60. Gratitude for What’s Most Important: Bunny Terry

Bunny : (00:10)
Hi there. This is Bunny with the life seating, gratitude podcast. And I want to, um, do a quick intro to today’s podcast. Mostly I wanna thank everybody who shows up on a weekly basis. This podcast is for you. This I know who you are. I know you’re sitting somewhere in your car or maybe in your office with your headphones on and you’re listening. And I just wanna tell you, I’m so grateful that you take time and show up every week to hear what we have to say. I’m inspired by what our guests tell us. I’m really inspired by the people who show up, who write us notes, who write reviews, please. Um, feel free to share what we say with your friends. Today’s podcast is a little different because I’m going to talk to you on my own, but I want you to know that this has been a big season of, um, some challenges and some difficulties for me. And so I felt like it was important to visit with you. One on one. Um, my sweet dad who just turned 90 is having health difficulties every single day. He’s always, always on our mind. We spend a lot of time going back and forth to help take care of him. My mom, who is about to be 87 is, um, his primary caregiver. And I’m sorry, she’s about to be 88. Um, and so we spend a lot of time worrying about her. That’s a, that’s part of the difficult season of this life. Um, people I love are getting positive, COVID diagnoses and that’s, that’s a hard one. You know, there’s always that worry that someone, you know, is going to have a harder time or some longer lasting effects than usual. I also, um, was recently diagnosed with AFib and a heart arrhythmia, which surprised me. You know, I always always think I’m the healthiest person in the room. So, um, that’s been tricky. I’ll keep you posted. I’m getting some tests run and you know, it’s always hard to have the doctor say, well this is very manageable, but you also could have a stroke. So, folks, life is short. It’s really, really short. And, um, I think it’s important for us to talk to each other about the things that are bothering us. I tend to get on the podcast and talk about gratitude all the time. Well, I’m telling you some days you feel less grateful than others, and then you have to stop and you have to say, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And what you realize is that saying, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Doesn’t change your situation. It changes you. And it helps me to do that so that I can say, you know, thank me. Thank you for my sweet daddy that has got to live 90 years old. Thank you for my sweet mom who takes care of him. Thank you for a doctor who knows how to treat what’s going on. Thank you for the general health of the people I love.

Bunny : (03:18)
I want us to not waste one moment of our life doing things that don’t bring us joy. And that’s what today’s podcast is about. It’s about knowing where you wanna be knowing what’s important and focusing on those things rather than everything that’s in the periphery of your life. So I just wanted to do a quick little intro and ask you to stick around for this very short podcast, where I talk to you about knowing what it is that you love. And what’s important. Thank you so much for always showing up. Thank you. Thank you.

Bunny : (04:05)
Hi there. And welcome to the Lifesaving gratitude podcast. I’m your host Bunny Terry, and I’m not joined by anyone today because on occasion, I think it’s really important for me to take time and talk to you personally, tell you the things that I’ve learned. I’m 61 years old and every single day I learned something new. And I learned a lot from doing this podcast. We began this journey as a way to perhaps promote my book and promote this large circle of gratitude nerds that have gathered up around the world who are really devoted to the idea of using gratitude to overcome the best of times and, and the worst of times to notice where we are in life and to pay attention in the most grateful way possible. So today, I wanna talk to you about a really surprising conversation that I had the other night with one of my oldest and best friends. We were, um, at our lake house and my friend Glena said to me, Bunny, you’re doing all this stuff. You know, you’re working on a second book and you are the board chair of the cancer foundation, and you’re doing a podcast and you’re selling high end real estate and you’re… And she went, you know, she sort of went on and on and she said, tell me what you love the most, which, what is the thing that you love the most that you’re doing? And I was quiet for a moment because I thought it’s been a long time since I sat still and did an assessment of all the activities I’ve created in my life and which ones of them feed my soul and which ones don’t. And I suspect that some of you are in the same boat. I’ve noticed that post pandemic and of course we’re not post pandemic. We’re learning how to live with the pandemic. And what I’ve noticed is that everyone I know went from being locked down and quietly at home perhaps working from home, but still at home, not interacting with the rest of the world in the same way, socially and professionally that they had in the past. And, and we went from that to this slow, easing back into society, and then it contracted and then we went back out and then it contracted again. But what I’ve noticed since the first of this year, when that last Omicron wave went away about the middle of February, is that everyone I know is crazy over the top, too busy. Maybe they don’t think they’re too busy, but it feels to me like it’s almost too busy, too. Um, overcommitted, um, I gotta do everything. I’ve gotta catch up. I’ve gotta do all the things that I didn’t get done while I was locked down. You know I know in my own mind, I’m thinking, wait, wait, I’ve gotta get the second book done. I’ve got to do a podcast every week. I’ve got to sell these high end houses that people call me and ask me to list. I’ve got to make sure the foundation is running perfectly I’ve and there’s a lot of “got-tos” and should in there. And when Glena asked me that question the other night, and she said, tell me what thing you’re doing, that you really, really love, I sort of took, I was taken aback because at that moment I couldn’t say, oh my God, a thing I love the most is this. And part of that is because I just, haven’t taken a moment to assess where I am. And more importantly, I haven’t taken a moment to figure out where I want to go. I haven’t been really diligent about studying my aiming point. I became, um, a certified coach for the U squared program, the quantum leap program, which is a coaching program that was created by price Pritchett who wrote U squared and the quantum leap strategy. And I was certified as a coach. I studied with price Pritchett on my own, um, with four other people on February 28th, 2020. And we all know what happened on March 15th, 2020. So I got this certification and then we shut down. And if you’re like me, a lot of things shut down. My study of things that mattered to me shut down for a few weeks and my ambition to do a lot of things shut down. I did, luckily during the pandemic have time to finish and publish my book. Lifesaving gratitude. However, I put away a lot of the materials that I gathered up at price Pritchett training. And we talked at that point a lot about creating a goal, which, which translates into your aiming point, knowing what it is, visualizing it, and then seeing it. And I haven’t, I haven’t taken a look at that in a long time.

Bunny : (09:50)
I haven’t looked at my journal at my quantum leap journal. I haven’t.. I just haven’t paid attention. How about that? Let me, let me be completely honest. I haven’t paid attention. And if you’re feeling like me, it’s hard to pay attention right now. So, so what we’re gonna talk about today, what I really wanna talk about is first of all, I want to read you a very short chapter from my book. And the reason I wanna read it is, is because it is all about being aware of the most important thing that’s in front of you. And that’s what I haven’t done particularly well in the last six months or so since we opened back up. So for those of you who are having a difficult time focusing who feel like you’re spread really thin and who couldn’t quickly answer the question, what is it that you’re doing today that you love the most? That’s what today’s episode is all about. Stick with me. We’re gonna cover some great territory here, and I’m gonna give you some action steps at the end. That will be really helpful for those of you who haven’t read my book, Lifesaving gratitude. This is a story about how gratitude and a whole lot of other things, great treatment, great doctors, a lot of support from my family and friends, a lot of love and prayers. This is a book about how those things helped me navigate a diagnosis of stage four colon cancer. When one of the people, one of the websites that I checked out said, I had a 2% chance of survival. So here I am, I was diagnosed in November of 2012. Here I am 10 years later, um, living a dream life and accomplishing more than I ever, ever in a million years would’ve thought was possible. And so this chapter that I want to read to you is all about focus, about knowing how and when to do the next right thing. And it’s just a tiny little vignette into how my life was going on those days. This book, this chapter was written, um, on the evening of the day that I had my first visit with my oncologist. I have been diagnosed on a, a weekend Saturday slash Sunday. And when the oncologist came into my hospital room, he said, I’m gonna see you on Tuesday morning. That was on a Sunday. So I had an idea that things were dire, but I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t even know what stage four cancer meant. I didn’t know what staging meant. So I’m going to read to you chapter eight of my book, Lifesaving gratitude. The title of the chapter is the one thing.

Bunny : (12:41)
It is Tuesday. The day of my first office visit to the oncologist. I don’t know what to expect. I only know that he found a way to fit me into his schedule in just two days on Sunday in the hospital, Dr. L vaguely outlined a series of steps that we might discuss. But today I’m worried that he’ll suggest something drastic like surgery next Thursday, or that I moved to Phoenix to the Mayo clinic. My family is rallying around my niece called last night to make her sweet offer, to fly me anywhere. I wanna go for treatment. My parents have called at least three or four times to check on me. I know that they’re calling aunts and cousins and their pastors and their friends. This feels like a continual buzzing in my ear. The one thing I know right now getting ready for my 11:00 AM oncology appointment is that Johanna is on her way from Albuquerque to go with me to the doctor. And my cousin, Jennifer will join us there. She’ll listen and take notes. While I put my life in the seemingly kind man’s hands we’ve arranged to go by Christ church on our way so that our pastor Martin can pray with us. I need to spend a minute or two with him. Martin’s great gift to us is his calm assurance. He is not a pastor who raises his voice to make a point. In fact, he frequently lowers his voice. When he most strongly wants to convey a message. You’re sometimes forced to lean in to hear him. I dress feeling better. Now that I have these pain meds and the Ambien that helps me sleep. There’s still a relentless stitch in my side, but now that I’m resting, I don’t feel like I’m going to pass out. And with four new pints of blood corseing through my veins. I have no craving for ice. None after months of chewing chunks of ice, like a maniac, my higher hemoglobin number has cured me of that crazy craving. I’m still relieved that I didn’t develop the other craving. The ER doc says sometimes a company’s low hemoglobin. That’s eating dirt this morning. I wrote in my red notebook, grateful for the new blood Ambien, Johanna coming, Dr. Visit, Jennifer. These feel like all the things that will get me through one more day, Johanna arrives. And we try not to be testy with one another. She is as nervous as I am, which is considerable at the church. We’re greeted by the staff, including Jennifer, who will follow us to the cancer center and Martin in his customary jeans and polo shirt. He looks more like a surf instructor than a pastor, which is reassuring. A traditional pastor would pray for me to be healed. I’m sure Martin will come up with something better than that. And he does. We gather in a circle, me in the middle with Johanna and scooter, the sweet old guy in charge of the prayer ministry, an annoints, my forehead with oil, something this Baptist girl has never had done to her. And then Martin, pray. His words are simple. He doesn’t start by thanking God for this opportunity to feel his good grace or by asking for a miracle of healing. What he says is God, we come to you today asking that you put blinders on bunny, that you help her. See, only the hurdle that is directly in front of her, help her not to look forward at whatever obstacles might or might not exist out there. Let her see only one thing at a time and let her know that she is required to do only the one thing that is right in front of her, he goes on to ask for grace, for Johanna and for me, for my parents and my friends and for the rest of my family.

Bunny : (16:24)
One more time. He reminds God and me that the one thing I need most is peace. And to find the calm in this particular storm, it’s a simple prayer, but it is the best prayer anyone has ever prayed for me, it is possibly the best prayer I have ever heard. And my brain tilts toward that idea. The idea of only trying to tackle the one thing in front of me, the next thing that has to be done, I’m pretty sure I can do this. I have spent my life racing ahead, trying to juggle a thousand ideas and thoughts as well as activities and obligation. When all I had to do was the next one thing, my next one thing today isn’t conquering cancer or making my parents and my kids feel better. It is just to see the oncologist that is all I have to do in the next hour. It is the only thing I have to think about with blinders on it is all I plan to do later this evening, I will write in the red notebook, grateful for the Blinder’s prayer. One thing. So the reason I read chapter eight of my book to you, the one that I call the, the one about the blinders prayer was not, not because I want you to run out and buy my book, although, although that would be way cool. Um, you can find life saving gratitude on Amazon or at my website, which is just bunnyterry.com. But the reason I read it is that if you’re like me, you frequently let the noise of the rest of your life, overshadow the things that you most care about. I think of this in terms, I sort of see it in my head as all these, um, voices, like almost like birds Twittering around my head. Kind of like, you know, when they were dressing Cinderella for the ball, there are all these birds circling. And one of them is me thinking about the cancer foundation for New Mexico board meeting tomorrow, which may be difficult because we’re doing budget prep. I think about the houses that I’m, I’ve got on the market right this minute, I think about my dad who is 90 and more frail every single day and is going to go on hospice soon. And I think about, um, you know, I really, you know, wouldn’t, I rather be writing a chapter in my book than doing anything else in the world. And I think about my grandsons who are such a gift and to whom I give not nearly enough time. And I think about my husband and I think about my kids and anyway, all this stuff is always swirling around my head.

Bunny : (19:01)
And what I might want to reconsider is, is saying the blinders prayer to myself, which is, you know, just please let me put blinders on and only do the next thing is most important. It’s, you know, it’s sort of like reading essentialism, what is essential? What is the most important? And, and here’s where the, the real nuts and bolts piece of this comes into play. If you don’t know what’s most important to you, you won’t do what’s most important. So this is the moment where I’m inviting you to step back, take a look at what your goals and dreams are right this minute. And if you don’t have any, or if you think you don’t have any, take some time, take a weekend, take an evening, go for a drive. I gotta tell you, I do my best thinking when I’m on a long drive by myself. And sometimes, um, sometimes I’ll just get in the car and, you know, drive to Espanola and come back because I’m out of ideas or I can’t quite get my priorities straight. So if you don’t know what your dreams are, take a moment to go back in time, look at maybe if you have old notebooks, I have a, I have millions of old notebooks where I’ve written things, go back and take a look at what you wrote five years ago or 10 years ago. And if you don’t, if you’re not the sort of person who writes those things down, just take some time to sit with yourself and say, what were my dreams? What was most important to me at some point, if you don’t want to reflect, don’t think about the past, simply start here and say, in this year, next year, at this time, what, where do I wanna be? What sort of a letter would I write to my future self right now about where I want to be in a year in two years in five years, have you been thinking about writing a book? Guess what you can do that, have you been thinking about why in a larger house for your family, these, have you been thinking about going on a hiking track across the north of Spain? What holds your heart? And like my friend Glena said, what is it that you do every day that you love the most?

Bunny : (21:53)
I wanna talk for just a minute about establishing an aiming point because you know, we’re taught to think about goals. We’re taught to consider, you know where we might wanna be when we’re working on a college degree or when we, when we’re looking for a job. But I, you want to look backward and you wanna look forward. Here’s a, here’s a note from my U-squared training that, um, says to start here, look backward, pull up the ghost of your hopes and dreams. The big desires you’ve been carrying around, but have never realized listen to the urging of your highest ambitions connect with the quiet beliefs you have about what could be, let your mind roam this inner world. And you’ll catch a glimpse of the possibilities that lie within your reach. If you’re not doing this on a regular basis. And if you don’t know what your aiming point is, then you’re gonna end up where I felt like I was this morning, which is, I don’t know. I don’t know what the thing is that I do every day that I, that I love the most. I mean, I know that we can all point to personal stuff. I love spending time with my husband. I love spending time with my kids and my grandkids. My you know, my grandson Milo is at home right now, not little under the weather. And if I could go pick him up and spend the afternoon with him, I would, that stuff gives me joy. But we also give a lot of professional energy to things that may not be giving us joy. So I just want you to think about what it is that you love about where you put your energy. I had a client who said to me the other day, life is either drudgery or discovery. And I went, what, what, what are you saying? I, I never heard it put quite so eloquently. I want us all to find a way for our lives to stop being drudgery. So this is not a very long podcast today. I just wanted to remind us all that. If we put blinders on and we do the things that are right in front of us, and if we work really hard at knowing what’s gonna bring us joy and love, then we can only, only find success and happiness and joy in our lives. I wanna thank you for checking in for this quick little, um, I hope it’s a piece of inspiration, but mostly I hope that you find that everything you do today, every single activity you do, isn’t drudgery, it’s discovery, and it’s gonna bring you some joy. Thanks for checking in.

Bunny : (24:47)
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 life saving gratitude pod. You can also follow me personally at Bunny Terry, Santa Fe. You can sign up at 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.