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The Power of Gratitude: How One Simple Practice Can Change Your Life · Captivate the Mic: Master Public Speaking & Video, Build Confidence and Boost Visibility

• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody, welcome to Captivate the Mic with Elaine Williams.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Which I do not usually have men.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I love men, but I you know, in the past I've I've always wanted to help elevate female entrepreneurs in their stories, but I do make exceptions for super cool human beings who happen to be male, and this guy is no exception.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: I've even met him years ago through a mutual friend, Joseph Marghese, and success circles.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: And this guy is so inspiring.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: And learning about his journey, you are gonna be so moved.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: So you're in for such a treat.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: Please help me welcome Gammarth Standefor to the podcast of the show.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Garth, welcome.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, hey Elaine, welcome.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm happy to be here.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like it's always exciting when someone wants to hear something that I have to say.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: No, like some because I'm getting an learning, hearing remote.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: You so we have just for some context.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm a coach speaker among thermal other things, and then I have this passion project called Hug in the Mail that we I started with two mutual friends that Garth knows to bring joy and love and connection back to the mailbox and help people step away from the screen and then have something fun in your in your hands every month.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and we're building community and you know, it feels like we're going at a glacial pace because I'm a triple A and I want everything, you know, I want to wing take a wing link and have it all be done.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: But so we we were talking to Gumarth about how he built his fabulous community, and that was the inspiration for like, oh my gosh, I have to have you on the show.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so, Gumarth, tell us a little bit, take us back to where you were.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: You were in New Jersey.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Tell tell us, start us back.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're going back almost, I I would say six years ago, more than six years ago.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I was in in New Jersey.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not there now, but I was in New Jersey and I was running uh a group called the New Jersey Power Team, which is a a group of people from personal development areas, Tony Robbins, Hayhouse, Wayne Dyer, Don Miguel, those types of people, we would all come together and talk about, you know, whatever that's the subject matter was for that particular day.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so on this day, because we met on a Wednesdays and we met in Somerset, I had one of my friends, a good friend, uh Tony Rodriguez, who was the speaker.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then after he spoke that night, we we we were getting together as a group, and he started telling me about gratitude.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, you know, I got this guy that sends me a gratitude text every day, and and every day he sends me one thing that's unique, and I said, Oh, that's that's cool.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he and he, you know, was talking to a group of us, and he said, You know, you all should try this.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And and so so so I tried it.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing he didn't know that I was having a challenge.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that same day that I was there that Wednesday, the week before my electricity at my house had sh was shut off, I went through the season and I didn't have enough money to pay electric the electric.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: I could pay some other bills, but I owed like I could put it into perspective, I owed like about three thousand dollars.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I was a realtor, and so I figured, well, I need my car to get around so I can show properties and and and uh do open houses.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I gotta keep that going.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so that juggle, you know, where you're robbing Peter to pay Paul.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, I know it well, honey.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so so Paul came looking for his money, and I didn't have it.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: I hate it when that happens, right?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I gotta tell you, I was I had never, ever, ever, ever in my whole entire life ever had my electricity shut off.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: I had friends of mine who had had it and uh and and so on, but it never happened to me.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: I never had that level of hardship.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and and so when this happened of the first day or the first hour when it happened, my my whole psychology just sunk to the bottom of the floor.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I was so embarrassed that I didn't tell anybody.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, I don't think anybody, Tony didn't know for for until a year later.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think maybe one or two people I told, but I I didn't tell anybody.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: I just said, okay, I got no electricity.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm gonna just have to figure out figure it out.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so so this is a week later, and uh Tony and and he says, take on this gratitude thing, and I'm like, okay, I'll I'll do it.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I still had two offices, and one was in Somerset and the other one was in in I think in Edison, uh, because I was on a team.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: So the team office was in Edison.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so I started eating co-cuts and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and you know, uh I would stay out as long as I possibly could, you know, and it would get dark around 8 30, 9 o'clock, and that's when I would come back home because uh only thing I could do at home was go to sleep.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you know I was just really embarrassed in and I say I was so embarrassed, but I I I you know back then, you know, I I could never really ever have conceived in my mind that I would ever be in a situation like that.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so I didn't say anything, and so I I went through that that period and I had no electricity now to put things into perspective for a hundred days exactly, one hundred days I had no electricity from May uh the 16th or the 17th into I think it was uh August something, you know, 100 days.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the only reason I got the electricity turn back on, I because I could never come up with the money.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: And even when I closed on on a house, I just didn't have enough cash to get it.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Was I I happened to mention to a to it to a friend the day before the 100th day, and and and and they said, Listen, I I known you a long time and I I can't stand to to see you be in this situation for as long as you have been.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how much is it?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I was so embarrassed, I didn't even want to tell them what it was, but I told them and they said I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna wire you the money and and and and this is not a loan, this is a gift.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: And they sent me that three thousand dollars in change and I got the electricity turned on but the next day.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then I I I went about my business doing my real estate thing and and just continued on like you know it was okay.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, in that time frame, I had started doing Facebook Live.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: I did my very first Facebook Live, I think uh I don't know, maybe thirty, sixty days in, and I did thirty days.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: There was this group on Facebook that you could do lives in, and I didn't realize this until after the fact, like when I, you know, fast forward to twenty twenty-four, I think it was, or twenty-three, I I I wrote a book and called Gratitude Transform, and I I I was doing research and I went back and I found those videos and uh I was happy.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Can you believe it?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was happy, but in my mind when I was going through that stuff, I yeah, I didn't know I was that happy.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was just like stressed out.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so I love it.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: So can you can you skip ahead to starting the thing?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not quite sure.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I um had to leave uh New Jersey to come back to Barbados to take care of my parents because they were ill.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I came back, and then in 2020, that's I think when we st we had COVID, but in in the January of that year, Tony called me and said, Oh, you gotta join Clubhouse, and I'm like, dude, I don't know what Clubhouse is, I don't want to be on any social media.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: He actually told me this back in December before I left New Jersey, but in January 7th, he called me and I signed up that day and I didn't do anything.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then a couple months later, I I I get a a ping, and it's the the topic sounds interesting.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: I end up on Clubhouse with Tony and Amanda, and uh, you know, after two days I I saw that this this this room, this environment would be a great a great place to start a gratitude movement.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's when I started the gratitude movement.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so Clubhouse on Clubhouse.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Which was an app for people who don't know.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: It was I think it was really big in 2020, and everybody was creating their own clubhouse rooms and it was all audio.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: There was no video.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so some people were like, Thank god, I'm sick of video and social media and all having to look good.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was a huge movement and it really helped a lot of us during COVID, right?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it did.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: It did.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: It did have we we used to have hundreds of people uh waiting to go into our room.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh so yeah, so when I started this this this clubhouse thing, I I actually was afraid when I started Clubhouse.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: The the day that I actually scheduled my first room, it was a Saturday, I called Tony up and I said, you know, how do you start a room on Clubhouse?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: And he took me through the process, and I was like, Man, I don't know if I want to do this because I'm thinking, like, where are the people gonna come from?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: How am I gonna even maintain this?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because it I can't do it every single day.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And a little voice in my head said, Screw all that, just set schedule a room and we'll figure it out.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: So we did.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that was over five years ago, almost six years ago.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember, you know, that first day, um, I I I had this feeling like, you know what?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever information I need, whatever resource I need is gonna come to me.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, granted, I didn't even have the money because we used to have our our our we would have team meetings to have a a Zoom account.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I just didn't have the money because I stopped working.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was just I I wasn't, you know, making any money anymore.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was 2020, it was the middle of COVID.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so so we started this, and and you know, if I can fast forward, we've had tens of thousands of people, you know, come in and uh join us to be exact.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think we've got maybe 28, almost 29,000 people on Facebook, and then we've got almost 10,000 on Clubhouse, which is ironic because we didn't start out in in the room that we're in now, in the house that we're in.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: The house that we're in is our house, but when we first started for about a year and a half, we were in Tony's house, and so that house had about 15,000 members, and uh and and so we we decided that we we were gonna leave and start our own house, and that was a a a big a big decision because I was like many.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: That can feel scary.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like, are they gonna come?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and they didn't come.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't no, they didn't come.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: I I I remember when we started a house, there was maybe a hundred, two hundred people in our house initially, and that was probably a good six, seven months, maybe a year.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we didn't have a lot of people, and then over over the last couple of years we've we've grown.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and you know, we've got moderators, volunteers from all around the world.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: That was one of the beautiful things I liked about the Daily Gratitude Movement is that our our moderators come from all over Africa, you know, Canada, the US, the UK, France, Mexico, uh, because we had uh someone in Los Cabos, and but the majority of our our our members come from or volunteers come from from the US.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we've we've been having this clubhouse room.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's been every single day, so just imagine, every single day, 365 days, every single year.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're now in our sixth year, we've had a clubhouse room.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: We went from one, two hours a day to you know, some days we were like eight, nine hours, now we're probably about three to four hours.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: But every single day we have a room and we have volunteers, and some of the volunteers have been with with us for the entire time.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yesterday we just had a uh World Gratitude Day, and and this year we did it virtually as opposed to last year where we met in person in Atlanta, and we had we had a nice turnout.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was really wonderful.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And and I never thought that something like that would have become what it is today.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was if you want to say I was surprised.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: I really was, and even to this day.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, go ahead.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I get so excited.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to back you up for just a minute.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: So you you start this clubhouse, daily gratitude, and you're in another umbrella, a house, what they call in clubhouse.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then which is if if people are listening, it's more like a Facebook group, if you will.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then so Garth, you start your own thing and then nobody's coming, but you kept going.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like what and then you just slowly people started coming.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about that.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: I remember the days when we when we switched over, it just seemed like you know, when we made that switch, that that first couple of months seemed like maybe 40-50 people were coming every single day, and that was it.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, Well, you know, we're all these people.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and but we just kept doing it anyway.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: We just kept having a room every single day, and then eventually people just started coming back again and and and we continue to grow.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: I remember the Facebook group, for example.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: I started that group not to be what it is now, but I started that group because back in the day, Clubhouse did not have Android users, it was just iPhone users.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I started it for the Android users.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I love that.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean to me, this is such a great theme of of being of service in the face of you can't pay your electric bill, or in the face of all right, well, people want to come, but they can't get in if they're Android users.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's do a Facebook thing.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you know, you never were like, I'm gonna create this huge community.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: And and so, Garth, when you were doing the rooms, were there different gratitude themes, or was just like somebody would lead and say, Okay, let's talk about gratitude and daily gratitude, were there tell tell us a little bit about that.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, it's it's so that part's route is is very simple.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: We we we only ask one question.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the one question we ask is, What are you grateful for?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's all we uh ever ask.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: What are you grateful for?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, wow, but now what makes it special is we ask that question, and then the person will say, I am grateful for the sun that came up this morning, I'm grateful for my health.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and they'll go on all the things that they're grateful for.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the the the moderator who is uh a member of the Daily Gratitude movement, when they're done, they would say, Thank you so much for sharing.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's so great to hear you share how how how grateful you are for your health, how grateful you are for your family, and give them maybe about 20 to 30 seconds of what they said, so it repeat back to them what they hear.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what makes it special because a lot of times people will say stuff and nobody ever gives them any feedback.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: They don't get any verbal feedback, uh, and so they get verbal feedback that way.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that I think happens, and I used to say that we are like a satellite dish.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of the signal coming into us, we are beaming the signal out, and there is something magical that happens when you speak your gratitude out loud.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you're, you know, when you speak it out loud, you can speak it out loud to yourself, but when you speak it out loud to a room of people, it amplifies and it magnifies your gratitude.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you're writing it too, so you've got these three things happening, and I can tell you almost, you know, without I can't even ever think of a time where it didn't work.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: But if you come in and you share your gratitude every day for at least two to three months, you're gonna change, you're gonna be a different person.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and we would know this because in Clubhouse, because it's an audio-only app, there's only a picture of you, whatever picture you decide.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And some people never had pictures, they would just have some some kind of picture of a flower or something else.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: But the day that they felt gratitude and they believed it, they would change their picture and it would be a picture of them smiling, and that's when we know that they the person tipped and they came over to the other side and they passed through that needle of of believing in gratitude.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and it always, always happens.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that used to crap me up a lot too is is uh we don't have people come in and they say, I don't know how I found this room, I don't even know where you guys came from.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: I just ended up here.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: I said, No, you didn't end up here.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: You set an intention that you wanted a community or something.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: You did something because you were here because of something you did.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so we would chuckle all the time when we'd hear someone say, I don't even know how I got here.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you got here.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's like divine.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: I just love it so much.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm as a comedian, you're looking for, you know, comedy is tragedy plus time, right?
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: So, which is a great way to reframe when you're having a tough day or stuff happens and you're going through it.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: I've learned to say, okay, this is gonna be hilarious in three months or a year, right?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: And what I've learned from being a coach and a speaker and a personal development junkie is our brains are skewed negative, right?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's a hundred berries.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: We remember the one poisonous berry because that's always taken aluminative as humans, right?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: We see the tiger rummen.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, so there's a limit of there used to be a limited benefit about focusing on the negative stuff because it helped us serve aluminum as a species, and then it doesn't serve us so much.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yes, it's good to like don't step in front of the bum, you know, stop with a red limit.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I think just knowing that the human brain has a tendency to skew negative as a survival stink, and the gift is we get to choose how we want to refocus and recalibrate, right?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, when you're looking for things to be grateful for, it's such a more fun way to go through your day, right?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: When you start to practice gratitude for any length of time, and I I I didn't say this in the beginning, so so one of the requirements that I got from Tony that very first night was that you gotta send me a text every single day.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: So now I want you to imagine this is almost eight years ago, and I've sent Tony a single every day a gratitude text, every single day for the last almost eight years.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm in my I'm halfway through the eight the eight years now.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and and I one year I I went back maybe two years ago, and I I I got all the the texts that I sent him and then and and took all the gratitudes that I I wrote and and and at that point I had fifteen thousand different unique things that I was grateful for.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you can if that you know and I didn't even know how I was able to do that.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the other thing that happened was gratitude helped me to process death differently.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've lost uh in the last five years some really close friends in addition to my father, and how I grieve lost now is totally different than how I did ten years ago.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I am grateful for all the things that I've had with that person and I and I and and I see them from a place of gratitude, and it's helped me to really process grief a whole lot different than than before.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that is something that that's really been phenomenal for me.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's so profound, Garth.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing that happened to me that I didn't know was gonna happen to me is I don't complain like I used to.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Just I just don't.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and there's been so many good things.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: And and and you know, in our movement, we we we cater to every single person, meaning that we don't discriminate.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: We don't we we're not a a a a a religious organization, so uh there's people of all denominations or no denominations that are part of our movement.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And we even and this, I tell you, the first time it happened, I I I needed uh I needed a uh an adjustment, so to speak, was when I had a blind guy from India, his name is Subhumani, and he said he wanted to be a moderator.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking to myself, like, how dude, how are you gonna moderate?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're blind, you can't even see.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: And and and he says, No, I I got an app that that helps me does voiceover and I can do it.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: I just need someone else in the room just to see who's there.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he moderated for us for a long, long time.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: And if he didn't tell you that he was blind, you would have never known it was that good.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's powerful, Garth.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: I l I love this.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: I love this conversation, and I'm gonna have all the information for your gratitude movement below in the show notes, and of course, we're hoping that we can partner with you in some some cool way with hug in the mail and because to me it's such a you know, just getting to connect with in a human way is so important now more than ever.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I love that.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: As we wrap up, Garth, is there any other thing do you want to share like a favorite story about somebody who just transformed or or more about yourself?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I I have so many stories like that, you know.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, over the years I I became a Tony Robbins trainer, and as a result, I got to travel to a lot of different cities.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and one year I went to to to Dallas.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is maybe about three three years ago, maybe four years ago.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: And there was this there's this lady, Rachel.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: She's been in a wheelchair pretty much almost her entire life.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: She has cerebral palsy, and uh she needs a caretaker to take care of her.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And uh she lives in Waco, Texas.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the year that I went to to to do the the the Tony event, her and her aunt decided that they were gonna drive two hours to come meet me, you know?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and and they did, and so I took a break from what I was doing, and I I went back and we met at a restaurant.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we met in a hotel lobby, and then we went to a restaurant to have lunch, and and I remember sitting and talking to Rachel, and and Rachel said to me, I never used to talk like this before.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: I was always quiet.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And when I started practicing gratitude and I started, you know, believing in myself, like all these things started to change, and she's very articulate now.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And she moderates the room with with with with um Haroon on on um Tuesday mornings.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I've seen her transform from a person who didn't say anything to a person who is extremely articulate, and and and I realized that just because she couldn't move her arms and legs like other people did, but everything else was there, everything else was intact, and and and you could see it, and and you know, I mean she got dolled up and everything for me, which is kind of cute, you know.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I and I I will never forget that.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: And when we sat and talked at that lunch, and she told me her life story, uh, you know, about her mother and and and and what life has been like, and she's in her 40s now.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was really touched by that.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: And and I I've got lots of stories like that.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, Rachel is one, you know.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we recently had a a a lady who was living in Colorado who left her her husband and uh moved to Long Island, and she's gone through a complete transformation where she's a different human being.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now taking care of herself and doing all the things.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: We've had people which which really amazes me.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: We've had a few people who had losses in their life like deaths.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: One person in particular from Canada, you know, when his mother died, he came to the gratitude room to the community, the gratitude community, and he shared about his loss.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he shared about how he felt and and and he was just embraced by all the people in our environment to be able to to go through that.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: We had another guy.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: I forget where he was, but his wife died.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and and he was in the room and he we kept the room open when he a as he sat with the body of his deceased wife to the to the people that were supposed to take her away came and shared gratitude.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he shared.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and he's since gotten remarried.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and and and so you know, people will tell you that uh being a part of the gratitude movement has changed and transformed their lives.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: They are completely different people than what they were when they first started.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we see it over and over again.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: People we've built a community because we're not just in the room, but we also have a community.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: The Facebook group, you know, the clubhouse, but we also have our our our our volunteers.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: We've got, you know, now I think we've got about 50 or so volunteers.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: At one point we had almost 120.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and in our community, we have a monthly meeting where everyone comes together to share them you know about themselves and we acknowledge wins and all those things.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: We have a leadership team and we have a a board, uh board members, board of directors.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we have all that because we became a about four years ago, we decided not it's more I don't know if it's four years ago or just a little bit over four years ago, we decided to become a 501c nonprofit.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: So we are a nonprofit, we're a corporation, and we fundraise to get funds in order to be able to to cover our costs, and we are still continuing to do that.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I I don't I never imagine in a hundred thousand years that I would be doing what I'm doing now.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: I never imagined that the people who are around me would be around me.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: I've traveled to a number of cities to meet different volunteers in person, which is something I never thought that I would ever be doing.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is is brought me a richness of friendships and connections to people that I never would have thought.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then within that own world, other people have made connections to other people that would have never been possible had we not had the Daily Gratitude movement.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been it's been it's been a good thing, and I and I I feel like even after I'm gone, this will be here.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And this will continue, whether I do it or not, it will continue.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: Garth, I love it.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for being so vulnerable and sharing your journey.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm I love books and I love workshops and I I love all the things.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: I listen to a lot of things.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I know when I have structure around what I'm really wanting to practice or create, it's just so much better for me because I'll read the book and then eventually the book goes back on the shelf, right?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: Or I listen to the thing and then I finish the book, and then and so I just love this structure of a daily gratitude movement.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: We will have all the information below.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's free.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: And what a beautiful, beautiful journey.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't wait for more people to discover you and your the your movement and the fact that you started when things were not great.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he didn't wait.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just so moved by the whole thing.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you so much for for joining us today at Captivate the Mic.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: And if you are listening or watching, I really am and I invite you to please share this episode with somebody who needs to be lifted up, who needs some inspiration, who's maybe going through it, or maybe somebody who just is maybe they're going through it and it's great.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: But please share this, subscribe, rate, and review because that's how we get the podcast out more into other people's hands.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, my intention was to help people become better storytellers and be better with motivating and inspiring and also interviewing.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to have an inspiring guests on the show, and you've definitely been that for us, Garth.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much for spending some time with us.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks everybody for watching and have a great day.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: Bye, everybody.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, thank you.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.