PR Veteran Patrice Tanaka has a grand vision: “My vision is a joyful planet created by 7.2 billion people all coming from a place of joy, engaging joyfully with one another and making joy-filled contributions to the world,” said Tanaka, the founder of Joyful Planet LLC, a business and life strategy consultancy.
In September, PRWeek announced that Tanaka was one of six to be inducted in to PRWeek’s U.S. 2016 Hall of Fame along with Margi Booth, Lisa Caputo, David Drobis, Steve Harris, and John Onoda. The inductees will be honored at a dinner in New York City on December 5.
Last October, Tanaka left PadillaCRT, which was one of the three PR firms she cofounded, to launch her consultancy which aims to help individuals discover and actively live their life’s purpose.
Her company works with organizations and individuals, helping them to create more productive workplaces, as well as coming up with inspired solutions to business challenges through one-on-one consulting, group workshops, consulting with organizations and speaking engagements.
Tanaka explained that knowing your purpose statement is essential because attention spans have dropped to 8 seconds.
“It’s a proactive way of sharing who you are,” she stated. “You begin to make choices and decisions that are aligned with your purpose so on a conscious and subconscious level, you are working to achieve your dreams.”
The workshop begins with participants filling out a worksheet of 9 questions and based on responses, participants are supposed to come up with a first iteration of a purpose statement. After 15 minutes, participants are put in groups of two to polish the statement and then share with the group. Through this, Tanaka helps her clients come up with their final purpose statement.
“It’s a deeper form of personal branding because its purpose driven,” she explained.
The concept and her vision began in 2002, a couple of months after 9/11 when she went to an executive coach who asked her to rethink her purpose in life. Although Tanaka struggled to come up with the answer at first, she concluded that her purpose was “to choose joy every single day, to be mindful of that joy, and to share that joy with others.”
After sharing her life purpose, her coach Suzanne Levy asked her what brought her joy. Unsure about what it was, she concluded that she liked to dance. After her session, Tanaka was assigned to schedule a dance class, which led to her discovering her joy competing in ballroom dancing competitions and her book, “Becoming Ginger Rogers…How Ballroom Dancing Made Me a Happier Woman, Better Partner and Smarter CEO.”
So now her company does what Tanaka truly enjoys: hosting workshops, webinars, keynote speeches, encouraging people to discover and live their life purpose through Joyful Planet.
Here are some of the life purposes she helped her clients determine:
- My purpose in life is to be a fearless hunter of opportunities to help loved ones succeed.
- My purpose in life is to help individuals find their healthiest selves – physically, mentally, spiritually.
- My purpose in life is to make the world a more loving and caring place, especially for children.
- My purpose in life is to help women and girls become strong, confident leaders who make the world a better place.
- My purpose in life is to spark a movement that creates systemic change to improve the health of children.
- My purpose in life is to be an advocate for environmental issues by using my business expertise to support “green” start-ups and non-profits committed to protecting our planet and helping them succeed.
- My purpose in life is to be a fearless advocate for marginalized, underserved people and communities who are unable to advocate for themselves.
