From the outback mining town of Mount Isa, where she grew up, to the United Nations is a MASSIVE leap. And, it was all driven by massive action and massive purpose.
My latest guest on The Wisdom Of… Show, Kim McDonnell, is the definition of inspiring us all to take massive purposeful action and live it out in full color.
After over 25 successful years working in the Australian advertising, digital, and data-driven marketing industry, she sold everything she owned and uprooted her family to relocate to New York. As the CEO of Thankful, Kim went from selling people what they thought they wanted in advertising to creating the global change she knew they needed as an agent of social and environmental transformation in conjunction with international governments and global corporations.
Throughout our conversation, her hard-won wisdom reveals how selfless sacrifice and embodied stewardship can drive collective action and, ultimately, pave the way toward a happier and healthier world for us all.
Ready to amplify the impact of your organization by driving long-term impact and lifetime value? Watch the full interview with Kim McDonnell now.
Turning Attitude Into Action
As we opened our conversation, we explored the core philosophy behind her company Thankful, and its mission to drive sustainable global change through thankfulness.
“Being thankful is more than just a feeling—it’s a powerful motivator to get people to take action.” She reflected on how when you show thankfulness for something, it addresses many of the systemic issues associated with that thing.
“As an example, when we are thankful for women and girls, we will never have to have a conversation about gender equality or eliminating violence against women.”
This power of thankfulness as not just a motivator for change, but a state of action from which systemic issues can become non-issues, is a profound one that can alter the way you show up in every facet of your life.
For people stepping into leadership, this thankful approach is not one of the things that is taught, and it is certainly not something that is leveraged nearly enough. It guides us towards empathy, kindness, and love—things many modern leaders need now more than ever.
When adopted and leveraged in our lives as founders, this approach enables us to transcend traditional leadership and become stewards of gratitude, genius, and greater global good.
Embodying A Living Purpose
This conversation about gratitude soon pivoted into Kim’s perspective on purpose and its role in a successful organization.
“Purpose needs to be at the heart of an organization, not a product of their marketing team or HR department for it to truly be meaningful, authentic, and powerful, ”, she stated.
But it isn’t just enough to have a purpose that is embedded throughout your company.
“67% of consumers globally want to engage with organizations that aren’t just talking about what they’re doing. They want a clear demonstration… Your actions must speak louder than your words.”
In a world where so many brands stand for something on paper but not in practice, those who truly embody their purpose are those who will earn the trust of the market.
Moving forward, this will (continue to) be one of the fundamental drivers of customer loyalty and lifetime value for brands across every industry, and one I would urge you to keep top of mind as we move into 2025 and beyond.
The Magic Of Interconnected Causes
Continuing the theme of mission, we next explored the interconnectedness of social and environmental impact.
“From inclusivity, to food, to the planet…”, Kim began. “…Often when we work to address one global challenge, the work we do to improve it directly or indirectly improves another.”
She gave the example of future-proofing food systems, and more specifically, cutting down on food waste.
“If we saved a quarter of all the food in the world that currently gets wasted, there would not be a hungry person on this planet… And of those 800+ million people who are currently facing hunger crisis, 60% of them are women and girls, so it goes a long way in addressing gender equality and so many other big issues the world is facing.”
Not only is this statistic almost dizzying to comprehend—but it is illustrative of the fact that as in business, where there are actions we can take that make all others easier or irrelevant, so too are there problems we can solve where once addressed, spiral out to solve many others.
This fractal nature of social impact can make it easier to get started, as instead of seeing a myriad of “insurmountable” problems, we can focus on the most important issues that result in the most positive net impact.
As founders of original genius, we often contend with multi-faceted and seemingly intractable troubles, making this understanding much more vital. As once we no longer see systemic issues as isolated but begin to see them as interconnected—not just in their symptoms but in their solutions—we uncover something rare and beautiful in an arguably broken world: hope.
The Value Of Long Impact Horizons
As we wrapped up our conversation, I asked him what the top lessons he would give to growing ambitious and people-focused founders are.
What he outlined was startling in its potential to save you millions in missteps and make you millions more in profit over time.
1: Weather Test Your Offer With Strangers
As we wrapped up our conversation, Kim’s commentary on short-term versus long-term value opened me up to a crucial and often overlooked component of catalyzing change that before now, I had never considered.
When it comes to investing in initiatives that prioritize long-term impact over short-term revenue, Kim said, “In the short-term, most decisions you make can be ethically justified. But in the long term, generally speaking, it’ll probably only be the greater good that makes sense.”
In other words, when you’re thinking in terms of quarters or even years, you can more easily justify not standing for what’s right to preserve cash flow or save time and resources. But when thinking in decades, it becomes clear that you’ll receive, as Kim puts it, a “greater share of heart and wallet from your customers” by prioritizing sustainable stewardship and the greater global good.
This conversation is a must-watch for any leader who wants to fully live out their purpose and become a face for embodied stewardship on a global scale.
Kim offers timeless wisdom that can be transformative for your business as her work has been on the world, and frankly, this article just scratches the surface of possibility.
So here’s my challenge to you: Watch this episode.
Then, tune in to the profound journey of Kim McDonnell, whose original genius has shown her to be an uncontested force for global good.
Be part of the transformation and the conversation… and be inspired to take massive purposeful action as well – much like Kim whose journey to the UN from little ol’ Mount Isa is quite the feat!
Watch the full interview with Kim McDonnell on The Wisdom Of… Show
And don’t miss Simon Bowen’s transformative masterclass on unlocking your hidden genius. Your future self will thank you.
