The Website of Dr. Mark Goulston

Why settle for giving a “thank you”
when you can give a POWER THANK YOU?

Make giving thanks the center piece of your Thanksgiving by having each person give a Power Thank You. It has 3 parts:

Part 1: Thank someone for something specific that they did for you (it can also be something they refrained from doing that would have hurt you).

Part 2: Acknowledge the effort it took for them to do it (by saying something like: “I know you didn’t have to do —-” or “I know you went out of your way to do —-”).

Part 3: State the difference it personally made to you.

For example:

1. I want to thank the 2500 loyal subscribers who subscribe to this weekly mailing.

2. I know how much unsolicited junk mail and spam you receive, and the last thing you want is another email from anyone.

3. The fact that few of you unsubscribe AND many of you pass these along to friends and family AND occasionally take the time and make the effort to email me your thanks for these puts a smile on my face, a spring in my step, and spurs me on to continue communicating with all of you.

BTW “Giving thanks can make you healthier, happier” according to a USA Today article by Kim Painter.

One of the reasons for that is that you can’t be angry and thankful at the same time.

Anger is a reaction to feeling something is missing, something has gone wrong and you are wounded. Anger comes from a need to retaliate or out of fear of something or someone attacking/hurting you again to attack them to keep them from doing it (think wounded animal and war in Iraq after 9/11).

Thankfulness comes from a feeling of wholeness, that nothing is missing, that there is no one you need to retaliate against. In fact, if you are not a dyed-in-the-wool taker, thankfulness crosses over into wanting to show gratitude by giving to others.

I’d love to hear from you if you try a Power Thank You for Thanksgiving.

Warm regards and thanks to you all,

Mark

This entry was posted on Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 9:38 am and is filed under Usable Insights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.