February 11, 2021 • 38 mins
Ralph Marston is on for all 4 things today! FIRST THING: Amy shares the fun way she got connected with Ralph {after sharing his quote from the #4thingsgratitude journal on a recent episode}. That story led to "God winks'' {coincednces} and Ralph shared a really cool story about how a shirt he randomly chose to wear one day changed the course of someone's life! SECOND THING: Ralph runs an online publication called 'The Daily Motivator' that impacts so many people & their daily outlook on life. He talks with Amy about that and why a positive perspective is so beneficial to us. THIRD THING: Ralph worked on a really cool “pandemic project” that you might want to do for yourself. He shared what he learned from the meaningful project & 4 things he is thankful for! FOURTH THING: Ralph believes there's "magic in every moment." He hopes we can see the possibilities & make our own special magic TODAY.
Ralph's Website: www.greatday.com
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/ralphmarston
Twitter & Instagram: @ralphmarston
4 Things Gratitude Journal: www.4things.com or www.RadioAmy.com
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Okay, little food for yourself life. Oh it's pretty, but
it's pretty beautiful than that A little month you kick
(00:30):
with four Okay, So I'm super excited for my guest
for All four Things today, Ralph Marston, who has coming
to us from Austin, Texas, where I was born and raised,
so already a connection there. But also Ralph is someone
that we quoted in our latest Four Things Gratitude journal,
(00:51):
so if you have one, you've likely seen his quote.
And I shared his quote on an episode not too
long ago and Small World. Ralph's daughter kimb listens to
the podcast and emailed me and said, well, that man
you quoted is my dad. And I kind of had
a moment of like, okay, well that's interesting because when
(01:12):
Mary and I put this together, we have a few
living people that we quoted. But some of the people
are like Oprah. You know, we know Oprah is alive, right,
but a lot of the other people we quoted are
not alive. And to be honest, and I'm embarrassed to
say this, but Mary and I definitely thought that maybe
you were from the eighteen hundreds. Well, you know, a
(01:32):
lot of people make that mistake. There's actually if you
google my name, my picture comes up, but the description
of me says I was born in nineteen oh seven
and I was a football player, So you know that
makes me a hundred and twenty years old or so.
But now I'm I'm a present day person living in
the modern world. Well, here is the quote that we
(01:54):
put in our four Things Gratitude journal in case people
didn't hear that episode. Make it a habit to tell
people thank you, to express your appreciation sincerely and without
the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you,
and you'll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life,
and you'll find that you have more of it. The
(02:17):
world is an extremely complex place with a lot of
things going on, and so when we focus on the
things that are meaningful to us, the things that are
important to us, the things that we're thankful for, that
actually enables us to make better use of those things
and to expand them in our lives. And so when
you're thankful for certain people, you tend to be around
(02:41):
them more. When you're thankful for the tools and the
skills that you have, you tend to make better use
of them, and so I I think and I know
gratitude is a big thing with you to publish a
gratitude journal, obviously, I consider it to be a key
value in in living life and in accessing the the
(03:02):
enormous abundance that's available to us. I did hear about
a story about you from New Year's Day, maybe two
thousand eight or so, and it's about how the clothes
you selected to wear one day changed the course of
someone's life. And I'm very curious for you to share
this story not only with me, but my listeners as well.
In the year two thousand eight, on New Year's Day,
(03:24):
I had the good fortune to be with my whole family,
with my parents, my brother and his wife and family,
my wife and my children. We were all on a
cruise together and and we were arriving in Cabo Saint Lucas, Mexico.
And so I got up and needed something to wear.
So I picked out a T shirt just happened to
(03:45):
be from the British Virgin Islands. It said Pussers, which
is a resort there, Pusser's British West Indies. I didn't
think anything about it. I just put the T shirt
on and we went out and went around Cabo and
saw all the side and in the afternoon, my wife
and I stood out on the balcony of our cabmin
(04:06):
and somebody snapped a picture of us. When I got
back home, I took that picture and I liked it
so much I put it on my website for people
to see. So there's me and my wife on the
website and the T shirt. Well, unbeknownst to me, about
three years later, there was a man in Barbados, the
island of Barbados and the Caribbean, and he had been
(04:27):
born in Barbados, lived his whole life on the island
of Barbados, had never left, never gone anywhere else, and
like many people in Barbados, he worked in the hospitality industry.
He was worked at a resort, had a pretty good job,
and he had a girlfriend who was from the British
Virgin Islands, which is several hundred miles away from Barbados,
(04:49):
and the girl friend was encouraging him to maybe moved
back to the British Virgin Islands with her and to
get a job there. So he had applaud for several
jobs in the British Virgin Islands and one day he
got a phone call from one of the resorts he
had applied to, and they they were basically offering him
(05:10):
a job and wanting him to fly up there to
the b v I to talk to them. So he
he prayed about it, and he asked God for an answer,
and according to the way he tells it, God spoke
to him, and God said, asked Ralph. He said, well, Ralph, who,
And he said, God said, asked Ralph Marston. Well, this guy,
(05:31):
his name is Dale. He had been receiving my daily
publication for a few years. He didn't actually subscribe himself.
Somebody else was getting it and was sending it to
him every day. But he he was familiar with my
messages and he kind of knew my name, but didn't
really know anything else about me. So he went to
(05:52):
Google and typed in my name and clicked on the
first link that came up. Well, there I was in
that T shirt in that picture, wearing the T shirt
that said Pusser's British West Indies. Well, the company that
had offered him the job was Pussers Resort in the
British Virgin Islands. So he took that as a sign
that that he was meant to take that job, and
(06:13):
he did. He moved to the b V I took
the job, did real well. A couple of years later,
got an even better job with another resort. But he
contacted me obviously and let me know about this, and
and was was very thankful that I happened to be
wearing the T shirt that T shirt on that day,
because that was his sign that changed his life for
the better. I mean, another small world moment. I feel
(06:36):
like I'm I'm sitting here with you right now because
your daughter was listening to my podcast. You know, you
had this encounter with him from a shirt you put
on without even thinking about it. I mean, it's crazy
how life just offers blessings like that, depending on what
you believe. If you're listening to this, I mean, clearly
God spoke to him and he used you as a
(06:59):
way to you nudge him and be like, hey, this
is good for you, go do this. This is what
I have in store for you. So how cool that
you got to be a part of that. Yeah. I
think coincidences. I think they speak to how deeply we're
connected with each other and we don't realize it. And
that's kind of what I believe produces those types of coincidences.
(07:21):
I mean, I think somebody refers to coincidences as God's
winks at us. But there's things that we know that
we don't know we know, and the coincidences help us
see those things. Say we want to be open to
more of God's winks or coincidences. What would you say
to people They're like, I don't really get that that
doesn't really happen to me, But I mean, could it
(07:43):
be because someone's closed off to it? Absolutely? I think yeah,
being open to new possibilities, being open to things that
you maybe you don't necessarily have never thought about or
agreed with or dismissed before. I think that opens us
up to the connections that we have with each other.
(08:04):
Is just an attitude of curiosity, being curious about the
world and what's going on, and and being aware and
also being purposeful I think is a key element of that.
When you know what you want, then you see the
things that you need to see. When you're clear about
where you intend to go, then you will be led
(08:27):
to those things that will help you to get there.
I firmly believe that. Then it's like not really just
happening by chance. It's like it was put out there
because you're open to perceiving it. Right. Well, I guess
there's you have the impression of a coincidence. You can't
you can't rationally explain why something might have happened. But
(08:47):
what I'm saying is there are levels to life that
I don't think we fully comprehend. And so it's the
coincidences are when we're tapping into those, when we're opening
ourselves to the and when we have a strong enough
purpose that, like I said, with gratitude, you know, it
makes you aware of things that you may not have
(09:08):
been aware of before. And I think purpose plays the
same role. When you know what you want to accomplish,
then you are more aware of the things that will
help you to accomplish that. Coincidences, even though you can't
you can't maybe logically explain them, on some level, you're
seeing something that was always there, but you just never
(09:29):
knew to look for it before. Love that Okay, So, Ralph,
you mentioned the Daily Motivator, which how people get there
is great day dot com. At least that's how I
have found it, and it's got such a positive outlook
and perspective in what you're doing when you load up
your messages is you've got a community of people that
(09:51):
are coming there and relying on you to help them
with that, you give them the wisdom and the insight
to stay motivated, I think, to be as positive as possible.
So how did you end up starting that? And it's
literally what you do full time? Correct, Yes, it is,
it is now. It didn't start out that way, but
I had worked for many years independently, so not in
(10:14):
an office with a lot of people around me, but
more as an independent sales rep. In that role, I
had naturally gravitated towards self improvement type material because I
didn't have any daily, regular, positive feedback from other people
and I missed that. So that was kind of how
I came to start the Daily Motivator. When when the
(10:38):
web came along back in the mid nineties, I was
fascinated by the possibility that it had of connecting people
very quickly and very cheaply and very widely, and I
wanted to be a part of that. And I thought, well,
maybe I should do something for people like me, people
who are working independently, like in home based businesses or
(10:59):
sales on the road who needs some sort of positive reinforcement.
And I had spent years studying that type of thing,
so I felt like I was somewhat qualified to write
about that. And I've always loved to write. I just
started writing basically telling myself what I needed to hear,
and I try to be as honest and sincere about
(11:21):
as as possible. I don't say things just because I've
heard somebody else saying them and think that they might work.
My best stuff comes from personal experience, from problems that
I have, from situations that I get in that I
have to work myself out of. And I learned from
what I'm doing. I learned from the difficulties that I
(11:42):
go through. I learned from the successes that I have,
and I really make an effort to share that with people.
I want to encourage as many people as possible to
see what can be done with a life. That's my
motivation for for my writing. Let's think spand on being
thankful for your problems, Like why is that important to you? Well,
(12:05):
for one thing, if I'm having problems, I'm still alive, right,
So I'm thankful for the opportunity to be able to
do something and That's what problems give me and give
everybody is an opportunity to make a difference, and their
lives that are full of problems, and then there's lives
that are full of nothing, where you don't have any
(12:27):
way to make a difference. And I would easily choose
a life full of problems over a life where I
was not able to have any impact, to make a
difference at all. Yeah, I think that's a very fundamental
drive for everybody, no matter if they're doing a lot
of good in the world or doing a lot of evil.
(12:48):
Frankly is people do what they do because they want
to make a difference. So problems give you the opportunity
to make a difference. They also let you know that
you're meeting up with resistance, so you must in some
way be making some kind of progress. The more problems
you have, that's a pretty good indication that you're making progress.
(13:09):
Because the people that don't have any problems are the
people that never attempt anything, that never have any ambitious purposes.
And that's not through you know, obviously, there's there's people
that that are stricken with all sorts of difficulties that
are not of their own choosing not of their own making,
and yet even those can serve to build strength. And
(13:33):
again going back to the theme of gratitude, when you
encounter difficulties, that that makes you more thankful for the
good things that you do have, and it enables you
to maybe make better use of those good things. I
just want to help people out with that if that
concept is new to them. If you face a challenge
at work, that's a problem, or somebody messed up, then
(13:56):
it's like, oh, instead of letting it derail your day,
how we learn and grow from it and we become
better because of it. How can we evolve and maybe
do things in a totally different way because of this
one mistake. Or if you have en ailment or an adversity,
a loved one that's sick, it's like, what can you
learn from that experience? How can you take the challenges
(14:18):
from whatever you've encountered and then maybe help somebody else
so that they don't feel alone. Those are just things
I'm throwing out there to where people, Yeah, well, that
that's a really good example of caring for other people
because it bills your compassion. It helps you understand what
a lot of other people may be going through that
you don't even realize. I think that strengthens connections that
(14:42):
you have with other people when you can have more
empathy and compassion for others. Let's just talk a little
bit more about this positive perspective, because that's what that
is too. Even being yeah, thankful for your for your
problems is a very positive perspective. So what have you
learned about how having that type of mental you can
affect you on a daily basis. Well, I think it's
(15:04):
a choice that you can make, and we assume that
if you're having a bad day, if a lot of
things go wrong, that you should be in a bad mood,
that you should react that way. But what I've discovered
is that no, you really do have a choice. Things
can go be going bad. You can respond with a
negative attitude, but that's not going to do you any good.
(15:24):
It's just going to perpetuate what's already going on. And
certainly you want to acknowledge reality. You don't want to
just be happy about all the bad things that happen. However,
you can still move away from difficulties with a positive
perspective because that is more useful, it's more practical, and
(15:46):
if you step back from the situation, and you think, Okay,
I can I can get all upset about this, I
can let it get me down. I can mope around
for a few days. But what's that really gonna get me?
What is that going to accomplis wish? Or I can
choose to accept what has happened. You know, I'm not
going to deny that bad things have happened. I'm going
(16:07):
to accept it, but I'm going to choose to move
away from it, to go ahead and realign myself with
whatever purpose I had, and follow that purpose and decide
what can I do that will make a positive difference,
and then then take the actions that will make that happen.
I like that too, because I want to give people
(16:28):
permission to not feel all of what is going on
in their life and acknowledge the hard things and the pain.
But you just don't have to be stuck in it.
You don't have to continue down that path. And then
really the choice, after you've acknowledged it is okay, do
I want to go positive route or do I want
to go negative route? And I mean sometimes I dabble
in the negative for just a little bit, just because
(16:50):
that's what feels good. For me in the moment, but
eventually I make the conscious effort to dig myself out
because I know that taking the turn towards positive is
going to be better for me. And I know that's
easier said than done depending on people's circumstances. But even
in the quote we shared that we put in our
gratitude journal from you like, you'll attract more great things
(17:12):
into your life when you're on the positive route, and
then when you're on the negative, I mean similarly, you'll
attract more negative things when that's what you're focused on.
One way to look at it is what would you
advise someone else to do in that position? You know,
step back from being you and look at it from
a perspective of somebody else and see how foolish it
is if you get hurt to keep trying to hurt
(17:34):
yourself even more. That doesn't make any sense. And if
you saw somebody else do it, you would advise them
not to do that. And so it's just a matter
of advising yourself, giving yourself that same advice. It's a
lot easier to tell other people what to do. That's right.
It's because because you don't have to do it right.
But Still, that's what I'm saying. Uh, if you just
(17:58):
use that trick to think, what would I tell somebody else? Well,
then why can't you know I'm just as good as them?
Why can't I tell myself the same thing? Yeah? I
think about that a lot, just being a mom of
especially a thirteen year old girl. And you know, I
think of the ways I talk to myself, some of
myself talk and how sometimes it's not the best and
(18:20):
I'm not really being my best cheerleader, and I use
her to sort of correct me. But in my brain,
she doesn't even know this. But I'm like, would I
ever talk to Stashira this way? No, because I want
to lift her up and I want her to believe
in herself and know that she can do whatever she wants.
But here I am. Of course I would say all
of that to her, but sometimes I don't even say
(18:40):
it to myself. Well, that's one advantage that I have
of writing a daily positive message each day, because I'm
aware of those things and I've thought through those things
a lot, and so that that does give me an
advantage in my own life because I think, well, is
this what I would advise my readers to do? You know,
(19:00):
am I living out what I write about? You know,
there's a good reason you you have your Gratitude Journal,
and that's why a lot of people find that useful,
is to write things down and then you've got it
there in black and white, what you've thought about, and
you can't deny it. It's important to put things into
words like that. I love that, I mean, and you're
doing it every day for your readers. Like you said
(19:23):
so again, the website is great day dot com. If
anybody listening wants to go check that out and we'll
be back in just a second and we'll talk more gratitude.
Believe it or not, We're going to do that. And
then you I heard Ralph have some pandemic project, and
I want to hear all about it. Go okay, so Ralph,
(19:52):
let's get to the pandemic project. What is it like? Everybody?
You know, I've been stuck at home. One day, I
was trying to lean out a room and I had
an old computer in there that I thought didn't work anymore,
and I thought, well, I'm just gonna get rid of this,
give this away, or do something with this. I pulled
it out and I thought, well, I'll try it. I'll
try starting it up one more time. So I plugged
(20:14):
it in and lo and behold, it started right up
and work perfectly. And it just so happened that that
old computer was the only one I had that was
still connect to a camcorder that I had used years ago,
and so I decided, well, as long as this computer
is working, I'm gonna plug in that camcorder and digitize
some of the old tapes that I had made years ago.
(20:36):
And these were tapes that I took when our children
were growing up, you know, if their softball games, birthday parties,
school programs when the children were born, stuff like that.
And as I was doing that, I began to develop
a really deep sense of gratitude for all the good
(20:57):
things that I've experienced in my life. And to make
a long story short, I ended up not only digitizing
those types with that camera, but I dug out all
these other types and types that I had inherited from
my parents and ended up digitizing about a hundred and
twenty hours worth of video. And in the process of
(21:18):
doing that, I developed such a deep sense of gratitude
just for all the good things that I had been
through and and for all the love and the joy
and the fun and the fellowship and the good times
that are pictured on those videos. Yeah, I love that.
I'm sure your family is so grateful that they have
(21:41):
someone like you with you know, that type of patients
and commitment to sorting through and digitizing those. I feel
like some of my listeners right now are like, oh wow, yeah,
that would be really cool. I could do a pandemic project.
But then if there are anything like me, they might
start out with the idea and then be like, oh, yeah,
I have this is way too much work. I'm not
(22:01):
doing this. But have you ever heard of legacy boxes? Okay,
so you basically were your own legacy box. You did
all the legwork because that's what they do. And this
isn't a we endorse for them on the Bobby Bones Show,
not not here on the podcast. But I feel like
what you're saying might inspire other people to do it,
but they may not have the patients and the equipment
(22:21):
or whatever necessary to digitize. So I would say other
people so that they can have those valuable moments like
I'll just throw out here again not a commercial, but
legacy box dot com. And then I think the code
for the show is slash bones, So Legacy box dot
com slash bones and that'll get you possibly a discount,
I think. But I love what Ralph is saying of
(22:42):
how important and valuable those memories are. And then it's
digital and you can gift it to other people in
your life so that then they have all the same
feelings of gratitude as well. Once I did all the videos,
then I started in on film. You know, I have
old negatives and slides, and Legacy Box does those things too,
but I have the equipment to digitize those myself, so
(23:04):
I started in on that. What that did was I
started seeing all these people that I hadn't thought of
in years, and I ended up giving some of the
McCall and and reconnecting with them. You know, I was
wondering what had happened or how they were doing. You know,
you just kind of lose touch with people over the years.
But it was a great experience to reconnect with several people.
(23:28):
And and you know that was kind of my excuse.
I told him, I've been digging through all these old
pictures and I found some pictures of you, and I'd
like to send them to you. And it started some
great conversations and reconnected me. And you know, everybody is
so hungry to connect to other people right now. I
don't know it was. It was just a great experience
for me all the way around. Yeah, I mean, especially now.
(23:50):
You're right. I mean, human connection is such an important thing,
like pandemic or not. But I mean this just brought
it to the forefront because some people are so isolated
right now. Exactly. The thing about photography and and taking videos.
Now it's become so easy to do. You know, we
can just pull the phone of out of our pocket
(24:11):
and take a really high quality video or photograph in
an instant and have the picture right there. It sort
of serves to trivialize those And the way we use
pictures is a little bit different. When we take a
picture and we get it instantly, we tend to be
more critical of it than thankful for it. You know,
when we used to have to take the film to
(24:33):
the processor and wait a day or two to get
the pictures back, we'd get them back and the experience
would be over, and we'd be able to look back
and be thankful for having enjoyed the good time with
friends and whatever. But now if we take a picture
in the moment and we have it right there, we're
critical of it because we think, well, what's what are
people going to think when I post this on Instagram?
(24:54):
You know, do I look good enough or whatever? So
I think this kind of reminded me that pictures that
you take like this are around for a long time,
and the longer time goes on, the more valuable is
the experience of looking back and remembering, you know, the
good times that you had and the love that you
(25:15):
shared in the connections that you had with the people. Yeah. Well,
and now other people may follow suit. I would very
much encourage that. Absolutely. Okay, So, Ralph, do you mind
if I read an excerpt from one of your books. No,
I'm going to share something that I saw in Living
(25:38):
the Wonder of it All positive empowering messages from the
Daily Motivator. And here's what I pulled. There is magic
in every moment. Behind even the most mundane occurrence is
an entire universe of abundant wonder. If you could see
every detail of something as simple as the falling of
a rain drop, it would completely overwhelm you. And yet
raindrops fall all the time in every action, no matter
(26:01):
how seemingly insignificant, there is a whole universe of power
In every moment. There are infinite ways in which to
make a very real difference. You are always streaming full
speed through an abundance of options and possibilities. See the possibilities,
feel the power, make your own special magic. Today, I
want to talk about those little magic moments, and I
(26:25):
feel as though we often miss out on those we
included all the time. A lot of times we think
of magic as something spectacular that's going to sweep you
off your feet. But I believe that the real magic
is just life itself. And the more closely you look
at anything, the more there is to see, and the
(26:46):
structure that under underlies all of life is pure magic. Really,
I mean, what are we even doing here? How can
we even be aware of our own existence? Things like
that are truly magical, and yet we just take them
for granted. If we were dropped, say in the Amazon jungle,
without any shoes and with no tools and nothing to
(27:10):
use to survive, we would soon be in very big
trouble because we wouldn't have all the things that we
depend on and all the things that we take for granted,
and I think it's it's kind of an interesting thought
exercise to imagine yourself in that situation and having to
do without running water and a safe place to sleep
(27:31):
at night and easily accessible food. Those things are all
magic too. I think we can just look at pretty
much anything in our life and realize all that goes
into it from all over the world, and and really
the magic that that represents. Do you have a morning
routine that sets you up to be so open to
(27:52):
the magic every day? I do like to get up
in the morning and walk. I start walking about when
it gets light and walk for about four miles, you know,
And I try to do it every just about every day.
That's a very important part of my morning routine. Do
you listen to something? Are you thinking to yourself? Or no?
I don't listen to anything. I just absorbed the world
(28:16):
and the sun coming up, the light, things like that. Well,
do you have any tips for anyone listening that can
help prepare their minds for seeing these magical moments? Are
being open to them? Again, not like the crazy magical moments.
That's what we're talking about, these little things that we're
just so caught up in our day to day. Well,
(28:39):
I think it helps to kind of get outside of yourself,
to let go of your own ego, and to let
go of your own expectations. I mean, it's good to
have positive expectations, but if you let yourself, you can
kind of get in a rut where you're thinking the
same thoughts over and over again. And I try to
(29:00):
expose myself to a lot of different types of thoughts.
I try to find different things to stimulate my imagination
and just to get myself away from the little loops
that keep going around in my head that kind of
gets stuck. Kind of interrupt that pattern, I guess I
would say you mentioned imagination, and I have read probably
(29:24):
three books more on the therapeutic side of things in
the last couple of months that have all referred to
the importance of imagination. Well, imagination is extremely powerful. Everything
we do, we first imagine everything, and then there's a
lot of things that were stopped by because of what
we imagine. All our doubts are really nothing more than imagination.
(29:48):
And even fear to a large extent, is imagination. So
it's extremely powerful, and it's also extremely controllable. You can
control what you imagine. And that kind of gets back
to being in a positive mindset. If you're filling yourself
with positive thoughts, then you're going to imagine more beneficial
(30:09):
and positive things for yourself and for other people. And so, yeah,
imagination is key to everything. Before you take an action,
you imagine what you're gonna do. The more richness and
detail you can put into your imagination, the more successful
you're going to be in executing those thoughts. Yeah, i'd
love that in case people are like, oh, what imagination?
(30:32):
They just think, uh, kids have fun imaginations. But really,
when you think of it that way, then yes, we're
using our imaginations all the time. But I love that
you said we have control over what we're thinking, right.
We can exercise that in different ways. We have to
be careful about how we exercise that control. But you
(30:55):
mentioned children. Children have amazing imagination. I'm sure you realize
that with your own children. For some reason, we we
kind of lose that as we get older. We get
to thinking, well, maybe we shouldn't think this way, or
maybe we shouldn't be so open, we should be more
serious about things. It's great to be around children to
(31:16):
stimulate your imagination because they can connect things that you
never would have thought to connect. I feel like, yes,
as we grow older, we just get in the way
exactly the more well life experiences that we have, and
some of it not even necessarily our fault, but unfortunately, yeah,
it does get in in the way of our thinking.
(31:36):
But I think being aware of these things is half
the battle. If you realize that you're self editing yourself
and you're suppressing your own imagination. Once you realize that,
you can make the choice to maybe turn that off
and maybe be a little bit more open to some
of the crazy thoughts that you're having, well depending on
(31:58):
too crazy. Ralph, Right, right, Well, I can't let you
go without finding out four things that you are thankful for,
because that's what I do with a lot of the
guests that come on and with our Gratitude journal last
year in March and now this year, we're doing a
(32:18):
Gratitude Challenge. Now people do not have to have our
journal to participate, but we are challenging them or everyone,
including ourselves, for thirty days to be intentional about writing
down four things each day that we're thankful for. So
I would like to hear four things that you're thankful
for today, and then any encouragement you have for people
(32:40):
considering joining in on our challenge, like why it would
be beneficial for them to do such a challenge with us.
And you know your four things you're grateful for, they
can be big, small, whatever comes to your mind real quick. Okay, Well,
I'm thankful that my wife has your gratitude journal and
I appreciate you sending them. Is that? Yeah, No, of
(33:01):
course I thought once I found out you had a
wife and two daughters, was like, well, they all need
our gratitude journal. And I even emailed your daughter back, Kimby,
and I was like, so, the colors are kind of
coral and pink. Do you think your dad would want one?
But I mean, I'm sure you've got your own way
of tracking your gratitude, so well, I'm I'm certainly thankful
for my family, not only my wife and children and
(33:23):
now grandchildren, but my parents and the support that my
family offers, and just knowing that they're there makes an
incredible difference in my life, and I understand that a
lot of people don't have that. That makes me all
the more thankful for the family that I do have,
and I'm thankful for this country that we live in,
(33:44):
to have the freedom to think the way that I
want to think, to speak the way that I want
to speak, to live the way I want to live,
and to assist others in doing the same thing. I
would say that I'm thankful for for words, the way
that we can communicate with each other over long stretches
(34:06):
of time using words. Someone who lived a thousand years ago.
I can benefit from that person's wisdom because of language,
and someone on the other side of the world can
benefit from a thought that I have because of that
same language. I'm very thankful for that. Yes, and I'm
thankful that you're here, alive and well with us, since
(34:30):
I thought your words were from a thousand years ago.
But in all honesty, I am thankful that you put
so much of your words out there for the world
to consume because we randomly came across yours and we
threw them into our journal. And So, what encouragement would
you have for people that are considering doing our four
(34:50):
things gratitude challenge? Like, why will that be good for them? Well,
I think it can change the way that you look
at life, and that makes a big difference in the
way that you're lie funfolds when you look at life
from a perspective of gratitude, When when you can name
specific things that you're thankful for, you get more use
from those things. You you find new and useful things
(35:14):
to do with all those blessings that you have and
all the good people in your life. It makes you richer,
it does. It enriches you to be thankful. It takes
what you already have and makes it worth more. Looking
at your toolbox and seeing what tools you have in there,
you can think of a lot of new and and
(35:36):
good things that you can do with those tools. That's
kind of how I think of gratitude, and that's what
I would encourage your listeners to look at it in
that way, as I have a lot of good things
going on in my life, even though I may not
realize it, But if if I discipline myself to write
down something every day, then I'm going to have access
(35:58):
to all those good things, and that's going to be
good not only for me, but for the other people
in my life. You talked about words is one of
the things you're thankful for, and even your daily motivator,
you said, you right, and you put those out not
just to like say things other people. It's encouragement to
your own self. So I'm sure it's it's amazing for
(36:18):
you to have this catalog, to go back to grade
a dot com and check out different things that you've
written and revisit it. And I feel like similarly, when
you write down things that you're thankful for, it's this
catalog that you're now keeping and you can go back
and revisit things that can be of encouragement to you. Right.
(36:39):
I think it's great to be able to go back
and look at things that you've written a long time ago.
You forget a lot of stuff, you really do. I mean,
I'm surprised I'll read something that I wrote years ago
and won't even remember writing it. Some things I do.
Some some things I remember what prompted me to write
a certain thing. But other things I'll go back and
(37:01):
read and think, wow, that's pretty profound, awesome. Well, thank
you Ralph so much for joining us. And I just
want to encourage people, yes to check out great Day
dot com if they want to see more about you,
or you have a YouTube channel, which is YouTube dot com.
Ralph Marston M A R. S. T O in can't
(37:22):
leave without giving your daughter Kimby one more shout out
because I just think it's super cool. We both went
to Texas A and M and she happened to be
listening to the episode where I quoted you, and she
brought us together. And I'm thankful for Kimby. Well, I'm
very proud of her. I'm thankful for her to thank
you so much for being here. And hopefully I'll see
(37:42):
you one day soon, maybe in Austin. Great. Great bye. Okay, well,
that was awesome little chat with Ralph. And before you'll go,
first of all, I want you to have an amazing day.
But secondly, if you are interested in our Four Things
a gratitude journal, I just want to let you know.
In case you're a new listener or don't know, you
can go to radio amy dot com for links to
(38:03):
all of our four Things items which always support spreading
hope in Haiti. Radio Amy dot com. Thanks by
Okay, little food for yourself life. Oh it's pretty, but
it's pretty beautiful than that A little month you kick
(00:30):
with four Okay, So I'm super excited for my guest
for All four Things today, Ralph Marston, who has coming
to us from Austin, Texas, where I was born and raised,
so already a connection there. But also Ralph is someone
that we quoted in our latest Four Things Gratitude journal,
(00:51):
so if you have one, you've likely seen his quote.
And I shared his quote on an episode not too
long ago and Small World. Ralph's daughter kimb listens to
the podcast and emailed me and said, well, that man
you quoted is my dad. And I kind of had
a moment of like, okay, well that's interesting because when
(01:12):
Mary and I put this together, we have a few
living people that we quoted. But some of the people
are like Oprah. You know, we know Oprah is alive, right,
but a lot of the other people we quoted are
not alive. And to be honest, and I'm embarrassed to
say this, but Mary and I definitely thought that maybe
you were from the eighteen hundreds. Well, you know, a
(01:32):
lot of people make that mistake. There's actually if you
google my name, my picture comes up, but the description
of me says I was born in nineteen oh seven
and I was a football player, So you know that
makes me a hundred and twenty years old or so.
But now I'm I'm a present day person living in
the modern world. Well, here is the quote that we
(01:54):
put in our four Things Gratitude journal in case people
didn't hear that episode. Make it a habit to tell
people thank you, to express your appreciation sincerely and without
the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you,
and you'll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life,
and you'll find that you have more of it. The
(02:17):
world is an extremely complex place with a lot of
things going on, and so when we focus on the
things that are meaningful to us, the things that are
important to us, the things that we're thankful for, that
actually enables us to make better use of those things
and to expand them in our lives. And so when
you're thankful for certain people, you tend to be around
(02:41):
them more. When you're thankful for the tools and the
skills that you have, you tend to make better use
of them, and so I I think and I know
gratitude is a big thing with you to publish a
gratitude journal, obviously, I consider it to be a key
value in in living life and in accessing the the
(03:02):
enormous abundance that's available to us. I did hear about
a story about you from New Year's Day, maybe two
thousand eight or so, and it's about how the clothes
you selected to wear one day changed the course of
someone's life. And I'm very curious for you to share
this story not only with me, but my listeners as well.
In the year two thousand eight, on New Year's Day,
(03:24):
I had the good fortune to be with my whole family,
with my parents, my brother and his wife and family,
my wife and my children. We were all on a
cruise together and and we were arriving in Cabo Saint Lucas, Mexico.
And so I got up and needed something to wear.
So I picked out a T shirt just happened to
(03:45):
be from the British Virgin Islands. It said Pussers, which
is a resort there, Pusser's British West Indies. I didn't
think anything about it. I just put the T shirt
on and we went out and went around Cabo and
saw all the side and in the afternoon, my wife
and I stood out on the balcony of our cabmin
(04:06):
and somebody snapped a picture of us. When I got
back home, I took that picture and I liked it
so much I put it on my website for people
to see. So there's me and my wife on the
website and the T shirt. Well, unbeknownst to me, about
three years later, there was a man in Barbados, the
island of Barbados and the Caribbean, and he had been
(04:27):
born in Barbados, lived his whole life on the island
of Barbados, had never left, never gone anywhere else, and
like many people in Barbados, he worked in the hospitality industry.
He was worked at a resort, had a pretty good job,
and he had a girlfriend who was from the British
Virgin Islands, which is several hundred miles away from Barbados,
(04:49):
and the girl friend was encouraging him to maybe moved
back to the British Virgin Islands with her and to
get a job there. So he had applaud for several
jobs in the British Virgin Islands and one day he
got a phone call from one of the resorts he
had applied to, and they they were basically offering him
(05:10):
a job and wanting him to fly up there to
the b v I to talk to them. So he
he prayed about it, and he asked God for an answer,
and according to the way he tells it, God spoke
to him, and God said, asked Ralph. He said, well, Ralph, who,
And he said, God said, asked Ralph Marston. Well, this guy,
(05:31):
his name is Dale. He had been receiving my daily
publication for a few years. He didn't actually subscribe himself.
Somebody else was getting it and was sending it to
him every day. But he he was familiar with my
messages and he kind of knew my name, but didn't
really know anything else about me. So he went to
(05:52):
Google and typed in my name and clicked on the
first link that came up. Well, there I was in
that T shirt in that picture, wearing the T shirt
that said Pusser's British West Indies. Well, the company that
had offered him the job was Pussers Resort in the
British Virgin Islands. So he took that as a sign
that that he was meant to take that job, and
(06:13):
he did. He moved to the b V I took
the job, did real well. A couple of years later,
got an even better job with another resort. But he
contacted me obviously and let me know about this, and
and was was very thankful that I happened to be
wearing the T shirt that T shirt on that day,
because that was his sign that changed his life for
the better. I mean, another small world moment. I feel
(06:36):
like I'm I'm sitting here with you right now because
your daughter was listening to my podcast. You know, you
had this encounter with him from a shirt you put
on without even thinking about it. I mean, it's crazy
how life just offers blessings like that, depending on what
you believe. If you're listening to this, I mean, clearly
God spoke to him and he used you as a
(06:59):
way to you nudge him and be like, hey, this
is good for you, go do this. This is what
I have in store for you. So how cool that
you got to be a part of that. Yeah. I
think coincidences. I think they speak to how deeply we're
connected with each other and we don't realize it. And
that's kind of what I believe produces those types of coincidences.
(07:21):
I mean, I think somebody refers to coincidences as God's
winks at us. But there's things that we know that
we don't know we know, and the coincidences help us
see those things. Say we want to be open to
more of God's winks or coincidences. What would you say
to people They're like, I don't really get that that
doesn't really happen to me, But I mean, could it
(07:43):
be because someone's closed off to it? Absolutely? I think yeah,
being open to new possibilities, being open to things that
you maybe you don't necessarily have never thought about or
agreed with or dismissed before. I think that opens us
up to the connections that we have with each other.
(08:04):
Is just an attitude of curiosity, being curious about the
world and what's going on, and and being aware and
also being purposeful I think is a key element of that.
When you know what you want, then you see the
things that you need to see. When you're clear about
where you intend to go, then you will be led
(08:27):
to those things that will help you to get there.
I firmly believe that. Then it's like not really just
happening by chance. It's like it was put out there
because you're open to perceiving it. Right. Well, I guess
there's you have the impression of a coincidence. You can't
you can't rationally explain why something might have happened. But
(08:47):
what I'm saying is there are levels to life that
I don't think we fully comprehend. And so it's the
coincidences are when we're tapping into those, when we're opening
ourselves to the and when we have a strong enough
purpose that, like I said, with gratitude, you know, it
makes you aware of things that you may not have
(09:08):
been aware of before. And I think purpose plays the
same role. When you know what you want to accomplish,
then you are more aware of the things that will
help you to accomplish that. Coincidences, even though you can't
you can't maybe logically explain them, on some level, you're
seeing something that was always there, but you just never
(09:29):
knew to look for it before. Love that Okay, So, Ralph,
you mentioned the Daily Motivator, which how people get there
is great day dot com. At least that's how I
have found it, and it's got such a positive outlook
and perspective in what you're doing when you load up
your messages is you've got a community of people that
(09:51):
are coming there and relying on you to help them
with that, you give them the wisdom and the insight
to stay motivated, I think, to be as positive as possible.
So how did you end up starting that? And it's
literally what you do full time? Correct, Yes, it is,
it is now. It didn't start out that way, but
I had worked for many years independently, so not in
(10:14):
an office with a lot of people around me, but
more as an independent sales rep. In that role, I
had naturally gravitated towards self improvement type material because I
didn't have any daily, regular, positive feedback from other people
and I missed that. So that was kind of how
I came to start the Daily Motivator. When when the
(10:38):
web came along back in the mid nineties, I was
fascinated by the possibility that it had of connecting people
very quickly and very cheaply and very widely, and I
wanted to be a part of that. And I thought, well,
maybe I should do something for people like me, people
who are working independently, like in home based businesses or
(10:59):
sales on the road who needs some sort of positive reinforcement.
And I had spent years studying that type of thing,
so I felt like I was somewhat qualified to write
about that. And I've always loved to write. I just
started writing basically telling myself what I needed to hear,
and I try to be as honest and sincere about
(11:21):
as as possible. I don't say things just because I've
heard somebody else saying them and think that they might work.
My best stuff comes from personal experience, from problems that
I have, from situations that I get in that I
have to work myself out of. And I learned from
what I'm doing. I learned from the difficulties that I
(11:42):
go through. I learned from the successes that I have,
and I really make an effort to share that with people.
I want to encourage as many people as possible to
see what can be done with a life. That's my
motivation for for my writing. Let's think spand on being
thankful for your problems, Like why is that important to you? Well,
(12:05):
for one thing, if I'm having problems, I'm still alive, right,
So I'm thankful for the opportunity to be able to
do something and That's what problems give me and give
everybody is an opportunity to make a difference, and their
lives that are full of problems, and then there's lives
that are full of nothing, where you don't have any
(12:27):
way to make a difference. And I would easily choose
a life full of problems over a life where I
was not able to have any impact, to make a
difference at all. Yeah, I think that's a very fundamental
drive for everybody, no matter if they're doing a lot
of good in the world or doing a lot of evil.
(12:48):
Frankly is people do what they do because they want
to make a difference. So problems give you the opportunity
to make a difference. They also let you know that
you're meeting up with resistance, so you must in some
way be making some kind of progress. The more problems
you have, that's a pretty good indication that you're making progress.
(13:09):
Because the people that don't have any problems are the
people that never attempt anything, that never have any ambitious purposes.
And that's not through you know, obviously, there's there's people
that that are stricken with all sorts of difficulties that
are not of their own choosing not of their own making,
and yet even those can serve to build strength. And
(13:33):
again going back to the theme of gratitude, when you
encounter difficulties, that that makes you more thankful for the
good things that you do have, and it enables you
to maybe make better use of those good things. I
just want to help people out with that if that
concept is new to them. If you face a challenge
at work, that's a problem, or somebody messed up, then
(13:56):
it's like, oh, instead of letting it derail your day,
how we learn and grow from it and we become
better because of it. How can we evolve and maybe
do things in a totally different way because of this
one mistake. Or if you have en ailment or an adversity,
a loved one that's sick, it's like, what can you
learn from that experience? How can you take the challenges
(14:18):
from whatever you've encountered and then maybe help somebody else
so that they don't feel alone. Those are just things
I'm throwing out there to where people, Yeah, well, that
that's a really good example of caring for other people
because it bills your compassion. It helps you understand what
a lot of other people may be going through that
you don't even realize. I think that strengthens connections that
(14:42):
you have with other people when you can have more
empathy and compassion for others. Let's just talk a little
bit more about this positive perspective, because that's what that
is too. Even being yeah, thankful for your for your
problems is a very positive perspective. So what have you
learned about how having that type of mental you can
affect you on a daily basis. Well, I think it's
(15:04):
a choice that you can make, and we assume that
if you're having a bad day, if a lot of
things go wrong, that you should be in a bad mood,
that you should react that way. But what I've discovered
is that no, you really do have a choice. Things
can go be going bad. You can respond with a
negative attitude, but that's not going to do you any good.
(15:24):
It's just going to perpetuate what's already going on. And
certainly you want to acknowledge reality. You don't want to
just be happy about all the bad things that happen. However,
you can still move away from difficulties with a positive
perspective because that is more useful, it's more practical, and
(15:46):
if you step back from the situation, and you think, Okay,
I can I can get all upset about this, I
can let it get me down. I can mope around
for a few days. But what's that really gonna get me?
What is that going to accomplis wish? Or I can
choose to accept what has happened. You know, I'm not
going to deny that bad things have happened. I'm going
(16:07):
to accept it, but I'm going to choose to move
away from it, to go ahead and realign myself with
whatever purpose I had, and follow that purpose and decide
what can I do that will make a positive difference,
and then then take the actions that will make that happen.
I like that too, because I want to give people
(16:28):
permission to not feel all of what is going on
in their life and acknowledge the hard things and the pain.
But you just don't have to be stuck in it.
You don't have to continue down that path. And then
really the choice, after you've acknowledged it is okay, do
I want to go positive route or do I want
to go negative route? And I mean sometimes I dabble
in the negative for just a little bit, just because
(16:50):
that's what feels good. For me in the moment, but
eventually I make the conscious effort to dig myself out
because I know that taking the turn towards positive is
going to be better for me. And I know that's
easier said than done depending on people's circumstances. But even
in the quote we shared that we put in our
gratitude journal from you like, you'll attract more great things
(17:12):
into your life when you're on the positive route, and
then when you're on the negative, I mean similarly, you'll
attract more negative things when that's what you're focused on.
One way to look at it is what would you
advise someone else to do in that position? You know,
step back from being you and look at it from
a perspective of somebody else and see how foolish it
is if you get hurt to keep trying to hurt
(17:34):
yourself even more. That doesn't make any sense. And if
you saw somebody else do it, you would advise them
not to do that. And so it's just a matter
of advising yourself, giving yourself that same advice. It's a
lot easier to tell other people what to do. That's right.
It's because because you don't have to do it right.
But Still, that's what I'm saying. Uh, if you just
(17:58):
use that trick to think, what would I tell somebody else? Well,
then why can't you know I'm just as good as them?
Why can't I tell myself the same thing? Yeah? I
think about that a lot, just being a mom of
especially a thirteen year old girl. And you know, I
think of the ways I talk to myself, some of
myself talk and how sometimes it's not the best and
(18:20):
I'm not really being my best cheerleader, and I use
her to sort of correct me. But in my brain,
she doesn't even know this. But I'm like, would I
ever talk to Stashira this way? No, because I want
to lift her up and I want her to believe
in herself and know that she can do whatever she wants.
But here I am. Of course I would say all
of that to her, but sometimes I don't even say
(18:40):
it to myself. Well, that's one advantage that I have
of writing a daily positive message each day, because I'm
aware of those things and I've thought through those things
a lot, and so that that does give me an
advantage in my own life because I think, well, is
this what I would advise my readers to do? You know,
(19:00):
am I living out what I write about? You know,
there's a good reason you you have your Gratitude Journal,
and that's why a lot of people find that useful,
is to write things down and then you've got it
there in black and white, what you've thought about, and
you can't deny it. It's important to put things into
words like that. I love that, I mean, and you're
doing it every day for your readers. Like you said
(19:23):
so again, the website is great day dot com. If
anybody listening wants to go check that out and we'll
be back in just a second and we'll talk more gratitude.
Believe it or not, We're going to do that. And
then you I heard Ralph have some pandemic project, and
I want to hear all about it. Go okay, so Ralph,
(19:52):
let's get to the pandemic project. What is it like? Everybody?
You know, I've been stuck at home. One day, I
was trying to lean out a room and I had
an old computer in there that I thought didn't work anymore,
and I thought, well, I'm just gonna get rid of this,
give this away, or do something with this. I pulled
it out and I thought, well, I'll try it. I'll
try starting it up one more time. So I plugged
(20:14):
it in and lo and behold, it started right up
and work perfectly. And it just so happened that that
old computer was the only one I had that was
still connect to a camcorder that I had used years ago,
and so I decided, well, as long as this computer
is working, I'm gonna plug in that camcorder and digitize
some of the old tapes that I had made years ago.
(20:36):
And these were tapes that I took when our children
were growing up, you know, if their softball games, birthday parties,
school programs when the children were born, stuff like that.
And as I was doing that, I began to develop
a really deep sense of gratitude for all the good
(20:57):
things that I've experienced in my life. And to make
a long story short, I ended up not only digitizing
those types with that camera, but I dug out all
these other types and types that I had inherited from
my parents and ended up digitizing about a hundred and
twenty hours worth of video. And in the process of
(21:18):
doing that, I developed such a deep sense of gratitude
just for all the good things that I had been
through and and for all the love and the joy
and the fun and the fellowship and the good times
that are pictured on those videos. Yeah, I love that.
I'm sure your family is so grateful that they have
(21:41):
someone like you with you know, that type of patients
and commitment to sorting through and digitizing those. I feel
like some of my listeners right now are like, oh wow, yeah,
that would be really cool. I could do a pandemic project.
But then if there are anything like me, they might
start out with the idea and then be like, oh, yeah,
I have this is way too much work. I'm not
(22:01):
doing this. But have you ever heard of legacy boxes? Okay,
so you basically were your own legacy box. You did
all the legwork because that's what they do. And this
isn't a we endorse for them on the Bobby Bones Show,
not not here on the podcast. But I feel like
what you're saying might inspire other people to do it,
but they may not have the patients and the equipment
(22:21):
or whatever necessary to digitize. So I would say other
people so that they can have those valuable moments like
I'll just throw out here again not a commercial, but
legacy box dot com. And then I think the code
for the show is slash bones, So Legacy box dot
com slash bones and that'll get you possibly a discount,
I think. But I love what Ralph is saying of
(22:42):
how important and valuable those memories are. And then it's
digital and you can gift it to other people in
your life so that then they have all the same
feelings of gratitude as well. Once I did all the videos,
then I started in on film. You know, I have
old negatives and slides, and Legacy Box does those things too,
but I have the equipment to digitize those myself, so
(23:04):
I started in on that. What that did was I
started seeing all these people that I hadn't thought of
in years, and I ended up giving some of the
McCall and and reconnecting with them. You know, I was
wondering what had happened or how they were doing. You know,
you just kind of lose touch with people over the years.
But it was a great experience to reconnect with several people.
(23:28):
And and you know that was kind of my excuse.
I told him, I've been digging through all these old
pictures and I found some pictures of you, and I'd
like to send them to you. And it started some
great conversations and reconnected me. And you know, everybody is
so hungry to connect to other people right now. I
don't know it was. It was just a great experience
for me all the way around. Yeah, I mean, especially now.
(23:50):
You're right. I mean, human connection is such an important thing,
like pandemic or not. But I mean this just brought
it to the forefront because some people are so isolated
right now. Exactly. The thing about photography and and taking videos.
Now it's become so easy to do. You know, we
can just pull the phone of out of our pocket
(24:11):
and take a really high quality video or photograph in
an instant and have the picture right there. It sort
of serves to trivialize those And the way we use
pictures is a little bit different. When we take a
picture and we get it instantly, we tend to be
more critical of it than thankful for it. You know,
when we used to have to take the film to
(24:33):
the processor and wait a day or two to get
the pictures back, we'd get them back and the experience
would be over, and we'd be able to look back
and be thankful for having enjoyed the good time with
friends and whatever. But now if we take a picture
in the moment and we have it right there, we're
critical of it because we think, well, what's what are
people going to think when I post this on Instagram?
(24:54):
You know, do I look good enough or whatever? So
I think this kind of reminded me that pictures that
you take like this are around for a long time,
and the longer time goes on, the more valuable is
the experience of looking back and remembering, you know, the
good times that you had and the love that you
(25:15):
shared in the connections that you had with the people. Yeah. Well,
and now other people may follow suit. I would very
much encourage that. Absolutely. Okay, So, Ralph, do you mind
if I read an excerpt from one of your books. No,
I'm going to share something that I saw in Living
(25:38):
the Wonder of it All positive empowering messages from the
Daily Motivator. And here's what I pulled. There is magic
in every moment. Behind even the most mundane occurrence is
an entire universe of abundant wonder. If you could see
every detail of something as simple as the falling of
a rain drop, it would completely overwhelm you. And yet
raindrops fall all the time in every action, no matter
(26:01):
how seemingly insignificant, there is a whole universe of power
In every moment. There are infinite ways in which to
make a very real difference. You are always streaming full
speed through an abundance of options and possibilities. See the possibilities,
feel the power, make your own special magic. Today, I
want to talk about those little magic moments, and I
(26:25):
feel as though we often miss out on those we
included all the time. A lot of times we think
of magic as something spectacular that's going to sweep you
off your feet. But I believe that the real magic
is just life itself. And the more closely you look
at anything, the more there is to see, and the
(26:46):
structure that under underlies all of life is pure magic. Really,
I mean, what are we even doing here? How can
we even be aware of our own existence? Things like
that are truly magical, and yet we just take them
for granted. If we were dropped, say in the Amazon jungle,
without any shoes and with no tools and nothing to
(27:10):
use to survive, we would soon be in very big
trouble because we wouldn't have all the things that we
depend on and all the things that we take for granted,
and I think it's it's kind of an interesting thought
exercise to imagine yourself in that situation and having to
do without running water and a safe place to sleep
(27:31):
at night and easily accessible food. Those things are all
magic too. I think we can just look at pretty
much anything in our life and realize all that goes
into it from all over the world, and and really
the magic that that represents. Do you have a morning
routine that sets you up to be so open to
(27:52):
the magic every day? I do like to get up
in the morning and walk. I start walking about when
it gets light and walk for about four miles, you know,
And I try to do it every just about every day.
That's a very important part of my morning routine. Do
you listen to something? Are you thinking to yourself? Or no?
I don't listen to anything. I just absorbed the world
(28:16):
and the sun coming up, the light, things like that. Well,
do you have any tips for anyone listening that can
help prepare their minds for seeing these magical moments? Are
being open to them? Again, not like the crazy magical moments.
That's what we're talking about, these little things that we're
just so caught up in our day to day. Well,
(28:39):
I think it helps to kind of get outside of yourself,
to let go of your own ego, and to let
go of your own expectations. I mean, it's good to
have positive expectations, but if you let yourself, you can
kind of get in a rut where you're thinking the
same thoughts over and over again. And I try to
(29:00):
expose myself to a lot of different types of thoughts.
I try to find different things to stimulate my imagination
and just to get myself away from the little loops
that keep going around in my head that kind of
gets stuck. Kind of interrupt that pattern, I guess I
would say you mentioned imagination, and I have read probably
(29:24):
three books more on the therapeutic side of things in
the last couple of months that have all referred to
the importance of imagination. Well, imagination is extremely powerful. Everything
we do, we first imagine everything, and then there's a
lot of things that were stopped by because of what
we imagine. All our doubts are really nothing more than imagination.
(29:48):
And even fear to a large extent, is imagination. So
it's extremely powerful, and it's also extremely controllable. You can
control what you imagine. And that kind of gets back
to being in a positive mindset. If you're filling yourself
with positive thoughts, then you're going to imagine more beneficial
(30:09):
and positive things for yourself and for other people. And so, yeah,
imagination is key to everything. Before you take an action,
you imagine what you're gonna do. The more richness and
detail you can put into your imagination, the more successful
you're going to be in executing those thoughts. Yeah, i'd
love that in case people are like, oh, what imagination?
(30:32):
They just think, uh, kids have fun imaginations. But really,
when you think of it that way, then yes, we're
using our imaginations all the time. But I love that
you said we have control over what we're thinking, right.
We can exercise that in different ways. We have to
be careful about how we exercise that control. But you
(30:55):
mentioned children. Children have amazing imagination. I'm sure you realize
that with your own children. For some reason, we we
kind of lose that as we get older. We get
to thinking, well, maybe we shouldn't think this way, or
maybe we shouldn't be so open, we should be more
serious about things. It's great to be around children to
(31:16):
stimulate your imagination because they can connect things that you
never would have thought to connect. I feel like, yes,
as we grow older, we just get in the way
exactly the more well life experiences that we have, and
some of it not even necessarily our fault, but unfortunately, yeah,
it does get in in the way of our thinking.
(31:36):
But I think being aware of these things is half
the battle. If you realize that you're self editing yourself
and you're suppressing your own imagination. Once you realize that,
you can make the choice to maybe turn that off
and maybe be a little bit more open to some
of the crazy thoughts that you're having, well depending on
(31:58):
too crazy. Ralph, Right, right, Well, I can't let you
go without finding out four things that you are thankful for,
because that's what I do with a lot of the
guests that come on and with our Gratitude journal last
year in March and now this year, we're doing a
(32:18):
Gratitude Challenge. Now people do not have to have our
journal to participate, but we are challenging them or everyone,
including ourselves, for thirty days to be intentional about writing
down four things each day that we're thankful for. So
I would like to hear four things that you're thankful
for today, and then any encouragement you have for people
(32:40):
considering joining in on our challenge, like why it would
be beneficial for them to do such a challenge with us.
And you know your four things you're grateful for, they
can be big, small, whatever comes to your mind real quick. Okay, Well,
I'm thankful that my wife has your gratitude journal and
I appreciate you sending them. Is that? Yeah, No, of
(33:01):
course I thought once I found out you had a
wife and two daughters, was like, well, they all need
our gratitude journal. And I even emailed your daughter back, Kimby,
and I was like, so, the colors are kind of
coral and pink. Do you think your dad would want one?
But I mean, I'm sure you've got your own way
of tracking your gratitude, so well, I'm I'm certainly thankful
for my family, not only my wife and children and
(33:23):
now grandchildren, but my parents and the support that my
family offers, and just knowing that they're there makes an
incredible difference in my life, and I understand that a
lot of people don't have that. That makes me all
the more thankful for the family that I do have,
and I'm thankful for this country that we live in,
(33:44):
to have the freedom to think the way that I
want to think, to speak the way that I want
to speak, to live the way I want to live,
and to assist others in doing the same thing. I
would say that I'm thankful for for words, the way
that we can communicate with each other over long stretches
(34:06):
of time using words. Someone who lived a thousand years ago.
I can benefit from that person's wisdom because of language,
and someone on the other side of the world can
benefit from a thought that I have because of that
same language. I'm very thankful for that. Yes, and I'm
thankful that you're here, alive and well with us, since
(34:30):
I thought your words were from a thousand years ago.
But in all honesty, I am thankful that you put
so much of your words out there for the world
to consume because we randomly came across yours and we
threw them into our journal. And So, what encouragement would
you have for people that are considering doing our four
(34:50):
things gratitude challenge? Like, why will that be good for them? Well,
I think it can change the way that you look
at life, and that makes a big difference in the
way that you're lie funfolds when you look at life
from a perspective of gratitude, When when you can name
specific things that you're thankful for, you get more use
from those things. You you find new and useful things
(35:14):
to do with all those blessings that you have and
all the good people in your life. It makes you richer,
it does. It enriches you to be thankful. It takes
what you already have and makes it worth more. Looking
at your toolbox and seeing what tools you have in there,
you can think of a lot of new and and
(35:36):
good things that you can do with those tools. That's
kind of how I think of gratitude, and that's what
I would encourage your listeners to look at it in
that way, as I have a lot of good things
going on in my life, even though I may not
realize it, But if if I discipline myself to write
down something every day, then I'm going to have access
(35:58):
to all those good things, and that's going to be
good not only for me, but for the other people
in my life. You talked about words is one of
the things you're thankful for, and even your daily motivator,
you said, you right, and you put those out not
just to like say things other people. It's encouragement to
your own self. So I'm sure it's it's amazing for
(36:18):
you to have this catalog, to go back to grade
a dot com and check out different things that you've
written and revisit it. And I feel like similarly, when
you write down things that you're thankful for, it's this
catalog that you're now keeping and you can go back
and revisit things that can be of encouragement to you. Right.
(36:39):
I think it's great to be able to go back
and look at things that you've written a long time ago.
You forget a lot of stuff, you really do. I mean,
I'm surprised I'll read something that I wrote years ago
and won't even remember writing it. Some things I do.
Some some things I remember what prompted me to write
a certain thing. But other things I'll go back and
(37:01):
read and think, wow, that's pretty profound, awesome. Well, thank
you Ralph so much for joining us. And I just
want to encourage people, yes to check out great Day
dot com if they want to see more about you,
or you have a YouTube channel, which is YouTube dot com.
Ralph Marston M A R. S. T O in can't
(37:22):
leave without giving your daughter Kimby one more shout out
because I just think it's super cool. We both went
to Texas A and M and she happened to be
listening to the episode where I quoted you, and she
brought us together. And I'm thankful for Kimby. Well, I'm
very proud of her. I'm thankful for her to thank
you so much for being here. And hopefully I'll see
(37:42):
you one day soon, maybe in Austin. Great. Great bye. Okay, well,
that was awesome little chat with Ralph. And before you'll go,
first of all, I want you to have an amazing day.
But secondly, if you are interested in our Four Things
a gratitude journal, I just want to let you know.
In case you're a new listener or don't know, you
can go to radio amy dot com for links to
(38:03):
all of our four Things items which always support spreading
hope in Haiti. Radio Amy dot com. Thanks by
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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