Thankfulness | Episode #458 | Encore Edition #249

Right Thinking with Steve Coplon.

This week's show is called "Thankfulness." Tune in and hear Steve share his thoughts on why he is so thankful for the life that he has, particularly at this Thanksgiving time of the year, and how you too can be just as thankful.

https://www.talknetworkradio.com/hosts/right-thinking

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
There must be lies parting brighter somewhere, got to be
birs Why, Hi the sky.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Good morning, Welcome to Right Thinking with Steve Copeland. I'm
your host, Steve Copeland, and thank you for tuning in.
Let's have a great day. Good morning, everybody. Glad to
be with you. Today's episode two forty nine, Right Thinking
with Steve Copeland is very pleased to announce that this
week's show is called Thankfulness. Tune in and here Steve

(00:53):
share his thoughts on why he is so thankful for
the life that he has, particularly at this Thanksgiving time
of the year, and how you too can be just
as thankful. Yeah, what a wonderful time of the year.
I declared years ago that Thanksgiving is my favorite day
of the year. Now. I love Christmas obviously for all

(01:13):
the right reasons, but Thanksgiving what I love about it
is the holiday is all about being thankful. And you know,
it's not all that gift giving that the Christmas season
brings around. And for me, let's see, now, this will
be my thirty ninth year that I set out to

(01:36):
do something that I've done for thirty nine years in
a row, and that is thirty nine years ago I
guess it was nineteen eighty two. I owned my first
house and we had Thanksgiving there that year, and it
was so wonderful being under my own roof, celebrating Thanksgiving,

(02:00):
inviting family and friends over to share that. At the
end of the day, I declared, I love this so much.
I want to do this every year for the rest
of my life. Well, as I said, thirty nine years
this year, and technically, if you do the math, it
might be the fortieth year, because it was thirty nine

(02:21):
years ago and I did it then, and maybe this year.
I don't know. I'll worry about that later. But here's
what it evolved into. Twenty one years ago January, when
I got my multi maluma diagnosis and they gave me
five and a half years of life expectancy for an
incurable cancer. Every year, every day started being more precious

(02:43):
to me, and so as I celebrated Thanksgiving each year
those early years after I got my cancer diagnosis, it
was very emotional for me to be at the Thanksgiving
table and offer a prayer of thankfulness, and I started
to use Thanksgiving as a personal marker that the Lord

(03:05):
has blessed me with another year. Well that's evolved into
another day. You know, every day I wake up and
I give thanks, but this time of year is especially
especially wonderful for me because of what I've said. I'm
so thankful to be here, to have the opportunities that
I have, to be with family and friends, and just

(03:26):
to be able to live the life that I live.
But you know, living the life that I live and
experiencing the joy that I do. It didn't happen overnight.
The last couple of weeks, I've been concentrating. Let's see,
going back maybe six weeks now, I did four weeks
in a row of personal finance and small business ownership,

(03:49):
the core of my curriculum that is in prisons throughout
the country. And then and then I did two weeks
go I did a show where I talked about, uh
the how gt L I worked with gt L to
get my curriculum and facilities throughout the country, and I

(04:13):
told more about what my curriculum is about and and
and how it works for those that I have embraced
using it. And then last week I called it a
personal appeal where I really tried to speak to each
of you to to look at your life and to
and to decide if you have the life that that

(04:35):
you should have, the life that that God wants you
to have, that's there for you. And I gave some
pointers and things like that. Well, so this week, I uh,
when I was putting the show together, and you know,
Thanksgiving is just gon be in a few days, I
did a lot of meditating on so what do I

(04:58):
want to what I want to talk about this week
in my message? And and one thing that I do
quite often is I go to UH, I go to
my my good friend mentor Jim Stowball to to some
of his books, and you know, I do daily meditations.
But when he was on my show the last time,
it was on the two hundredth episode of Right Thinking,

(05:20):
it was the well this is forty nine, so it
was forty nine weeks ago, and he was my guest,
and and I did the show around a book that
he wrote called Ultimate Hindsight, and it's got over one
hundred people that he had interviewed over a twenty five
year period where it's just a little short book where

(05:43):
he took each of those people and distilled their interview
down to just the highlights of the interview and with
their main points on how to have a have a
good life, a meaningful life. They're pointers. And I told
him on that show that I had already read the
book and listened to it about five or six times

(06:04):
at that point that I had made up my mind
that I was going to read and listen to it
thirty times. That I said, you can do a study
on me to see how my life changes. Well, I'm
finishing up my twenty seventh time right now, and so
I listened to that book in the Morning's a lot
just it just inspires me. And so part of the

(06:29):
point that I've been trying to make the last couple
of weeks is is that you know, we have to
be we have to make up our minds, but we
need mentors and we need to be inspired. And so
I'm doing my best to try to help you to
decide that the life that I have it could be
more and what do I need to do? And so

(06:50):
I got three quotes here that I could have used
in last week's show. They're not actually well, I guess
they are quotes. But this is a little summary of
some of the work that Jim Stowball did and his
series called The Ultimate Gift. It's a series of three
movies made from books that he wrote, and he says this,

(07:12):
these are These are quotes from Jim Stowball. In the end,
a person is only known by the impact he or
she has on others. Another one here is one of
his the gifts that he talks about. This is the
third gift, the gift of friends. It is a wealthy

(07:32):
person indeed, who calculates riches not in gold, but in friends.
One of my main points last week was I tried
to bring out the difference in riches and wealth, and
wealth goes far beyond money and material things. It's it's
measured and time and friends and quality of life and

(07:53):
things of that nature. And then from his books and
then the movies on the ultimate gift, it sums it
up and says the ultimate gift in the end, life
lived to its fullest is its own ultimate gift. So
you know, I thank Jim Soball for for being my friend,
for the influence that he's had on my life. And

(08:15):
I went back this week in preparation because I didn't
really know what my message was going to be. Something
that I would hope holds your interest, that you can
be motivated and inspired inspired by that's what I try
to do. What I was what I was doing was
I went back to four of the previous interviews that

(08:36):
I had done with Jim Uh the one on the
two hundredth show, and he's part of the curriculum that
I talked about and Uh in Prisons, personal finance, and
small business ownership. And I listened to that interview very
very carefully the other morning, and what I what I'm
telling you is is that one of the things that

(08:58):
I do in my life is I try to stay focused.
I try to I try to be prepared, and right now,
as my curriculum is being introduced to more and more
prisons from the sales staff at GTL and I'm having

(09:19):
an opportunity to talk to more people about the curriculum,
I want to be up to date on my own curriculum.
You know, it's been a couple of years that I
that I developed it, and I don't want to have
somebody talk about, oh, yeah, that's really good that you
have those radio shows embedded in your curriculum with the
transcripts to go along with them. I want to have

(09:41):
listened to those radio shows recently, not just a couple
of years ago. And say, oh, well, thank you, I'm
glad you like it. Which episode did you did you
listen to? No, I want to be current and be
able to if somebody wants to discuss something with me,
I want to know what it is that that that

(10:01):
I did that they are appreciating, and so so I
listened to those shows. But for that episode on the
interview that I did with Jim on UH It's in
the prison, it's a it's just reflections, UH, A message
by from Jim Stowball. It is so powerful, So it's
it's in it's in the archives here I'm right thinking

(10:23):
with Steve Copeland. And also the two hundred episode UH
Managing your Expectations and no, it's it's it's wonderful to
UH to do positive things and to be inspired, and
so thank you, Jim. I look forward to the next
time we get together. Well, moving on with today, So,

(10:43):
as I kept listening to previous shows to try to
decide what what I might be able to do today's message,
I listened to last week's show several more times. And
so one of the things that I want to want
to share with you is as I was doing last
week's show, I focused on the difference between being a

(11:07):
self centered person or a selfless person, and I went
real strong on how we have to give to others,
how we have to be there for others, how we
have to do for others. But I got to thinking,
you know a lot of people that I want to
listen to me because the whole thing is, how do

(11:28):
I get people that are so far down in their
life that they just don't think there's a way to
come up? How do you get them to listen to
some of the message and read some of the books
and pay attention to some of the some of the
things that I pay attention to to keep me going.
How do you get them to be motivated to do that? Well,

(11:48):
part of the answer is you can't unless they're at
a place to where they open up the door just
a little bit, where they open up their heart just
a little bit, where they give you a little to
pry yourself into to where you can you can let
them know that they're loved and that they're cared about,
and that they're a good person, and that mistakes they

(12:09):
made in the past they're not being judged, that those
are just we've all made mistakes. But let's move on,
you know, let's be forgiven and move on forgive ourselves.
But what I'm getting at is is that I think
I want to add something to the message from last week,
and that is that you have to put yourself first

(12:30):
in many situations before you will be strong enough, a
whole enough person to be able to do for others.
The very best example there is is about when when
you're on an airplane and there's oxygen masks dropped down
because of turbulence, and there's a concern that there might
be no oxygen in the cabin and you got your

(12:50):
baby next to you. You've got to put your mask
on first, or you won't be able to assist your baby.
If you can't, you then your babies got their mask going,
you're not gonna be to do much more to get
them through it. So, you know, we've got to have
boundaries where we don't overextend ourselves and just be like

(13:13):
a washed rag for other people to wash their face
withth so to speak. In other words, we've got to
be we've got to be strong, we've got to be stable.
And and it's an interesting thing I'm speaking to right
now is I think that some of the greatest stability

(13:34):
we have is when we do for others and we
live in a place where where there's kindness all around us,
where we're living in a world of kindness. And so, hey,
I tell you that I that I work really hard
to try to come up with an interesting message. And
and so before you cut me off today, this this

(13:55):
one depends on your personality. One of the things when
I started seeing the word kindness, a business partner, Minding,
and his boys went duck hunting this weekend, and and
and I was just thinking. And then when I was
a kid, my dad's my dad's second wife, my stepmother.
She she taught me the song. And it's a song

(14:17):
that's still there. I googled it in there it is
many versions of it. But be kind to your web
footed friend because a duck maybe somebody's mother. That's about
as far as I'm going to sing to you. But
be kind to your web footed friends because a duck
may be somebody's mother. Let's break that one down. You know,

(14:41):
you never know what's going on, and the people that
you're interacting with, you know, each person has other relationships
they You know, you might be at a store and
you might be buying something at the counter, and the
person that the counter might be not so good at
handling your change. You know, it might be frustrating to

(15:03):
you that they're taking too long or you don't understand it.
But you know what, that person not only might be
doing the very best they can, they might also be
doing even better than you realize because they're working hard
to support a family. You don't know what's going on
in that other person's life, is what I'm getting at.

(15:25):
So the world that I'm advocating that I want to
be in has a whole lot to do with everyone
being is as kind as they can in doing for others. So,
but remember, you got to have boundaries. You got to
get yourself strong. I've done many shows over the two
hundred and forty nine shows with wonderful guests to speak

(15:46):
a lot about you know Maslow's hierarchy of needs, making
sure that you have all your basic things. But if
you don't have a job and you can't get a
roof over your agg because you can't afford it, you
can't have enough income, or you don't have enough money
to put enough food on the table, what do you
need to do? Well? Uh, you might want to. You

(16:09):
might want to make friends with some people, make friends
with some strangers that have the ability to uh to
give you a job, to realize that you know they'll
choose you to hire because you've been transparent up with
them for them to understand that you're going to do
a great job for them because you really need this opportunity.

(16:32):
So that's the kind of stuff that I want to
talk about. But I'm going back to last week's show
just for a minute to tell you that you know,
it's not all about only given to others, but it's
about it's about taking care of yourself also and taking
care of others. And what you'll find and I think
I quoted it, I learned that phrasing and California and
my hitchhiking day is what goes around comes around, that

(16:53):
applies to us all. So you'll find that if you
do a good turn for someone, more than likely you
know you'll get a good turn down to you as well.
Once you've made your mind to move yourself forward and
pick yourself up from a load place, there's different things
that will help you do well. I just told you
make a friend, but you know you don't want to

(17:14):
live in guilt, and you want to live a life
that's balanced. You know, your well being requires a lot
of balance. You want to develop a positive work ethic.
You want to be disciplined, you want to stay focused,
and you want to stay on your direction. And as
I've said with Jim stoveall you want to eliminate distractions.
So as I continued preparation for today's message, I came

(17:39):
across an Abraham Lincoln quote that is just perfect for
what the message was last week. Folks are usually about
as happy as they make their minds up to be.
You know, we talked about you got to make up
your mind, and we talked about happiness last week. So
I thought that was good. But as I got into Thanksgiving,

(18:02):
in this time of the season, I have these thoughts
in my mind about enjoying the blessings and the freedom,
the opportunities that we do enjoy living here in America.
And so I have a favorite song that's by Jay

(18:22):
and the Americans, and it's it's called Only in America,
And so I googled it to listen to the words
of that because it's always inspired. It's very inspirational to me.
It inspires me, it came out in nineteen sixty four.
It's track five of one of their albums called Come
a little Bit Closer. But when I go into prisons,

(18:43):
all these years be ten years in a couple of months.
I like to motivate, at least try to motivate people
by talking about, you know, only in America. And then
I changed their lyrics a little bit and I go
where a poor boy, uh, poor boy like me. What
that's referring to is is some of the lyrics are

(19:03):
let me quote a couple of random lyrics from this song.
It says, only in America can a kid without a
sent get a break and maybe grow up to be president?
Well before I go through all the lyrics of Jay
and the Americans version of Only in America, the country
group Brooks and Done they wrote the only in America

(19:25):
and they've got the same thoughts in there. One kid
dreams of fame and fortune. One kid helps pay the rent.
One kid could end up going to prisident one just
might be president. They're both giving you the same idea.
It doesn't matter where you come from, it doesn't matter
where you at. This is America, land of opportunity, and

(19:46):
you can end up in a tremendous place. Another one
of the lines from Jay and Americas. Only in America,
could a dream like this come true? Could a guy
like me start with nothing and end up with you?
I like that because a lot of a lot of
us guys are always acknowledging to, uh, to our our

(20:09):
our wives or our girlfriends, that you know, yeah, we
married up, you know, uh we were we were fortunate
to uh to have you, you know, marry me. Well,
here's a Brooks and dunline that's got the same thought
to it. Son going down on an LA Freeway, newlyweds
in the back of a limousine, a welder son, and

(20:30):
a banker's daughter. All they want is everything only in America,
dreaming in red, white and blue. Only in America, where
we dream as big as we want to, we all
get a chance. Everybody gets to dance. Only in America. Yeah,
the thoughts that are in these these songs is great.

(20:53):
But then Jay and the Americans comes back with you know,
the welder and the banker's daughter idea that Brooks and
Dunn said. Here's their version of that. Only in America,
Land of Opportunity. Would a classy girl like you fall
for a poor boy like me. So just remember, everybody,
you know, it's not about class, it's not about wealth,

(21:16):
It's about character. That's the way I like to sum
all that up. But then there's another another version of
you know, only in America or America that I want
to share with you. West Side Story has been my
favorite musical my entire life, since since I was in

(21:37):
high school. And there's so much about that song. You know,
it was Rita Moreno, Natalie Wood, George Jacaris, Richard Bemer,
Russ Hamlin, these are these are five of the stars
of that But it was an incredible musical. It was
directed by Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins. The music was by

(22:00):
Leonard Bernstein. And uh, it's just a great, great dance number.
And and it's by the uh you know, you got
the Jets and the Sharks or the or the two
rival groups. The Jets or the American Guys and Gals
and the Sharks are from Puerto Rico. And uh, I'm
not gonna tell the whole story. It was side Story.

(22:20):
Just it's it's fabulous. But they're they're singing and dancing
and and this song is done by by the Puerto Ricans,
Puerto Ricans, Queerto Ricans. And what's happening on this song
is is that all of the girls are just so
thrilled to be living in America, but all the guys

(22:41):
are saying, yeah, right unless you're white. You know, it
brought out a whole lot of racism kind of stuff
and and and that, but it was just a wonderful song.
But the the the upbeat side of the that the
females are singing is, uh, you know, it's so much
better than then in Puerto Rico. It's like, I like

(23:03):
to be in America. Okay, by me in America. Everything
free in America. And then the guy's response was, for
a small feet in America, it's not really free. They
go buying on credit is so nice, and then the
guys say one look at us and they charge you twice.
And then the girls will say things skyscrapers bloom in America,

(23:23):
Cadillac zoom in America, industry boom in America. And then
the guys come back with twelve in a room in
America like they're living very very crowded. But you know,
what we're talking about here is a lot of people
that haven't gotten to where they would love to be,

(23:44):
where their lives are still hard. It is tough sometimes,
I mean, there's no kid around about that. It is tough.
But you know what, if you put your mind to it,
you can end up on the good side of life here.
And so it reminds me of an experience that I had.
I was in West Virginia to prison in West Virginia

(24:06):
about six years or so ago, and I traveled about
seven hours to get there. I had it scheduled, and
so I get there and it was going to be
an evening class and I had ninety some people were
going to be in participation. I took ninety I printed
ninety some of my workbooks, and then I drove. I

(24:29):
got up plenty of time to get there around five
o'clock or so for a six thirty class that I
was scheduled for. I'd been there several times before in
this facility, and so when I get there, the guard
house was closed, and there wasn't anybody answered the phone,

(24:53):
and there wasn't any way that I could get in,
and so I walked all around and then I found
my way into a a delivery entrance where there was
a guard and they let me in and then they
checked with the staff and I wasn't on the schedule.
I drove eight hours to go do a presentation in

(25:15):
this particular prison, So it was a little bit disturbing.
Did you go that far? And I've driven three hours
to prisons in Virginia where when I get there, they
had a lockdown and they had to call me ahead
of time. But I understand that completely. You know, I'm
the last thing that they need to worry about is
they make sure he called Steve, who's getting ready to
come in and do a seminar because he can't come

(25:37):
in because we're in lockdown. But eight hours was different.
And so I finally got through to the counselor that
was responsible for scheduling me in and I got an
incredibly impassionate apology for forgetting to put it on the schedule,

(25:57):
and so I said, well, what do you want to
do and she said, well, hold on a minute. So
it ends up that they went to the area the
area of the prison where this prison actually it had
a large work release center, and it was very unusual prison.

(26:18):
They had different They had different floors where their house
female inmates and male inmates, and so they ended up
letting everybody know that at seven o'clock, not six point thirty,
they were required to come into the cafeteria area for
my seminar. Well, put yourself in my shoes. You're not

(26:41):
going to be the most light guy in that prison.
Because they had no idea they had to come. It
was a two hour It was a two hour seminar.
So about ninety people came in and I agreeed everybody
as they come in, and the large majority of everybody
that came in was very, very upset that they had

(27:03):
to be there. Back then, it was before coronavirus, and
I'd shake hands with everybody that came in, introduced myself,
and probably about two thirds of them they didn't want
to shake my hand, but I would give each one
of them the seminar workbook, and that was the number.
Two thirds of them refused to let me hand them

(27:24):
my workbook. They were just disgusted to have to be there.
So so I'm in this cafeteria to do a seminar,
and and I was kind of like in the middle,
and it was like a theater in the round type
set up for me, you know. They was they were
seated everywhere, and as I was doing my my my

(27:45):
conversation about opportunities and how you can do better once
you get released and give them some pointers and whatever
it is that I was presenting, this one gentleman and
his name was John. He got very, very upset when
I told him about the types of opportunities that wait

(28:06):
you on the outside if you present yourself properly and
you've done your homework. Well, he shouted out, without even
raising his hand, that that ain't the world he lives in.
And so it went on like that for a moment
or two with him expressed himself very angrily, and then
I said, well, time out, time out, just for a second,

(28:28):
and he started really getting on the edge of hostile
because he didn't want to be there. And they were
kind of like in this mindset that let's just give
Steve a disrespectful hard time. And see only time that's
ever happened to me with the whole group because it
was just not scheduled, and they got surprised, and I

(28:49):
I was terribly apologetic that they were forced to come
to have to hear my seminar. Well, what happened next
was John got kind of kind of kind of agitated,
and and I, you know, I listened carefully to what
he was saying. And there was there was only one
guard in the in the area that night, and he

(29:10):
started to come forth to try to remove John, and
I said, no, no, please, please, you know, you know John,
I I hear where you're coming from. And I said,
but what I want to tell you is what you're
saying is your experience in life. The way that it's
not like that for you. I'm sorry that it's not
like that for you. But what I'm here to tell
you is is that it can be exactly like I'm

(29:34):
trying to describe to you, if you were to change
your attitude towards certain things and try to try to
learn to deal with with some of the anger and
the feelings that you have that you've never been given
a fair opportunity. And so anyway, we went through that
for a few minutes. The reason I bring that experience
up to you is I'm well aware that when somebody's

(29:58):
trying to h to we'll say, preach the gospel. That's
a religious term. But you know, just try to put
this positive thinking and give you some tools, you know,
like hey, for me, you know, I try to know
my purpose and I try to laugh at myself sometimes
I try to lighten up. I take a break when
I need to. I you know, I get up from

(30:19):
what I'm doing and I come back refreshed. I try
to keep a clear mind. I meditate. But to somebody
that's just out there just just struggling every day, maybe
that kind of thinking is not They're not hearing it.
They're not realizing that there's ways that they can learn
new things. So that's the end of what I'm trying

(30:40):
to say. To go back to how I do what
I do. I know that it might not be your
life experience to understand what I'm saying or to even
believe what I'm saying, but just take it one step
at a time, and remember there are many many people
out there that want to be there for you, that
want to want to be helpful, that can be kind

(31:03):
will be kind for you. So hey, I've got a
lot of personal friends that have been incarcerated that have
come out that I've started out as a mentorship relationship,
but it ended up being just a good friendship. And
I've got to show a couple of years back from
Dwayne Malov and I talked to him just yesterday, just

(31:24):
checked in on him. We hadn't talked for a month
or two, and now the couple shows that he's been
on just sort of telling his story. He was in
prison for twenty seven years and then he got out.
He turned his life around. I mean, he started when
he was in prison, did a lot of studies, and
you got a couple of degrees and things of that nature.

(31:44):
But the best thing about Dwayne is is that I
spoke about it on a show a couple of years ago.
He was living in this apartment building and there's a
ninety year old woman there that he gave her a
surprise ninetieth birthday party. And he does all of our
grocery shop and goes to the farmer seeing picks up
her prescriptions. He is doing for others, And so when

(32:05):
I talked to him yesterday, he told me that he's
I think it was his His mother was going to
go out of town somewhere, and so it might be
his grandmother. At one of her neighbors is ninety two
years old, and so he said that he was going
to be having to kind of look at and take
care of this ninety two year old woman, you know,
for the next week or so. And I just I
just chuckled and grinned. I said, yeah, I know you

(32:28):
like older women. No, but the bottom line of what
I'm saying is is that you can turn your life around,
start doing for other people like Dwayne has, and you're
going to experience wonderful things in your life. Well, I
told you that I was preparing for this show, and
I decided because it was Thanksgiving, I tried to get

(32:48):
into some thoughts about thankfulness, and so one of the
things that I led myself into was the Preamble to
the Constanitute of the United States. And so let me
read that we, the people of the United States, in
order to form a more perfect Union, established justice, ensure

(33:13):
domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare,
and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and their posterity,
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States
of America. Well, you know, the preamble is an introduction statement,

(33:36):
and it just kind of gives you the beginning of
what the Constitution is going to be talking about. Well,
the word posterity is an interesting word that's in the Constitution.
It's not an everyday word. It's a word that applies
to posterity. Is all future generations. Like when Abraham was

(33:56):
given the blessings you know, from God, it was for
the posterity of all of the future generations there. And
so what I what I wanted to focus on though,
is the line secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves
and our posterity right there in our constitution. This country,

(34:20):
the one that I talked about only in America, the
land of opportunity. Our constitution gives us, gives us these
this this future that's there for us. And and you
know I started off you know, we the people. We
the people are the first three words, and the Constitution

(34:41):
it you know, the power of America is derived from
us the people, you know, not the government. And so
when I'm when I'm just trying to trying to bring
up here is is that our country is just a
great place where we enjoy these freedoms, where these freedoms

(35:01):
are protected. And so, uh, what I what I'm just
trying to say right here is is that let's go
after what these promises are that we've given, We've been
given in this land. And uh, you know, I uh,
I've talked a lot about how I read a series

(35:21):
of books with with my grandson Willie, and and these
books are biographies and histories and things. He's only seven
years old. But I'm enjoying what we're doing. And there's
a there's a series called the w h O h
Q Series, and I love right here in the in

(35:41):
the flap of the book, here it says, we firmly
believe history lives in the facts, and we recognize the
different points of view of our readers from all around
the world. We consistently review our books and rely on
readers like you to help us tell these stories in
the correct way. And they talk all about uh uh trailblazers, legends,

(36:02):
famous places, and they talk about world shaping events. By
the way, I know that I have a lot of
listeners that don't live in the United States, And so
when I talk about these blessings that we have in
the United States, many of you live in countries where
you do enjoy the same, the same blessings, several blessings,
your your your national constitutions and and things. Uh, they

(36:24):
may be they may be a little different, but and
some of you don't enjoy these blessings, so you know,
so I just want you to know that I love
being in America, and I hope that you enjoy wherever
you're at just as much, and that you know, I
know that you're in maybe another country as you listen.
One of the books that I read this this week

(36:45):
was Mark Twain, who was Mark Twain? And boy, what
a wonderful I can relate to Mark Twain. What a
wonderful biography of Mark Twain. It's got all the facts right.
I've read a lot about Mark Twain, and uh, here's
one thing that I want to tell you as you've
listened to me today and for the last two hundred
and forty eight episodes prior to today, I know that

(37:08):
I'm not like some professional writers. I'm not real, you know,
well known, world famous type person. But I try to
take my own life experiences and be transparent. I've gone
through a lot of hardship, you know. I started the
show talking about, you know, my terminal illness and how
I mark each Thanksgiving is another year that I've made

(37:29):
it here, and I'm so thankful well my communication. You know,
professional writers, they might not like the way that I
that I either write or speak. Sometimes I ramble sometimes.
But Mark Twain has said something that made me grin.
When he was first starting out, he was accused of

(37:51):
being just people don't right like that. He wrote how
people Talk. He wrote a lot of slang things like that,
you know, especially a Huckleberry Finn boy. He you know,
the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Tom Sarrys's greatest novel than
the sequels, Huckleberry Finn. It's been around for about one
hundred and fifty years or so. It's just great literature.

(38:15):
Mark Twain's the greatest American humorous then Will Rogers came
right up there with him. But here's what Mark Twain says.
There's a wonderful quote I just related to this. He says, quote,
my works are like water. The works of the great
masters are like wine. But everybody drinks water. That made

(38:35):
me feel good, Like, hey, every one of you that's
out there that you don't feel like you're you know,
top of the class. You know you're not rich and famous,
neither am I. But you know what you know that
constitution this country that men have died for, you know,
men and women have died for it gives us freedoms,
it gives us rights. So be yourself, don't break laws,

(38:59):
love other people. Mark Twain said something really good though.
He said, you can't depend on your judgment when your
imagination is out of focus. Please, no matter how low
your circumstances are, still dream. Still use your imagination because
if you just try to just move your life for

(39:19):
it and it's drudgery and it's hard, you might not
be able to overcome some of your obstacles because you
might be a little bit to depressed, so to speak. Now,
here's one that's got nothing to do. Nothing to do.
There you go, that's a Mark Twain kind of word. Nothing.
Here's one that I really like. That's a little off
theme here, but it's vintage Mark Twain. Get your facts first,

(39:46):
and then you can distort them as much as you please.
Well he was one of the greatest storytellers ever. And
but that's you know, get your facts right, then you
can change them any way you want. On a show
about a couple of months ago, I used the Mark
Twain quote it is better to keep your mouth closed

(40:08):
and let people think you are a fool than to
open it and remove all doubt. Well, I should probably
not speak anymore, but this is radio, so I'm going
to risk it. Okay, what what I want to tell
you is just a couple more things as we bring
the show to a close. The Thanksgiving holiday. As I

(40:32):
was reading about Abraham Lincoln and the things that he said,
you know, and he said some wonderful things, you know,
even in his Gettysburg address. He really, he really was
a fabulous person. But when he received letters, there was
a woman. There was a woman. This little trivia that's important.

(40:56):
Her name was Sarah Josepha. For three decades, thirty years,
she wrote letters to presidents of the United States, and
Abraham Linking only a week before he wrote the Emancipation

(41:17):
Proclamation where he gave freedom to all the slaves in America.
Just a week before that, he responded to her letter.
She was pushing to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. She
was a woman way ahead of her times. She founded
the American Ladies magazine, and she promoted women's suffrage long

(41:41):
before anyone else ever did. And so she was just
an amazing woman. But the Thanksgiving holiday was started by
a proclamation from President Abraham Linking. And by the way,
the same woman she wrote the poem Mary had a

(42:02):
little lamb, and so she has a nickname that she
is the mother of Thanksgiving. I thought that was kind
of interesting trivia since Thanksgivings just this week. Well as
we as we in the show and we talk a
little bit more about Thanksgiving. You know, gratitude and thankfulness
are are very very closely aligned. I guess that gratitude

(42:27):
is maybe more into the spiritual love affection type of feelings,
whereas being thankful is more of a well that's a
feeling too, I'm sure, but it's also showing your thankfulness
where where you offer thanks to you're grateful and you

(42:52):
offer thanks, you know, that's all. But you know, thankfulness
is a show of appreciation, being grateful, offering thanks, and
it's it's a wonderful it's a wonderful thing to be
able to do and to feel. And just just so

(43:12):
that I won't be accused of being too serious all
the time, these are good for your children, maybe your grandchildren,
maybe for yourself. I just want to ask a few
questions that relate to Thanksgiving. How come the turkey didn't
have any dessert? Well, he was already stuffed. What was
the Pilgrim's favorite type of music Plymouth rock, and be

(43:36):
sure you get down in an air guitar stance when
you when you give that answer, why can't you take
a turkey to church? They use foul language? What do
you get if you divide this circumference of a pumpkin
by its diameter? I'm heavily into math. I'll repeat that one.
What you get if you divide this circumference of a

(43:57):
pumpkin by its diameter? Get pumpkin pie. Some of you
might not get that, but it's okay if you don't,
because pie is the formula for determining you know the circumference,
if you know the diameter and whatever. Okay, Now here's
a Here's one that I think is pretty intelligent. If
Pilgrims traveled on the Mayflower, what do college students travel

(44:22):
on scholarships? Here's one For some of you that are
running the streets a lot, you might you might know
this one. What happened when the turkey got into a fight,
He got the stuff he knocked out of him. And
for all of you that are aspiring to being musicians,
what is the most musical part of a turkey? The drumstick? Well,

(44:45):
let me just close with First Corinthians, chapter six, verse twelve.
You say I am allowed to do anything, but not
everything is good for you. And even though I am
allowed to do anything, I must not become a slave
to anything. As you go forth and count your blessings
this week, I just want you to remember that your

(45:08):
life is a blessing and it's a choice, and I'm
here for you. Rightthink dot org. Just reach out contact me,
reach out through the website and then we can talk
on the phone, we can correspond through email, whatever we
need to do. But I want you to know that
there's plenty of people out there that care about you.

(45:31):
I care about you, and I want you to I
want you to have the most wonderful Thanksgiving and share
with me and counting your blessings this year. God bless you.
We'll see you next week. Thanks for listening to Right
Thinking with Steve Copland. I'll look forward to being with
you again next week. And remember, don't quit. Plan ahead.
It will get better. God bless you and have a

(45:53):
great week.