey, and has grown into thankful for farmers, which is something that I feel very passionate about myself and thankful for being together, thankful for togetherness. So there’s a lot in this. It’s a very interesting and worthwhile initiative. I hope you enjoy this conversation I had with Mike Chuter and Kim McDonnell. Welcome to the show, Mike and Kim.
Kim McDonnell [00:02:01] Thank you so much for having us today.
Mike Chuter [00:02:02] Absolutely. Thank you.
Mike Chuter [00:02:04] We appreciate it.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:02:05] Guys, we know gratitude is a very positive thing. We all love being shown gratitude, but you guys have taken it to another level. Tell us about this thankful movement.
Kim McDonnell [00:02:20] So we do know gratitude is a very powerful thing, and we, a few years ago now, said about wanting to create the world’s first global lifestyle brand that is supported by scientific research, and that research is all around the research of gratitude. But we wanted to take it one step further. And as well as reminding and encouraging as many people across the globe as possible to stop and pause and think about the wonderful things we do have in our lives, rather than the constant focus on the negativity and what we don’t have.
We actually wanted to set and create a social enterprise model to enable us all and enable thankful as a brand to create as many thankful moments for those in need across the globe. So we had to put our thinking caps on and figure out how do we create a sustainable business model that absolutely has to be innovative in the social enterprise space to really demonstrate that doing good is good for business as well.
So we after a lot of thinking and a lot of brainstorming, we did cracked the code of what we thought was the most appropriate business model that maintain the integrity of everything that we wanted to do. And that is a social enterprise model whereby we set about in order to achieve that model, we firstly had to globally trademark the word thankful across a number of different categories.
So everything from online digital publishing and clothing to homewares, giftware, fashion, and alcoholic drinks, perfume, and cosmetics, baby products, pet care products, glowers, etc., so that we could then work with global brands to current product and create product.
And when consumers purchase those products, not only when they see the word thankful on them, but they’d be reminded to stop and think about all that is good in life, which in itself is a mental health and wellness intervention. But they know that by purchasing a thankful co-branded product, they actually helping to create thankful moments for people across the globe.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:04:31] And what are some of the criteria that somebody can use that as a brand? I mean, it’s a wonderful idea, and I can see the appeal of it, obviously, because it’s shortcuts our desire to be thankful. And here we are being thankful for I specifically. But what criteria do you use to allow people to be included in that?
Kim McDonnell [00:04:55] Obviously, we sit down with a brand in an organization and truly try to understand what their purpose is as an organization. And if they haven’t yet been able to develop or I could articulate that purpose, then we work with them to do that.
And if, as an example, an organization came to us and said their purpose is committed to gender equality or eliminating violence against women, then that would fall within I thankful for women initiative and campaign. But when we’re working with these organizations, firstly, we need to understand what their purpose is as an organization and their level of commitment to it is.
But then we try to help them do things differently and do things better. So it’s not just like washing. We’re not interested in work washing and slapping a logo on and ticking a box. It’s really making sure that it’s a authentic and meaningful commitment from that organization to demonstrate their commitment to a particular purpose.
And we will look at their supply chain and integrity. And we fully recognize and after having lots of conversations about this with the United Nations around criteria and how do you make sure you are maintaining the integrity of what we’re all about when we engage the parties, we recognize that.
Very few brands, if any, brands in the world, none of us are perfect, and if we look far enough back in anybody’s supply chain or history or brand and organization, we’re going to say something that we probably would rather not say.
So it’s about that organization’s commitment to wanting to do things better and wanting to do things differently. We’re not asking that organization to be perfect, but we are asking that organization to really authentically demonstrate their commitment to wanting to be better in the future.
Mike Chuter [00:06:44] What we trying to do is we push for a three-year agreement that we can then roll on for a further three years. So it’s a longer-term commitment to a partnership rather than a short term and it kind of moves away from it being a, I guess, a seasonal marketing exercise that could be three or six month period to actually something that is integral to everything that they’re doing as a business and they’re focused on it longer term.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:07:11] How long has the organization been going for? When did this start? How did it start? I mean, you guys, your background.
Kim McDonnell [00:07:20] Yes, our background is both in marketing and communications and agencies. And it was conceptualized here in Australia in 2013. And it was an idea that I was playing around in my mind for a very long time, and Mike ultimately and eventually said, we’ll stop talking about it, let’s do something about it.
So wanting to take all of those skills that we had acquired throughout our career in advertising and marketing and communications and applying them to do good in the world. So rather than try and sell somebody something that maybe they didn’t necessarily need, how can we use that, those skills to make the world a little bit better and a little bit more thankful.
And back in 2013, the World Health Organization had declared that one in four people at some point in their life would suffer some form of mental health and wellness challenge. So we knew that Thankful can play a huge role in that mental health and wellness conversation.
In 2021, as a consequence of covid, we are all being impacted in some way, shape, or form with a mental health and wellness challenge. So thankful is even more relevant in the world. It’s even more relevant that we teach our children this concept of thankful.
Particularly when they turn on the news and they hear the news, they hear the division that’s in the world right now. And the violence is a consequence of that. So we need to help remind them that there is still more good than bad. And if we focus on what we have and we focus on the little things, all those little things add up to a lot of good things. [8.8s] So it’s more relevant and more important than ever.
Mike Chuter [00:09:05] So 2013 was when it was conceptualized. And then between 2014 and 16, we were selling our advertising business. And two days after finishing with the advertising business, we got on a plane with the family and took thankful to New York, which is where we kind of officially launched it there.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:09:26] Right. And the first initiative. How do you get started on something like this? How do you choose what to be thankful for first?
Thankful for Women
Kim McDonnell [00:09:36] And that is a very good question, and it was a very challenging decision. But if you go back to sort of 2016, 2017, the whole me too movement was just starting to come to life and just starting to be born. And we were starting to hear stories of systemic gender violence and gender discrimination across a whole variety of different industries. And women across the globe was suddenly finding their voices.
So the first initiative that we launched was thankful for women to support gender equality and eliminate violence against women. And we launched that in the US. We did a lot of work with a variety of different women’s groups and organizations and working with minority groups, minority women throughout America.
In New York, we hosted an event, multiple events actually, with women who’d been victims of domestic violence. Down in Florida, we worked with elderly women to bust the beauty myth and that women of all ages are beautiful and worthy and have a life worth celebrating.
We then in Boston worked with women who were chronically ill to remind them that the illness does not define who they are, nor is it how they’ll be remembered.
We met with teenage girls in San Francisco and encouraging them to use their voices. And then we worked with teenage girls in New York, minority teenagers across New York, including a very large group of transgender girls, to again remind them that they are worthy of celebration. And regardless of what they have achieved or what they haven’t yet achieved, they are worthy. And life is certainly worth living.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:11:31] Well, it’s certainly an issue that we’re dealing with and the front page of all of our newspapers in recent months in Australia for sure, it’s kind of, it brings up so much, doesn’t it? Because so many of these experiences that people and it needs to be said that this kind of abuse is not just women, although often perpetrated towards women.
Men are also apparently you know, that’s the subject of that as well. But it brings up issues that people have suppressed for self-preservation purposes. And once you’ve unlocked the key, you know, the support that goes with it. Are you working with organizations to provide those kinds of support?
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:12:17] For those.
Kim McDonnell [00:12:18] Absolutely. So in the US, where we launch Thankful for women, we worked with a number of different organizations, we worked a lot with some shelters who provided refuge to women who had been victims of violence. And some of the stories that we were told were distressing and harrowing, and horrible. And we also worked with and did a really wonderful initiative with a music studio with a group of musicians in New York as well, because these women, to your point, they don’t often share their story and with the press what has happened to us, and often that’s a survival mechanism.
We have to do that in order to be able to cope every single day and continue on. But worked with a group of women who were currently living in a shelter and they hadn’t actually shared their story with anybody. So we brought in a group of musicians and songwriters and in an environment where we were working with these women and workshopping to create music and to create and write a song, it was amazing how that environment facilitated them being able to open up and actually share their story.
And as you can appreciate, the workshop was an all-afternoon session, but they were a lot of tears within those workshops because these women were telling this story for the very first time and they had the confidence. And then at the end, they felt empowered because not only had they told their story, but they created a piece of music and a song that actually made them realize that they’ve survived and it’s not who they, the experience has not defined who they are as human beings or as women, but they can move on. And we had a bunch of psychologists working with them as well throughout the day.
Mike Chuter [00:14:18] So the way that the model works is that the revenue that we generate will either fund activities exactly the way that Kim just explained, or we will then fund charities or non-profits who already have programs on the ground. So we end up accelerating them as opposed to trying to duplicate and recreate something.
So in Australia and we’ll explain a bit more later about thankful for farmers. Then 90 cents in every dollar that we raise goes directly to support farmers. And we’ve just made our first two contributions to two charities that already have incredible programs on the ground to accelerate them.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:15:01] Yeah, no, I do definitely want to talk about the thankful, I mean, another initiative has been and this is how we came into contact, the thankful for farmers. And it’s interesting because I myself have written in my book that I hope the coming century, the 21st century will be the century of the revered farmer because they are at the coalface of the food we eat and the environment we need to grow that food. So tell us a bit about that journey.
Thankful for Farmers
Kim McDonnell [00:15:31] So thankful for farmers. We launched here in Australia at the end of 2018 at a time that we launched we’re still living in New York, but being proudly and passionately Australian, keeping a close eye on everything that was going on here in Australia at the time.
And it was devastating and heartbreaking to see the stories of drought and the impact it was having on our farming and regional rural communities. So we reached out to a friend who has been a long-time supporter of Thankful and said, Matt, we think it’s time that we got the funding model back home and what can we do to support Australian farmers? And in typical fashion, it was absolutely, and you’ve got my full support, how can I be helpful?
So we did a lot of research before launching thankful for farmers to really understand some of the challenges facing Australian farmers from unprecedented climatic conditions, which was making it impossible for financial security to the trade rules and tariffs, which also impacted financial security to mental health and wellness challenges and disproportionately high rates that farmers and people in regional and rural communities were impacted.
And we quickly realized that the challenges facing Australian farmers are by no means uniquely Australian. These are challenges farmers are experiencing across the globe. I think in 2019, farmers in America actually earned less than they were capable of ending in 2013. As a consequence of climate and trade rules, more farmers in America commit suicide than veterans.
In the UK, one farmer a week will take his or her own life. In France, I think it’s 4 farmers a week will take his or her own life. And in India, it’s up to 70 farmers a day. So horrific sets. And we knew we had to do something to support farming globally. So we launched sensible farmers here in Australia. And then obviously the bushfires happened and then covid struck.
And what we really wanted to do with Thankful for farmers when we first launched was to change that narrative around from poor farmers need our help and very much a charity conversation to one of the value conversation, and to your point, recognizing that farmers are front line from a food security perspective and we indeed need farmers every single day, three times a day, but they are also front line from an environmental perspective as custodians and stewards of their land. And farmers through appropriate and regenerative agricultural practices can play a significant role in reducing the impact of climate change.
Mike Chuter [00:18:15] The main focus is to raise funds to support the farmers. And we know that there’s been a lot of, criticism isn’t quite the right word, but questions around some nonprofits that have so big administrative budgets. And we have gone the other way and we have plenty of time to get one. So there must be something in between.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:18:38] And with Charlie Arnott and with Matt Moran, I’m guessing that there’s a strong regenerative sustainability kind of farm, because when you’re talking about resilience, I mean, it’s one thing about emotional mental resilience, but it’s also about the resilience of the farm.
Kim McDonnell [00:18:59] Totally. So, yeah, we have a, we call it climate-smart agriculture using UN terminology there. So because we know how alienating regenerative agriculture and that whole language. Language is a really important thing how that can be. So we say climate-smart agriculture. So yes, we absolutely support climate-smart agriculture region, agriculture here in Australia is something that we do passionately support.
Mike Chuter [00:19:27] And how can we amplify the message and share the learnings and shortcuts that other farmers can adopt? Because I’m sure if we if we’re brutally honest and, you know, and if we were farmers and we thought, well, either I could risk all of my future income and do follow the regenerative process and risk it, or I just keep putting food on the table for my family, what am I likely to do at the moment? Unless someone can de-risk the risk for me? I’m just going to do what I’ve always done and what my father did and what his father did.
Kim McDonnell [00:20:06] So to that point, our ultimate goal would be to establish a global fund to support farmers on their regenerative journey so that the opportunity cost is we’re taking that doesn’t come into the equation or the conversation. And it’s really valuing farmers for their role and contribution and the impact on climate change and the rest of climate change.
Had a conversation a couple of weeks with a global insurer to see if we could work with them to help establish this global investment fund to support those farmers who are doing the right thing and to reward them in a financial way.
Mike Chuter [00:20:48] And if we influence government, that’s why we’d encourage them to trial things.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:20:54] Because if we talk about, you know, those statistics about farmers’ suicides is quite shocking. And it’s interesting, actually, to see it in the context of what we’re hearing about in the post-Afghanistan war, that actually 10 times more people have taken their own lives as soldiers returning with PTSD than actually died on the battlefield.
And here we are hearing these statistics about farmers taking their own lives. And you think about, well, we’re talking about mental health, we’re talking about physical health, we’re talking about environmental health, and, well, financial health is a big part of that environmental health as well. And unless we address all of those issues, then we are just really doing the bandaid solutions. And that’s yeah, I mean, clearly, that’s not going to be a very long-term solution.
Mike Chuter [00:21:55] And one of the most worrying stats that both of us have heard in a long, long time was that statistic that more American farmers commit suicide than American veterans. And you talk about the number of veterans and I mean, that’s a whole different thankful for initiative, but it’s just staggering.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:22:19] It is staggering. And it’s and it’s kind of well, without getting too political, you know, very quick to send troops off to fight a war, but not recognizing that they are human beings that come back with the traumas of that war. And this seems to be this reluctance to deal with that complication. And the same is true farmers.
You know, we’re happy to receive their product, but don’t complicate me about their lives. Well, you know, that’s really, that’s what this thankful for farmers I think is so exciting about, you know, that’s a really important issue.
Kim McDonnell [00:22:58] You know, this super important initiative. And as I said, there’s no two big issues in the world right now than climate change or food security. And you can have a conversation with the one without having a conversation with the other. They are imperative to each other. And with the World Food Program declaring, I think it was two hundred and eighty-six million people in acute starvation and more people will die of hunger as a consequence of covid and covid itself.
And the United Nations coming out and saying we need to produce 70 percent more food to feed the world’s population by 2050. Yeah, a third of all food that gets produced doesn’t even make it to dinner tables. You don’t need to produce more. We need to waste less. And we need to disrupt the entire food supply chain to ensure it gets to the people who needs it. And everybody has access to food because it is a basic human right. And who is on the front line of those conversations? It’s farmers. So they need to be valued. They need to be recognized for all of their contribution that they make to the world.
And I should saying educating Australian consumers just how lucky we are in this country, particularly to be able to walk around a supermarket, stuff our trolley with the most amazing quality of produce and to actually stop and pause and think about the men and women who produced it and the many hands who’ve had to touch that produce before it gets to our plates every single day.
So really shifting that value from station, shifting the narrative, but also, to Mike’s point, any money that we raise through product partnerships, we wanted to make sure that that money wasn’t going to be allocated to fund another Band-Aid.
We really wanted to make sure and continue to make sure that any money that farmers raises is used to address systemic challenges and to find solutions to fix problems rather than just put a Band-Aid on a problem because there’s been a lot of band-aid supplied over the years. And unless we fix the problem, it’s going to be a continuous.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:25:02] What are some examples of those bandaids?
Kim McDonnell [00:25:05] So, you know.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:25:08] I mean, before we get into the what can be constructively done, because, you know, the bandaids of what’s been going on for quite some time, isn’t it?
Kim McDonnell [00:25:15] Yeah, absolutely. And it’s the, you know, the relief funding and the charity funding that’s being raised. And I think drought in this country is obviously an unprecedented climatic conditions, were always going to experience those things, we’re experiencing them more frequently than we have ever before. But they’ve always been part of Australian agriculture.
So how can we be more drought resilient? How can we be better prepared for natural disasters?
Mike Chuter [00:25:47] And just a point of clarification, we’re not saying that those short-term band-aids are wrong.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:25:51] No, no.
Mike Chuter [00:25:52] We try to deal with the underlying issues and ensure that we don’t keep throwing more money at the Band-Aid.
Kim McDonnell [00:25:59] Yeah, and how can we help our farmers being more resilient for mental health and wellness perspective as well? And what infrastructure do those regional and rural communities need to be able to help our agricultural communities? Because if our regional and rural communities aren’t thriving, then our farming and agricultural communities can’t thrive either. So how can we support those communities?
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:26:24] Now, I think one of the things that we’ve become aware of through this pandemic is the importance of connections, real connections, physical, not just digital connections. And this thankful for farmers, this is what I, when I heard about what you were doing, I thought, well, this is just so important for us to not only connect and in terms of building resilience, connections with the land on which the farmer is working is also an important step for them to make key find resistance out in the, you know, how has this been received?
Kim McDonnell [00:27:07] You know, it’s really interesting, I can remember a conversation that we had when we first launched thankful for farmers in Australia and we were told, oh, you know, it’s way too soft and fluffy for farmers. And this whole gratitude thing, they don’t want gratitude, but it is amazing how many farmers have reached out to us when we launch thankful for farmers and continue to reach out because the comments that we’ve received is finally thank you.
We don’t want charity. We’re not looking for charity. We do not want pity. You know, we don’t want people to feel sorry for us. We don’t want people to raise money to support us. All we want is recognition of the value that we contribute and being thankful for farmers.
It’s changing that narrative and you recognizing us for what we do, and that’s providing three meals a day to every single Australian. And the fact that we’re also passionate about the land that we farm and most farmers want to leave the land that they work on in a better condition than when they inherited it.
So they do have that commitment to and take that responsibility as custodians of the land very seriously. So I think that farmers have been very welcoming of the message we’re trying to convey and the education process and getting Australians to recognize the process of the food has gone through in order for them to be able to enjoy it.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:28:37] I’m interested that the thankful brand has some, you know because there’s got to be an economic balance here to get this moving forward. It’s more than just a nice idea. How does that work? Do you bring companies? Are bringing governments along with you on this journey.
Kim McDonnell [00:28:57] So. Absolutely. And that’s why the social enterprise model is so important from a commercialization model. So we’re both for-profit as well as not-for-profit. And when a brand or organization wants to partner with Thankful and co-brand a product, then it’s a product-for-purpose model. So they’ll pay us a percentage of revenue from every product that they sell.
There’s also sponsorship opportunities available for brands or organizations who want to participate in this conversation as well. And so with that ongoing product partnership revenue, it means we’re able to rolling multiple brands and multiple organizations across the same category.
So there’s no competition here because it’s the collective good rather than the individual eye moving from eye to or made to weight is as the thankful collaborative platform. And that revenue in those commercial partnerships with brands provide the funding that enables us to then make those grants to organizations to amplify the work that they’re doing.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:30:06] It’s interesting that we are being bombarded by so much bad news and being polarized in so many ways. This Thankful for Together is another initiative that I was kind of drawn to. Tell us a bit about that. Thankful Together.
Thankful Together
Kim McDonnell [00:30:24] Thankful Together really came about as a consequence of covid when we were all being told to isolate, we had to isolate. Whereas, not just at multiple levels and not just at an individual level, when we were all bunkered down in our own homes, but even at a local community level, we became very segmented.
And then at a country level, obviously with international borders closed, so the world suddenly became a lot smaller for a lot of people. And it was a very dark place for a lot of people because it meant we could, you know, there was no normality in that world.
So we launched Thankful Together to remind us all that whether that this is not an Australian problem or a UK problem or a US problem, it is a global problem. And we have a choice here. This can bring out the worst in humanity or it can bring out the best. Let’s make the choice to it, to bring out the best in humanity and to show kindness and understanding and empathy and compassion when we all needed it most.
And that recognition as well, that as a consequence of covid mental health and wellness, the incidence of it has increased significantly. So to be conscious of all of the impacts that it’s having and let’s work together, and it’s only through that unity that we can actually overcome this.
Mike Chuter [00:31:52] I think also it was a, you know, it’s a powerful way to demonstrate that we could do things and create this movement of people doing things together without actually creating products. So that there weren’t any barriers and Thankful is, you know, is just as much about mindfulness and how you portray things as the glass always being half full and half empty and so on, as well as the kind of physicalness of buying thankful products and generating that revenue that will then help create time for moments for those in need.
But it’s a bit hard to kind of focus on creating painful moments for those in need unless you can create thankful moments for yourself. And that’s all about reflection. And another example that we did was we created, if you think about every PowerPoint presentation, then the last slide that says thank you is always, it sort of signals the end of the presentation, but it’s always, it’s not actually that meaningful, it’s just kind of thanks and let’s move on anything else to discuss.
Whereas what we did was we tried to get corporates to donate the thank you slide to recognize who they were thankful for. So for the sake of, let’s say, if we were doing a presentation, then we might say we’ve dedicated this thank you slide to thank all the covid front line workers and for all that they’ve done, or we’ve dedicated this slide to the nurses who are underrecognized, or the farmers who never recognized in the food that they produced the first three meals on our table every day.
And so that’s another thing. And on the thankful.org website, then there’s a facility where you can jump online and you can actually download a series of those thank you slides just to drop into your keynote or your PowerPoint end page to recognize who you as an organization you’re thankful for.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:33:50] Well, nice idea, I mean, I’m just preparing a PowerPoint for an oral health course I’m running. I’m going to have to download eight of those.
Mike Chuter [00:33:59] If you think about the powerful real estate and how many PowerPoint presentations are delivered across the corporate in the world, then if we can own that real estate and deliver that thankful message, it will be delivering it to many, many more people.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:34:17] And how would, I mean, I can understand how a corporation might want to become associated with that. How would an individual get involved or be involved with the organization?
Kim McDonnell [00:34:31] So the easiest and best ways to buy a co-branded thankful product in here in Australia that we thankful for farmers co-branded products and we’re continuing to roll more and more brands in which is wonderful and particularly now, Australia is certainly starting to emerge from and to build back in from covid and the lockdown situation that we’ve had. And so that’s the easiest way.
But there’s also just the amplification, you know, jumping online, following us on social media, and liking and sharing content. And then we have thankful products on our thankful website as well, wear your attitude of gratitude in a thankful t-shirt and shirt show the world that you’re thankful.
Mike Chuter [00:35:20] Also caps, there’s all sorts of different merchandise.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:35:24] Listen, thank you so much for today. We’ll have links to the site. I love some of the initiatives. And I think, you know, to express gratitude is such a powerful tool and so cheap, too. I mean, and yet it’s good for the person and it’s good for the people are expressing it to. So thank you so much for what you’ve done there. And I look forward to following it further.
Kim McDonnell [00:35:48] Thank you so much. And we’re thankful for you.
Mike Chuter [00:35:51] Thank you. And one last comment is that it’s absolutely contagious as well. So by saying that you’re thankful for someone else, that will not only make them feel good, it will also make you feel good. And then it gets cascaded like a series of dominoes to others.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:36:07] Thanks.
Mike Chuter [00:36:08] So we are thankful for you.
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:36:11] OK.
Kim McDonnell [00:36:12] Take care.
Conclusion
Dr. Ron Ehrlich [00:36:14] So there it is. We have much to be thankful for. And here is an organization that is focusing on corporations, governments, and individuals to be just that. I’ll have links, of course, to that website.
Look, don’t forget to download the Unstress with Dr. Ron Ehrlich app. You have to put in Unstress with Dr. Ron Ehrlich to find it. But it will keep you informed of the latest podcasts and some great initiatives that we have got going we’ve got the five pillars of Health and Wellness Online program, which is being developed. There is a lot going on. I hope this finds you well until next time. This is Dr Ron Ehrlich. Be well.
This podcast provides general information and discussion about medicine, health, and related subjects. The content is not intended and should not be construed as medical advice or as a substitute for care by a qualified medical practitioner. If you or any other person has a medical concern, he or she should consult with an appropriately qualified medical practitioner. Guests who speak in this podcast express their own opinions, experiences, and conclusions.