Gratitude for Loving Yourself: Leslie Davis

Bunny: (00:11)
Hi there and welcome to the lifesaving gratitude podcast. This is Bunny, Terry, and I’m joined by my co-host and producer Johanna Medina. And today we have a special asked who wrote a great book called you. Can’t eat love. Her name is Leslie Davis. And I, I that’s a great book title by the way. But her story is even better. What did you think, Johanna?

Johanna: (00:35)
Oh, yeah, it was, uh, a great conversation. We had to end up like rescheduling and rerecording with Leslie for some technical issues. So I’m so glad we finally got it, worked out to have her on, cause her story’s so powerful and I think it’s really gonna, um, be impactful for our listeners.

Bunny: (00:57)
Well, and she, I mean, she lost a hundred pounds. She changed the way she looked the way she felt, the way she spoke to herself. She really made a decision, you know, instead of despairing, she made a decision to figure out what, why she was addicted to food and why it fed or soul more than anything else. So, um, everybody has something different in their lives, but one of the things she’s clear about is that the one thing you have to have is love for yourself and you have to recognize, I thought it was a really cool thing. She said she divided her impression of herself in half. And she said, you know, half of half of me was me and the other half was my best friend. And I started treating myself like I was my own best friend. And that’s how I talked to myself instead of negative self-talk and being hard on myself all the Time.

Johanna: (01:57)
Yeah. I was gonna say the same thing. I really loved how she kept saying like, you know, talk to your best friend, but like that it’s you and, how to do that and her tips, even on goal setting and, how to take things, you know, like literally one bite at a time. So, uh, yeah, with some really, really good advice in this episode.

Bunny: (02:20)
Yeah. So stay tuned. She gives you some great tips at the end, and I think everybody’s gonna enjoy this because it applies to, I think it applies to all of us.

Bunny: (02:31)
Welcome to the life saving gratitude podcast, friends. I want you to stick around till the very end. I have a special guest today and what she has to share certainly changed her life. And I think it’s gonna of change your life as well. And she has a really powerful message about how being grateful can help you lead your fullest, your healthiest, your most mindful life. Leslie Davis wrote a book called “You Can’t Eat Love.” And I’ve I found this book, um, before we invited you to be our guest, Leslie, but I, I thought what an interesting title, because, um, maybe like you, and like some of our listeners, I equate lots of food with love. It reminds me. And I talked to my husband about this last night. You know, everything that we eat tends to remind us of an emotion that we felt perhaps the first time we ate it or when we were in family gatherings. And you took that I suspect you discovered it when you decided you to didn’t wanna live half a life can just, what I, what I wanna start with our listeners is at the beginning of your story and how you got to the point where you decided to write the book.

Leslie: (03:51)
Well, the beginning of the story is, like so many other people. I hit a moment in my life where, you know, I was, I don’t really like to call it rock bottom because I think that if we say it’s rock bottom, you know, attempts the fates to show us another rock bottom. But anyway, I hit a point where I could either go one way or the other. And I decided that I wanted to start living my very best life. And what that meant was that I needed to get healthy mentally, physically, and emotionally. And I discovered that I had to do the emotional and the mental work, um, because that was really the secret to being able to, um, live my best life and to be my authentic self, but also, uh, that was the secret behind getting physically healthy because as I unloaded the burdens and the lies and what I call my drug of choice, which was food, as I started addressing those things, well, they stopped holding power over me. And you know, one of the things that I like about what you talk about is gratitude and it’s something I don’t get to talk about very often, but the truth of the matter is there was one day at the beginning of this journey where I just didn’t see possible. And I was talking to my youngest sister and she said, write down 10 things that you’re grateful for. And I was like, you have to be kidding me. You know, give me a better answer than that. You know, just tell me something different. And she said, no, write down 10 things that you’re grateful for. And so it took me literally eight hours to come up with 10 things that I was grateful for. And I’m not talking about anything deep or, you know, let’s go sit on top of a mountain and have a very, you know, philosophical conversation. I’m talking about things such as the sun came up today, but it took eight hours for me to come up with that. And what I began to recognize was if I can be grateful, then I’m focusing on what I’m grateful for and that the things that I’m struggling with start losing importance, they start receding into the background. So one of my, um, recommendations to anybody, if they’re telling me, you know, I’m really, really struggling with whatever the heck it is that they’re struggling with. I don’t give them the task of 10 things. I’m not mean like my sister, I will say, you know, come up with five things that you’re grateful for. Just five, just come up with five because you know, truthfully what we put into our mind is what we fill our hearts with and then that’s, what’s coming out. So I really like the message that you deliver, which is, you know, find gratitude in everything, no matter how big or small,

Bunny: (07:01)
Well, Leslie, for our listeners who haven’t read your book or who don’t know you, who don’t follow you on a regular basis, when you say that you weren’t physically healthy, what does that mean?

Leslie: (07:13)
Well, what that meant was that I actually weighed about almost a hundred pounds more than I do currently. My knees hurt, my feet, hurt my back hurt. You wanna name it? It hurt. I couldn’t stand to see a reflection of myself in any surface. Didn’t make any difference. If it was a mirror or a window, a shadow, I didn’t, I couldn’t stand to see myself. So I didn’t look at myself. I wouldn’t even look at the shadow of myself. Um, and my mental health was not good because I was focusing on, you know, everything I didn’t have. I was focusing on just all the didn’t haves. And that was also feeding. And I call food my drug of choice, because that was how I was numbing the pain of not feeling emotions, cuz I did not understand how to feel emotions.

Bunny: (08:18)
So when you and I talked previous, when we were talking about doing this podcast, you said that there was a day when you, it wasn’t like getting doused with a bucket of water. It was like a semi-truck, describe that for the people that are listening?

Leslie: (08:37)
Well, there was this particular day, and actually it centers around a pie. I had made a, chocolate meringue pie, cuz that was what we did in my family. And mother’s day was always hard for me cuz my first mother’s day as a mother was my first mother’s day without my mother, cuz she died two weeks before my oldest child was born. So anyway, I struggled with that and when I was, I decided finally a couple of years ago, to make this chocolate meringue pie, I kind of honor the memory of my mother and as I was eating the pie, it, it really was like, you know, the semi-truck full of cold water just dumped all over me because I realized that I was, I had been trying to fill this myself sized hole in my heart with love was something I thought I didn’t have that. I didn’t think that my family loved me. My parents loved me, all these people. I didn’t believe they loved me. And what I recognized was the only person who did not love me was me. And that was a huge realization. And I call it, that was when I discovered I had a myself-sized hole in my heart and I’d been busy filling it with food because I was looking for something that I already had. And that was when the real work began.

Bunny: (10:11)
Well, how do you… I’m curious, how do you go from, um, knowing that you need to learn to love yourself to actually making that leap? I mean, I know we all have this self-talk. I mean we’re harder on ourselves than we are on anybody else. So I’m curious about what that practice looks like. How do you, how do you figure out that you really do love yourself and how do you reinforce that? I’m curious about that practice because that seems to be universal, especially with women.

Leslie: (10:43)
Yes. Especially with women, cuz we’re taught that we don’t deserve to be first. We’re taught that we, you know, we need to put our needs, desires, wishes once aside for everybody else. You know, we’re supposed to be these super people. And what I started recognizing is and you asked, you know, specifically, how did I do this? Well, the way that I did it was I started realizing when I was doing small things for myself, when I was making positive comments to myself, I would celebrate and I do a lot of celebrating. So each little, teeny tiny step that would make towards loving myself, I would celebrate it. Why would I celebrate it? Well, let’s celebrate the things that we want to continue and let’s ignore the things that we want to stop because when we reinforce the things that we want to stop when we’re reinforcing them, that’s why bad habits are bad habits. And they’re hard to get rid of cuz we’ve been reinforcing them and negative self talk is a reinforcement. So I also learned how to reframe things.

Bunny: (11:54)
You know, what’s interesting is that one of the laws of life that I learned in the last 10 years was that what you focus on expands. Exactly. And so if you always focus on, you know, I’m too heavy, I’m too, I’m too something. If and you focus on the bad, you know, I’m too loud, I’m too demanding. Then that actually begins to expand and, and, and it becomes bigger than it was. I mean, that’s what I think. I hear you saying.

Leslie: (12:31)
Yeah. I call it the law of the red car. When you buy a car, all of a sudden you start seeing your car all over the place.

Bunny: (12:45)
That’s so true. And that’s you know, I’ve learned that that’s that re-activating whatever that is in the back of your brain, that when you start focusing on a specific thing, then that’s all you see all you hear, all you say.

Leslie: (12:59)
Exactly. So when, when we are focusing on that negative, self-talk, I’m not worth it. I’m too fat. I’ll never be thin. I will never be able to lose weight. I will never, you know… List is long and lengthy. That is what happens because we’re speaking it out into the universe. We, we are making it real. And this is one of the things that I learned. We teach other people how to treat us because of how we’re treating ourselves. And it’s so critical and so important that we be very careful about how we are speaking about ourselves to other people. Cuz let’s say for example, you have a really good friend and they’re always making sarcastic and snide comments to you and you repeatedly ask them to please, you know, not make sarcastic and snide comments to you. And yet in the same sentence, paragraph, whatever you drop something and you say, oh my gosh, how could I be so stupid? And your friend is standing right there. Well that causes a dissonance. The friend is like, wait a minute. You’re telling me I can’t speak to you that way, but you’re speaking to yourself that way. So, you know, actions speak louder than words.

Bunny: (14:18)
Well, speaking of actions, I mean you, you, you made this decision to start leading your best life and where, tell us where you are now. What’s the difference now?

Leslie: (14:30)
The difference is I focus on being happy every day. I start my day off. I’ve got a routine that I honor every single morning. It is not negotiable. I start my day off with words of affirmation. I start my day off with, you know, some scriptures from the Bible. I start my day off with writing a notebook, having a conversation with myself. I do not journal do not call it journaling because I don’t do that. I write in a notebook well, I understand people tend to hear journaling as a chore. So I like that you’re having a conversation with yourself. Yes. And, and I had this conversation with myself and I discovered that it’s very, very helpful because I can sort my thoughts out in writing rather than turning the hamsters, loosen my head on their wheels, because I’m on a mission to fire all the hamsters on the wheels inside of our head, send them all back to the pet store and put the pet store outta business because they’re so overrun with hamsters. But I find that if I have a written conversation with myself, I can, express my doubts, my fears, my anger, my, you know, whatever it is and I can work through it. I will tell you, I rarely reread anything that I have written just as you’re having a conversation with your very best friend in the whole wide world, you know, you don’t have a camera sitting there taping the whole thing and creating a transcript. You can’t relive it. So that’s kind of how I treat my writings in my notebook. It’s a conversation when it’s over, it’s over. Do I save the notebooks? Yes. Because I’m thinking, well, you know, someday, maybe the boys will have proof that their mother really is, you know, off rocker, or, you know, they’ll just put ’em in the bin and be done with it.

Leslie: (16:27)
But I just, I found that it’s also it easier to go ahead and as I’m, um, working these things out, I can find moments to be grateful. So I, I never leave a conversation without expressing some gratitude for something. I don’t care how small it is, because again, what we focus on is what fills us up. And it’s what we end up focusing on. And I want to be focusing on things that make me happy. I wanna focus on, feeling happy, cuz I’m gonna backtrack on that one. Nobody can make you anything except reservations for dinner. So, you know, it doesn’t make me happy, but I choose to be happy. I choose to look forward to the day I choose to see the good, even on a very cloudy, rainy day. And it’s a choice.

Bunny: (17:26)
And, so I asked you what was different. Is there a difference in your physical self?

Leslie: (17:32)
Oh yes. I’m about a hundred pounds lighter than I used to be plus I’m significantly stronger, because I started working out and now I do a lot of heavy lifting and I can, I can deadlift almost 225 pounds and I can, yeah. And I can bench press 85 pounds. Um, and I am, I will be 65 this year.

Bunny: (17:57)
Well, you look amazing, Leslie. I gotta tell you. I know we have, I know we have listeners in every age range, but I just turned 61. Do you? I mean, this feels like the best decade of my life.

Leslie: (18:12)
Yes. Yes.

Bunny: (18:13)
I’m so grateful to be here.

Leslie: (18:14)
Well, and normally I don’t tell my age, but I decided to know what it’s okay. Because people need to have an understanding that simply because you are what you are, it it’s okay. You’ve got all these decades ahead of you. And I set it a goal, an objective for myself. I’m going to live to be 153 years old in one day. Why the one day, because I’m celebrating all 24 hours of my 150 third birthday and then at 1201, I’m going on to the next. So, you know, we talk about what we focus on is what happens. Well, if we are spending our time being 45 years old and saying, oh my gosh, I’m so worn out. I’m so I can’t do this. I can’t lose weight. I can’t exercise. And look, you know what? It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

Bunny: (19:12)
Well, Leslie, let’s talk to people who we may have listeners who are struggling with their size physically and, and you know, we don’t have any judgements about that. I mean, everybody is beautiful as right as they are right this moment. But if somebody is struggling, you talked the other day about celebrating small wins. Tell our listeners what you mean by that.

Leslie: (19:37)
If you make a decision, for example, that you’re going to drink one to two glasses of water a day when you normally haven’t had any water, okay? So you do that and celebrate it, you know, write down, this is what I’m going to do. And then I’m going to celebrate by doing whatever. Or you realize that you park your car a little bit further away from the door of the grocery store. And you walk into the grocery store a little bit further than you usually do. Celebrate that. Find the little things that you are changing and celebrate those little things. And yes, it does sound crazy. But trust me, as you start realizing the little tiny things that you’re doing and you start celebrating them, you’re going to start looking for more, little tiny things that you can do so that you can celebrate. And what that does is it’s starts building up a bank inside of you of excitement so that you start realizing, you know, this is possible. This is possible. And I say to people, if you are if you believe that you are not where you want to be, I encourage you to accept you where you are right now, just as you are right now and know that tomorrow you’re going to be someplace else. So don’t, don’t set the expectation that you have to do all of this stuff all at one on time. You know what it could be for you that you’re adding five more steps. You’re parking one parking place further away than you normally do. You are unloading the dryer in two loads, instead of one load you are bringing in the groceries. You know, two bags at a time, instead of like what I used to do 10 at a time, you’re becoming, you know, inefficient in your life, celebrate those things. But the most important message I want people to hear is meet you where you are right now. Because as you are right now in this moment, you are enough. You’re not broken. There’s nothing wrong with you. You are exactly where you are and that’s okay because tomorrow you, you will be someplace different.

Bunny: (22:04)
We talk a lot on this podcast about giving each other grace. Yes. And I love Anne Lamont’s, her definition of grace, which is that grace finds you where you are, but it doesn’t leave you there. Right. And I think what you’re saying is so true. Love yourself for where you are right now, but realize that tomorrow you get to be, you are going to be somewhere different. You know, I have somebody in my family who has always struggled with her physical size and, and I unwittingly maybe, maybe it, maybe it’s not the right thing to say, but I have said, just walk around the block the first day. Just do that. Just make that you know, you and I talked about it. You have to eat the elephant in tiny bites. So when you began this journey, could you have, have, would it, would it have worked as well? If you said I have to lose a hundred pounds. And if you told yourself that every day,

Leslie: (23:06)
No, no. Because when I realized the, where I was first thoughts that went through me and the wave that crashed over me was you will never be able to do this. And I had to take a deep breath. And I do say I had to take, I had to take a deep breath because I was committed to myself that I was gonna live my very best life, mentally, physically, and emotionally. So I said, okay, that number is so huge that there is no way you’re going to be able to face it. So we know what it is. It’s information, that’s all it is information. So let’s focus on the next five pounds. And there were weeks when I focused on the next one pound, because that’s all that I could do. And so I say, you know, we must meet ourselves where we are. If you get on the scale and you see, I’ve got this long, this big amount to go it’s information and that’s it, that’s all it is, is information. Let’s break it down. You know, the expression is how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? Okay. Well, an elephant can be pretty big. Um, I like also Swiss cheese. The thing, because, you know, Swiss cheese has holes in it. So we take little tiny bites and eventually, you know, there’s no more cheese left. Why do all these metaphors relate to food? I don’t know. They just do.

Bunny: (24:39)
Well, words, work. Words are words,

Leslie: (24:43)
Words do work. But you know what I say to people is if they say to me, I’ve got all this weight to lose. Okay, fine. That’s information. Do you think you can focus on the next two pounds? Do you think you can focus on the next five pounds? If you believe you can focus on the next two or the next five pounds, you know what set your goal, set your tension to focus on the next two or five pounds, and then write down how you are going to celebrate when you achieve that goal. So when the going gets tough, you don’t focus on, oh my gosh, I’ve got this distance to go. I’ve, you know, I’ve blown it. I’ve done all this say no, wait, wait, hold on, hold on. When I get to wherever it is, you’re going, I get to celebrate with whatever it is you’re celebrating with. So you’re, you’re transforming those thoughts so that you’re focusing on the reward and not on the punishment. And that’s truthfully how I made it because I kept focusing on the rewards. I would break it down, little tiny, tiny pieces, little tiny steps, set a reward, celebrate, give myself the reward and do the process over again. And I tried not to look at the big journey.

Bunny: (26:03)
Well, Leslie, I mean, a lot of us in the past to of focused on, I mean, food has been the reward. You know, if I get this, if I get, you know, if I make a, you know, if I’m in college and I ACE this test, I’m gonna go out and eat a pizza all by myself. So how do you switch your rewards from food to something Different?

Leslie: (26:23)
With pen and paper.

Bunny: (26:26)
Oh, Okay.

Leslie: (26:29)
Because, you know, because I was writing down my goal and I was writing down how I was gonna celebrate it. I had to be intentional. And when I would find myself wanting to write down a food reward, I’d be like, no, we can get more creative than that. Now did I throw in some food rewards? Yes, yes. I did. One reward. One week was I could go to Starbucks order, whatever the heck it was. I wanted from Starbucks and not track it. That was a reward. Um, another time a reward was that I could go, um, to Chick-fil-A and get, you know, the Chick-fil-A sandwich, including the bread, um, and enjoy that. So yes, on occasion, but most of the rewards were, uh, get a fun colored lipstick, get a fun colored, eyeshadow, get a new, you know, top get some crazy socks. Sometimes my reward was as simple as turning Cher on full blast on Alexa and, you know, dancing like crazy to Cher because, Hey, who doesn’t like to dance, to Cher you know?

Bunny: (27:39)
Well, it sounds, I mean, you want them to be fun, right? And reinforcing, I mean, so I don’t know if you read Janine Roth, but she wrote a great book. And, and what she was saying was stop beating yourself up for the moments she, she writes about food and, and about food and emotional, you know, physical and emotional health. But, but one of the things that she wrote about was that if you’re gonna stand at the refrigerator eat, don’t do that, get all that food out and sit at the table and treat yourself like a human don’t be furtive. Don’t be secretive. Don’t. If there’s a day when, when that is overpowering, treat yourself with care. Because I think we tend to beat ourselves up.

Leslie: (28:30)
Well, you know, that’s one of the things that I talk about at the beginning of the book, you know, food eaten in secret has no calories.

Bunny: (28:37)
Right. Right. I got a huge kick out of that. Like you, when you talk about, you go to the grocery store and you buy those cookies that are so beautiful, and then you eat all 36 before you get home and then you have to hide the wrapper and that’s so, I mean, I can see that happening and yet it’s it’s so it’s so the opposite of self care.

Leslie: (29:04)
Exactly. And that was, you know, part of the stuff that I had to do at the beginning was, you know, stop lying to myself. And, you know, on those days when I’m on the hunt in the pantry and the refrigerator, and what’s really funny in my house about, you know, opening the pantry and the refrigerator is a couple of years ago, I made inventories at that. I have in my pantry and on my refrigerator and freezer. So I know everything that is in there just at a glance. And yet I will catch myself, you know, standing there with the door, open, looking for something. Um, when all I have to do is look at a list, but you know, like you said, if you’re going to do it, do it because the only person that you’re lying to is yourself. You know I talk about me and myself. They want you to be happy. I sees everything, you know, the world sees the result, your lies, me and myself will say, you know what? Nobody’s gonna know. If you go ahead and eat this, and then you hide everything in the bottom of the trash can, nobody’s gonna know that, well, I knows it. I knows it. And the world knows it because the result is obvious. So one of the things that I recognize that I had to do to begin with was stop lying to myself, stop lying to myself. And then the other day I was having a not very good day, you know, just because you’ve gone on this journey and you’ve done all this work and everything. It doesn’t negate bad days. Okay. Let’s be honest. We’re living life. It’s called life for a reason. I think they even made a game about it, but whatever. But I recognize now and I will even I did even take a moment and say, you know what? I’m so grateful that I understand what I’m trying to do, that I’m trying to lie to myself. And I’m just very, very grateful that I don’t really need to lie to myself anymore. I can be honest. I can say, you know, something right now, how I’m feeling is I want to eat that whole sleeve of Ritz crackers because I really don’t want to feel what it is I’m feeling, cuz I’m very confused about it. And maybe I will eat part of the Ritz crackers, but I’ll have a conversation. What is really going on.

Bunny: (31:31)
Wait, that’s so important. What you just said instead, and correct me if I’m wrong, but what I hear is that whenever you go to the pantry and you look at that package for Oreos and you think, I gotta have an Oreo. I gotta have an entire bag of Lays. Is it helpful to stop and say, wait a second, wait a second. Is it that I’m really, really hungry for an entire bag of Oreos? Or is there something completely different going on?

Leslie: (32:00)
What I usually do is I say what is really going on? Because part of the reason that I ended up where I was is I was denying how I really felt. So I usually don’t even ask myself the question, are you really hungry? Because you know, you can get into a debate. Yes, I’m really hungry. It’s been, you know, two hours. So I try to eliminate opportunity for debate. And instead when I catch myself doing that and usually we have to take a breath and that’s where I catch myself. I take a breath. I’m like, wait a minute, hold on. What is really going on? And then there are days when I will grab the pen and the paper, and I’ll start having that conversation with myself. This is what’s really going on. This is what I’m really feeling. This is why I’m really feeling this well, how true is this? What can you do about this? And that releases that tightness, that desire to not feel because that’s really what I used to do is not want to feel because feeling was scary and I had to get past feeling, being scary.

Bunny: (33:19)
Wow. That’s I, it’s so powerful. Leslie. Because feeling is scary, right? I don’t know what else to say about it, but, and you and I talked about how learning to be grateful for yourself.

Leslie: (33:35)
Mm-hmm

Bunny: (33:37)
Was such an important part of that journey for you.

Leslie: (33:41)
Yeah, because I started, expressing gratitude, you know, for, well, there was the real breaking point of the, the whole thing for me was somebody suggested an exercise where you look at yourself in the mirror and you say, I love you. Okay. And I couldn’t do it. It took me a long to time to be able to do it. But where I started was, I’m just grateful that I have such beautiful blue eyes. I’m grateful that I have this body that I can move in. I’m grateful and start breaking down the things that I was grateful for about myself. Now, I will tell you sometimes, sometimes when I’m expressing gratitude about something, I may not fully believe it, but you know what? That’s okay. It is okay. To not fully believe that you’re grateful for something. Just keep expressing it, cuz it’s about your mind.

Bunny: (34:41)
Right? Because your mind doesn’t know the difference between reality and what you’re thinking. I mean, they’re whatever you tell it is What’s true.

Leslie: (34:50)
Exactly.

Bunny: (34:52)
And that’s why negative self talk is so bad.

Leslie: (34:55)
Yeah. And that’s why it is so powerful, it is so powerful. Well, and the other problem with negative self talk is you’ve got all these people around you. I mean, think from the time when you’re a, a small child, your parents may praise you, but they also criticize. And I think a study was done that it takes what, 10 positive comments to overrule a negative comment. So if you’re constantly being bombarded by criticism, which truthfully we are, you know, we put our kids in school and they’re being bombarded by criticism. And I’m not saying that they don’t need to be corrected or instructed or whatever, but we can also do it in a positive way. And that was one of the things that I learned in speaking to myself, you know, if I’m learning something, say, you know what, I’m so proud of you, you did this. And I can only imagine how difficult that was. And I know that you were scared about trying, you know, whatever the it was. And I know the next time you try it, it’s going to be easier. And this is just so amazing. And I’m so proud of you. Does that sound crazy? Yes. But let me tell you what, it’s powerful.

Bunny: (36:10)
I don’t think you’re crazy. And I did a podcast with a friend of mine Who’s an artist. Her name is Barbara Macola. And Barbara is I believe, 72 years old. And she said, I’ve just finally learned how to speak to myself with love and admiration. She’s like, she’s soaring, she’s written a book about art. She’s doing watercolor classes online. She’s got this huge following. And she said, I had to finally learn to be proud of myself and to be grateful for this skill. I always thought I wasn’t enough, but, but here we are, we are enough.

Leslie: (36:49)
Exactly. We are enough. And oftentimes we think that it’s not good to speak to ourself. You know, with words of affirmation, with we words of compliments and things like that, because you know, the world is looking at us telling us that we’re being conceded, but we’re not, we, we are not. And so many times what I came to understand is I was looking to the outside for something that I already had on the inside. And that’s why I talk about in the book, your very best friend in the whole wide world, who, who is your very best friend in the whole wide world? It’s you, they’re always there with you. And what I did, um, was I like divided myself in half. There was me and there’s my very best friend. And on the, those days when I’m struggling, you know, my very best friend comes alongside me and says, no, of course you’re struggling. This is what’s going on. Can you tell me a little bit more about it? I can only imagine how you’re feeling right now. And I’ll tell you a secret, your very best friend in the whole wide world, never, ever, ever gets tired of listening to you. And they always have an abundance of wisdom, kindness, and love.

Bunny: (38:07)
And they only want your success.

Leslie: (38:10)
That’s exactly right.

Bunny: (38:12)
So I wanna talk just a little bit about the book, because I you’re, you’re, you’re really clear when you’re writing that you want it to feel like a conversation and that’s exactly what it felt like. It felt like you and I were sitting, oh, good at the table having a cup of coffee and you were telling me your life story. So I wanna tell people you’ve got to find, and we’ll post links to Leslie’s book. You can’t eat love, but you also are doing other things. I mean, you’ve got a Facebook group. Tell folks what you’re doing out there in the world.

Leslie: (38:43)
Well, I’ve got a Facebook group, where people can come in, you know, and have conversations with each other. I also drop posts and information in there. I just finished a five day challenge that I will be loading onto the website and it will be free. And in the challenge, I talk about three big secrets to weight loss success. I have a workbook that goes with the book. I’ve got a coloring book now that goes with the book and I’ve got a journal so that you can talk to your very best friend in the whole wide world. And then of course a tracker. But there’s all kinds of information and stuff on the website, which is you can’t eat love.com and links to the Facebook group, um, to the books and all of that’s all on the website.

Bunny: (39:33)
And tell me what in your personal life, I saw some on your, on your webpage that you’re, you’ve been, have you, where have you, have you been to Africa? Where have you been?

Leslie: (39:42)
I’ve been to Zimbabwe, multiple times been to Uganda one time spent several hours in the airport in South Africa. I was on my way to, and from Zimbabwe to going to Uganda. But Zimbabwe is where I discovered joy and that kind of is where the journey began, but I didn’t know that the journey had begun at that point in time. It took a little while know. But I have a group of of several ladies over there and what they do is they teach other women to sew so that they can become economically independent. Because unfortunately in the African nations the men rule everything and yet the women suffer. So let’s, let’s increase their economic independence.

Bunny: (40:45)
So is there a way that we can help with that? I mean, can we post a link where we can help those women or do they just do it where they are?

Leslie: (40:52)
They just do it where they are. And I do have some of their work over here. I do have some bags and some Bible covers here. And I can post that. I will add that link to my website if people would like to buy a Bible cover or a tote with things that they di.

Bunny: (41:13)
We’ll add that link as well. But you know, I like to talk about where do you think you would be if you hadn’t made this huge leap in your life?

Leslie: (41:27)
If I’m really brutally honest, I probably would not be here. Yeah, because I was so deep in despair that it truly was the thought of leaving my boys in the same situation that I had been in. My mother died when I was 26. And truthfully, there were days when that was the only thing that kept me taking my next breath. Um, so I’m pretty sure I would not be here because I wouldn’t have seen possible. I wouldn’t have seen any kind of possible. So learning to love myself was huge. And I don’t, you know, I don’t take it lightly. It’s a gift. Every day is a gift.

Bunny: (42:16)
Well, it sounds to me like learning to love yourself was life saving.

Leslie: (42:20)
It was, it was life saving. Yes. Yeah. And you know the secret to that piece was realizing that I didn’t need the love from everybody else that I thought the I was missing. The only love that I was missing was love for myself and understanding that, you know, I have a purpose. I am worthy. I am worthy of loving myself. And that was critical.

Bunny: (42:49)
Well, Leslie, I wanna just say one more time because we are gonna run outta time, but one of the most powerful things you say in your book is that you recognized that you had a myself shape hole in your heart. And I think until we figure out that that’s one of the pieces that’s missing, we are gonna be drawn to habits that might be destructive, whether it’s food or, or other things. I mean, it’s so important.

Leslie: (43:24)
Right? And, that’s why I tell people, you know, you have everything that you need. And I will say to people, you know, you are enough just as you are. And if you don’t believe you are, I will believe it for you until you are able to believe it for yourself.

Bunny: (43:43)
I love that. I love, you know, I think the best coaches and the best leaders are the people who want and believe in believe in us even more than we believe in ourselves.

Leslie: (43:55)
Yeah. Because, I mean I don’t know about you and I know you’ve had quite a journey. Just knowing if there’s even one person who is holding us and propping us up and cheering us on, even if it’s just a tiny little cheer, you know, sometimes that’s the difference, but when giving up and moving forward,

Bunny: (44:24)
It is. And I mean, that’s my goal. I wanna be that for other people. So if you, one of the things that we like to leave people with is what are your three top pieces? What are your best suggestions for somebody that might find themselves where you were before you made this journey and learned that you can’t eat love?

Leslie: (44:46)
Well, the first thing that I would tell them is get a notebook, get your favorite color pin, and have a conversation with your very best friend in the whole wide world and envision where you want to be a year from now. And it cannot be about your weight or anybody else. And I want you to imagine how your feeling, how you’re looking, how you’re acting and how you’re moving. That’s the first thing that I tell people. The second thing that I tell people is set a tiny, tiny, tiny little goal for yourself. I don’t care what it is. If it’s to drink one more glass of water, walk in more steps, not watch a specific TV show, whatever the heck it is, a doable achievable goal, write it down and then write down a reward for yourself. Okay. And then once you’ve achieved that set another one and another one, and just, you will find that you start moving forward in ways that you never imagined because you start loving the celebrating. And then the third thing that I say is, um, write down five things that you’re grateful for. Write down just five things that you’re grateful for. They don’t need to be big. They don’t need to be anything, you know, Nobel prize worthy or anything like that. It can be as simple as the sun came up today, but write down five things that you’re grateful for. And you’ll be very surprised at how it starts to move your mindset in a different direction.

Bunny: (46:27)
Well, I’m grateful that we had you on the podcast today, Leslie.

Leslie: (46:30)
Well, I’m extremely grateful that I got to be on the podcast.

Bunny: (46:34)
I’m so excited for our listeners. And let’s get back together. Let’s, you know, in the next six months or so, let’s get back together and I wanna hear how things are going.

Leslie: (46:45)
I would love that. I would love that. But in the meantime, I get to listen to you, which you are amazing.

Bunny: (46:51)
Thank you. Thank you. And we’ll do this again. Thank you so much.

Leslie: (46:54)
Oh, thank you.

Bunny: (46:56)
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 at Bunny Terry, Santa Fe. You can sign up my website at bunnyterry.com to receive weekly emails about how to become the ultimate gratitude nerd. Thanks so much for checking in.

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

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

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

Craig: Yes. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bunny: I love that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Craig: Yeah. Yeah.

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

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

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

Craig: Thank you. Next time.