Gratitude that Empowers: Nikki Ubaldini

Bunny: 0:02

Welcome to the Lifesaving gratitude podcast. I’m your host Bunny Terry. And I’m joined by my co-host and producer Johanna Medina, who also happens to be my daughter. This morning we talked to Nikki Ubaldini, who is a woman I met through Facebook. Um, we have a mutual friend, Brindley Tucker, who was formerly a podcast, guest and Brindley. This is a funny story about Nikki before we begin. If you listen to Brindley’s podcast, you know what an amazing person she is, but Nikki was her boss and fired her when Brindley was , she, you know, she tells us in her podcast that she had , an issue with alcohol and almost kill somebody. And the next day she went into work and Nikki said , you can’t work for me anymore. They’re now the best of friends. But Nikki is in the business of helping women change their lives. I mean, she, she changed her own life. She’s a breast cancer survivor. She’s an incredibly successful Keller Williams real estate broker, but she’s, she’s so many other things that I’m, I gotta tell you, after talking to her, I’m overwhelmed by the things that we heard. Johanna, tell me what you took away. It’s crazy.

Johanna : 1:32

Oh yeah. So much. I just, the whole time, really, we were talking to her , um, Gianna our guest a couple episodes ago. Her quote was coming up to me that like, it’s not coincidence, it’s divine because so many of the things , you know, I just thought, whoa , how convenient and what a coincidence that we have Nikki on now after Gianna and after Daphne. But then I was like, no, it’s not a coincidence. Like this all was happening for a reason. And I think we’re talking to these amazing women in this order for a reason. And, you know, having them brought into our life because , um, so many of the things Nikki was saying, really just pull back to all that, like the mind and body work and the connections to your mind and your body and stay , you know, how your , your mental health affects your physical health. Again, I, I had listened to you on her podcast. I had researched her, but I had no idea all the things she had been through , um, her group or women’s group that we are, women empowered, all the things that , that she’s accomplishing through that it’s just, and , and all the women she’s empowering through that, it’s just really, really amazing. Like, yeah, she’s , she was a great guest and I kinda , I, I pushed you to do this intro right away because I was like, oh, I just have so much to say about it, but yeah, she was amazing.

Bunny: 2:58

Well, I want to say one of the things that we talk about in this podcast is that Nikki made a really conscious choice not to , um, w when she had breast cancer, not to get any sort of chemotherapy, she chose an alternate treatment. And, you know, this is sort of controversial. This I’m in a lot of , um, especially stage four cancer groups online and , and people go back and forth on this, and people feel really strongly about whether you should seek treat traditional treatment or not. And I want you to know that your journey, your cancer journey, your life journey is yours. We’re just in the business of giving you ideas and options. And especially, especially hoping that people get we’re all about the mind body connection. It’s like Daphne talked about resilience. The way that you become resilient is through paying attention and treating your mind as, and your heart as though they’re just as important. Their health is as important as your, as your body’s health, your physical body’s health.

Johanna : 4:13

Yeah, definitely. I mean, yeah, I mean, of course it disclaimer to this episode that none of us on here are doctors. None of us are oncologists. Nikki is really just sharing her experience. And I think her biggest message is to be your own advocate, do the research as much as you can and ask questions. And especially because when you’re dealing with cancer or any kind of medical diagnosis, it’s scary and it’s a lot coming at you quickly, it’s a stressful situation. So anytime you can take a minute to slow down , you know, kinda take it, take it in, you know, as slowly as you can, that’s going to help you make better decisions, you know, talk to your doctors. If you’re not comfortable, it’s okay to fire your doctors and shop for another one. That’s, that’s your choice. You don’t have to be stuck with the one you’re given. I mean, we’ve talked about kind of before, but it didn’t really get to mention in this episode that, you know, because of your cancer journey experience , um, I became a social worker and then later became a medical case manager for kids with chronic illnesses, because it is such a crazy , um, you know, system and navigating the medical field is intense and you really just can’t do it alone. So if you, you know, you mentioned, if you have somebody that can be your advocate, you know, at least bring, bring a buddy with you, if you can. Cause it’s, it’s overwhelming. So I think that’s the major message on this is just, you know, you don’t always have to take the first option if you don’t feel comfortable with it and, and definitely be your advocate. And also, but remember everybody is, every body is different, every cancer is different, every chemo is different. I think that’s something we learned quickly with your cancer that I didn’t know before is that, you know, chemo for breast cancer is not the same as chemo for colon cancer, chemo for prostate cancer. Like it’s all very different. I think if people just hear about cancer and chemo and you know, like what you see in movies and stuff, you just think, oh, there’s one kind of chemo and we all get the same thing. It’s really not like that. So , just, it’s just a lot, it’s a lot of information to take in.

Bunny: 6:33

Well, and the other thing that she’s really clear about is that your question, question, question, if you feel uncomfortable with something, and this is true of life, if you feel uncomfortable in a situation, there’s a reason your body tells you when you may be in a situation that you need to, like, as you said, slow down, pay attention advocate for yourself. I think the other thing that she speaks speaks to very, very succinctly is learning to forgive yourself and you’re going to want to listen to that piece of it because when we aren’t able to forgive ourselves for, for what, for something that we either perceive or that we actually did. And , Brindley talked about this a lot about having to learn to forgive herself for past choices, stay to the end because she makes a couple of statements at the end that I think are really important for learning to forgive yourself.

Johanna : 7:31

Yeah, that’s just, that’s exactly what I was just going to say. I love every single one of our interviews, but the very end is always my favorite part when, when our guests give their kind of takeaways, their practical advice. So yeah , stay till the end to hear what she heard , her big advice and her takeaways for, you know, what you can do right now to kind of feel better no matter what situation you’re in. So , we’ll just let her say it for herself and , um, you know, stopped talking for her, but it’s a great episode.

Bunny: 8:04

It is. Thanks for being here. I’m so excited! Today we’re interviewing , a friend of mine, Nikki Ubaldini, that I met through Facebook. Somebody connected us in some way, Nikki read my book. She invited me to be on her podcast and I felt like we were immediate. I don’t know. I felt like it felt like sisterhood in the best way because we , um, Nikki’s a breast cancer survivor and also a Keller Williams broker. Um, she’s in the, in Florida, but more importantly, Nikki is in the business of helping women, empowering women. That’s that’s the name of her podcast is , um, we are women empowered. And so today we could cover every topic in the world. But what I hope to do is Nikki , I hope that you’ll share some of your story, how you got here and , we’ll just go from there. What do you think ?

Nikki: 9:25

All right, well, thank you for having me. I’m excited to be on your podcast. You were awesome on mine. So it was wonderful that we got to meet. Um, I think God works in amazing ways . So he connects people that need to be connected. Absolutely. Yes. 100%. Our or my group is called – “WE,” you know, WE – “Women Empowered” or “We are Women Empowered.” And , I created this group , about , uh, two and a half years ago. And it was after my diagnosis of breast cancer and , through my treatment and all of that , um, what I discovered was , um, we, as human beings, especially women tend to give up our power very, very quickly, very, very easily. Um, we give it to the doctors, we give it to whomever. We don’t ask enough questions. We don’t, we don’t, you know, do our own research. We don’t do a little bit. I’m not, I’m not saying by any means. I think medicine is wonderful, but I think that we have to take our own health, our own well- being, our own physical self into our own hands. And that’s our also our own mental health as well. So what I discovered was my sister, just a short blurred. My sister was a double transplant recipient. Many, many, many years ago she had received a heart and kidney and she was the world’s greatest advocate for herself. Um, I watched her, she had her heart, the same heart and the same kidney for 26 and a half years, which was unheard of. She went , she worked full-time as a vice president of an international company. She was not an invalid by any means. We did lose her , three and a half years ago. Actually we lost her 10 days , uh, 10 days after my diagnosis, but we didn’t lose her to that. She, something else was a complication of a surgery. And unfortunately she ended up with sepsis and that’s what took her, but, you know , it was a beautiful thing. That was all wonderful. I mean, she was ready. She said she spoke to God and she was ready. So that’s just, and that’s a whole nother story we could get into. And it was wonder it was a beautiful lesson for me to be able to watch that and to see that piece. Um, so as I went through my, my situation, I realized that it was deeper than a physical thing that I had baggage. I had been carrying a bunch of baggage around, you know, and I , and as , as women, we tend to do that as humans, we tend to do that. Um, you know, I had buried stuff, really deep thinking that I had let it go when I had actually not really let it go. Um, I honestly believe that I helped manifest my situation. There’s something called epigenetics. It’s a science study that , our cells really do eavesdrop on our thoughts. One of our Bold Laws, right? And they really do it really does, you know, what you say to yourself, what you think about , um, you know, the , the emotions that you’ve gone through, if you don’t really completely purge them or release them, they can do harm to us. It doesn’t always happen that way, but it can, that can turn into a physical situation. You know, you’ve heard people say, well, you know, I don’t know why I’m sick. I can’t get seem to get better. I don’t know why I’m sick. And sometimes if we dig a little deeper, it might not be a physical thing that’s causing them to be sick. It is more of a , an old trauma or emotional situation. And that’s what they’re discovering with this epigenetics. They’ve been doing these studies for twenty-five years, but they’re realizing now how important the mind body experiences, you know, the mind has to be connected and bunny that’s. What I loved about your story is that you, you stuck to gratitude the whole time and even days that it was tough. You found the gratitude, the little things to be grateful for which your mind had a lot to do with the miracle of your healing. Um, because our bodies do listen to what our mind says. It listens to what our subconscious is telling us. So I discovered that I had a lot of anger, a lot of resentment , um, a lot of hurt that I had buried through the years. Um, and I had fold myself into believing that I had really, really forgiven. And , it showed up. It, manifested in, in physical ways. I mean, during my treatment phase , um, I was doing a more of a natural course because I was caught very early. I did have surgery and , I chose to go the natural route more because it , uh, it was not necessary for me. I had no lymph node involvement. Thank you. Thank you, God, because it was very early, but I did a nine week course of , IVs with an MD , to strengthen my body, my immune system, but halfway through it , well, in the very beginning I chose to do reconstruction, but my body rejected the reconstruction. It did not want anything to do with , with the expanders. And interestingly enough, about a year later, they , um, they pulled from the market, those expanders and the implants that they were planning on putting inside of me or , or the implant. Yeah. So it was, I don’t know, God thing, you can call it whatever you want, but , I felt it, I wept and thankfulness when I saw that, because I had chosen just to get on with my life and think about it later. But shortly after that, my doctor, they did the blood work every week and Tuesday blood work, Thursday, the results and my liver enzymes just kept climbing, climbing, climbing, climbing, and there was no reason for it. There, there was no, I wasn’t on any medications. I wasn’t, there was nothing that should have been causing that. In fact, they should have been coming in very much in line. And the doctor spun around to me and he looked me square in the eye. And he said, I have one question for you, who, or what are you angry with? And I was like, whoa. I mean, it was like, whoa. I felt like he punched me between the eyes. And I just, I took a deep breath and I sat there for a minute and it was like, I’m getting goosebumps because I can recall the moment so much so well, I could feel it roll up from my feet. It came roll this feeling rolled up and it just came flying out of my mouth. I said, I’m angry at myself. And I said, I’m not just angry. Excuse me. On the podcast. I’m off is what I said, I am off. And he says, well, what are you , what are you angry about? You know, you’re angry about your surgeries are angry about the reconstruction failure. What are you angry about? And I said, you know, I’m angry because I feel like I have taken care of everybody else for the last 10 to 20 years. Um, and this is where I got myself. It’s not their fault. This is, I got myself here and I’m angry at myself. And he looked at me and he said, so what are you going to do to forgive yourself?

Bunny: 17:09

Wait, that that’s, that’s, that’s a huge statement.

Johanna : 17:11

You never, you never hear that from a doctor either.

Nikki: 17:16

No, it was so well he’s big time. I mean, he wrote a book that he believes cancer is the symptom and that a lot of times it’s an emotional result. Um, but anyways, when he said that to me, I’m thinking, okay, give me a hint, help me. How am I going to forgive myself? He spun me around and said, I’ll see you next week, because it was Thursday. I’ll see on Monday. And I’m like, oh my gosh, I have , now I have this bombshell that has just fallen on me and I know I need to work on it. So , there’s lots of ways you can do that, you know, through prayer, meditation, things like that. But I, I hadn’t learned those techniques because I was the lady that hit the floor and was running , I didn’t know how to be, I was always doing. And that was a really tough place to be. So , I had read a book , um, a woman , by her name was Kathy Brown. It was called My Answer to Cancer and she was a melanoma survivor. She had gotten melanoma in her early thirties and had basically been sent home to die. They basically said to her, there’s nothing else we can do for you. She’s in Australia, you know, you’ve got two small kids go home and enjoy the time you have left with your family and , uh , get on with your life. And , uh , she thought, oh, heck no, you’re not going to tell me. And so she sought out, you know, a natural, since they told her she wasn’t a candidate for chemo or any of that. She sought out a natural path who said, immediately, I’m going to detox your body, put her on a special diet, blah, blah, blah. Well, she wrote the book 26 years later. So she’s still with us today. And of course I read the book what, three years ago. So it’s almost, you know, 20, I was almost 30 years. She’s still alive. Well, and never had a recurrence , which is just remarkable. It’s a miracle in itself. But one of the things she really learned through that was that she had to deal with the emotional piece and that the releasing of negative energy. And she got, she started to learn something about it’s called Reiki. A Reiki healing, and , different techniques tapping and, you know , techniques to help you. And it’s not, we’re not talking talk therapy, talk therapy just keeps taking you in a circle. We’re talking actual release techniques. And , so I reached out to a dear friend of mine, who I knew was a , um, is coach, a life coach. And I said to her, do you, who do you know that say great Reiki master that I might , reach, you know, talk to? Now, this friend didn’t know what I was going through at this time. And she comes back in our text message , “other than me?” I could recommend somebody for you. And of course I laughed and, I said, are you kidding me? She said, no. And she told me that she had a feeling something wasn’t right with me. And that when I had texted her, she said she was sitting in her car and she looked up and she said, okay, God, thank you. I knew that you would bring her to me eventually. So she came over and she started working with me. Um, uh, she taught me different techniques. Um, she brought me this book called “Feelings, Buried, Alive, Never Die.” And , that has become a huge part of , my life. And I thought was something that I felt I needed to teach other women, that it was okay to let go of things. And not to carry that baggage around because it might manifest itself into some way that nobody you don’t want it to. And so she literally did a Reiki session. We did some technique stuff. We worked on a lot of thought processes, and then she did a Reiki healing. And she said to me, I’ve never pulled so much energy off of somebody in my life. I done this a long time. And she said, it was unbelievable. It was like, you were just letting it fly. And , so that was on Saturday. So Tuesday I had blood work, guess what? Thursday enzymes drop next week, blood work again by two and two weeks, enzymes were perfectly normal. So there is a connection. You know, so that’s kind of my story in the nutshell is how I got to where I got to. And then I started thinking, and actually it was that same doctor who said to me, you know, have you ever thought of starting a woman’s group , um, to help other women? Um, because he saw me doing all the work that I needed because at this clinic they did the emotional healing pieces. They did all kinds of , other therapies , with it. And , you know, he kind of planted that seed. And as I, as I came through the process , Priscilla, the one who is my partner in crime, on my interviews, she encouraged me to tell my story because a lot of people didn’t know , um, and it would empower a lot of women to make different choices in their lives. I lost 45 pounds. I’m in the best physical shape I’ve been in, in a long, long, long time of my life. So I not only lost physical weight,I lost a lot of emotional weight I lost , you know, I learned how to meditate daily. I’ve learned how to just be, to sit and be quiet , which is not something I’ve learned, had learned before. And so my lifestyle has changed dramatically to reduce the stress, to reduce the hurry and to just know and trust that everything will be okay. So I wanted to teach that to my ladies. And , so we put it out there. We were going to do it in our first group. We had a hundred women show up and I was like, whoa, this is crazy. I mean, obviously the women were hungry for something for them. And , so yes, it’s been a, it’s been an incredible journey. So we teach them how to heal physically, emotionally, spiritually. We have doctors that come and talk. We have, you know , uh , people like Priscilla who teach, we have, you know, everything from kinesiologists chiropractors to MDs, to weight loss, doctors, to, you know, doctors that do all kinds of things. We’ve even done one on medical marijuana , um, for those that have chronic pain, things like that. So that’s what it’s all about. That’s what are we is all about? We’re empowering women to share their stories. And , um, right now our theme right now is breast implant illness. So I just interviewed a cancer survivor , um, who had a double mastectomy, had breast implants and realized shortly thereafter, she didn’t feel right. And for nine years had been sick with all kinds of crazy things. And finally had a doctor who said, you know, that this could be the problem. And it turns out she had ruptured. They had ruptured inside of her. It was just a mess. Um, and , uh , she just had reconstructive surgery , doing a , a superior gluteal flap, or they take it from your backside and they, they made breasts for her and they removed that other stuff, but she’s still detoxing all of that stuff out of her. And I have another interview coming up with a woman who chose breast implants, purely cosmetically, and has had been sick for 20 years , and just had hers removed. And literally she took a picture of her eyes , um, before the surgery and they were yellowed red, you know, they just weren’t clear. They weren’t bright. Um, and 48 hours after the surgery, she took a picture and her eyes were white. The eye , the whites were bright. Her eyes were bright. That’s how fast her body reacted to those things being out of her.

Bunny: 25:37

And I would say , um, I work with, with the cancer foundation for New Mexico. I speak a lot with the, I talked to our social worker all the time and she’s a breast cancer survivor. And she, I, first of all, want to say, I don’t have any judgment about what people choose to do with their body, but if you’ve, she said that in so many instances where , you know, first of all, you get breast cancer, you have this incredible stress. Your surgeon frequently speaks to you about reconstruction. And in this moment of stress, you may agree to do something that isn’t necessarily the best choice for your body. And she said to me, at one point, our social worker has been doing this for 30 years, working with cancer patients. She said, I sometimes wish that our surgeons would back off on the reconstruction question for a while . You know, let people process where they are, let them process that they are, they’re going to have a mastectomy. Maybe they want reconstruction, maybe they don’t, but the idea that you have to do it at the moment of your mastectomy, it gives, gives women this idea that I got to make this choice at this time when I’m not good at making any other choices other than getting well. And she said, there’s a huge percentage. And you probably know the numbers better than I do have cases where that reconstruction is, is almost as destructive as the disease was in the beginning. So I think it’s a topic that we want to, we want to give people links to, obviously everybody has to make a personal choice, but it’s an important topic to talk about.

Nikki: 27:24

It’s very, very important.

Johanna : 27:28

Well, before you said it earlier, Nikki , I didn’t even think about , a rejected reconstruction. I never even thought that that happened, you know, because I just thought, oh, you know, implants and reconstruction. It’s just like, people do it all the time and it’s been around for a while . And so I don’t, I mean, maybe I’m naive, but like I think most people don’t know that all those risks.

Nikki: 27:52

That’s true. And like you said, Bunny, when you’re in that moment, it was like drinking from a fire hose and I this thing, and they come at you fast and furious and in the end, you know, the doctors are doing the best they can, you know? Um, and there, there was a little bit of a CYA for some, for some situations too , from the doctors. Cause you understand people don’t want to be accountable for their actions sometimes. So they want to blame the doctor later and that’s not the case either. Um, but the thing that I found is is that most women, the women that I’ve talked to that are, that are breast cancer survivors, is that all they want is normalcy again. So if you’re going to remove my breasts, just make me somewhat normal again, you know, I don’t, I don’t want to be, you know, the woman with one breast or the woman with no breasts, I want to be normal. And as , and as women are younger and younger having breast cancer, it’s even more, it’s even more prevalent. So , women who would not normally have a double mastectomy , but because of their age that they had said that women up to 50 are much higher likely to have a double mastectomy with a very, very small tumor , um, versus , um, a woman who’s over 50, who’s more likely to just have a unilateral and just take care of the one situation and not worry about the other. Um, so it’s, it is, there’s a lot of pressure, like you said, Bunny, a lot of stress. And the, my goal with women is to say slow down, breathe, ask more questions, ask more questions. And , um, we don’t ask enough questions of our, we don’t ask enough about, you know, what does the future look like? Or what, what are the risks or what are these things just so that, you know, the implants and the expanders that removed that were removed from the market recalled on the market was because they were also causing anaplastic large cell lymphoma.

Bunny: 30:01

Oh My Lord.

Nikki: 30:06

So they discovered, women across the nation were … So whether a woman was , it was replacing her breast because she had breast cancer or just trying to enhance herself, they were ending up with another cancer. So, you know, as a cancer patient, the last thing you want to do is trade one cancer for another. And we’re talking about a lymphatic cancer, which is the entire body. It goes through the entire body system. You know, it’s a form of lymphoma. And so it’s , it’s a very interesting thing our society has gotten into. It’s more about how we look versus how we feel and, and our medical profession is willing to, in my opinion, cross that line. I’m talking cosmetic surgery, cross that line to encourage it without even having the discussion. So, as I said, I made the decision when my, when it rejected, my surgeon said, well, you have two options. We can remove it, replace it. And you can, but you’d have to stay in the hospital for five days just to make sure that there is no infection or whatever, or we can remove it. You can completely heal. And then we can start reconstruction later. And I asked her, what would you do? She said, if I were you, I would remove it heal. And then she gets, there’s no time-frame in which we need to do this, which is what you’re talking about money. I wish in the very beginning , there’s no time- frame in which we must need to do this. So I said, okay, I had some trips planned things I wanted to do. The last thing I wanted to be is , you know, attached to that, all of that stuff. So , I went ahead and did you know, my life is almost almost a year now , about eight months went by and I was back in her and I’m now I’m thinking, okay, I’m ready. I feel physically good. I’m ready to maybe do this. And I, you know , said, remind me of how it’s going to work, blah, blah, blah. Well, in the meantime, before she arrived in the office, there was a little card, literally, literally this small sitting in the corner of the table of her office. And it was the warning for the breast implants. It was the warning for the anaplastic large cell lymphoma that it had been determined that it might be a cause for this and blah, blah, blah. So what I’ve happened to read it that day? And I said to her, I asked her and she goes, oh yeah, it’s not, it’s not a big deal. It’s not a big deal. It’s only, it’s only a few, 100 women have died at the time. It was 400 and something women had died. No, no big deal. And I’m like, whoa, no big deal. Okay. She’s the one it’s treatable. It’s treatable . I said, yeah. Treatable with chemo. It’s treatable. Well, I mean, Bunny, you went through chemo. It’s , that’s not a dream thing.

Johanna : 33:04

And you don’t want to sign up for it either.

Bunny: 33:07

Well, and we’re talking, we’re talking about an enhancement or a reconstruction that is to rebuild a body part that you had removed because it was, I mean, this is such a complex issue because there’s so, there’s so much about our bodies as women that we’re taught, determine our value or, or how the world sees us. Nikki , I recently was privileged enough to have a woman at, at a party of mine. She just showed up. She’s a , she’s a celebrity out there in the world, but her name is Tanya Katan, T a N I a and her last name is K a T a N. She’s written a recent book. That’s, that’s incredibly popular called creative trespassing, but she wrote a first book that was called my one night stand with cancer. And Tanya was 23 when she was , I may get the age wrong. It may have been 24 when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer and she had a mastectomy then and chose to not have reconstruction. And then, and then she was diagnosed 10 years later and had the other breasts . She had another mastectomy. So she had a double mastectomy. Let me tell you, Tanya Katan is so cool, but she’s, she ran some, if you look her up, she, she ran a couple of races where she ran topless and they were Susan G Komen races where she said , this, this is what it looks like to be healthy and to be okay with not having my breasts. And , and it’s it’s so it’s such a complex issue, but if people don’t understand that they’re, they’re replacing one, so you’re moving towards healthy, right? And then you do something that moves you back into a state that could be unhealthy. It’s a personal choice, but you got to be fully informed. And when you and I talked about how doctors operate, it’s the same way we, I mean, we, we talked about how it’s like realtors, you know, we sell a house a day or three houses a month or something. So we’re doing this every single day. And yet the people we’re serving, this is the only one they’re going to buy. It’s the only house that you guys stick with for a minute listeners, because there’s a point we, we in our profession do this all day long. And so we tend to say, just keep moving forward, keep moving forward. Let’s get you to closing. That’s how doctors are. They’re going to see 30 patients today. You’re just one. You have to remind them. This is the only time you’ve ever had cancer. This is your illness. This is important. They have to stop and listen and not be thinking about the next patient who’s coming in in the door.

Nikki: 36:09

And they’re not used to patients stopping them and questioning them. My oncologist, who was also a woman , you know, she, they make it seem like it’s no big deal. Right. You know? I’m sorry, but chemo is a big deal. I don’t care. What kind of chemo you have. It’s a big deal. It’s tough on the body. It’s tough on you emotionally, physically, mentally, whatever you want to say. And financially, yes. Everything . And she says to me, well, you know , okay. So it all depends on the size of the tumor. And I’m like, okay. And she’s like, so here, here’s how it works. Five millimeters or less. No, no lymph node involvement. There’s no treatment. Okay. All right. Cause I’m having a full mastectomy. She said, but anything over five millimeters , um , and or lymph node involvement, then, then there’s, then there’s chemo. And I said, okay, well let’s just say it’s larger than five millimeters and there’s no lymph nodes. So talk to me about there . What about, what did this five millimeters? Oh, it’s an arbitrary number. It’s an arbitrary number. She kept saying, okay, wait a second. Arbitrary. That’s not, that’s not computing in my brain. And I said, I’m not an arbitrary person.

Johanna : 37:26

And chemo is not arbitrary.

Nikki: 37:29

Well, it’s a light course. It’s a light course. I’m like, okay, well, what is a light course of chemo mean, well, you know, you’ll lose your hair. Okay. Big deal. The hair comes, grows back. Right. She goes to , well, and you know, you could have nerve neuropathy of your hands and feet. And well , this particular kind, we have to do an echocardiogram every week before you have it, because it could give you heart failure. But it’s a light course. It’s a light course. I’m literally, this is what she’s saying to me. My husband’s sitting across the room looking at me like, and so , my daughter at the time happened to have been doing research work with the national Institute of health. And , um, so she knew where to go. She’s a microbiologist biochemist, and she knew where to go to find the research. And , she, so she happened to find this research that was basically saying that this particular chemo , um, the ultimate side effect that they were not sharing with me was ovarian cancer. That many women develop ovarian cancer, 10 plus years down the road as a direct result of this particular chemo that they wanted to do. She also found from the national , uh, journal of oncology, their own journal that said women who had stage one breast cancer with no lymph node involvement, regardless of the type of cancer that it is, regardless of whether it’s, you know , um, triple negative, her two positive doesn’t matter. Um, regardless they should not receive chemo because the benefits, there is no benefit , uh, to that, to the person. There is no scientific evidence that it extends or prolonged the life. In fact, it actually causes potential physical issues that are not related to the cancer that can cause the person to have more issues. This is their own journal. Okay. And a study came out that later that they, you know, New York times big thing in the newspaper, you know, stage one, same thing. That was, they actually big national study. But at the time, you know, she was pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing well on my way to my oncology appointment, after my surgery , they call me to tell me that it was six millimeters and , no lymph nodes . And it was clear. It had clear margins, everything, everything was good. And she says, well, we got, we got, we got to do chemo. And she’s like, she was like this whirlwind, crazy lady. We got to get your schedule. We got to do that. I’m going out of the country. I want the schedule that once you started that the , that I said, whoa, whoa, whoa. I said, are you telling me a millimeter? My finger, a nail width is going to make the difference? You telling me, I have that many more cancer cells running around in my body for a millimeter than I did, you know, at five millimeters. And she’s like, well, that would , you just have to do it. It’s just, it’s, you know, it’s it’s standard care .

Johanna : 40:57

It’s the protocol.

Nikki: 41:00

I was just like, don’t use those words on me standard of care. So , she said, well, if you want a second opinion, you can go to this other cancer center. I’m thinking, well, they’re going to tell me the same thing because it’s standard of care. So we leave there. And my husband, I look at my husband. I said, I’m not doing that. And he says, I know you’re not, but we’re going to do it smart. We’re going to reach out to our medical professionals. We’re going to talk it through. We’re going to find out our options. We’re going to check and make sure that we’re not going to put you at risk. And he, you know, he slowed me down a lot. He was a great , so we, we did, we did all of our research and all of that came up. We found this actual study that was done. And so when I went to my surgeon, my breast surgeon he thought he was going to be putting in a port and I said, I’m not doing chemo. And he said, oh, okay. Well tell me why. And I told him that, you know, we had done our research and I showed him the research that we had found. And he’s like, oh my goodness. I know that doctor, that doctor, that doctor, that doctor, and he said, can you send me that? And I said, yes. And then we got talking and he said, well, do you know where the five millimeters came from? And I said, no. He goes, well, it was the number where women were willing to tolerate chemo. And I’m like, okay. And he , and I said, you know, but the side effects the risks. He said, well, you’re right. I just pulled some people off of chemo. You know, he was my surgical oncologist. I just pulled people off because they’re losing the use of their hands and their feet. And I said to him , but the thing that nobody told me, not you or my oncologist was the risk of ovarian cancer. And he goes

Bunny: 42:45

And so they knew that and they just didn’t tell you?

Nikki: 42:48

Oh , they knew that they just didn’t tell you that. Because it’s standard of care.

Bunny: 42:54

So I do want , uh , I want to do a tiny little disclaimer here because I think it’s important. You know, if somebody is listening and they’re in the middle of chemo and they’ve made, well , I want to say everybody’s journey is different,

Johanna : 43:08

And every chemo is different

Bunny: 43:10

Every chemo is different and every cancer is different. So I don’t want anybody to feel like we’re saying, oh my gosh, never, never, never get chemo.

Nikki: 43:17

Yeah. Oh no, no, Absolutely not. If I needed it by all means I would have done it, but it was necessary. So that’s what my, that was my message. And that’s my message. Ask more questions, do more research, find out what is absolutely necessary and what is not necessary. We don’t need to put our bodies through more than what it needs to go through. If I had had lymph node involvement, there would have been no doubt, no question. It would have just been part of the process. Okay. Um, but what I’m trying to share is that once again, they come at you so fast, you’re in this emotional state. You’re not thinking right. You do whatever you’re told to do. And sometimes it can be a detriment to you. Now here’s the kicker though. When I went back to the oncologist, she comes in the room and says, I know, I know, I know you’re not going to do chemo. And she says, actually, I’m proud of you. And she did. And I’m thinking, who is this woman? And what is she done with my doctor? And she says, and I, so we were proud of me. Why are you proud of me? She said, well, most women do chemo out of fear and you’re not doing chemo out of fear. And my fear is that I’m chemo going , hundreds of women that don’t need it. Hmm .

Bunny: 44:48

That, so the message is be your own advocate. And , you know, I’m just going to go out on a limb here and say, somebody in my family ha their mother is, is ill. And they can afford to pay a patient advocate. Sometimes if you can afford to pay a patient advocate, you know, especially if you’re far away, right. If you can afford to pay a liaison or a patient advocate, that’s an important issue . And if somebody you love, isn’t able to be that for themselves and see if you can get a patient advocate for them. Because it’s really important to have somebody who not only is able to ask questions, but I think, you know, Johanna was my, my caregiver, but at the time, because she’s my daughter at the time that I was sick. Not only did we maybe miss some questions, but you also are bombarded with so much information and you’re so emotionally involved that you almost, we took a third person with us. When we went to chemo orientation, we took a note taker. I, you know, I talk about her in the book. My cousin, Jennifer went with us a lot to take notes because in this business medical process, you’ve got to know which questions to answer. And then you have to take a lot of notes because you’re going to walk out of those appointments saying, I don’t even know what day of the week. This is much less what neuropathy is or you’ve. There are so many factors and, and, you know, Nikki , you’re doing… I so appreciate what you’re doing in empowering women to feel strongly about their own health care , their own health, their own wellbeing , their , their mental health. I it’s, this is such important work you’re doing.

Nikki: 46:47

It’s, you know, I just want women to know that we all, we all owe it to ourselves. We owe it to our families. We owe it to our children to watch us be that advocate. My sister taught me how to be an advocate. And I was actually her medical surrogate to the very end. Um, and I knew how to advocate for her because she asked questions . You don’t survive 26 and a half years with the same heart and kidney by doing standard of care treatment. I’m sorry, you don’t. She questioned everything. And she was not difficult. She was just a woman who slowed things down and said, no, I want to do my own research. And there were many times things that they wanted to do to her were very contradictory or medicines were contradictory to what they were trying to accomplish. And she would recognize that and then question them on it, which would then make them go back and go, oh, oh, well, maybe we shouldn’t do that. Do you know what I mean? Because they get so into this as my protocol, this is my cookbook of how I handle each medical thing. And everybody’s body is different. So, you know, she knew how, you know, certain drugs reacted in her body and how certain drugs didn’t. She knew what they were trying to accomplish. And so I learned that from her and very, very thankful because I could hear her voice through the whole, my whole treatment, everything, ask more questions, ask more questions, you know, why are they doing that? Why are you doing this? Why, why? And you’re right. Having an advocate with a pad of paper, taking notes, I would take notes. My husband would take notes. And it was interesting cause we compare notes and he’d hear things that I didn’t hear, you know? And that’s because he has , you know, Bunny, you shut down when, when you’re, you know, so if you have a family member and maybe you don’t have the financial means, you can be the advocate. You know, doctors, aren’t gods. I have some of the most amazing doctors in my life and I love them dearly. But they’re not gods. And unfortunately some of them think they are, some of them think they are, you know, or they have an ego that’s bigger than what needs to be. And they don’t like to be questioned. Bernie Siegel, who wrote the book, “Love Medicine and Miracles.” He talks about the three types of patients. He talks about how , um, there is a small percent of patients that regardless of what their diagnosis is , um, they’ve already made a decision. They’re not going to make it. And he said, even though they might have the simplest of situation, whether it be cancer or something else, they’ve already made an emotional decision that they’re just, you know, whatever, you know, do whatever you want. I don’t care. I’m probably not going to live anyways. And that’s their attitude. He says. And unfortunately it’s a small 10 to 15%, but there’s nothing you can do to save those patients. He said, then there’s the middle patients, the middle group, which is the fattest group. And he said, and it’s about 70 to 80% of the, of the world. He said, and of the patient base. And they just want to be good patients. Uh, they don’t ask questions. They don’t challenge the doctor. They do whatever the doctor says, whether it feels good or not, whether they, whether they’re , you know, their intuition says, Hmm , I don’t know. Even if they’re having horrible side effects, they’ll keep going through it because they, don’t want to question the doctor. They want to be good patients. He said , and you know, those, you know , more about 60 to 70% of those will survive , by doing that. But there’ll be those that will, that won’t because they didn’t question or whatever it is . And then there’s that very small group at the top. That’s about five to 10%. He said, and for most doctors, they call them the difficult patients he says, and for a doctor like me, I call them a breath of fresh air. They are the patients that are fully involved in their, in their wellness care. They’re fully involved in their treatment plan. They’re asking questions. They’re challenging the doctor to think outside of the box to , you know, to really stretch their medical knowledge. Um, and they are 100%. Those people survive. He says, it doesn’t matter how bad they are sick. Doesn’t matter the how horrible their diagnosis is. Those people have always survived. He saw , um, and that’s, that was amazing is his book

Bunny: 51:55

Well, and then that sort of brings us full circle back to what we started at, which is that our bodies listen to what our minds say. And if my mind says I’m involved in my own wellness and I have a right to be healthy, then it seems that what you’re saying, and what Siegel says is that, that gets us back to that healthy .

Nikki: 52:24

Yeah . Well, you, in your book, you know , buddy , that’s what I loved about your book. You said it never crossed your mind that you weren’t going to be here. You know, that you weren’t going to get through this. You, you just, you just move forward and that’s what you expected to survive and thrive. And , the woman that I just interviewed on my podcast who had a triple negative , uh, which is a very deadly form of , breast cancer in her early forties, I think she was 41 or 42 at the time. And she said to us that she had a nurse who said to her, well, this is the worst kind of , you can get, you know, women die from this every day. First medical professionals don’t think what comes out of their mouth.

Johanna : 53:11

Somebody told mom your cancer might not even be treatable.

Nikki: 53:16

Now . That’s what I’m, this is what I’m saying. And gene just blocked it out. And you know, she did work with somebody who helped her , you know, that worked with cancer patients and survivors who said to her, you need to expect to live, okay. You need to expect to be healthy when you start talking like that and you start behaving like that, your body listens and it will respond to you. Well, she’s nine years out , from triple, triple negative breast cancer. And she is a , it’s a Bravo wonderful thing. And you know, she’s a beautiful, bright, you know, energetic, amazing woman who sharing her story and her journey and this new technique of, of way to replace a woman’s breasts , um, you know, without putting foreign objects in your body. You know, so it’s, it’s really an interesting thing that there’s, there are doctors out there who will take the time and listen, and then there’s doctors who won’t. And you know, if you’re feeling like you’re not on the same page with your doctor, then find a new doctor. That’s my motto. You know, if you’re not, and I don’t mean, you know, you , you know, you’re, poo-pooing their medical advice. I’m not saying that there’s a mind connection. There is a values connection. There is a belief connection. And , um, she, she found that, that she had a couple of doctors that while she had respected them, she knew in her gut that they were not on the same page as her. And they had pretty much, you know , had an expectation of what was, what bad was going to happen versus what good could happen. And bunny, you talked about that with the doctor who was your surgeon and I loved Dr. C all right. Was it Dr. C? I mean, I fell in love with him and I don’t even know him. I fell in with him.

Johanna : 55:18

He’s easy to fall in love with

Nikki: 55:22

You had a doctor like that, Bunny.

Bunny: 55:26

I had a lot. Yeah. I, I had a lot of them except that first one who did my colonoscopy and walked out into the room and said to Joanna and my parents, we don’t even know if this is treatable or not. And luckily that’s not somebody that I ever had to see again. You know, Nikki , we’re going to have to talk again because I want to know what the empower group is doing. But I heard this great quote yesterday. I listened, you know, like you probably, I listened to hundreds of podcasts all the time, but I heard Glennon Doyle. Who’s amazing in her own. Right. But she was talking about the difference between people who are lucky and people who aren’t. And we know that people who are lucky really are just people who are prepared, who have imagined, who know what they deserve. And she said, we become the life we imagine for ourselves. And the reason I have it is because I, you know, I now have an app on my phone where I can, you know, I speak and it transcribes what I, and I, and I heard that on the podcast, it was a good life project. And I heard her say that, and I thought, it’s so true for everything we do. It’s, you know, you and I have been taught in real estate that, you know, if we just set goals, if we just, if we set an aiming point, that’s where we’ll end up. But I think that people who find themselves in the midst of illness, or maybe , you know, these are all complex issues, you know, domestic violence, a bad marriage, a bad relationship, right ? The first step you have to do is, figure out what you deserve and then start imagining yourself in a different place because your body really does listen to what your brain is thinking about. And I know this, because I’ve been in those places. When I was in the midst of those relationships, I would think, you know, the reason I’m in my third marriage is because I’m so bad at marriage. Well, it wasn’t that I was bad at marriage. It was that I was bad at choosing, but I got better. I started imagining that I deserved a different life. And when you and I were sick, we both imagined ourselves as getting through it and getting, well, there are a lot of steps in the middle.

Nikki: 57:56

Absolutely. What we say to ourself matters, you know, Shad Helmstetter says what do you say when you talk to yourself? You know, that is why daily affirmations. I talk to my body every day daily actually . I mean, I actually had COVID about a month ago. And , I talk to my body the whole time and it was very minor. It was like , and, and I’m not, it’s a, it’s a nasty virus. It’s a horrible thing that’s happening out there. And I believe because I have, I was prepared in the sense that I’m already doing amazing things with my body through supplementation and all of these other pieces that I’m doing, my immune system was strong enough to just basically make me feel like I had a head cold. So, you know, I did talk to my body every day. I still talk to my body every day. I talk to my mind, you know, life isn’t perfect. And we, we will find things that.. We’ll pick out ourselves. And like you said, you made a statement that I , I wasn’t good at marriage. Well, we make those statements without even really realizing what we’re saying. So we have to listen to what we’re saying. Through devotion, through prayer, through meditation, through being quiet, through affirmations, we can change our lives. As you said, we can change the trajectory of our lives, and this is what I wanted to empower women with. I wanted them to know that they matter, they count they’re important and they need to love and nourish themselves. And self-care is not selfish. It’s selfless. We take care of people. If we can’t take care of ourselves,

Bunny: 59:42

I’m writing them wind down . Self care is not selfish. It’s selfless. Yes. Because it empowers us to take care of ourselves and others.

Nikki: 59:51

Well, think about it. You’re a mom. As a mom, we take care of everybody. You know, we, we take care of, you know… I was the caretaker of the house of , all my whole family. I was the youngest, but I still took care of it. My mother reached to me for everything. Anytime, anything went wrong, it was, Nikki will fix it cause I’m a fixer. But I also have learned that I can’t fix everything and that sometimes people have to fix their own messages . And it’s okay. It doesn’t make me a bad person. I can still love them through it. Um, and there’s a great , uh, there’s a great Hawaiian prayer. It’s called the ho’oponopono prayer. And it’s “I’m sorry, please forgive me. I love you. Thank you.” And it’s, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. This is happening. And for some reason I’ve been brought, it’s been brought to me, please forgive me for anything that I’ve done to help contribute to this situation. I love you. I’m surrounding you with love and thank you. I’m honoring you. Thank you God. And it’s an amazing prayer. And we’ve taught that to our women too , that when you’re in a volatile situation of high emotions or ugliness or whatever, just start saying it under your breath. I’m sorry, please forgive me. I love you. Thank you. And you’ll watch the energy just go. It’s I’m getting goosebumps because it’s amazing. Everything is energy and our good friend, Diana Koska, as you all know, if your KW agent, she said to me, Nikki energy, everything is energy. She’s a physics person. And she said , energy is either transferred or transformed. Nothing else. It doesn’t ever go away. So good energy, bad energy. It can be transferred or transformed. So I was the most powerful statement I’d ever heard from somebody. And I remember that. So when energy is bad, it’s ugly. It’s mean we have the power to transform it by being kind loving, surrounding it with our love. And we can help to change that energy. Or we can just keep transferring it through ugliness, you know? And that’s a choice. Y eah. Sorry. I could talk all day on this c ause I get so excited and I forgive me.

Johanna : 1:02:12

No it’s great!

Bunny: 1:02:13

It is great. And , we’ll end here, but you sent me that Hawaiian prayer, the book as a gift when I was on your podcast. So I want to be sure that we post the link to that. One of my great friends who was also on the podcast, was our, I believe our second guest is a woman named Amber Hale who’s who lost her son to suicide at 13. And she recently found that book. And I have to tell you, Nikki is transforming. I mean, she, she is now a transformer and a transfer of really good energy. She’s also a Keller Williams agent, but I just want you to know that that book that you sent to me is it’s beautiful. We’re going to share it, but we’re also going to come back and talk about this some more at a later date. Does that work for you?

Nikki: 1:03:11

I love it. And I wish you would share the, also the feelings buried alive never die.

Johanna : 1:03:15

Yeah, I have it written down I have a good list of books and everything we’ve mentioned. We’re going to talk, but you had said that your doctor wrote a book too, and I didn’t catch either his name or the book.

Nikki: 1:03:25

It’s a book is called Cancer Is the symptom.His name is Carlos Garcia. M D.

Johanna : 1:03:32

Okay. I’ll find that too and put it in here.

Nikki: 1:03:35

So it all ties together.

Bunny: 1:03:37

It does. It does. And I guess the thing that I think, you know, if there’s one statement that you’d like to leave people with today, one piece that they can take away, that’s an action. Some, piece that they could use this evening or tomorrow morning, what, would you tell people that put in their toolbox?

Nikki: 1:04:00

Okay. I think it’s, it’s a simple affirmation. I think that we, that we can all, and we need to say this. I completely love, accept and forgive myself. It’s a statement that we should be saying every single day. I love, I accept and I forgive myself. We have to forgive ourselves first, before we can move forward and forgive others. And I know that we all have been hurt. We’ve all had trauma, some worse than others. And , but a lot of times we blame ourselves and we say things like, well, I was to blame, and sometimes we, we did contribute. The point is , is we can forgive ourselves because we can grow through this. And I just want women to know that they can be loved and they can love themselves, but they have to love themselves to give the most love that they’ve ever given out.

Bunny: 1:04:56

Nikki , thank you so much.

Johanna : 1:04:58

Thank you.

Bunny: 1:05:00

That’s all we’ve got today. Friends. I want to 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 listen. 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 lifesaving gratitude pod. You can also follow me personally at Bunny Terry Santa Fe. You can sign up at my websiteatbunnyterri .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.