60 Years of Lessons (Part 2): Bunny Terry

Bunny: (00:14)
Hi there and welcome to the lifesaving gratitude podcast. Last week, I introduced that podcast episode by saying that I was gonna be 61 in December, and I thought it might be helpful just this once to give you some insight into the hard lessons that I’ve learned, truths have come to me, not because I did anything other than stumble and fall a lot. And I came up with a list before I created the, this podcast. And, and this is a continuation of last week that were the 10 hard truths that I’d learned in my lifetime over or 60 years. And I really… It’s hard for me to do this because I feel like it’s so much easier to sit down and talk to somebody else. It’s so much simpler to pick the brain of somebody who I know knows more than me every single time, but, but every once in a while it’s important to stop and listen to your heart and figure out all the things that are most important to you.

Bunny: (01:30)
So, while I say these are hard truths, I don’t think they’re negative in any way. And I hope that someone out there somewhere will find this helpful. And we’ll take a moment to figure out what they’ve learned in their lives time, and what’s mattered most to them. I plan to live a lot longer. And so probably in 10 years, I’ll have an entirely new set, but right now these are the things that have come to me in, especially in the last year, as I wrote my book, lifesaving gratitude. And as we created this podcast, I think it’s important every once in a while to share the little bit of wisdom that you might pick up in life, because maybe, maybe, maybe there’s one person in the world that can benefit from it. I want you to know that there’s a bonus at the end of this podcast. I’m gonna tell you about the book I’m reading right now that I absolutely love. And I think you might like it too, but, but let’s get on last week, I talked about, um, the, the rules, the truth, the laws, I know that I’ve learned in my own life, the first five, and today I’m gonna start with number six, which is, and this one is really hard for me. You can’t change or fix or save anyone else. You know, last week’s podcast, I talked about my superhero status as a people pleaser a condition for which I feel like I’m in recovery every single day. I really have all my life worked hard to make sure that everyone, everyone in the world and in my circle was perfectly happy. And, and I talked last week about how that’s really a form of con troll. I want you to know, and I think this is two sides of the same coin I am equally accomplished at thinking that I can change and fix people if they just listen long and hard enough. I mean, here I am. You could say here I am doing it again. What I hope is that you’re gonna see this bit of conversation is my love for my listeners. More than any attempt to force feed you growth and improvement. This is not about me trying to change or fix you. It’s just about me trying to share my expert status on my own life. And I have always felt like if I could just care enough about somebody, if I could just do the right things that perhaps their brokenness would be less broken. And it’s a really tough game, this game of thinking that you can change or fix someone, especially if it’s someone you love, I’ve played it all my life. Like I said, I believed that my love had some incredible ability to turn an alcoholic or a rage-aholic into a more self-loving kinder, gentler version of him or herself. I did it with a couple of husbands. I truly believed in those relationships that by being sweet and attentive and affirming, and by cooking everything they loved. And by keeping myself the perfect weight and by never showing up with broccoli and my teeth, and by always being the perfect hostess by somehow smothering them with affection. And by just perhaps being just the tinyest bit controlling because really how else are they gonna get to happiness? Other than through me, I could turn them around psychically and emotionally. I, I honestly, I remember saying once to my mom, wow. I just, I mean, I can’t believe that my loving this person this much, isn’t making a difference for them. And I recently read something by of course you all know, probably if you follow me, that Anne Lamott is one of my favorite authors and she wrote this great piece in her book. Almost everything with I’ve I’ve read over and over again. In chapter two of that book, which she calls inside job, she says, there’s almost nothing outside you that will help in any kind of lasting way, unless you’re waiting for a donor organ you can’t buy, achieve, or date serenity, peace of mind is an inside job, unrelated to fame fortune, or whether your partner loves you horribly. What this means is that it is also an inside job for the few people you love most desperately in the world. We cannot arrange lasting safety or happiness for our most beloved people. They have to find their own ways and their own answers.

Bunny: (06:30)
Not one single person in history has gotten an alcoholic sober. Maybe you’ll be the first, but I suspect you won’t. The minute I read that, I thought, oh my God, that’s me. I’m always thinking I can through force of nature and love and care, I can change somebody’s life. I have a sibling who has an alcohol addiction and in my family, we go through cycles. Based on that sibling’s current status. Is he drinking? Is he drinking a lot? Is he drinking a little is he doing okay today? And when he’s sober, we count months. How long has he been sober? This time? We are always what watchful. We are always on alert because in my family, we still believe that every one of us can all individually do something that will help that person get and stay sober. And guess what? It hasn’t happened. Anytime that he’s gotten sober. Anytime my ex-husband’s found a little bit of light at the end of their particular tunnel, it had nothing to do with me or anyone else. Those people may go to their graves with those issues. Their wounds are really deep and raw and my manipulation, because that’s what it is when I, I start thinking that I can fix them. My manipulation does nothing more than exacerbate the things about the world that already make them crazy or angry. Um, they can’t depend on outside sources for comfort. They’ve gotta find it within themselves. And I can’t think I’m going to be that outside source. Another thing that Anne Lamott says in the same chapter is that the harm for us is in, the harm for them is in the unwanted help or in us helping them when they need to find the answer for themselves, because help is the sunny side of, of control. And I’m just gonna say that one more time. Help is the sunny side of control. I had an old boyfriend who had been, who had over 25 years of sobriety. And for several years, he lived through this agony that my family went through, um, with the sibling I have, who is an alcoholic. And he said, because he had been there, he said, he’ll get better. When he hits bottom, your family just keeps moving the bottom. And in other words, he said over and over quit trying to soften his hard landings. He needs some hard landings before he is gonna figure it out for himself. So my struggle has always been, how do I handle my inability to really help the people I love. It’s a hard one for me. I always wanna go back to my old habit of trying to coerce them with more of my good intentions. So only recently have I taken to heart things that I’ve learned from some of the people that have been on this podcast in particular, Daphne Miller, who says we cannot help anybody in our life to, to fullness. We can’t control them to a better and sweeter and kinder life. I have to remember. I am only responsible for my own life. So rather than thinking about what I can do to help slash control, I work hard on other things like taking long walks and deep breaths and reading really good books. I think a lot once again, for what I’m grateful for and what I can do with myself, that’s gonna make me a better person in the arenas where I can affect real change in the world like fundraising for cancer patients like maybe writing another book, like doing this podcast so that there is a glimmer of hope every once in a while, for someone I have to tell you that this podcast mostly helps me. And I don’t think it’s controlling to try to help yourself. So this is a hard truth that I, and it’s gonna be one I struggle with for the rest of my life, but I can’t change, fix or save anyone else in the world. And I suspect that you can’t either. So let’s love ourselves best. And let’s get on with making the world a better place one day at a time, and maybe one person at a time. And that takes me to my, my next law of life. That is so hard for me. They’re all hard, but I’ve discovered in the last year that your impact on one life is just as important, if not more so than being a super influencer. In fact, impact is the greatest gift that you can give the world at large positive impact. That is because there are two different kinds.

Bunny: (11:43)
You can have negative impact on the world as, as well, but it really, truly doesn’t have to be the world at large. It only needs to be one person. So my rule number seven is stop trying to be a super influencer and concentrate on what you can do. That will be impactful for one person. When I was editing my book, lifesaving gratitude, I had some really grandiose dreams. I hoped for an interview on the Ellen show. I mean I could see myself, I practiced what I was gonna say. And, and I had this dream that at the end of my interview, she’d present this $50,000 check to the cancer foundation for New Mexico. I also figured that sooner or later I’d get to be on the good life podcast. And I envisioned tens of thousands of Instagram fans. And I just, had this idea that the minute my book went on the market, it would become a best seller. So, so the hard truth is that now that lifesaving gratitude’s been published, none of that has happened. Ellen hasn’t called, I haven’t been on any, high level podcast. And I don’t have 10,000 Instagram followers. And you know, what what’s happened instead has been really important. I’ve met some amazing people, sort of accidentally, um, Tony Katan, who is the author of my one night stand and with cancer and the new bestseller creative trespassing is now my friend. And she’s also my writing coach for the next book. You might think that by extension, that means that Jen sincere and Amy Poehler are my friends since they’re her pals. But, but I don’t know that they would think so. I’m acquainted with somebody w who’s having a huge impact on the world. Two of my favorite authors, um, Hampton sides and Douglas Preston wrote blurbs for my book, just because I asked them to, I am now acquainted with a famous chef and cookbook author, Cheryl Jameson. She lives here in Santa Fe and I reached out to her. She offered to write a book as a blurb as well, and check her out, buy her cookbooks because she’s amazing. But all of that, all of that kind of peripheral contact with other people’s fame doesn’t mean nearly as much as what I’ve heard from people who are either in the midst of their journey with cancer or at the end of it. And I’m going to go out on a limb here and tell you about, a friend that I went to lunch with recently who is a cancer survivor. And while we were sitting at lunch we were talking with a couple of other women about my book and here’s and I’ll, and I wanna tell you how she described the book, but first I wanna know that I want you to know that when I was finishing up my book, my wishes made a swing from the unlikes of my being a best seller to what I really wanted to the real reason for going to the expense and headache. And frankly, the hard work of finishing and editing and designing and conferring of over cover design. While I was doing all of that hard work, I realized that what I really wanted was a book that would’ve helped me on the day that I heard I had stage four cancer. I wanted what I wrote to make that hideous journey easier for one person. When I was diagnosed I did what I always do after I got on the internet, which was what my oncologist told me not to do. After scaring myself to death with statistics surrounding stage four, metastatic colon cancer, um, I started looking for books and I found one about a woman who had cancer at the same time as her dog. They both survived, but her cancer or was stage two, that was, that’s a terrible diagnosis, but I’m sorry. It wasn’t as scary to me as what was happening to me. And I found a couple of other cancer books, but nothing that seemed to match what felt like the real hopelessness of what I was facing. I had a lot of help, but I had no books. So, so what I wrote was to fill that hole and I finished the book with one person in mind, not multitudes because frankly the multitudes aren’t gonna like the ugliness of cancer. Only those that have been in the trenches with ports and pet scans and infusions and hair loss and bleeding gums and split open guts, get this one. So, so in a roundabout way, I’ve come back to the idea that you don’t have to be a huge influencer to impact people. In fact, I would bet that those huge influencers are not really impacting a, a lot of lives anymore than that one. Cute young couple. I see dancing on TikTok all the time. Impact means this to me, impact means helping one person at a time through a difficult period. And by the way, that impact usually starts with someone you loves. So instead of trying to help and control and change them, we just want to provide them perhaps with a story that’s going to make their journey a tiny bit easier. The rest is gonna follow. So I said a minute ago that I wanted to tell you a story about what somebody told me about the book and we were having lunch. And these other two women were talking about asking me about the book, what it’s like, what it’s like. And she said, hang on. I wanna tell you what it’s like for me. She said, I was diagnosed as a young woman over 40 years ago. And at the time that I was diagnosed, I was so busy surviving and getting through this, the news that I had a kind of cancer that was so rare, they didn’t even know how to treat it, that I’ve never really dealt with the way I felt at the, at that time. And she said, I’ve been reading Bunny’s book. She said, and I’m sorry. And of course it’s gonna make me cry to tell it, but she said, I’m sorry. I can only, I can’t tell this without crying. But she said, reading this book takes me back to that young girl who was so frightened and so paralyzed by her fear. And she said, I can only read a couple of pages at a time. And then I go back and I read them again. And it takes me back to how I felt over 40 years ago when law, I felt so helpless. And it’s, so this book is helping me so much because it’s helping me take a look again at what that meant to me and how it changed me. So by that time we were all, everybody at the table was crying. We were all really touched by what she said, but I thought to myself afterwards, when I got in the car, I thought that’s what it means. That’s what it means to impact one person at a time that I don’t have to go on Ellen. I don’t have to be on the good life podcast to know that I did the right thing at that moment. And it’s the same thing when I’m, when I’m working on fundraising for the cancer foundation for New Mexico, if one person who’s sitting over there in the cancer center hearing today, you have cancer. If what we do at the foundation changes the life of one per person, then it was well worth it. So the, the lesson I’ve learned is that I’m never gonna be a super influencer. I’m never going to be Gary Vaynerchuck or Tom Ferry, or any of those people who fill football stadiums with people who are buying their product. What I am gonna do, I hope for the rest of my life is have some sort of a positive influence on one person at a time.

Bunny: (20:21)
And that brings me to lesson number eight, and this, this is the big rule of my life. It probably should be number 10 as a grand finale. Although those, the other things feel important to me too. This law is you really don’t have time. I wrote in the forward to lifesaving gratitude that I was writing a different book at the time. And even after I got diagnosed with cancer, I continued to real stubbornly write that other book. And then I picked, I picked up father Patrick Boyle’s book called tattoos on the heart, and then the forward to his book, he says, um, I had, you know, I had stored all these stories in my head and in the homilies that I would bring when I was, when I was preaching all these stories about all the gang members that I was helping. But more importantly, how they were helping me because Dr. Boyle runs something called homeboy industries, which is a practice, it’s really an industry in LA helps people get off the streets, helps gang members get out of gangs. And he said, I was diagnosed with cancer. And I suddenly realized that death might not make an exception of me. And I thought, wait a second. It’s true. Death is not going to make an exception of me after all. So if I’m planning to do something right now is the time to do it. I am very distantly acquainted with a realtor on social media, whose wife is terminal ill, and they’re taking a week off every single month to do all the things that have been on her bucket list. Um, they’re taking trips to Yosemite and the grand canyon. And if, and if her health helps out, they plan to go to Paris and Venice in the spring, they’re really open about this travel and out her illness a few weeks ago, they were at the international balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, even though they lived somewhere in the south. And I messaged him on Facebook and said, I’d really love to meet you in person, but, but you know what? I didn’t hear back because they’re busy filling their lives with experiences. They don’t need to meet me and, and who can blame them. But I wonder if they wouldn’t say to us we wish we had done the things on our bucket list back before she got ill. We all have this notion that we can put off. What’s most important to us because, you know, we, we can do it next year, or we can do it when we retire or when our big product launch is completed or when our kids are gone or when we get the bonus.

Bunny: (23:19)
So can I just tell you something? And I have to remind myself of this every day, you don’t have time, or at least you don’t have a guarantee of any time. Every thing is I permanent either you or somebody you love isn’t going to live forever. They might get that terminal diagnosis tomorrow, or like the young man that my friend Tiffany knows. They might have a terrible accident on their way to a homecoming football game and not survive. The one guarantee we all have is that we all will eventually die. And the other part of it is that if we don’t die in our sleep or in a car accident, we might become ill. I know you’re, I know you’re thinking, wow, the, this is so Debbie downer, but I just, I so want to bring this back home. You don’t have time. I read a lot of Natalie Goldberg and in one of her books long ago, I read about a Tibetan practice suggesting that you talk about death every day. And I figured if she said it, it was worth trying. So when my kids were little, we talked about death. We didn’t talk about how we would die. And we were at morbid, but we talked more about the practicalities. Like, um, I would say, you know what? Be sure you give this turquoise ne necklace to this niece. If I go first or when we would hear a Beatles song on the radio, I’d say, be sure that they play in my life at my funeral. We weren’t strangers to death because we talked about it all the time. And because I’m from a huge family with over 61st cousins and at least 16 aunts and uncles, each on my mom’s and my dad’s side, we went to a lot of funerals, mostly elderly uncles who made it to 90 sometimes to sweet young cousins who passed away way far too early. So we were, we were not in experience with death. My suggestion is that to maybe keep yourself aware that you don’t have time. You might wanna consider talking about death every day in the kindest sweetest, most offhand way possible. I know it’s a tall order, but we know we, we need to be reminded that death is sitting out there on the fence of our lives, patiently waiting until the moment that our time turn is up. So quit putting off what’s important to you. For me, it was writing the book. It was falling head over heels in love with somebody who was really worthy of me. It was sitting right here talking to you, impacting one person at a time in a positive way. And by discovering what’s important to you can also take a long, hard look at. What’s not. You can decide how you wanna spend your days, and you can, you can decide what you wanna take out of your days. I just posted this quote from James clear, the author of atomic habits, which by the way, is a book that I highly recommend. James Clear’s says, in many cases, improvement, isn’t about doing more things, right? But in doing less things wrong, don’t look for things to add. Look for things to eliminate.

Bunny: (26:42)
I had a coach once who, a business coach who challenged me to say no 10 times each week. And that was hard for me. It was really hard. I think like, I’ve like, I’ve already told you my job is I felt like my job was always to say yes to be sure that people were happy, except I was always frustrated at how little I was getting done. What mattered to me? I wasn’t saying yes to my priorities. Often enough. And once I had accomplished one week where I said, no, 10 times, she said, let’s do it. Let’s try it for a day. And I was like, oh my God, are you kidding? This is so hard. When somebody in my market at Keller Williams asked me to take on a committee project. I said, no. And when a client asked me to go to lunch the very next day, I said, no, adding that I’d be happy to do it. When I had more time on my calendar. The next week, when someone at the cancer foundation asked me to pick up pieces on, pick up the pieces on something had forgotten to do. I said no. And I struggled hard every time I said no that day. And I’ll be really honest with you. I’ve never done that exercise again. I can’t say no 10 times in a day, but it was pretty amazing to realize all the things that I was saying yes to, because when I said no to one, I started giving myself space to say, yes, I know very, very personally that we don’t have time. I have had a doctor write a letter that said I had 12 months to live. I’m grateful that that didn’t become the truth, but please, please remember. You don’t have time. Don’t put off something that’s important to you. Be grateful for all that. You have be grateful for the time that you’ve been given. And then remember that it’s finite because it is, here’s my law. Number 10. I’m sorry. Number nine. It’s not failure. If you don’t quit. This is a really easy for one for me now. It wouldn’t have been 10 years ago. I would’ve thought, wow, what if that doesn’t work out? What if I do it wrong? Um, but now I’ve said it so many times that it it’s, it’s just anytime something’s going wrong. I’ll just say to my myself, you know what? It’s not failure. If I don’t quit. When your business fails, when a relationship falls apart, when you forget the most important part of the speech, like, like I’m doing here. Sometimes when you screw up the relationship with somebody, you really love by saying the worst possible thing at the worst possible time. And by the way, I’m the queen of this. Just remember, it’s not failure. If you don’t quit. Seth Godin, who, who is one of my best friends, even though he doesn’t know, it says, and I’m, I’m quoting directly. The rule is simple. The person who fails the most will win. If I fail more than you do, I will win. Because in order to keep failing, you have to be good enough to keep playing. So in the last law, I said, you don’t have time. You don’t have time to overthink, to wait to slink into the she shadows when you’re feeling like a failure. The old cliche about getting on the horse is a cliche because it’s mostly true. So please remember it’s not failure. If you don’t quit, write that down, put it on your bathroom mirror and remind yourself that failure is not a bad word. It’s just another step towards greatness.

Bunny: (30:25)
And finally, I want you to take this to heart. That gratitude is a strategy. We all tend to think of gratitude as a reaction as in, wow, look at this amazing day. I just had look at the wonderful friends. I have look at this inspire. Look at our, my stunning success in business this week. Boy, am I grateful for that? For that thing that happened? We always, or hopefully we react to pleasant situations with gratitude, but here’s an even more important way to look at gratitude. It is a Strategy there are about a thousand platitudes about gratitude that I can quote. So I’m gonna leave those alone. But I know personally that making a choice ahead of time to be grateful, choosing gratitude over being miserable is a strategy and a plan that results in better outcomes. I, I don’t know why I know there’s a science to it. I can’t quote it right here. I’m just gonna tell you if you make that choice, it’s going to make a difference. We, on this podcast, we talk about toxic positivity all the time, and I don’t want to be guilty of being toxic, sickly positive. If that’s a term, I am not suggesting that in the face of depression or abuse or horrible wrongs in society, you express gratitude. I am not grateful in any way that we had another school shooting in this country this week. I am not grateful for the anger and divisiveness in our country, for which there doesn’t seem to be a cure. What I’m suggesting is that you choose to wake up with the words. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. In your mind, when you start the day, that way your brain is already starting to lean toward finding something for which it can express gratitude. And some days it’s something as simple as the sunrise, or as overwhelming as the good diagnosis diagnosis. Like the one, a friend of mine got yesterday after all of us worried for weeks that she might have ovarian cancer. Some days you’re gonna be grateful. You’re gonna find gratitude in my toddler, grandson’s chubby little legs learning to come down the stairs rather than falling, or in a handwritten note that you get in the mail from somebody who thought of you days ago, and then sent a card to surprise you. And, and by the way, this is always a really great strategy. It’s a really great gratitude strategy that you can do, where you express your gratitude and engender more gratitude for somebody else. Sit down and write a hand, re it, note to somebody you care about because nobody sends or gets handwritten notes anymore. Choosing gratitude. When I was sick was a lifesaver for me, and it still works. We had a tiny little hurdle in my family’s emotional wellbeing last weekend. For three days, I agonized over it over the things I said that I shouldn’t have over the things that I interpreted badly. And then on the fourth day, I chose instead, the strategy of choosing gratitude. I said, I’m grateful for this complex family I have. And for the surprising gifts that we all bring to the table during the whole holidays, for the ways that we still come back together, despite our differences, I also chose to do what I re I recommended in my last podcast episode, which is to replace one negative thought with five positives. And every, every time I thought, that was awful. And I don’t know how we’re gonna get past it. I made my self say, five times, everything will be fine. We all love each other. Everything will be fine. We all love each other. I said it over and over. And you know, we’re all good now. And perhaps I’m a little wiser for all my foibles gratitude is strategy. Choose gratitude, choose it instead of pessimism or cursing your life and say, thank you three times tomorrow morning when you wake up and then let me know how it’s going. So those are my laws. The last one was choose gratitude. It’s a strategy. Number nine was, it’s not failure. If you don’t quit. Number eight was, you don’t really have time. Number seven was impact one life rather than trying to be a super influencer. And number six that I started with today is you can’t change or save anyone else.

Bunny: (35:24)
So I promised that if you stuck around, I’d give you a bonus at the end. And, um, and here it is, I’m reading these precious days by Anne Patchett. And I’ve found so many truths in the essays that Anne Patchet writes. One of my favorites was this is the story of a happy marriage. And this, this book is even better. I’ve. I mean, that book, this is the story of a happy marriage I’ve picked up and reread probably the 10 times. And, and they’re essays that you don’t have to read chronologically. You can just pick them up and make them a part of your day. But These Precious Days is, I mean, it speaks to me because I feel like I’m in the midst of these precious days in my own life. She says so many things that touched me in so many ways. And I generally get to the end of an essay and I’ve got tears in my eyes because her words are so magical. Um, you may know her as a fiction writer. Um, she wrote belcanto, she wrote patron Saint of liars. She’s written a dozen amazing books, and someday I’d like to be Anne Patchett.

Bunny: (36:38)
But I just want to leave you with a line. When I was thinking about, quoting something from the book for my listeners, there were about 52 places in her essays that I could have quoted, but this is the piece that, spoke to me the most. They had a little scare where her husband, um, had to go to the emergency room, um, see a cardiologist because they thought that he was having a heart attack. And she, um, writes at the end of this chapter, she says for as many times as the horrible thing happens, a thousand times in every day, the horrible thing passes us by a meteor could be skating past Earth’s atmosphere this very minute. We’re never gonna know how close we come to annihilation, but today I saw it. Everything I had and stood to lose and did not lose. Thanks to this flee, eating clarity, the glow from the fluorescent tubes on the ceiling of the small cardiac recovery room, lights up the entire world. That’s what we want to remember. We want to remember how not, not the possibility of disaster, but how all these horrible things pass us by, and instead give us life and love and light. I know that sounds a little Pollyanna-ish, but you guys who know me know that for me, the truth is always pretty positive. So thanks for checking in. Thanks for being here. Thanks for following this podcast. And for listening to my ramblings next week, we’ll be back to our normal scheduled podcasting with guests who have things that are much more important to say, but I I’m so grateful for those of you who show up and hear me and who maybe go out and have a, an impact on one person at a time. Remember, we don’t have a lot of time. So go out and do what’s really important to you today. Thanks everybody.

Bunny: (38:57)
That’s all we’ve got today. Friends. I wanna thank you for joining the lifesaving gratitude podcast with your host Bunny Terry, that’s me and my producer and assistant Johanna Medina. We feel like we’re in the business of sharing the stories that save us, and we hope you’ll share as well by letting your friends and family know about the podcast follow and like us wherever you listed. And please take the time to leave a review, whether it’s a stellar comment or a suggestion, we are open to suggestions all the time. Also follow us on Instagram at livesaving gratitude pod. You can also follow me personally @bunnyterrysantafe, and sign up my website at bunnyterry.com to receive weekly emails about how to become the ultimate gratitude nerd. Thanks so much for checking in.

Bunny: Hi everyone. This is Bunny with the Lifesaving Gratitude podcast. Just in case you don’t know me, I am a stage four colon cancer survivor and the author of Lifesaving Gratitude, which is a book about how gratitude helped me kick cancer’s ass. 

Today we’re going to talk to a special guest about how marketing and marketers can use gratitude to create business and connections with clients and also for themselves to create a really positive way to do their job. But first, I just want to thank you for being here and ask that you download the podcast if you’d like. And certainly subscribe wherever you listen to other podcasts. But enough about me and enough about the podcast. 

I want to introduce you to my special guest, who’s also a friend. Craig Cunningham is currently a realtor with Keller Williams, Santa Fe. And that’s how I met him. However, this is a recent career for him and he was, and correct me if I mispronounce the word, but you were a hotelier. Is that the way to say that?

Craig: Yes. 

Bunny: Yes. He’s spent 30 years in corporate sales and marketing. He’s traveled extensively. I’m going to let him tell you all the places that he’s been to, but he is the founder and principal of Cunningham + Colleagues marketing consultants. He was in the past the VP of marketing and quality for Seaport Hotels and World Centers and the VP of marketing for Core North America. So welcome Craig Cunningham.

Craig: Thanks so much for having me on your podcast.

Bunny: I’m excited. I know you have some great tips for all of our listeners. When I think about these podcasts, I always think about the people that are going to want the information we’re offering. I mean, we’re here to help people and we’re here to figure out how gratitude can make everyone’s life not just easier and simpler, but also fuller. So why don’t you start, Greg? Just tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us how in the world you ended up in this completely different career? And yet the truth is we’re still just marketers first and realtors, second. Tell me a little bit about yourself. Tell our listeners.

Craig: Yeah. So, as you said, I’ve been in marketing and sales for more than 30 years. I actually started off with an advertising and PR agency and then had the good fortune to be hired by my hotel client at the time, Wyndham hotels. At that time it was a North American chain and it’s now international. 

But from then on, I was in the hotel business. It’s definitely a career where if you are not focused on client service and the whole concept of gratitude, you’re not going to be successful. I always thought of our job as just surprising and delighting our guests and making them feel like they chose the right hotel to be with. And so it was always about waking up every day and saying, “What can I do to make somebody’s day and to give them a great experience?” And, of course, to do this you have to be grateful because they opted to choose your hotel over the million other choices that they had. 

So when I retired from the hotel business two years ago, I was trying to figure out what else I wanted to do with my life. I started doing more volunteering. I volunteer with Kitchen Angels here in Santa Fe to deliver meals to people who are not able to leave their homes. But I also started thinking of whether I wanted to do something else from a professional standpoint and the real estate business seemed like a natural extension, because it’s all about client service. You have to figure out ways to make people feel like they’ve made the right choice in working with you. So it’s all about being grateful every day and figuring out what can I do to help them today. How else can I extend what I’m doing for them in a way that they will appreciate and know that I appreciate them. So that’s what it’s really all about, because of course they could work with a million other other people

Bunny: Right. And let’s talk for just a second. Don’t you think that marketing has changed over the 30 years that you’ve been doing this? I mean, it seems to me that when we were kids, which was back before the crust cooled, we were sort of marketed at. Just talk for a minute about how marketing is different now than it was 10 years ago or 30 years ago.

Craig: It’s funny, because I was going to say the exact same thing. Back in the day, you were running a TV ad or a radio spot or a print ad and it was passive in that you just presented the information, unless you were direct sales. But really with the advent of so much digital media, you are instantly able to forge a relationship with customers through social media, through Facebook, Instagram, where you’re having a dialogue with them from the very beginning. This allows you to work in a much more personal way and to be able to find out much more quickly how you can serve those people. 

So I think it’s changed completely. Before you just sort of put it out there into the ether and hope that something worked, and now you’re able to engage. And I’ve found that so much in real estate where I’m getting emails from folks and then it evolves from the email into a phone call or a zoom call or something like that instantly. I think that’s so much better for both people. Especially for somebody like me who wants to find ways to engage with people and to be of service to them, it makes it a lot easier and more rewarding.

Bunny: I just think about the ways that I connect with my clients. It’s as if you’re somehow conveying to those people that you’re grateful that they showed up.

Craig: Yeah, exactly. I mean, my whole thought is that it’s not a transaction, it’s a relationship. And that relationship can be multifaceted. Once you’ve sold them a house or sold their house, I like to think that we’ve formed a friendship and a bond and that relationship is going to continue. And honestly, I don’t even care if I ever get another piece of business for them. Now think of them as friends. I want to have them to my house for dinner or go have coffee or something like that. 

I think that kind of thing that makes a difference for people in wanting to work with me.  It’s coming from a position of wanting to be of service to them and wanting to make them happy and finding the right solution for them. I’m working with some first-time-buyers right now and I kind of feel like they’re my kids. It’s about, okay, how can I really help them with this? And they’re grateful for the counsel I’m able to give to them, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to work with them. So it’s very rewarding. I think if you approach business relationships in the same way as you would with your friends, it’s a win-win situation for everybody.

Bunny: Well, talking about those first-time home buyers, I mean, that’s one of my favorite deals. You never make the most money from those transactions, but I’m so grateful to be reminded that we are providing the American dream when we’re selling real estate. Yeah. It’s amazing. It’s my favorite experience.

Craig: Yeah. I mean, for somebody to have their first home and to be excited about how they’re going to decorate it and what they’re going to do. And with this young couple, seeing them excited when they see a house brings out all my empathy and makes me want to really go the extra mile for them to make sure they find the right house at the right price for them. And then I just never want to stop. So then it’s like, “Okay, now I’m going to find this person for you to do the plumbing, and I’m going to find this person, etc, and I’ll be with you with you  to help explain things.” I just want to really continue to be of service.

Bunny: I talk a lot, especially on my blog, about Judy Camp, who was one of my first real estate mentors. She was a great friend and Linda Gammons partner for a long time before she passed away. But Judy Camp always says, “If you come from contribution, you can’t help but be successful.”

Craig: Yeah. I mean, just as I was saying, you can’t think of it as a transaction. I think, coming from contribution, how can I help you? How can I make this a better experience? How can I make this work? Because, especially in a real estate transaction, it can be stressful. It’s the biggest financial transaction for the majority of us. So how do you take the burden and the pressure away from them and sort of guide them through the process? I just think the main thing is that it’s much more fun, whether you’re doing volunteer work or in business, to wake up every day and figure out how I could make it fun for somebody else. Because then it’s fun for you and it gets you excited and passionate about what you’re doing.

Bunny: Well, it sounds like our big “why’s” are really similar. I certainly don’t want to put any words in your mouth, but it sounds like your big “why” is just to make the life of the people you come in contact with better.

Craig: Yeah. Of course making money is nice, but there are lots of ways to make money. It’s more about whether you are getting energy from it. And I think you really get energy when you’re working with someone and trying to figure out how you can help them, how you can make their day better, how you can make the service that you’re providing better. And also just doing things that saying, “What about if I do X, Y, Z?” and they’re  like, “Oh, you’ll do that for me?” And I’m like, “Of course.”

I have another set of clients where the transaction was fairly complicated and we were looking at lots of properties. Coming from a corporate background, I love to do spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations—things like that. And so after about the third thing we had to do, they’re like, “Oh, how are we going to organize all these bids?”  And then one of the guys said to the other guy, “Well, Craig’s going to do a spreadsheet for us. He’s probably already got it done.” So it’s that kind of thing where you’re looking for ways to make their experience better.

Bunny: So this is always a funny question for me to ask, because I have such a loose gratitude practice other than just waking up in the morning and saying, “thank you, thank you, thank you,” and then writing things down, but do you have a practice that you follow that helps you both in your business and your personal life?

Craig: Well, since I came into real estate with Keller Williams, which focuses a lot on being servant leaders and helping people, I’ve gotten into the habit of writing three things I’m grateful for that day. It could be that it’s a beautiful day or a dog or my partner or the opportunity to help somebody or the coffee’s really good that day, but waking up and appreciating what you have in your life is a good way to get in a good mindset for the rest of it.

Bunny: Oh, absolutely. Something I always say is that we kind of rewire our brains. We do. We create new neural pathways every time we say that we’re grateful. So in terms of nuts and bolts, is there a way that you let your clients know? I mean, I find that there are a lot of young people, young entrepreneurs or people who are new to business, who forget how to tell their clients how they’re grateful for them, even if it’s a line in an email. Do you have something that you do specifically over and over?

Craig: I think for me, it’s maybe more in the actions. I think of “This is really going to be helpful if I do this or if I provide this information.” I think it’s always in my voice and the way that I write. I try to always communicate openly and in a friendly and conversational manner. But then I also think “It would be really cool and really helpful if I did X , Y , Z.” I created a whole PowerPoint just on the neighborhoods in Santa Fe, because if you’re out of town it gets confusing. And that came out of a client saying, “Well, I don’t really know the neighborhoods.” And I thought that this would be a great tool for them. So I created it and then I was able to use it with others. 

So I think for me, maybe it’s sort of on the fly. I used to say in the hotel hotel business, “How can I make this a wow experience?” Because the other way to think about it is that every relationship is with people. When you’re in a service business you’re really in the business of creating memories. You can create good memories or you can create bad memory and it’s much more fun to create good memories.

Bunny: And that just comes from a spirit of generosity. I mean, you obviously want this to be the best real estate experience they’ve ever had.

Craig: Right. Right. I’m very grateful for the people that have helped me along the way. I’ve been very fortunate in my career to always work for people who were concerned about my career development and my personal development and became dear friends. And I’ve had a couple of bosses that have hired me twice in two different jobs. So I’m always grateful for the things that other people have done for me. 

So then I want to pay it forward. When I came to Keller Williams and I was introduced to the team here, there was so much openness and willingness to share and help and support. It has been fantastic. What strikes me the most is how grateful I am for what other people have done for me. And how do I pay that back?

Bunny: I mean, this is not a podcast to plug Keller Williams. It’s really more to talk about mindset, but the place where I learned it was sitting in that training room and learning that my mindset was the secret sauce. I mean, that’s the success piece, right?

Craig: Yeah, exactly. It’s not just about production and everything. It’s about weight and having a sense of gratitude and contribution and a sense of abundance. And I don’t mean that in a monetary way. It could be abundance in your health or your friends or all of that kind of stuff. And I think back to you. Your experience with cancer was far worse than mine, but I did have prostate cancer about nine years ago. Everyone I worked with during that entire time when I was going for radiation every day for 10 weeks was so supportive. And then on the last day of radiation, there was this very important meeting, and everyone knew it was my last day.My whole team had a celebration for me on my last day. That was turning something that was obviously a challenging situation into something where I knew they really cared about me and supported me.

Bunny: Wow. I’m interested to hear how your mindset was in the middle of that? 

Craig: I’m just by nature, an optimistic person. So even though it was scary, I felt like I was in good hands from a medical standpoint and I just felt like I was gonna beat it. I had done the education that I needed to and then it was really about having a positive mindset. 

This is probably too much information, but I’ll say it anyway. You’re doing the radiation stripped down to your boxer shorts. And so I jokingly put this Facebook thing about the fact that I needed a new pair of boxer shorts for every day. And people started sending me underwear—different pairs of boxer shorts for every day. So while I was sitting there in the big machine, where you’re sort of in there and it’s buzzing and scanning and all that kind of stuff, it got to be kind of a joke with the techs:  “Oh , what’s he going to be wearing today?”

Bunny: I love that.

Craig: That was a way to keep my spirits up. And also during that process, I really learned how to be very focused. I was in a waiting room with people that were going through, frankly, worse things than prostate cancer. Don’t get me wrong, prostate cancer is pretty serious. It is. People die from it. But I was seeing so many other people that were having a much more challenging time than I was. And we became a family. We all bonded together during that process, because we were all waiting, sometimes for an hour. So it’s things like that. And also things like the kitchen angels service, where it helps reboot you every day for how grateful you should be in your own life and grateful for the opportunity to help other people.

Bunny: Right. There are tons of people who do get what a gift it is. People who don’t even have a specific gratitude practice, but at least an attitude every day that you’re going to figure out something. I just wrote a blog post on limiting beliefs and one of the things that I wanted to convey is that we get to choose every single moment how we view the world. And maybe for somebody out there who’s brand new in business or who’s starting a new business. I just read a statistic that said that the entrepreneur demographics are changing. And now like 48% of new entrepreneurs are over 50. So hooray for the old people! 

But I know that there are people out there right now who are thinking, “Well, I’m not any good at marketing. I’m not any good at that piece of it. I can sell stuff, but I’m not good at the marketing stuff.” I’ve got to tell you, I’m married to a guy who doesn’t believe in self promotion because he came from a generation when you played down your assets, instead of being grateful for them and talking about them. So I’d love to hear what you have to say to somebody who has that limiting belief that they can’t market. And they can’t promote themselves.

Craig: You know, we could all market ourselves, and we do it every day in our interactions.  Whether we think of it as marketing or not, we’re marketing ourselves all day long in how we react and treat other people. The thought I had as you were talking about your husband thinking self-promotion sounds like a dirty word is that it doesn’t have to be you talking  about “me, me, me” and “I did this million dollars in revenue.” This is kind of a turnoff in some ways, because you’re talking about yourself. But if you’re talking about how you can help somebody else and how you can provide a good experience for them with your information and knowledge, you’re not talking about yourself in that context. You’re talking about how you can be of service. I think that’s a much easier way for a lot of people from a generation where we weren’t really supposed to be talking about ourselves.

Bunny: Well, it was pre-social media. Our face wasn’t out there. We just weren’t trained to tell people, “Here’s the reason you should hire me instead of the other person.”

Craig: Yeah, exactly. I mean, now we’re all our own brands on social media. But I think that rather than saying to somebody, “Here’s why you should hire me versus somebody else,” you should just talk about how you can be of service in what you do in an authentic way. Then people are more likely to want to work with you, because you’re radiating a sense of positivity and an interest in them. And they’re not thinking that you just look at them as a transaction and then you’re onto the next person.

Bunny: I frequently use with my marketing coaching clients the example of a dinner party. If you went into a dinner party (and this is for people who are just beginning in whatever business they’re in, especially if they’re self-employed), you wouldn’t simply walk in, take your coat off and say, “Hey, I’m selling something, come and talk to me.” Right? I mean, that’s what you don’t want to do with marketing. You want to start by building a relationship. Can you talk a little bit about that? 

Craig: I think it goes all the way back to Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. People do like to talk about themselves. And so the first thing is you should be listening. That was one of the first things I learned in marketing client service. You need to ask questions and learn from your clients. Focus on what they need, as opposed to talking about yourself. You really want to establish a dialogue with them about their wants and needs and hopes and fears and everything else. Then you can talk about how you can address them. But nobody wants to go in and all of a sudden have you sit down and say, “Here’s my PowerPoint about me and what I’ve done.” It should be more of establishing, from the very beginning, a relationship of openness with folks. Then, after hearing from them, you can say “Well, here’s how I think I can you and here are some ideas that I have that I could share with you.” So I think a key thing is really listening from the very beginning.

Bunny: I even found that to be helpful when I used to first go on listing appointments. I was so nervous that I would sit down and I would immediately try to book an appointment. You know, if you’re not in real estate, a listing appointment is just like sitting down with a prospective customer. I would be so nervous in the beginning and really coming from a place of scarcity where I thought, “If I don’t get this listing, I’m not sure I can pay the rent next month.” And if you’re coming from a place of scarcity, you’re likely to self-sabotage. But that’s such good advice because things changed when I finally learned how to sit back and listen: “I’m here to help you. Tell me what it is that you need. Talk to me.” It’s so powerful to give a client time to talk to you. And I think people forget to do that, right?

Craig: Yeah. And I think sometimes we do it because we’re afraid. What I’ve learned so much over the years in business working with people is that people are terrified of silence, so they will immediately start talking. If there’s a second of silence, you jump in and start babbling. Lord knows I do it. But if you just let somebody talk and let it sort of sit there for a second and not just try to be filling in all the time. It drives me crazy when people are doing that. It’s much better if you can have the client talk and then ask some more questions and then be warm and reflective about it. Back to the Dale Carnegie thing, I think one of his first points was if you’re at the dinner party, ask people about themselves. Most people do like to talk about themselves. So ask them and don’t just start talking about yourself. 

Bunny: I think that even people who would say, “I don’t like to talk about myself,” really do want somebody to ask them and listen to them.

Craig: Yeah. And it’s not just asking them to go on and on. It’s more meaningful questions about, for example, why they decided to move here. Just those kinds of questions that get them thinking. Growing up in materialistic Dallas, the joke was that the questions at a party were like, “Where do you live? What do you do? What do you drive?” And so it’s not questions like that. It’s asking them more about their life experience,

Bunny: You just brought me to another completely different point, which is for any realtors out there listening: I think it’s really important to convey to your clients how grateful you are for where you live. I mean, if our lifestyle is such a selling point, don’t you think you should share that?

Craig: Oh, yeah, exactly. I mean, living in Santa Fe there’s so much beauty. I’m looking out my window right now at the beautiful blue sky. When I leave my house in the morning and I see the mountains, and then when I’m coming home at night and the sun is setting over the mountains and I see all the different colors and everything, it’s just breathtaking. It’s great to live in such a great and wonderful environment and in a place that is very spiritual, going back with the native Americans—respect for the earth and nature and all of those things—I think it does help center us more than a lot of other places.

Bunny: How do you convey that to your clients? I know you’re doing something really cool online that’s different from some other realtors.

Craig: Well, I’m not just posting on my Facebook page,” Hey, I just sold this house or just sold that house.” Well, that’s great. But I’m more talking about new experiences in Santa Fe: new restaurants, or a new place to go hiking, or something exciting that’s happening at one of the museums or things like that—enthusiastically talking about the experience of living in Santa Fe. And if down the road, by the way, you’re looking at this stuff and you decide you want to buy a house here, I would love to help you. But it’s more about conveying the reason why we all want to live here

Bunny: And tell us about your blog, because I think it’s amazing.

Craig: So I created this blog, which is called Santa Fe Scenes. It’s that same kind of thing where it’s just talking about having fun in Santa Fe. One of the things was, you know, we’ve got the old Santa Fe trail and we’ve got the old Pincus trail, but did you know that we had a Margarita trail and a Chocolate trail? Stuff like that. Just being whimsical about it and talking about some of the things are unique about the city and sharing my own passion for Santa Fe. I was very fortunate to be able to do a lot of international travel for my job. I was grateful for the opportunity that I was given to see places that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise from Bogota to Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and Beijing and places like that. So I’ve always been enthusiastic about travel and now living in such a beautiful place like Santa Fe, I want to share that enthusiasm with people.

Bunny: And you’re getting some good feedback on that I bet, right?

Craig: Yes, I am. I’m getting good feedback on it. It’s been a wonderful thing to reconnect with friends who are saying, “Good for you, you old dog! You’re back out there trying something new.” Because whenever someone says, “Oh, you’re a new realtor,” I say, “Well, I’m an old new realtor. I’m 61 and I’m starting this for the first time.” But it’s been great from that perspective and the support that you get from your friends. Then people are saying, “Oh, well, I know somebody who might be interested in sending you that information.” I think that’s one of the positive things that social media has done where we’ve been able to reconnect with so many people that we might have completely lost touch with.

Bunny: Oh yeah. I did a post not very long ago about how grateful I was, and it was in the middle of all the fear over Facebook and Twitter. And I just said that it’s such a great platform for reconnecting with cousins that I haven’t seen since I was six. I mean, I just turned 60. I’m an old dog and this is a new trick for me, but I think that if you use it the right way, it’s a real gift. I also think there are so many realtors, like you said, who just post either pictures of houses that they have listed or their accomplishments. And I think they’re really missing an opportunity.

Craig: Yeah. Because then you’re just talking at someone. You’re not sharing information and excitement about things with them. People don’t want to look at that stuff. They want to look at things like the fact that there are like six great chocolate tiers in Santa Fe. And then the next time I’m in town, I want to go to each one of them. Or discovering an amazing new hiking trail or a beautiful image of a shop window or a piece of art or something like that. 

Bunny: Yeah, it’s so much better than “I just listed this house at 123 main street. Don’t you wish you owned it?” Exactly.

Craig: Exactly. I think more people would react to it. I’d really like to have some of that green chili chocolate over at The Chocolate Smith or whatever. It’s much more interesting than a picture of a kitchen that has granite countertops. Oh my goodness.

Bunny: And, you know, Craig, I found that people will call me and they’ll say, “Well, I’ve been following you on Facebook for two years. And I feel like you’re my best friend. I think you’d be the right person to show me around and help me find a house.” And I bet that’s happening to you too.

Craig: Yeah, exactly. It’s funny, you mentioned that. One of the people I’ve been mentoring told me a story about how she posted a lovely picture of herself and then somebody called her and said, “I feel like I already know you because you just look like a nice person and I feel like I can trust you.” I think also that it’s our eyes and our smile and everything that conveys so much of what you’re talking about. If you have a spirit of gratitude and service and a sense of abundance, not scarcity, it shows in your face, your eyes, your smile, and your whole persona.

Bunny: Well, we’re going to have to wrap up here in a minute, but I would love to hear if you have just three great tips that you would give to somebody who feels kind of stuck in their marketing. It could be what you’ve learned in 30 years or in the last three days, whatever it is.

Craig: I think one is changing your question from “How do I market myself?” to “What can I do for this client?” or “What can I do that’s going to excite the people? How can I make them feel appreciated and valued?” And this can work in cases where you’re actually working one-on-one with a client or cases where you’re trying to figure out how to promote what you’re doing. How do I find ways to surprise and delight people? So I like to do that with social media buys, where you come up with quirky, little things to talk about that are authentically Santa Fe or a funny picture of my dog or something like that. You want to put a smile on people’s faces. And social media gives us so many opportunities to be able to do that in ways that we couldn’t before. So the main thing at the end of it is to put your client first, and then I think everything else will come from there.

Bunny: You’re absolutely right. I think as long as your passion is helping people, then success is just a natural by-product of that.

Craig: Exactly. People feel that energy and then they want to tell their friends about you.

Bunny: What I’ve found is that people want to be able to trust somebody, especially in this business where they’re making possibly the biggest purchase of their life.

Craig: Right? I’m thinking back to these younger clients. We were touring houses, and they were interested in one particular house and I was like, “No, I’m not going to let you buy this. This is not the right move.” And I think all of a sudden they’re like, “Wow, he really cares. He’s not just thinking ‘Tick tock, tick tock. We’ve seen three houses.’” This is not House Hunters International where there are the three properties and you have to buy one. So again, it’s not a transaction. It’s a journey. It’s a relationship.

Bunny: I think that’s the most important tip for somebody to take away. Whether you’re selling widgets or earrings or house cars or houses, this is not a transaction. It’s a relationship. We want people to trust you and come back over and over. I don’t know how you can love your job if you’re not doing it the way we’re doing it.

Craig: Yeah, exactly. And have fun with it. We get to meet interesting people all day long. We get to see things. We get to use our own creativity to express ourselves. I know there are people that are in jobs that don’t have that. But I also read things about  the janitor in an elementary school who takes real pride in what they do, and they are going to do the best job that they possibly can. So I think in almost everything, you can come at it with a mindset of “How can I make this a great experience for me and for others?”

Bunny: That’s great stuff. Tell us where people can find you and where they can find your blog.

Craig: Well, probably the most fun thing I’m doing is the Santa Fe Scenes blog. 

Bunny: Okay. And we’ll share that on the information page for the podcast. And then, of course, if people want to buy a house from you, they can find you through there?

Craig: Yeah. All my information is on there. So one stop shop.

Bunny: Craig, I’m so excited that you were here. This was fun. I think we could do it again.

Craig: Yeah. Yeah.

Bunny: Because I think this is the place where people get stuck. People who are self-employed get stuck in this part. And so I think there’s a lot of stuff that we can talk about.  But I’m of course really grateful that you agreed to talk with us.

Craig: Oh, thanks. It’s been a lot of fun. I appreciate it. 

Bunny: And to everybody else, thanks for being here. This is once again, the Lifesaving Gratitude podcast. I’m Bunny Terry. You are welcome to go to my website if you’d like to learn more about me and about buying my book, which is all about gratitude and how gratitude helped me kick stage four cancer’s ass. And we’d love to have you follow us and subscribe on spot Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks so much, Craig.

Craig: Thank you. Next time.