The Gratitude Coach

Gratitude is not just a fluffy concept; there is actually scientific evidence to support its benefits. Research has shown that gratitude practices can have a profound impact on mental well-being.

When we express gratitude, our brains release dopamine and serotonin, which are neurotransmitters associated with happiness and contentment. This can lead to improved overall mental health, reduced stress levels, and increased resilience. The practice of gratitude can even make you a Better Entrepreneur and Leader.

Some of the topics we will cover in this episode are:

In conclusion, gratitude is a powerful practice that can make you a better entrepreneur and leader. By cultivating a gratitude mindset, you can enhance your mental well-being, develop stronger relationships, and elevate your leadership skills. Incorporating gratitude into your business culture and daily routine can bring about numerous benefits, from increased team morale to improved client relationships.

So, start embracing gratitude today. Take a moment to appreciate the people and things that contribute to your success. Keep a gratitude journal, practice random acts of kindness, and make gratitude a part of your business culture. By doing so, you'll not only become a better entrepreneur and leader but also create a more fulfilling and successful journey for yourself and those around you.

Imagine a world where happiness was just a pill away. A world where all your worries and anxieties could be swept away with a single swallow. It sounds enticing, doesn't it? The idea of a Happy Pill has long captured the imaginations of people seeking a shortcut to eternal bliss. But what would this world actually look like? Would it be a utopia of constant smiles and carefree days, or would it come with its own set of unforeseen consequences?

In this thought-provoking exploration, we will delve into the intriguing concept of a Happy Pill and its potential impact on society. From the ethical dilemmas, it raises to the profound implications it could have on our daily lives, join us on a journey to uncover the hidden truths behind this enticing possibility. So, buckle up and prepare to venture into a world where happiness is just a pill away.

In this episode, we will delve into:

What kinds of changes would you like to make?

I’m Leslie Riopel, the Gratitude Coach. I believe a great coach can take you further than you can take yourself. Everybody needs a coach—someone in their corner to challenge, support, and provide guidance while helping to develop skills and potential that would otherwise be left untapped. With the right coach in your corner, you’ll stay challenged, motivated, and on track as you tackle life’s biggest obstacles and achieve your goals. If you’d like to explore what coaching can do for you, please check out LaughterstheBestMedicine.com, and go to the Coaching Page to book a session today! You may also enjoy our Podia site, MindfulSuccessfulLiving.com for all of our wonderful products, programs and services.

You were born with a unique story to tell. From the moment you took your first breath, your life began to unfold, filled with ups and downs, triumphs and failures, and everything in between.

The story of your life goes beyond mere entertainment; it can shape your perception of the world and, ultimately, impact your happiness and fulfillment.

But through it all, have you ever stopped to consider the power that your story holds? Your story has been evolving every day since your birth. In this Podcast Episode we will cover the following topics:

What kinds of changes would you like to make?

I’m Leslie Riopel, the Gratitude Coach. I believe a great coach can take you further than you can take yourself. Everybody needs a coach—someone in their corner to challenge, support, and provide guidance while helping to develop skills and potential that would otherwise be left untapped. With the right coach in your corner, you’ll stay challenged, motivated, and on track as you tackle life’s biggest obstacles and achieve your goals. If you’d like to explore what coaching can do for you, please check out LaughterstheBestMedicine.com, and go to the Coaching Page to book a session today! You may also enjoy our Podia site, MindfulSuccessfulLiving.com for all of our wonderful products, programs and services.

How can you embrace change when life gets challenging?

This episode also has a Body Scan Mindfulness Practice for the last 10 minutes.

I’ve been through a pretty amazing journey. I’ve had to persevere through some big obstacles. I survived a major career setback, which could have ruined me.

I made a commitment to sacrifice my career, at the age of 47, to stay home and nurture my son, who is neurodiverse, and I put him in front of everything else.

If any of you know anyone who is neurodiverse, you know exactly what I am talking about.

I’m happy to say my 14-year neurodiverse journey was time was well spent. I learned some amazing things from my son, and I would happily take the same journey all over again.

How are you when it comes to embracing change? Part of writing a new story is learning how to view things differently. It’s also important to acknowledge your old story.

The truth is that SHIFT Happens. Even though things go wrong, or you take a wrong turn, you are still making changes……..and moving forward, just maybe not in the way you thought you would.

How is your journey of life going? If it’s been a crazy journey, that’s OK. Let’s bless and be grateful for the crazy journey of life. Let’s feel grateful for the love, the laughter, and the pain. Gratitude can be your superpower.

Change is sometimes associated with unwelcomed events or circumstances, but change, with enough time, can be beneficial for growth in our lives.

Change also has the ability to create a lot of anxiety. Anytime we experience change, we are probably also going to experience a fair amount of anxiety as we adjust.

As humans, we have to find hope in the uncertain nature of change.

Change is the only constant in our lives. One way to deal with the changes life throws at us is to learn how to move into change instead of always trying to avoid it because change is our only constant.

Whether you look forward to change or dread it, change triggers powerful effects in our body.

We must learn to approach dealing with change as a process. We have to reframe how we think about change. We have to learn to breathe into change and be flexible.

No one’s life is free of change – that we know.

It’s important to realize that change can manifest as anxiety in the physical body, creating a loss of appetite, stress eating, or even making us physically ill.

Pushing the anxiety away will only make it worse, so today we are going to practice ways to tune into those physical sensations, learning to manage change in a healthier way.

The truth is, you have no idea what tomorrow brings and that can be exciting!

You can gently accept and move past “your story”. You can bless this time of emotional growth. You can take the attitude that whatever comes in is perfect for you. It’s time to value yourself more.

Everything starts with you. 

S.H.I.F.T. Acronym

S stands for START NOW! There is no time like the present.

H stands for HAPPINESS AND HEARTFELT! Find those things that make you happy and those things you resonate with that make your heart sing.

I stands for INSPIRED ACTION. Pursue your goals with passion and start taking small steps towards them.

F stands for FUN and FREEDOM! While you need to have fortitude and be persistent in working towards those goals, it’s just as important to pursue things that bring you a sense of freedom and joy.

T stands for THRIVE! See yourself going from surviving to thriving. See yourself Sur-Thriving.!

One way to embrace change is to shift your mindset, little by little. You don’t have to tackle everything at once.

Welcome to SHIFT Your Mindset with The Gratitude Coach.

Today’s practice is all about writing a new story.

This is the most significant and inspiring of all facts known to man! It reflects man’s Divine nature.

This Divine prerogative is the sole means by which you may control your own destiny.

If you fail to control your own mind, you may be sure you will control nothing else.

While you are thinking about how much control you have, it’s also important to ask yourself what your story is. What’s your story? Everyone has one.

Stories can be good, or they can be bad. If you have a bad story, it’s OK to release it and let it go.

No one ever said you had to keep carrying the emotional baggage holding you back.

One great practice you can engage in is sitting down and writing a new story. Sit down today and write down what you would like to see happen in your life from this moment forward.

Don’t think about the past. What kind of a story would you write?

The best chapters of your life are the chapters that have not yet been written.

You have the power to start writing a new chapter with each new day.

Bless your ability to write a new story today. Bless the journey you have traveled and make a pact with yourself to not let one bad chapter define the rest of your life.

You can learn from that chapter and rewrite your story at any time.

You have the power to start writing a new chapter with each new day. You can create a new life with each and every thought you think.

Know that every ending is yet another new beginning. Your story is never-ending and ever-flowing and it always has a new chapter, no matter how many times you fail.

Whatever you put out will return to you in kind. The choice is always yours as to how you live your life.

Be someone who really believes that everything you need comes to you.

Know that all obstacles and undesirable circumstances fall away. You can achieve anything. You can be anything. You can manifest anything. That is your truth. You should expect nothing but cooperation and assistance. Believe in the power of your dreams and the power of your words. Everything starts with YOU. So, take a moment to think about what kind of changes you want to make in your life and start writing!

There are no failures – only learning opportunities.

Bless ANY AND ALL times in your life when you may have placed limits on your magnificence!

Know how strong you truly are. Like the yin and the yang, know that to succeed in life, you must experience all aspects of a situation, good and bad, limited, and unlimited.

Be brave enough to start over and find the courage you need to move forward in a beautiful way. You are strong. You are not flawed, you are magnificent.

Leslie Riopel, The Gratitude Coach

Are you swimming against the tide or going with the flow? Many of us spend much of our time swimming against the tide. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.

One way you can go with the flow is to be open to different solutions by letting go and practicing the law of detachment.

Practicing the Law of Detachment and Letting Go can open up your mind to different solutions that can help you move from unconscious limitations to unexpected blessings.

In order to experience anything in the physical universe, you first have to relinquish your “attachment” to it.

But what does this mean exactly? According to Deepak Chopra, “When you experience uncertainty, you know you are on the right path!”

Uncertainty is the fertile ground of pure creativity and freedom. Uncertainty means stepping into the unknown in every moment of your existence.

The unknown is the field of infinite possibilities, ever fresh and ever new, always open to the creation of new manifestations.

It’s about letting go and letting life happen and trusting that you are on the right path. Without uncertainty and the unknown, your life is just the stale repetition of outworn memories. You become the victim of your past.

When you embrace uncertainty and embrace letting go of control, something very exciting happens out of the chaos and confusion!

There is an opportunity or seed of opportunity within every “problem” in your life.

Dear Universe, I bless and am grateful for all the times in my life in which I felt stuck. What a beautiful lesson of patience. I can now see that feeling “stuck” offered me a wonderful opportunity to take a step back and take stock of where I was and where I wanted to go. I now know I am never stuck. Life is continually moving and pushing me in a new direction. Every day is a brand-new adventure in embracing change. Today I bless all parts of my divine being, even any imperfect parts that feel lazy, unmotivated or stuck. Being uncomfortable helps me expand my thinking and discover new possibilities and new passions. Today I am opening up my energy to a whole new field of possibilities and turning my passion and purpose into a beautiful prosperous life!

Visit TheGratitudeCoach.com, MindfullyBlessed.com or Gratitude365Life.com for more information about our brand and our work!

The best-laid plans in the world won’t go anywhere without that all-important step of action.

No matter how much you visualize, meditate, hope, pray, desire, dream, or wish for something, you won’t get far if you fail to take action.

While it’s wonderful to make intentions and plans, action is often the missing link. In order for your plans to succeed, you need to learn the art of seizing opportunities as they arise.

Sometimes it can be difficult or even challenging to take action, because you may not know what kind of action you need to take.

It is easy to get stuck in the planning phase and many of us have difficulty with this, but if you don’t eventually get moving and take some kind of take action, you won’t actually get anywhere.

Plans are fun to create, but sometimes difficult to implement, but why?

Change is scary when it comes right down to it, so more often than not we get caught up in writing and rewriting and perfecting to the nth degree.

We get so caught up in trying to make something perfect, that we get stuck in the planning phase, never making it to implementation.

The biggest reason for this is most likely a fear of failure. If we don’t act, we can’t fail, but in reality, failure simply means that our plans just need to be revised a bit.

“I have not failed, I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”. – Albert Einstein

Einstein knew a thing or two about failure, and he didn’t let it stop him from accomplishing great things, and neither should you.

Failure should be applauded because it means that you had the courage to put yourself out there.

If you begin looking at your failures as opportunities in disguise, you can change the way you approach problems and you can learn to embrace failure as just another step in your amazing road to success.

So what are some ways now that you can learn to consistently take action; some ways in which you can eliminate procrastination and motivate yourself into action?

Sometimes when you get “stuck” the best plan of action is to get moving again, however you can.

Intention for Upleveling Your Life 

Dear Universe, I bless my ability to think big and uplevel my life. I know I deserve to live the biggest life possible. I bless my ability to redesign my life and re-examine my goals whenever necessary. I am always expanding, evolving and growing. I bless my ability to live my dream and to make room for new things. I bless my ability to live the fullest life possible and to make a valuable contribution. I am creating my future right now with these powerful thoughts. I bless my ability to jump up to that next level in life. I don’t need to know the entire plan to take a leap of faith. As I uplevel my life, I am able to do exactly what I want, with whomever I want, when I want. I have the financial power to do all of that and more. I have the right to lead this kind of life and to do those things I absolutely love and to experience as much joy as possible along the way. That is my greatest blessing!

Visit TheGratitudeCoach.com, MindfullyBlessed.com or Gratitude365Life.com for more information about our brand and our work!

There is a theory that states that in order to manifest change in your life, you must first accept what is. It is difficult to move from point A to point B if you haven’t fully accepted where you are in life.

We see what we want to see. We hide behind our sadness and our pain. We hide behind the extra weight and the difficult relationships.

We pretend everything is fine. When someone asks us how things are going, we often lie and tell people everything is great!

Acceptance is a difficult thing to grasp because reality can be hard to face. We get so used to the struggle that it becomes our way of life and our only reality.

Sometimes it is hard to face the truth because it requires us to take a long hard look at what we have created in our life, good or bad.

In order to go from pain to power, you first have to immerse yourself in the pain. You have to feel the feelings and work through them and accept what is in order to start moving forward.

Once you accept that YOU are the sole creator of your life you can begin to turn obstacles into amazing opportunities.

Accepting what is can be challenging especially if you aren’t willing to be honest with yourself and others.

The premise behind most 12-step programs is first accepting where you are. When you boldly state your name and the cold, hard fact that you are an alcoholic or a drug addict the true reality of your situation comes to light. Only then can you begin to heal.

What would your truth mirror reveal if you looked into it? What would happen if you were brutally honest about your situation? What would happen if you looked into the mirror and saw what was really there?

Some of us just don’t like who we have become at the deepest level of our soul. Accepting what is helps you face the truth and pave the way to healing. Once you know what your faults are, you can then take steps to move away from them. It’s OK to be imperfect because we are only human. We all screw up our lives in one-way shape or form because we aren’t perfect.

One of the most difficult challenges life brings us is learning to really like yourself for exactly who you are. This paves the way for truly believing in yourself and your choices and abilities.

Like Attracts Like

One of the most challenging concepts to truly understand is the idea that like attracts like. Whatever you put out comes back, good or bad. If you want to start attracting good things, then you must start shifting your consciousness and focusing on feeling good.

When it comes to the concept of like attracts like, much of this has to do with our state of consciousness and how we think on that sub-conscious level.

What would you see if you stood in front of your own mirror of truth? Try and be brutally honest with yourself. Are there some things you are ashamed of? You are certainly not alone if there are.

Dear Universe, May I have the wisdom and serenity to BLESS AND ACCEPT ALL the experiences in my life.

That includes the good experiences, the bad experiences, the painful experiences, the wonderful experiences, and the BLESSED experiences, for these experiences make up the fabric of my life.

May I have the courage to BLESS AND ACCEPT everything today – and the wisdom to fully acknowledge and gratefully step into the beauty and joy that is my life.

May I be MINDFULLY BLESSED today and every day of my beautiful life – for however long that is.

That is the art of RADICAL ACCEPTANCE.

Visit TheGratitudeCoach.com, MindfullyBlessed.com or Gratitude365Life.com for more information about our brand and our work!

The Art of Letting Go

How good are you when it comes to letting things go, that no longer serve you?

Holding onto old memories like traumas, for example, means holding onto some kind of old identity.

Letting go is so important, yet so difficult and even elusive to those types of people who are trapped inside the of a narrative of victimization.

Letting go implies we are holding on to something that might even be painful, but hard as we try, we can’t do it.

Most of the time the things we hold onto have outlived their purpose. We might also do this in times when we are living in survival mode.

In order to let go, we may also find that we need to forgive ourselves for not having done so sooner.

When you start letting go of things you free yourself to new possibilities, just like that.

What are some things you need to let go of?

Letting go can be scary. It’s a big unknown, with lots of uncertainty. Sometimes it feels easier to stay put and not take the chance.

Ask yourself if there are things in life you are trying to force into existence. How can you let go of your fear and start living more harmoniously?

Intention for Letting Go

Dear Universe, I bless my ability to let things go that no longer serve me. I bless all the difficulties and struggles I have experienced over the years. Difficulties are often blessings in disguise. I am grateful for this powerful lesson in letting go. Today I Intend to be gentle and kind to myself. Today I choose peace. I give myself permission to embrace difficulties with grace and ease. I let go of all problems and welcome in new solutions as I learn to live in the moment and in the beauty of each magnificent day!

Visit TheGratitudeCoach.com, MindfullyBlessed.com or Gratitude365Life.com for more information about our brand and our work!

Allowing is an essential aspect of life and growth – as well as an integral part of your success and fulfillment.

All of the good work in the world is a lost cause if you cannot sit back and allow the goodness to flow in.

The concept of allowing is counterintuitive to those who like control because the art of allowing means giving up this control.

The art of allowing does not mean you are not a hard worker or that you have given up, it simply means that there comes a point where you must allow things to happen naturally.

You must understand what it feels like to let life flow and to live in harmony with the universe.

In other words, you need to have hope and faith and you need to make space for good things to come in. 

The art of allowing means simply letting go and letting faith guide you without having to manipulate, dominate, or control other people or situations to make it happen.

For those of us who tend to be control-freaks – this can be incredibly difficult.

Allowing takes faith and patience and most of all trust – three things that are essential for our own peace of mind.

The art of allowing is something that goes against how most of us think.

If you want to know what kind of things you are allowing into your life, all you have to do is open your eyes and look around because everything in your world is there by invitation.

If your life is exactly how you want it, then you have perfected the art of allowing. If your life could still use some improvement, then you still have a little work to do!

Take a moment to think about what you need to let go of or make space for in your life in order to live more harmoniously with the world around you.

Intention for Art of Allowing & Living Authentically

Dear Universe, I bless and honor my authenticity today. I let go of who I think I am supposed to be and honor my authentic self. I know being authentic is a key component to feeling abundant and prosperous. I allow and come into alignment with the essence of everything good I am continually attracting and creating. I allow and embrace all the unlimited possibilities, infinite wealth and boundless delights that are rightfully mine. I am a powerful conscious co-creator. I anticipate miracles. I allow new experiences into my life. My energy is open and receptive to these miracles. I resonate at this higher level of consciousness every day. I know everything I want, need and desire is already created and already mine. I have created it. I allow it to come into my life. It is already coming to me. Everything I am seeking is also seeking me! It wants me. I want it. The path is already cleared, and I welcome in these new feelings of unbridled happiness, abundance, prosperity and joy! What a blessing that is.

Visit TheGratitudeCoach.com, MindfullyBlessed.com or Gratitude365Life.com for more information about our brand and our work!