Finding Purpose through Gratitude: Daniel Mangena

Episode Transcript

Bunny: (00:10)
Hi There and welcome to the life saving gratitude podcast. I’m Bunny Terry. I am joined by my producer and co-host Johanna Medina. And wow. Do we have a treat for you today, right? Johanna?

Johanna: (00:24)
Yeah, this was such an amazing interview. I even told our guest at the end. I was like, sometimes I jump in and I like to talk too, or I have questions, but I just was enjoying listening to him so much. I mean, he does have a very nice accent, but he also was saying some things like, I felt like I was just like, wow, wow. Every time. And then, you know, you, you both, um, like you said before you come from very similar mindset, so it’s really, I had, I enjoyed just listening to you guys talking, and I think this will be an episode. I almost wanna just listen to it again, like in slow motion and, you know, take more and know more notes. It’s one of those that I’ll probably listen to a few times, but, um, yeah, such a great guest and I’ll, I’ll let you actually introduce who he is.

Bunny: (01:09)
Well, our, our guest is Daniel Mangena and he is a best selling author. He’s a radio host, he’s an international speaker, a master money. Manifester is what he calls him self. And he’s the creator of something that he calls the beyond intention paradigm he’s completely self-made and he spent decades perfecting his world class coaching to help others live an abundant, joyful purpose driven life. And he’s very clear that he came to this success almost by mistake. He did not obviously start where he is now. Um, but he has learned, um, after being diagnosed with Asperger’s and attempting, but failing at suicide, how to create this, this, um, method of, of exploring how mindset works and how being intentional works at taking acts of action and being grateful can change lives. Um, his focus is on financial success. He’s very clear that because it is an understood medium in the world for success, and it’s a way to exchange, um, your time for, um, well, you can exchange your money for more time for, um, more purpose. Yeah. I’m so excited for you to hear this because he’s really, really in the business of helping others to success in relationships in their lives, um, financially, but what an amazing what an amazing conversation we got to have it.

Johanna: (03:07)
Yeah, I’m so grateful. We’re lucky that we got to have him on and I’m excited. Hopefully get to talk to him again soon. And then also, you know, he, and at the beginning that he has his Ted talk coming out. And so hopefully that will be, I don’t know if it’ll be out before the episode comes out, but I will do my best to add a link to that, but definitely, you know, like as, as we always do check the links in the description and on buddy’s website to find out more about Daniel, because he’s, he’s doing a lot in the world and of course you kind of mentioned it, but I just definitely wanna give, you know, a little trigger warning that Daniel does talk about suicide and, you know, it’s a big part of his story and it’s kind of a, I don’t know, kind of a launching off point that he, and he talks about how his mindset changed and how that really led. I launched him into all this, this other success. And, but yeah, it’s, it’s just, it’s just a part in there so well.

Bunny: (04:06)
And I would say stick around till the end, because, one of the questions I asked him before we began recording was whether he would share with our listeners the best way to put his thoughts and his, the things that he’s learned to work in 2022. So he gives us some really, um, really concrete tips for making a big change in your life in 2022. So take a look. He even has the goal to at one point, say stop meditation, but he explains that. So we love that he sometimes speaks against the norm, but, we get to talk to a lot of interesting people here. I just wanna say thanks to everybody who takes the time to listen, to subscribe and to rate us, you are the lifeblood of what we’re doing. And, you know, we have more downloads every week. So this is, this is exciting work, and I’m so grateful for everybody being here. Thanks for checking in.

Bunny: (05:12)
I’m so excited that you’re here, Daniel. And do you prefer that I call you Dan or Daniel?

Daniel: (05:18)
Can I tell you a secret? I actually always, I used Dan for years, and then I was at a networking event in my, for my old business in London, a bank in London, and one of the secretaries was like, you’re really doing yourself a disservice by making your name sound so colloquial. You really should be using Daniel. And I thought, oh my God. Okay. So I changed everything. So for years as I was Dan, um, and that’s why the podcast, which was initially for my old business is do it with Dan, but officially, now it’s Daniel everywhere, but I’m from east London. So I’ve been to Dan forever. So,

Bunny: (05:56)
Well, we’re very excited to have you here, to our guests who, don’t know Daniel Mangena, hope I said that correctly.

Daniel: (06:06)
Perfectly executed.

Bunny: (06:07)
He is a, I could sort of say force of nature. An accomplished writer, speaker leader, in particular, a thought leader. And, really, I feel a kindred spirit, all about having a positive impact on his world and helping people find their absolute best life. And so, I know people are not here to listen to me so much as they are about you, but I know, I wanna hear, I wanna hear what you have to say about intention and about alignment and actions and affirmations and getting past blame. But before we get to all that, I want people to know exactly who you are. You’ve, you’ve had some, I’m gonna look success, but I don’t, you didn’t begin in that place. And, and you, you didn’t start in this place of power where you find yourself today. So talk to our listeners just as though they’ve never heard of you and, and let us know where you began and what your story is.

Daniel: (07:16)
Well, the timing of us recording this in December is fortuitous because I just a week and a half ago I recorded my Ted talk, which will be out this week or next week. And so I go into a lot of the back story. I’m gonna get the title wrong, but, um, it’s what suicide taught me about life is what Ted talk is entitled. Yeah, you’re right. People do, oh, you’ve got it so easy. You do this, you do that. You’re everywhere. They see me on TV. They see me doing all this. It’s like, yeah, but it was an accident. And when I say that, people are like, what do you mean? What do you mean? It was an accident. I accidentally overanalyze myself out of suicide. And as a, by a product of spending time consumed with not failing at suicide on top of everything else that I’d failed it up to that point.

Daniel: (08:07)
I really just reprogrammed my mind by accident. I wasn’t trying to save myself. I was trying to end my own life and in the process of doing so, I was spending hours a day, hours and hours, a eight reading through books. I taught myself to transliterate, Arabic and Hebrew. I was reading ancient texts. I was going back over tapes and listening to stuff cause I had to find out what had gone wrong. So to backtrack to the chapter before this, in my life, um, I was a precocious teenager. I made my first million when I was 19 years old, 16, 17, I was reading think and grow rich. I was ordering tapes from light and go con and teach myself accelerated learning techniques. So I could consume more information. I was diagnosed with Asperger as, at 27 years old. So I didn’t understand at that time that the reason why I was operating the way I did is because how I’m wired, but I was able to create a lot of success for young. I promptly lost everything that I’ve made. I think I was a millionaire for about eight months and then I was broke. That’s another story that doesn’t really fit with today. But then I went off and built everything up again. And then I was able to keep it for about a year. That time before everything got stolen from me the second time, and I hit rock bottom because so much of my identity was tied up in what I had achieved and created.

Daniel: (09:34)
I didn’t have have the natural wiring for social dynamics, which is one of the shortfalls. One of the short straws I got with my Aspergers. And so all of these relationships and connections I had with other people, my entire identity was built up on me being useful because I was the guy that could help you be successful if you went into business with him and so on. So when that was gone, S as disastrously as it was, I was like, oh my God, have I been, have I been diluted running around thinking that because I believed I’d had the secret source for how to create anything. And I had been, you know, I had the minus touch, anything that I’d touched gone well until everything just completely imploded. And so the only reason why I didn’t make an actual attempt at suicide is cause I thought, well, I didn’t like the odds of me pulling off the suicide and not failing. I was in the UK. I didn’t have a gun. If I had, if I had access to a gun, thank God. I didn’t have access to a gun because a gun to the head, I felt confident. That’s the only thing that I felt confident about cutting my wrists. I’d seen too many mark risks. I didn’t wanna have a permanent reminder of that failure. I didn’t wanna wake up in a hospital bed with my stomach pumped and people feeling sorry for me. I didn’t wanna have to put someone through having to cut me down from hanging myself. And so I said, well, I’ve got to, I’ve got to get over this limiting belief about suicide. And I’ve got to make sure that I pulled this off successfully. And so my brain, because of how it’s wired went and said, okay, well, we need to look at everything that we knew and find out where the missing links were, what had gone wrong, because what I taught myself before had worked up to a point, but it stopped working. So where were those missing links? And so I went off on this journey to fill in those gaps with how I manifested outcomes. And the byproduct is the work that I do today. Because many years later, I woke up and realized, hang on a minute, I’ve rebuilt my life. I’ve built up another business. I had healthy relationships with people around me. I was taking care of my body. I was traveling and enjoying my life. Oh my God. So there was no light bulb moment. It’s like, oh, I choose life. Now. It kind of just meandered into it. And that’s how I’ve come now to understand the importance of our environment, how that impacts our mind, how that impacts the choices that we make, how that impacts our emotional state, our actions and behaviors and the life that we live.

Bunny: (11:53)
That reminds me. I just did a podcast where I reflected on the things that I’ve learned. And, um, it’s, it’s that Seth God, um, statement that he who fails the most wins. And so you failed the suicide. So here you are winning. I am. So that’s the good news. I, if you, if someone were beginning with you today, if somebody were beginning, um, a journey with you today to, to learn the best way to live their most intentional life, what what’s, what’s the start? What, what do people have to put aside and what do they have to, to also gain in order to understand the things, the things that you’ve learned or what you’re teaching?

Daniel: (12:42)
Well, first and foremost the thing I’d like to see them drop is any idea that cookie cutter approach is gonna be successful, cuz we’re all individuals. One of the things I’ve seen, I mean, in varying degrees, I’ve been this kind of information. Now, 22 years, 21, 22 years, I started quite young, as I said, and I’ve seen people win and I’ve seen people not win. And what I’ve seen is that people that try and force something to work for them, don’t normally get any success. I’ve seen people that have understood this concept and apply and adapted things to themselves. And I’ve seen people that have just found themselves in things at work to take this to business, for example, or to entrepreneurship, there are people that will try a particular strategy. You know, the latest funnel hack called the latest D watch it or whatever the thing is. And it works for some people and it doesn’t work for others. And what we’ve developed over the last couple of years is a concept that I call money DNA, which is applicable to other things. But money, DNA is what we call it, where you look at where that natural groove exists. And then you simply look for the teachers, the modalities, the methods that match that natural flow. Does that mean that we don’t go and expand and grow? No, but we look to build a base on where we actually have a natural flow. So the first thing I would say is jot the idea of the cookie cutter approach, look for where your strengths are, where you’ve had experience and evidence of flow. And looking to that, some people for example said, I can’t meditate and try to meditate. Well, maybe meditation’s not for you. Maybe there’s something else.

Daniel: (14:06)
Another activity that brings you to a state, a meditative state where you can have the benefits. We’ve seen people that have said, you know, I’ve tried yoga or maybe yoga’s not for you. right. Leave those things alone. So drop the cookie cutter approach and then get very, very, very clear on what you want. Now I know this has been, you know, washed and oh yeah, yeah, no, but we spend so much time living our life based on what other people, places and things have trained us to believe that we want. That’s where I believe a lot of midlife crisis concepts and ideas come from, or people that find that they’re meaning, you know, everything they’ve created, meaning look at all these celebrities that achieve the Heights of success and then go on and are successful in their suicide or find themselves lost in drunk drink and, and drugs. And it’s because I believe they’ve spent so much time building towards something that they didn’t actually choose. So it’s not asking yourself what’s yours and what’s other people’s.

Bunny: (15:00)
And, and I want, I wanna stop there for just a minute. You said a great thing. And now I, and I’m sorry, I didn’t write it down. But you said, I believe a midlife crisis is what was this mention? You said it’s…

Daniel: (15:11)
I believe a midlife crisis is people spending, you know, a few decades building up a life that they haven’t actually consciously decided is theirs. People dedicate resources to a career. Some people even go and start a family and realize that’s not what they wanna do, or they go and get the white picket fence and realize they really wanna live in the jungle. And that’s why I ill people then then go off and find themselves in all kinds of addictions going to buy a motorcycle, leaving a career, walking away from family infidelity. I think it’s the, the breaking point gets reached where someone else’s story, you can’t keep living there anymore. And so we lash out and when I first started coaching, that’s what I was working with of people that were going through that space, either a midlife crisis, or they saw the impending change and wanted to start writing life in their own terms. And that’s where the work actually that I do with people began.

Bunny: (16:03)
So if you are, I mean, whether you’re 20 years old or 40 years old, knowing what it is that you want, you, that’s a huge, that’s a huge exercise. I know because I’ve, I’ve studied it as well. You know, you have to know what your aiming point is before you can go there. Mm-hmm and, and you can’t choose an aiming point. That is something you’ve been given by somebody else. I think that’s a really, that’s really hard for somebody to know what their aiming point is. Mm-hmm.

Daniel: (16:33)
Mmmhmm, and that’s, you know, we we’ve, we’ve created a lot of tools to support people. Who’ve been able to find that and there’s some great resources out there. I think someone made something called a life book where you can actually ask yourself certain questions and explore what it is for you. But, um, I think once someone’s rejected the cookie cutter approach, once somebody understands just how much of our mind is a actually preset with content that was fed into it, that we had no say in, and then starts to explore those. And just question is that mine is this mine. Is this something that I desire? Does this actually light me up or am I doing it from a sense of obligation or a sense of duty? And there’s more questions that unfold from that, that we can explore later down the line, but you know, am ready to let go of duty. Do I love myself enough to do what makes me happy? Have I even explored what it means to be happy? Am I ready to let go of my commitment to being unhappy? All of these questions come up and there’s a journey for all of them, but I’d say, yeah, definitely these, these two first steps are a great place to start.

Bunny: (17:31)
You, you talk about the subconscious mind. Mm-hmm I mean, I think it’s, um, a, a tool that people, well, first of all, people don’t understand it. Mm-hmm can you, can you talk to our listeners a little bit about the, how the subconscious, how, how our subconscious works mm-hmm and what we need to do to first put a lid on it, but then to understand how to work, make it work in our favor? I think, I mean, we could talk for hours about the subconscious. I just, I don’t wanna miss that point. I think it’s really important.

Daniel: (18:01)
For people. So I wanna clarify, I’m not an expert in the subconscious as part of the doctorate that I’m putting together, a moment, my thesis, we are exploring some things to do with neuroscience. And so I have been diving into that, but my experience around the subconscious is spending about 15 years exploring hypnosis NLP and other things around the mind, and also personal experience. I just wanna qualify that, um, before beginning. Sure. When I’m talking about the subconscious mind, we are looking at the part of our brain that does most of the heavy lifting. I think it’s Bruce Lipton that said about 95, 90 7% of the time we’re operating on programs set there at the unconscious level. I don’t remember where I got this number from, but as much as 70% of that program also happens between the ages of two and seven. So 70% of the thing that’s running our life, 97% of the time for many of us, we didn’t even have a stake in, but there’s a beauty to that because I don’t know about you, but I didn’t just tell my heart to start beating. Right. That was part of the code that got dropped in you know, when I was created that they’re doing its thing, the telomeres in my DNA strands that keep me growing and stay, keep me alive. I didn’t have anything to do with that. I didn’t tell my lungs to breathe. I didn’t tell the cells to replicate. So there is a lot of very important processing that happens, but for many of us, because we’ve spent so much time unconscious to what’s happening in the unconscious, a lot of our everyday activities that do have a direct impact on the life that we live. We haven’t a taken up the opportunity to have a stake in and as a result, we’re living a life that was given to us instead of a life that we’re consciously involved in the creating of.

Bunny: (19:41)
So, so instead of choosing we’re reacting.

Daniel: (19:46)
Reacting, reacting, playing out. I mean the, the unconscious mind moves that 10,000 to 10 million times. The speed of the conscious mind. I think the limbic reptilian part of the brain is as much as 10 million times, the speed of the conscious mind that that’s operating on. So for every conscious thought we have about what we think we want, the unconscious is already undertaken 10,000 to 10 million thoughts and processes before that, which is why it’s so important that the, the time that we spend so porting or disrupting what’s happening in the con unconscious, that we have a conscious stake in ensuring that points to what we want. In my case, like I said, that’s what saved my life that I spent so much time palming myself, my mind with a particular quality of input that the program that was sitting in there got rewritten on the back of that content. And then my unconscious, this process led to me unconsciously choosing life as a result. And we can start to do that with other things too. And we can pay attention to how we most optimally receive those inputs. So one of the things that we look at with money DNA is your love language. People like what does love language, how to do it? Well, your love language says how you receive loving energy, how it’s communicated to you. So if we’re looking at inputting a new expansive program, then why not start transmitting it in a way that we actually understand. So my top love language is at active service and quality time. And so I ensure that a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of positive inputs for me, I hire people to put it into me so that I receive as an act of service that loving and communication with the quality time. I set time aside for my personal development for my selfcare, because that actually helps me to feel the energy a bit more impactfully. If someone has words of affirmation, then most susceptible to self-talk having an impact on them because words carry more meaning for them. So understanding just these little parts of yourself can mean that you can start to set up your environment to support you in having the inputs that will support the program that leads the outcome that you want.

Bunny: (21:42)
That’s really interesting because part of, one of my, one of my love languages is words of affirmation. Cause, you know, I grew up in a household where my father told me every day mm-hmm how smart, how clever, how wonderful, how loved I was mm-hmm. And so I still need that. And I found that for me, one of the things that makes that, that contributes to my success is creating affirmations for myself all the time. But I have to tell you, I didn’t know that until about seven or eight years ago. I didn’t, I didn’t even know that success was attainable until a, a specific period in my life when I learned that mindset and understanding how your own mind works is such a huge piece of success. Mm-hmm it’s. And so I guess I want, I want, I want people to hear that if they’re struggling, if they feel like they’re in survival mode, there are ways mm-hmm to change those patterns. Mm-hmm and your mind is the most powerful. That is the most powerful tool you have both have, Right? Yeah. I mean, so in the way that I do, I teach a concept called the flow funnel, which looks at us as holistic beings. So we, we’re not just, you know, a body moving through time and space. We’re not just an energy or a spirit, although, you know, sciences measure that that aspect exists also. We’re also that mind, that mental aspect and all three of these things work in concert, but there’s mind over matter. And the way that we can actually direct the, the different inputs to change the spiritual aspect, still come through the mind. So the mind is a connective tissue to all of these pieces. I love to call it the gatekeeper to experience. So when we have a very conscious relationship with what’s going on our mind, which we can do through our inputs, we can do through how we’re spending our time. On a day to day basis, you have the power to start directing a snowball effect of an expansive spirit. Therefore perpetuates a cycle of ongoing positive thought, which impacts choices, actions, and behaviors, which again, 97% of the time are running unconsciously, which then is our, our life. Our life is a sum of the experiences that we’re experiencing through the lens that we’re experiencing it through and from the habits that we are unconsciously, most of the time spitting out into that environment.

Bunny: (23:53)
So, so what do you think holds people back mm-hmm? I mean, if we understand this, what you do, you talk about setting a side blame mm-hmm what are, what are the pieces that you gotta, that you have to put aside before you can start reaching full empowerment or intentional living? What are some of the things that, that are important for people to set aside?

Daniel: (24:18)
So the result of the years that I spent on the journey, and particularly when I started come to conscious relationship with what I’d been through was my, my book stepping and beyond intention, which is my current signature book. Um, and in there I share the four step model that I backtracked and saw to be the, the phases that I went through on the journey to rebuild my life. And now, you know, when depression tries to creep in, um, when stress and anxiety start to creep period, and when I’m even working with people and helping them to create outcomes, it’s the same four steps I use all the time. And the first of those is accept, except that I’m the author and creator of my life. Now, when I say that people sometimes get upset, they say, well, what about the child? That’s starving in a war zone? What about this? What about that? Well, let’s put, listen to context. We have things that are in the environment and we have things within our direct control. I think, I don’t remember who created the concept of circles of influence, but even the things coming from our environment, we still have a choice about how we respond to them and how we move as a result of any lessons or learnings that we get from the experience that we have, that thing that impact us going forward. So there’s always something that we consciously have in terms of our relationship to the situation, but to bypass all of that. I just invite people to look at a very, very simple mathematical equation. If you know, 20 people, that’s 20 different relationships of different substances. You are the common denominator with every single one of those 20 relationships. So you can go through the process of meaning that person for the substance of the relationship, waiting for them to change or trying to force them to change and do that 20 times and burn out.

Daniel: (25:54)
Or you can change yourself. And by virtue of the fact that you are the common thread in every single one of those relationships, every single one of those relationships must change to some degree is the same in our life. We are the common denominator. The only one in every experience you was there when you were born, but she won’t be there for every moment of your life. Even if you’re an identical twin, you guys may do everything together, but you’re certainly not dreaming together. So there are things that people might be there for, but there’s only you for everything. So the most logical place to start with the change that’s gonna have the most impact in your life is with you. Even if someone’s not prepared to except my extreme level of responsibility, acceptance, you are the common denominator, the most logical place to start with any change and the place where a change will have the most far reaching impact.

Bunny: (26:39)
So I know that’s step one. And I love the, this paradigm, the beyond intention paradigm, because there is a step three that speaks directly I sort of devote, devote my life to, but, um, but I do, I, you know, the yeah I, this is a great line. I mean, we are the common denominators in our lives. If we want a definitive change then within mm-hmm is you say a good place, but I’d say it seems like the only place to start.

Daniel: (27:16)
I don’t like to talking in extremes, but between me, you and the gole-post yes.

Bunny: (27:22)
Thinking, I mean, how, how else do I affect change in my life unless I start within mm-hmm I love that. And step two mm-hmm is the clearing and the action piece. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I mean, I have to tell you, I love that you are very clear of about we can, we can attempt to manifest everything in the world with our brain. You know, I can create any point. I can say, I wanna write a book a year. I can say that, you know, I wanna raise the most money for the nonprofit I’m involved with this year ever. But if you just sit in the words of Daniel Mangena, you just sit, sit on the couch and eat Cheetos. that actually doesn’t work. Does it? Nothing changes.

Daniel: (28:16)
And it’s, it’s one of the things to throw a quick dent in the works. It’s one of the things I find most hilarious. I’ll give you this quick. I was looking at, I was on Instagram and there was an ad that said, why you don’t need Instagram ads to find your ideal client, but it’s an Instagram ad.

Bunny: (28:36)

Daniel: (28:37)
Right, right. And so I laugh at the people who quote books or courses that through, where someone went through the process of creating a program, maybe did a Facebook ad, did a book, went and met a publisher, at least signed the agreement or something to tell them that they don’t have to do anything in order to create what they want. I don’t understand how people don’t catch that. Somebody went to the process of building an entire business to tell you that you, if you give them $997, you don’t need to do anything in order to create your ideal life. You can just sit around and eat in Cheetos. And so I’m very, very, very, and I’ve got, um, quite controversial, did a couple of TV interviews on this, which is really interesting, a statement called stop medicine. But what do you mean stop meditating meditation. Save my life. It was like, yeah, I didn’t say don’t. I said, meditate. I can’t do it. I didn’t say don’t. I said, stop. As in whatever that practice is that you do, it must come into an end so that you can get up off your button, go and take some action. Action is it’s it’s the movement through time and space is how we even look to receive. Even if someone says I’m gonna win the lottery, you still have to buy a lottery ticket. And then even if they do a direct deposit and you don’t even have to move, what good is a of money. If you’re not gonna use it in three dimensional time and space, which is gonna require some movement through time and space, it’s gonna require some action. So when are we gonna drop this illusion, this delusion, that action. Isn’t a part of the process of creating the life that we want. And instead of falling in love of actions that feel expanded, that feel good, that we enjoy that are purposeful, that are meaningful. So we are less talk about the action that we get to take every day towards our dreams.

Bunny: (30:25)
You use some language that I really resonates with me expansive and joyful. I joyful is, you know, people choose a word every year and I decided, um, joyful is gonna be my word every year. Amazing going forward. You know, we, you, you survived being a failure at suicide and I survived stage four cancer. I think joy is a choice, but you have to take some action to get to the joy mm-hmm right. Mm-hmm

Daniel: (30:54)
I mean, again, so much of the action. There’s so much of what we’re doing is unconscious, right? And unless we’re doing something to treat joy, being the byproduct of what’s churning out from the unconscious, then we’re gonna keep getting what we’ve had. I think that what doing the same thing over again, and expecting a different outcome is insanity, but doing something different things can’t stay the same. And that’s going to require movement through time and space to trigger those shifts in our physiology, in the chemistry, in our body, in the hormones, running through our body to change what’s going on in our brain to shoot out a different experience so we can start having something different in our lives.

Bunny: (31:28)
Well, one of the things you talk about that I’ve also learned is that when you’re going to imagine that different life mm-hmm, I mean, part of the act, part of the, part of the one piece of it is that you have to imagine what you’re going to feel like when you achieve it. Mm-hmm because then do you start to train your subconscious to, to, to, to know those emotions? I I’m trying to think of what I heard you talk about, where you said that, um, if, if you start your, if you live your day, knowing what the emotions are that you wanna manifest, mm-hmm, that’s what your day starts to become.

Daniel: (32:04)
Right? Yeah. So, I think this is one of the things again, and, and it’s great that you use affirmations because a lot of people are using affirmations and not finding result with it and saying, well, affirmations don’t work. And I think it’s because they’ve lost sight of the fact that it’s not the words. And I’ll give you a quick exercise for the listeners to catch this. I can say, I hate you, Bunny. You so much, did you feel the energy of hate none? Therefore, there was no communication of hate. We are spending all of our time, not recognizing that words are a medium of exchange of energy. The words themselves don’t have anything unless the emotional, the energetic component is there. So affirmations, I am wealthy. I’m healthy. I’m happy. I’m joyful. There’s no energy that corresponds to those words. So there’s nothing being communicated.

Daniel: (32:50)
Our inner environment doesn’t respond to empty shells. It responds to the emotional context of, I look at my son who’s gonna be one next week. And it’s just been absolutely fascinating watching him grow because when he was a baby, I can say, I love you all. I want, he doesn’t hear that, but they’re still attuned to the spiritual realm. And so they’re feeling the energy of the communication. And over time as they grow, they start to develop the mental context to put behind the energetic imprint that they’re receiving. And so our mind is operating the same way. It doesn’t understand. It’s not speaking English. It’s not speaking French. It’s not speaking Chinese. It’s feeling the emotional imprint. So when I’m envisioning my life, if I’m not doing so harnessing and claiming the emotional context, it’s just going over the head of our own content. It’s just like, okay, great. That was a cool scene. But waiting for the instruction, I guess we’re gonna keep doing things the same. Oh, great affirmation. I love your French great intonation, but nothing’s gonna change. And then it doesn’t change. We say this stuff doesn’t work versus making, I think it’s obvious says making declarations instead of affirmations really steps into it and really embodies it and brings more. I just thought it then the same thing when we are having that envision really get passionate about it. Feel the emotion bring as many senses into it as possible because that’s what the mind is seeing accepting taking on and receiving as an instructor as to what actually is going to be created.

Bunny: (34:16)
And I wanna give our listeners a tiny little example, because I think it’s important for you to get for people to get that you can’t just speak to yourself. You have to, you have to understand how it’s going to fill when you achieve that. And early in my real estate career, when I was having to borrow money from people to, to keep moving forward. One of the things that I, my coach and I worked on on me achieving was paying off my parents’ mortgage. And he said, don’t just, don’t just use the words. Talk to me about how it’s gonna feel. And we talked about, you know, the fact that they had struggled all their life and that they had been amazing parents, but not financially as successful as other people. And we, we talked through that. So for a year, those emotions set with me. And at the end of the year, I can tell you that, that, and, and we did this as a family, but we paid off their mortgage and gave them back the deed to their house. Now that never would’ve, if I had just used the words over and over, it would have been completely different than it. I had known for months how fulfilling it was going to feel to me. And to them, mm-hmm to be able in their eighties to give them the gift of never having to make another mortgage payment. But I don’t, I don’t think I’m like you, I, I mean, I know that the science supports the fact that until you, I mean, I like that you say dream with your eyes open, right. Dream with your eyes open because, um, dreaming is powerful, but you have to put your heart behind it as well. Mm-hmm and then your hands.

Daniel: (36:01)
Yes.

Bunny: (36:02)
Yes. And I wave my hands a lot. You have to go to work. Mm-hmm so, but your, the second piece mm-hmm of your paradigm is that you do have to cut with the mental, physical, I’m sorry, the mental, emotional, and often physical baggage of the past mm-hmm.

Daniel: (36:24)
And the future as well, and the future as well, because, and I wrote about this in the book because the time of writing and that book was a 10 year journey, but the time writing particular thing, I was having a challenge time with the lady I at the time. And I started going off to think about a happy relationship. Oh, that person would’ve done that. And blah, blah, blah. And, I caught myself. I was like, oh, wow. In that moment that I was projecting into a happy situation, even I was not present and available in my, in mind to do something about changing what was happening in the current situation. So it’s not just negative. So baggage, isn’t always a negative thing, even positive things, anything that’s pulling us out of the present moment, which is the only place that we can create effective change is what we’re doing. The work of breaking the bonds with during step two beyond detention, which is letting go of the past, in the future, in any form that pulls us out. Now, the only place that we can do something different and create the future that we desire.

Bunny: (37:23)
And then we have step three gratitude!

Daniel: (37:26)
,

Bunny: (37:27)
Which is my favorite.

Daniel: (37:29)
Favorite, gratitude is interesting because one of the key things that created the change for me, when I started to come to conscious relationship with what I’m doing what I was doing was recognizing that gratitude is not something that has to happen after the fact.

Bunny: (37:44)
Right? Mm-hmm I just wrote about gratitude being a strategy. Mm-hmm every single day, it’s a strategy. It’s not a reaction.

Daniel: (37:51)
No, it’s preemptive. And I speak of it in terms of developing the positive expectation of what we want fear is we could say the counterpoint to gratitude. Both of them are going into the future to an outcome that hasn’t really what happened yet and bringing the emotional experience of that into now, so that we can develop the expectation that calls it into our experience, fear, anxiety, we’re going to future that we don’t want and bringing those outcomes to the, to the present moment. We can do that with attitude, with something that we do want, you did it with your parents’ home, you went into the future, you felt the experience, you embodied it, of that experience of giving them back the title to their house. And then you were able to create it because your mind follows expectation. That shows up as the, the mental images that sign up that, that low volume radio that’s churning in the background. That’s leading us into how we do react or how we do respond and the choices that we are making when that starts to get wrapped in that strategy of gratitude, the positive outcome that we’ve got clarity on through the intention, we’ve set that we’re stepping into power that we’ve claimed in step one, sky’s the limit.

Bunny: (38:58)
Well, we could, we could stop right there except, well and I have to read this line because I think it that’s important to our lives or a reflection of the things we have created by expecting them to happen. Mm-hmm and we have the power over what that narrative can be for our lives. Mm-hmm I’m a fan of Dr. Price Pritchett who wrote a book called you squared that book about quantum leap, love that book, and I’ve studied with him. And, and he’s very clear that we, you have to recognize that you can put the future here to work for you. Mm-hmm you put the universe or whatever, higher power you believe in. And I believe in God, but you put you, you, your brain wants to put those expectations to work in your favor. Mm-hmm, but you have to make a choice to see your life in that way. Hmm. Not a little too simplistic.

Daniel: (39:58)
I think it’s beautiful. I think it’s beautiful. Because again, coming back to what we’re speaking about with programs and intentions, when you’re not consciously involved in that process, that instruction, that expectation is turning out from whatever program you’re, you’re running on. But when we step up and setting an intention, we’re actually claiming back that power to choose what that going to be. So we can start the process of actually unfolding what we desire versus what we’ve just been receiving over and over and over again.

Bunny: (40:22)
Right. Because I said for years, I’m in survival mode, you know, I was a single mom. I was raising Johanna and her brother. I was always in survival. Well, it just perpetuated itself. I was always in survival mode because that was how I identified off and my future. And it was only when I started learning that, um, I could, re-identify what my future was gonna look like. And you’re, you’re doing that on this huge scale with people with financial success. And, just with seeing possibilities that they never saw before.

Daniel: (40:57)
Mm-hmm. And I just wanna dovetail, on that just quickly, because I think sometimes I’ve heard people not get upset, but kind of say something about the fact that I focus on the financials and it’s not, because I think that money is the most important thing, but first and thing, it is the easiest, medium of exchange to create more choice and freedom. okay. Everyone around the world, pretty much, unless we’re going into the jungles of the Amazon, money’s gonna be what allows you to create more choices? If there are things that you want. I think it’s also important to recognize that the mental and emotional freedom to do the things that don’t need money are made easier when you have the money to make sure that you have the mental of emotional freedom to actually go and do those things. But most importantly, in terms of like the BS tests of what I teach, when I take people through my five day challenge, for example, where we get them to manifest $10 or more, you follow the formula? It shows up it doesn’t show up. We look, did you follow the formula? Yes. Well then I’m full of it. It’s not legit, but we’ve now seen this with thousands of people to say that when you follow the formula, it shows up. So it’s a way of quantifying whether the model works. Once a model works, you know, God didn’t say, oh, with relationships is gonna manifest this way with her. If we’re gonna manifest this way with money, it’s gonna manifest this way. Things go from thought to form the same way, regardless of what it is. And when you’ve had the physical experience of watching that happen, thought becoming form, you can then go and apply it to anything. So we’ve got a tangible, measurable way of training ourselves to create consciously. And then the byproducts is that we have the mental and emotional freedom, physical freedom, financial freedom to go and enjoy the things that do matter to us.

Daniel: (42:37)
I wanna check out Money DNA, because I’m gonna tell you I was, I was raised with words that really condemned money, that condemned financial success and, you know, things like money is the root of all evil and people, people with money are never happy. And I have to learn how I had to unlearn mm-hmm all of that language. I bet you run into that a lot in money via the Don.

Daniel: (43:03)
And in my own experience, I was raised in a very conservative Christian household. Money’s a root, I gave my mom the money to powerful her debt. She gave it to other people instead, cuz she didn’t want have the money. And so yeah, there’s, you know, I’ve seen it and that’s a big part of the work that we do with people when we’re empowering them to create financial abundance. It’s allowing that and recognizing that abundance is a natural state. It’s not something dirty. Look at nature. I think it’s, look at the flowers of the field, how they, to anything dawned as beautiful as these, you know, it’s, it’s the way that we were created to be. But we, in our magnificent wisdom as humans have run away from that, there we go.

Bunny: (43:49)
And then you have the, your step four in your paradigm is listening. The reflection and observation, which I think is a piece that people miss. And I’m the queen of not wanting to take time for reflection. I gotta tell you I’m still hurling headlong into 37 other activities. I love this. What voices you read, watch or listen to, unless you learn to hear your hear yourself, you will not be able to identify where the weeds are to pull them up. I mean, we have to stop on occasion.

Daniel: (44:31)
Yeah. And there’s another piece of that too, which is that we’re human. So we’re not gonna be switched on all the time. I think it’s Maxwell malt in his book, psycho cybernetics, and I’ll never forget reading that book about 20 years ago. And he said this line that stuck with me. I don’t remember everything about the book. This particular line just struck me and I I’ve always gone back to it, guiding missiles. Don’t go from point a to point B. They’re always going off course. The guiding system brings it back on course, and we are the same, you know, we’re gonna have our bad days, but again, we’re human. They’re not bad days. They’re just days. Nobody’s gonna be happy every day. And anybody who says that I run a million miles away. Nobody’s got it worked out from start to finish. We’re all human, having a human experience as contrast as texture, but stopping and listening, taking time to be aware of what we’re thinking and feeling allows us to course correct. And get back on track because we will all inevitably at some point come off track.

Bunny: (45:26)
Well, I also like that analogy of the, moonshot, you know, moonshot, those guys didn’t launch from Cape Canaveral and get, go directly to the moon they went off course. They corrected they and, and, and I know that’s how my life has worked especially in the last eight years since I got well is that I, at least I know what my aiming point is. So you’re not always on a straight trajectory to the place and sometimes your aiming point will change on occasion, but you can’t beat yourself up for not immediately getting, getting to where you’re going. And you said you also had, I had a great quote. I really believe in this, that if you take small steps every day to consistently make change, then that’s where the real success lies. Yeah.

Daniel: (46:22)
Micro-shifting. Yeah. Yeah. Micro shifting is a consistent series of baby steps made in the direction of a consciously chosen outcome. So we keep chipping away and it doesn’t have to be something big, you know, the smallest action made in the direction of where you’re going means you’re going in the right direction. And some days we’ve got the bandwidth to go bigger. Some days we’ve got the bandwidth where we’re just gonna creep, but as long as we keep moving, pause and not stop reflecting, refreshing so that we can keep going on staying new so that we can keep moving forward, no matter how small those steps are, even if we don’t get all the way to our destination will certainly be a lot further than where we started. If,

Bunny: (46:56)
If you were, you know, you, there are a couple of points that I don’t want to miss oh, perfection, perfectionism. I like, oh, in fact, Johanna who run, who, who does a lot of my social media post did something recently on, um, stop looking for perfection. I can’t even remember how it was worded, but talk to us about getting past perfectionism how’s yeah.

Daniel: (47:25)
What’s the importance of that. I actually got interviewed, um, in authority magazine, not too long ago. And, and I spoke about this, like the idea of perfection. I find really hilarious because generally speaking, we are setting us up to meet a standard that someone else has in their mind, which they probably don’t even have clarity on either. So you’ve got the blind leading the blind with are not allowing themselves to be held as worthy or accomplished because they haven’t hit a destination that nobody’s even set anyways, like running a race, but there’s no actual end line. And people are just dropping, you know, dropping out of exhausted and then beating themselves up. Cause they didn’t finish the race, but nobody knew when the race finished because there was no predetermined outcome. So instead of searching for this idea of it being perfect, which doesn’t mean that we don’t strive for, you know, something akin to perfection, it’s consistently seeking to do our best and give all of what we have and serve at the highest level with what we’re doing, serving ourself, serving our loved ones, serving our clients, serving our communities, whatever it is is have, have I give them my all in terms of how I’ve chosen to serve these? Have I been intentional on what that service looks like, then I can rest and say, I’ve done my job versus it’s not perfect. It’s not this. It’s not that my art isn’t finished, which is a, it’s a fools errand in my opinion. And I could be wrong, but it’s just my opinion.

Bunny: (48:46)
So , we talked at the beginning of the out how I, I really liked your blog post on, um, how to, how to put this to work in the best way. In 2022, what are some, some real action steps that our listeners can take away besides finding you, which I know they’re all going to want to do, but what are, you know, this, this, this afternoon in the next two weeks, what are things that people can do to get closer? To an empowered life.

Daniel: (49:19)
Do a complete audit, an audit of the people, places and things in your life, which ones actually are triggering an emotion king to what we might call joy or happiness or contentment, something expand of where are we, where is that expansion? And then start looking for ways to spend more time doing those things and start to, and it’s gonna be systematic for some people. Some people are gonna realize that the closest relationships or their career or the business that they said that they wanted to, or the mission that they thought they had is gonna be that thing that doesn’t actually like them up because they weren’t listening to somebody else that alone can take the whole year. This could be something that they can be working on for a couple of years. It could be a lifetime, but they will be moving and progressing towards something. That’s fulfilling something that is actually purpose led. Something is actually expansive. So again, an audit, the people in my life who’s actually appreciating me is loving on me. Right? Who only is available when they need something, right? Places, what places am I spending time? What’s my, you just check your energy levels. Do you feel expanded and, and full up? Are you drained and tired when you leave that space? And if so, why are you spending so much time there? Look at the, the things, the things that you’ve been chasing after. Look at the last few things that you chased after as a goal, how did you feel after retaining it? Were you just burn out from the process or did it actually bring something? What is adding to you? The universe realities in flux whenever neutral law is expanding or contracting. Every single thing that we do is either adding to us or taking away from us. If we start to do this audit and take a look at what’s in our life now and start taking stock of things that are adding and jock, think the things are taking are taking away, then we can start to develop more clarity on what we want more of, or what tweaks we can make, what conversations we can have, what growth we can do. But that audit is a great way to wrap up the year. And I think that people find it truly, truly rewarding to step out on the other side of having done that audit and having a decidedly more expansive, adding to life rather than one that’s just depleting and taking away from

Bunny: (51:33)
Wow, that’s good stuff. Because I don’t know about you, but I really do believe that we are the sum total of the people that we give our energy to, and that we spend the most time with.

Daniel: (51:45)
A hundred percent

Bunny: (51:46)
And you have to take a hard look at that. Well I really would love for you to come back because I think we have a lot more to talk about. We’d love to come back. Um, and this is, it’s just, it’s so exciting to talk about what your mind can do. I can’t wait till your Ted talk. When do you have any idea when that’s,

Daniel: (52:05)
I’ve reached out to the organizer, they said it can just be a couple of days so they nice. So it could be this week, but I, I don’t think it’d be any later than next week that we’ll see it.

Bunny: (52:16)
Well, we’ll add a link so that people can find that. I’m gonna wish you happy holidays. Thank you so much for spending time with us. Well, thank you so much. Thank you.

Daniel: (52:30)
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 live saving gratitude pod. You can also follow me personally @bunnyterrysantafe. 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.

Episode Transcript

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.