Latest / Why Not Today? with Leslie Kane / The Why Not Today? Podcast - Season 3 - Episode 3 with Mary Latham, More Good Today

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The Why Not Today? Podcast - Season 3 - Episode 3 with Mary Latham, More Good Today · Why Not Today? with Leslie Kane

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Welcome to the Why Not Today podcast where we celebrate courage, determination, and the
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power of saying, Why Not Today.
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I'm your host, Leslie Kane.
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Each episode, we dive into inspiring stories of individuals who have taken bold steps,
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faced their fears, and embraced the possibility of today.
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From entrepreneurs to artists, dreamers to doers, we explore the moments when they had
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enough, and they said, or they said, enough waiting.
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Why Not Today.
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Join me as we uncover the heartwarming, the audacious, and the transformative, whether
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it's pursuing a lifelong passion, overcoming obstacles, or simply choosing joy.
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Our guests share their journeys and inspire us all.
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I started this podcast in honor of my father, Patrick Kane, who often said, Why Not Today.
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Remember, you're just one decision away from changing your life.
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And my guest today is Mary Latham.
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And she, it's not a book yet, but I'm sure it will be, has a movement called More Good,
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which is, if you're watching the video, it's her t-shirt.
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And I first heard about Mary when I was reading Laura Carney's book, My Father's List, who
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has been a guest on the podcast.
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And I was reading, I'm like, I need to know her.
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And then I talked to Laura, and Laura's like, you need to know Mary.
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I mean, you need to talk to her.
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And we finally did connect.
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And I'm excited to have you on because you've done some really fun, cool things.
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And I always love the journey this podcast has taken me on and the connections between
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your mom and the March and just life, lots of cool connections that I feel like the people
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that I'm meeting on this journey were meant to be in my life.
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So Mary, welcome to the Why Not Today podcast.
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And why don't you share a little bio on you, not your courage story or your life story,
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but a quick bio and a fun fact about you that nobody might know.
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Thank you, Leslie.
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I'm excited to be here.
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I lost my mom in March of 2013.
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And I kind of used a conversation that we had towards the end of her life as a bit of
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a life raft for my personal life ever since.
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It was on the day of the Sandy Hook shooting.
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And there was obviously that tragedy.
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We were all pretty horrified to read about in the news.
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And an act of kindness happened to someone that I worked with that day.
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And it was just, let's not get into that yet.
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I just want to know who you are.
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Oh, like a three second.
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Yeah, like who is Mary aside from more good?
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And we'll talk about that whole story.
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But in the connection, the connect coincidences is your mom actually passed away the same
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year my dad did.
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And she passed away on my birthday, which is the first and then in 2013 and my dad passed
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away or my birthday March first, my dad passed away March 5th of 2013.
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So kind of interesting coincidence of dates.
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But yeah, tell us who you are and about you that has nothing to do with market.
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Just get to know you.
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Oh, okay.
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All right.
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And then we'll talk about that.
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Okay.
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So my name is Mary Latham.
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I am from Long Island, New York, and I'm a wedding photographer and a writer.
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And I am a person that believes in the good that's in the world.
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And in every person that we meet, I think that everyone has a little bit of good in
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them.
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And sometimes it's easier to see than other people.
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But I think I'm in a constant search in my life for the good in every person I meet.
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And I have a fun fact of the fact that I can make my belly button and any in and outie.
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Oh, wow.
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Okay.
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That's interesting.
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I won't make you show it.
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But so and I love that you're a wedding photographer and you've done all these things.
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So it's fun to see people's.
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Well, we have multiple hats and multiple sides to our life, don't we?
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So tell me what does courage mean to you, Mary?
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Courage to me means showing up.
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I think showing up in your own life, showing up in other people's lives when they need
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it, whether it's family or friends or just noticing someone across the street that needs
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help getting across, just kind of constantly showing up when you should be.
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And I think that it's really hard sometimes, but I think that really defines your character,
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the way, you know, we can't really control what happens to us in life, but we can show
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what we do next and how we show up.
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And I think that's been something that I've practiced ever since losing my mom is just
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how I'm going to show up in the world.
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Yeah, love that.
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And it's fun to hear everybody's different courage stories and they're all a little different.
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You know, someone, and I told you earlier, I said, my brother is the only person that
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looked it up in the dictionary.
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Believe what it means to us.
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So all right, so let's go to your story.
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So more good, which is a movement you've started, which I love.
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And there's lots of complexities and things you've done with that.
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But it all started, why don't you share where it started on the day of the Sandy Hook shooting?
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And I love how you took something so terrible and we're able to turn into something so good
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and not related.
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It's not that you're connected to it, but it was that it was that pivotal thing.
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And you know what I found that when people have that pivotal moment in your life, do
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you remember where you're sitting, where you're what you're wearing?
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You know, the kind of day it was, we have those pivotal things in our life that make
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a life changing moment.
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And we remember exactly where we're what we're doing.
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Yeah.
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And I think so many of them also come from a moment of, you know, dark.
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Like, I think that if I had just had that conversation with my mom that day and she
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went on to live and I, you know, was living my life and everything, I might have not done
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what I did.
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But because it came right before something so horrible, it was like you kind of clutch
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on to anything good to keep carrying on.
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So yeah, why don't you start with how this started and the Starbucks and the Sandy Hook
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story.
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So I worked at a, the continuing legal education in Manhattan in 2013.
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And I was working on the morning of the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting.
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And I had just gotten to work that morning.
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And after work, I was going to go to a family that I now need for who had a six year old.
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And so I was reading the news and refreshing it.
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He was still an active shooter.
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And I was, as we all were pretty horrified by everything.
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And as I was clicking and looking about the story, my coworker came in and he had a coffee
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from Starbucks with him and he said, Oh, you really should have come with me today.
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And I kind of ignored him and told him I couldn't afford it this week.
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And he said, no, no, it was free.
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And it kind of finally pulled me away.
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Like I was just so hyper focused on this tragedy.
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And I turned around and I was like, what are you talking about?
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And he was like, yeah, there was a guy in earlier buying gift cards and it was right around
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Christmas.
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So he was getting them as Christmas presents.
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And he bought an extra card at the end and told the barista to charge him $100 and run
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it out on all the people in line behind him.
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And my coworker was one of those people.
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And he had had a pretty rough year so far.
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He was a very positive person, but he had been having a rough time.
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And so to see him finally so happy again in that moment because of a moment of kindness
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from a total stranger was just so uplifting.
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And he walked away from my desk and I called my mom.
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I was going to say, it's such a little thing, a free coffee, $5, $6, whatever it is.
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And dollars now at Starbucks.
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$10, yes.
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But it's such a little thing that can make a such a difference in somebody's day.
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Oh, actually.
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Like you.
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Yeah.
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Exactly.
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Like I wasn't even there.
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I never even got the coffee and it completely changed my life.
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But he told me the story and when he walked away from my desk, I called my mom and I quickly
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told her about it, but then I kind of hopped over to the shooting.
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We grew up without television in my house.
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So which should have been your fun fact.
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That's true.
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You know, a lot of people know that one.
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So I tried to mix it up.
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But we did grow up without TV.
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And so my mom did not know the news yet at the time.
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And so I was telling her all the details and everything about the shooter and he's still
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active and how could he do this and how am I going to babysit tonight for the six year
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old and not cry on her?
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And how is there so much bad in the world?
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And she kind of politely interrupted me and was like, Mary, you got to remember that other
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story you just told me.
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You know, there's, there's always going to be tragedies and horrible things that will
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happen in life and in our own life and in the world, but they'll always be more good
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out there if you look for it.
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And that was kind of the conversation that I ended up clinging and clinging on to a few
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weeks later when she, she passed away from cancer.
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And it happened a lot quicker than we thought.
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We knew she was sick, but she went in for a procedure and something didn't go correctly.
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And so it was kind of the whole family assembling into a hospital waiting room and waiting a
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few days until she passed and pretty much the worst week of my life.
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And just being in that room, which so many people have already been in, you know, it's
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such a hopeless feeling when you're in there.
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And so I just thought, wouldn't it be nice to have something positive in here, you know,
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that people could kind of look through to give them a little bit of hope during these
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dark times.
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And so I kind of created this, this journey around that thought of, you know, it had started
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as a little Facebook project with a friend.
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Yeah, let's talk about the Facebook project because that's kind of cool.
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Is it still active?
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Yeah, well, it's, it's molded into more good now.
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So it was about that, that you started, you started that after the Sandy Hook thing.
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And there was a story, wasn't there a story?
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I love everybody's stories.
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There was something your friend.
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Yeah.
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So right.
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Yeah, right after the conversation with my mom, I went to a happy hour with a friend
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of mine and we were just talking and I was telling her the coffee story and how, you
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know, I feel like these stories are out there.
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Like there's like all these moments of kindness that like we don't really get to hear about.
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It's just like always darkness on the news.
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And wouldn't it be nice to have a place to go and read them?
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And she was going through a pretty rough breakup at the time and, and she was saying, yeah,
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like I would love that.
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You know, I've always thought about that too.
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I always wanted to do something called, you know, gratitude with two T's like attitude.
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So we kind of came up with this idea over drinks.
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Oh, we're going to call it the gratitude project with two T's and we're going to ask people
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to send stories in.
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And right as we were coming up with this idea, my roommate texted me and she said, you're
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not going to believe what happened last night, but she had been a bit over-served at the
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bar and left her phone in the cab when she was getting out and it was the battery was
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dead.
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So the next guy that got in ended up charging it and then use Surrey to call the last contact,
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which was her father who said, yeah, they live in 1425 York Avenue and he dropped it
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off at the door.
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And it was like, you don't really hear those stories happening in New York City.
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So just like in that moment when we were creating this thought to have that like land in our
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lab was just such a sign that like this is a good idea.
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And you know, the rest of the project and everything since then has been very challenging
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and beautiful and wonderful.
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But like in that moment for something to come through right away was really just the push
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we needed.
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So we started it as a Facebook page and 11 days after the page launched was when my mom
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ended up in the hospital.
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Okay.
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So yeah, so let's continue that part.
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I love the story that, you know, the hospital room and then how you turn it into more good.
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Yeah.
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So, you know, I was in the hospital waiting room and I was not thinking about the gratitude
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project at all.
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I had created a separate email for me and my friend Laura that we would check the inbox
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and we would, you know, copy paste and post on Facebook.
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And I couldn't think about anything positive in those in those first few hours in the hospital.
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But by day two, I did need to tell my jobs that I wouldn't be in the rest of the week
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once we found out what was going on with my mom.
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And so when I opened up my personal email to tell them that I had an email from someone
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who had sent me a story and they didn't know where to send it.
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So they had sent it to this email and I read it and it was a story from a girl who had
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lost both of her parents at that point.
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She was from Poland.
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She was friends with my sister and she didn't even know what was going on with us.
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She just wanted to share a story.
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And to read a story from someone that had gone through twice what I was about to go
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through and only child, you know, most of her families in Poland, like, and here she
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is focusing on this beautiful moment of kindness that someone had done for her was like a little
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shred of hope in the waiting room that that week.
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And I thought, what am I doing?
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Like, here I have this whole other inbox of people sending stories in and we're just sitting
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around a hospital bed and I should be reading them.
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So I read my family that story and then I opened the inbox and started looking through
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the stories and it just that was kind of where the idea of the book was born to, to collect
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stories and to put them in a book to donate to waiting rooms in hospitals across the United
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States.
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And at first I didn't really have an exact plan.
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I knew I wanted to travel to do it, but I didn't have it exactly mapped out.
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No pun intended.
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But, but I did realize shortly after getting out of the hospital and going through everything
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with my mother that stories weren't coming in as much like, you know, with anything,
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any project, you have that wave of excitement in the beginning and people are sharing and
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it's really rolling.
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And then there's kind of just you hit a rut and you're not getting as much content or
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people aren't reaching out as much.
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And so instead of getting discouraged by that, I decided I was just going to go out there
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and find the stories myself.
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And so I kind of created this plan where I would tell people I wanted to highlight moments
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of human kindness across our country.
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And if they knew of any stories or any people that would let me crash on their couch or
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in their bedroom as I traveled through, let me know.
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And so I made a little video with my friend.
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I posted on Facebook, people started tagging people and I kind of took off from there and
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I got in my car in October of 2016.
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I was on the road for three years and actually I took my mom's car.
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So I was the youngest of four children.
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So leaving New York City, I was the only kid without a car.
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So I got my mom's Subaru out back, which was the car I took for my journey.
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That's awesome.
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So you just went, just planned, planned, did you have a plan or you just got them in the
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car?
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Did any of us have a plan?
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Yeah, I mean, I do and then it all gets messed up.
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It's fun to have a plan and then things kind of work out the way they want to instead.
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But I had an idea, I'd say for sure, of what I wanted to accomplish and it really, it morphed
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into so many other things than I thought it would be.
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But the mission was to hit every single state and to collect any moments of human kindness
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I could.
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And I thought they'd be more so stories of, you know, like the coffee guy and someone buying
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someone a coffee or buying some dinner once at a restaurant, but it kind of morphed into
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also getting to communities and having people reach out and say, oh, you really got to meet
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this kid Ben.
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You know, there was this kid in West Springfield, Massachusetts who had been diagnosed with
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cancer and when he went into remission, his mom said, you know, how do you want to celebrate?
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We could, you know, go to Disney World or, you know, she just giving them all these options
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of fun ways to celebrate.
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And he said, I think I just want to collect a bunch of toys and bring them back to the
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hospital to the kids that are still stuck there.
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And he was like seven years old.
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Yeah.
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And a friend of mine whose daughter, I think at five or six had leukemia and she started
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a thing that and she, when she was in the hospital, she had a red bat, her red wagon
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and she had people donate toys and she went and gave them to people.
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Kind of same story.
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Oh, that's awesome.
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There's a really good movie I think called the red wagon, right?
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The little red wagon.
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No, is it?
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I don't know.
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Maybe that's where she got it.
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No, I mean, it's never enough.
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But yeah, but that's a, you should read that.
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But you should read it.
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Okay.
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Look it up.
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It was during Hurricane Katrina and a little kid in Florida took whatever supplies he could
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in a little red wagon all the way to like to Louisiana.
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Wow.
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I have still not watched it myself, but someone told me about it on my road trip.
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Okay.
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We might have to watch that.
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Hey.
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Yay.
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So, all right.
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So, the kid, the kid with the, that's so cool that, you know, people, so he, he, yeah,
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his name was Ben and he dressed up like Captain America and he hundreds of toys to Bay State
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Hospital in Massachusetts.
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And so then it became, you know, meeting him and meeting his family, like his mother was
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a single mother and he was one of two children and to go into their home and not just be
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sitting in New York and have someone email a story of a picture of him dressed up cute
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and this is what he did.
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I was in their home behind closed doors, like really getting to know Ben and like the struggles
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they have as a family and his mother and, you know, playing a game of tag outside before
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I left, but then like having to stop for a little while so he could catch his breath.
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Like all of those little pieces that I would have never gotten if I was sitting behind a
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computer and just sharing the stories.
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I was really, you know, in the story now.
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Wow.
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That's really cool.
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Yeah, so it was, it was really an array of stories between people like Ben, people who
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lost a child and started scholarships, people that donated a kidney to a total stranger,
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and then those, and then those small moments, which are so important because they're translatable,
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you know, like we always feel like an act of kindness has to be this huge thing, like
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we donate a kidney or we buy the neighbor's kid a car for college.
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Like it's really small moments where we just pay attention to the need and then we act
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on that.
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And one of my absolute favorite stories from the whole journey was, was a moment like that
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where there was a woman working at a bank and she was having a really bad day and it
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was visible on her face and a customer came in to take money out and looked at her and
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said, are you doing okay? Like, is there anything I can do for you?
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And she was super embarrassed.
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She didn't know the woman.
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And so she said, oh no, you know, nothing, some M&Ms won't help when I get out of work
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later.
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And they laughed and the woman left.
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And then 30 minutes later, she returned and slid a bag of M&Ms under her window and walked
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away.
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She never saw her again.
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She's telling me this story 30 years later.
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Wow.
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She's called her kids and her grandkids and it's just like, you never know, you know,
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you spend so many moments like that that have probably happened in our life where someone
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pays a little bit of attention to us.
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But what made me really think about it was in the beginning, I thought, oh, maybe she
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stabbed her toe that day or her boyfriend broke up with her.
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Like, why was she upset?
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But by the end of three years and being in and out of all of these different people's
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lives and in their homes, everyone is going through something right now.
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And to like,
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Yes.
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To know that it could have been that her uncle had died in a car crash or she was diagnosed
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with cancer.
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And all carrying these really heavy traumas and events in our life.
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And so that's why these moments of kindness really stick out and become so clear when
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we're in that darkness.
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Yeah.
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I'm so funny.
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Everything you're talking about is exactly what I'm seeing and finding with this podcast
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is, although I'm not in person with a lot of people, I feel like I am walking into their
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story and finding stories behind stories and just, and people are just referring me left
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and right.
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Like you got to meet this person and you got to meet this person.
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And so it's been really cool.
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But yeah, there is always a story behind that whole story and we're having a, it's hard.
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Life is hard.
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And there's a lot of stuff happening and everybody, you know, we have the social media life that
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everybody sees and it looks like everything's perfect, but it's not.
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And I was somebody talking to somebody yesterday and said, we got to be more curious and not
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judgemental.
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Like when somebody has to have on a bad day, not say, oh, they're just mean, but like,
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what's going on?
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You know, or just give smile back or compliment somebody.
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It's just, and it's all the little things.
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And I think that's what I found about courage and why not today?
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It's not necessarily all the big things that is happening, but it's the little things that
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make a difference and people here and give people permission and hope.
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I always talk about this often because I wear it a lot.
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I have a starfish necklace.
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And do you know the story of the starfish?
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Love it.
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Yes.
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I love it.
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I love a starfish necklace.
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That's such a good thing.
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So I am, yeah.
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And I talk about all the time and it's like that kid walking on the beach, throwing starfish
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in the ocean and the man is like, what are you doing?
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So I can save in the starfish.
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He's like, how could there's thousands?
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How can you save it?
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I picked one up through the ocean.
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I saved that one.
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And so you never know how that one person that's going to listen to a podcast, listen
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to your story, did your gratitude, you buy Starbucks coffee, you give them M&Ms, how
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that one person, you can make a difference.
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And that movie that just came out, if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.
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It's Ordinary Angel.
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Ordinary Angel.
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I'm going to write it down.
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It's a movie theater.
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It's Hillary Swank and this family, it's a whole side note, but you know, might as well
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share it here.
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So it was going to be a conversation.
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This family, the wife dies of I think cancer young and she has two, they have two young
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girls, the five year old needs a lung transplant.
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And Hillary Swank, the character is a hairdresser, an alcoholic, gone out totally wasted the
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night before, goes to this convenience store to buy some more alcohol and sees the article
22:20
in the paper about the funeral of the mom and the lung transplant and walks into the
22:24
funeral and goes to it and then starts doing things to help this family.
22:29
And it's a true story out of Kentucky, but just, and the, the Starfish story they read
22:33
and they reference a lot in that story.
22:36
Yeah.
22:37
It's just, you know, it's those little things that there are, there is more good out there.
22:41
Yeah.
22:42
There was, that just made me think of the, there was a guy in Ohio that I met who, he
22:48
was just browsing Facebook before going to bed one night and he was married.
22:52
He had a three year old son at the time and he saw on Facebook because of, I don't know
22:56
if it was in his area or someone had shared it that was connected to someone else, but
23:00
he had no connection to the man, but a man had, there was a picture of a man and his
23:04
three year old son and he needed a kidney.
23:08
And the guy browsing was just like, this could be me.
23:13
Like that could be me and my son.
23:14
I could need this.
23:15
And so he went and like got all the tests, which they literally give you a psych evaluation
23:20
when you want to donate a kidney to a stranger because they're like, you can.
23:26
And so they did that.
23:27
And he ended up donating his kidney to him.
23:30
And it was just that simple of a thought, like just this could be me.
23:35
And if we just thought like that, you know, and it's those, and it's also the random looking
23:42
at Facebook before you go to bed one night, you know, the people you see, like, I mean,
23:47
how I met you is through Laura and I met Laura because I was watching CBS this morning on
23:53
Father's Day.
23:54
I never watched CBS this morning ever.
23:56
And I can tell you exactly where I was, where I was sitting, what I was doing, and it's
24:00
led me to so many connections.
24:02
Yeah.
24:03
And we just, we need to pay attention.
24:06
I think that's a big message is instead of just going just mindlessly living our life
24:12
to pay attention and look for the good and the things people are doing out there.
24:16
So it is more good.
24:19
So but I know it wasn't all good on your journey.
24:21
It was hard, wasn't it?
24:22
It's sometimes every day.
24:26
Okay.
24:27
Um, but it, it was, um, yeah, I mean, you know, I was staying with strangers to finance
24:34
it.
24:35
So I was in and out of 154 homes over those three years.
24:39
And so to walk in every night to, you know, or every couple of nights to a new home, tell
24:44
your story, hear their story, um, stay up late because for them, it was only one night
24:49
for you.
24:50
It was every night.
24:51
Um, I just kind of chat and talk about deep traumatic moments in the person's life.
24:58
Um, it was really heavy.
24:59
It was heavy and I'm not a licensed therapist.
25:01
So I didn't really know how to separate a lot of the time.
25:04
Um, I carried a lot of those stories with me and I still do.
25:07
Um, it's been a really hard time processing all of it, which is why writing the book has
25:12
been, um, rather challenging, but I do feel like I'm finally in a good place and flowing
25:18
now, but it was definitely, um, you know, a lot of people would always ask if it was
25:23
a healing journey.
25:25
Um, and I would kind of laugh because it didn't feel healing.
25:30
Um, but it, it broke me into a million more pieces that kind of, I always love that quote.
25:39
It's like, you know, when you lose someone you love and it shatters your heart into a
25:42
million pieces that let all those cracks allow so much more light in.
25:45
So it was such a bittersweet experience because I have all these amazing connections and stories
25:52
and people that I have in my life now, um, because my mom died.
25:57
And so I was going to ask you if you were in touch with the people still.
26:01
Yeah.
26:02
And actually I had, um, you know, one of the stories I collected was in California and
26:07
it was a family who lost their daughter.
26:09
She was 16 years old and she had gone over to her friends on Christmas break and they
26:13
were drinking and she got alcohol poisoning and her friend didn't like her friend was
26:18
drunk too.
26:19
I guess didn't realize and she was just kind of propped her against the toilet and, and
26:22
she passed away.
26:24
And, um, and it was horrible and tragic and she didn't even really drink that much.
26:31
She just never had drink before and the mother goes around now to schools.
26:36
I'm really sorry about that.
26:39
What I mean here.
26:40
Oh, you don't hear the siren?
26:43
Huh.
26:44
It, that's so funny.
26:46
Cause on my podcast thing it says it's playing music, but it's a fire alarm next door, which
26:53
is like a hundred feet away.
26:54
I don't know how it's amazing.
26:56
Okay.
26:57
I can pick up right from that.
27:00
So the mother who lost her daughter goes around to schools and she speaks on awareness,
27:06
you know, alcohol awareness and, um, and informed students so that something like that won't
27:10
happen to them.
27:11
And you know, it was just one of the many stories where it's so inspiring.
27:15
Like here you went, you know, for me, I lost my mom.
27:17
I had an amazing relationship with her.
27:19
Um, she was the best person.
27:23
And so to be able to kind of take her advice and go out there and look for good was, you
27:28
know, while it wasn't easy, it was a beautiful mission.
27:32
And so for this woman to tragically lost her daughter and then to go into these schools
27:37
and have to relive that nightmare just to educate and help others is so incredibly inspiring
27:44
to me and, and showing up, I mean, showing up to like the utmost.
27:49
Um, but she, uh, I was writing about her the other day and I was finally in California
27:56
in my writing, which was kind of my halfway mark on my trip.
27:59
And I just wanted to fact check something, so I looked up their website and I noticed
28:03
that their daughter had written a letter a few, like three or four months before she
28:07
passed away.
28:08
She flew to New Zealand and I don't know if it was a project for school or she was just
28:12
a creative person, but she wrote a letter on the flight because it was so long that was
28:17
titled if the plane crashes.
28:19
And so she wrote a lot of her loved ones, which was, yeah, it was insane.
28:23
And it was such a beautiful letter.
28:26
And she like called out like all of her close friends and her family and everything, like
28:30
a little paragraph for each of them.
28:32
So it was like, how beautiful for them to have this.
28:34
Um, but at the end of the letter, you know, she touches on a lot of different things that
28:39
I mean, I was sitting here writing yesterday and in like a really in a rut and like in
28:43
a hard place.
28:44
And I find this letter and I'm sitting there and I'm like crying on my computer reading
28:48
this, this letter and I, I messaged her parents and I said, you know, I just want you to know
28:53
I'm writing about you guys today and that, um, while I'm sure every single day is extremely
29:00
painful for you, she's still making an impact and affecting us.
29:04
And I, I needed this letter so desperately today and to find it was just so lucky.
29:08
And so, and they wrote back, but it was so, I definitely try to keep the connections going
29:12
with some of the nonprofits I work with now, um, that I stayed connected with.
29:17
But, um, yeah, it was the journey was definitely, um, it was really heavy.
29:23
And emotional, but it was also quite a punch in the face of perspective.
29:28
Yeah.
29:29
Seeing life, um, that story about the letter and the mom brought something else.
29:35
First of all, the woman that, you know, so many people take the bad and make it good.
29:40
Like mothers against drunk driving was a woman whose child was killed by a drunk driver,
29:45
like Laura, what she's done with advocacy about distracted driving.
29:49
Um, but Oprah Winfrey, I don't know.
29:52
There's a book called, um, what is it?
29:56
I don't know.
29:57
It's a daily like simple acts of kindness kind of book.
30:00
I have to look it up to see exactly what it is, but one chapter is on gratitude.
30:05
Do you have it?
30:06
Oh, I was going to say, you're going to pull the book out.
30:08
No, the window was open and Sarah, somebody, but coffee table book, but I don't know.
30:15
So this is a book by somebody else.
30:17
Sarah, somebody I've got it, which I'll show you when we're done.
30:20
Um, and maybe note, note it in the show notes, but, um, this one of the chapters is on gratitude
30:28
and Oprah found the book started doing it talk and she did several stories on gratitude
30:32
and a gratitude journal.
30:33
I don't know if you saw any of those things with your gratitude project, but there was
30:37
a young girl that actually is in a North Virginia area that would do her gratitude journal
30:42
every night.
30:43
Well, unfortunately she passed away.
30:45
I'm not sure exactly how, but her parents took her gratitude journal and made laminated
30:51
bookmarks that you could email the parents and they'd send you a set of them.
30:56
And I still, I ordered them and this was years ago and I still have these laminated bookmarks
31:01
that have her information on her.
31:05
And then it has on the back her gratitude journal for the day or whatever.
31:08
And I still use them in bookmarks.
31:09
I have a staff alone and I think about them often and, you know, how many lives it touched
31:15
by the marks and Oprah talked about then, I guess the bookmarks.
31:19
So it's kind of cool how, you know, people do live on.
31:22
And I think that's one of the things I'm doing with this podcast, my dad's legacy living
31:26
on and his stories and his connections.
31:31
And yeah, I love them more good.
31:33
And I think we could talk forever about it and we need to figure out a time to meet in
31:36
person sometime.
31:38
Yeah.
31:39
Actually, Laura is coming down here to speak.
31:42
I started a luncheon and she's going to be a guest speaker at our luncheon.
31:46
So if you ever know the Virginia, let me know.
31:48
That's awesome.
31:49
I'm actually going to be in Virginia in April, but in Charlottesville.
31:52
Okay.
31:53
Well, I'm two hours from Charlottesville.
31:55
Not far.
31:56
So yay.
31:57
So how would you encourage somebody else to do something courageous?
32:02
Go on a trip, look for the story, live their life.
32:06
Um, well, to look for the story, I think they should just be the story.
32:12
Like I feel like it's that kind of concept.
32:13
If you are looking, you know, if you want light, be light.
32:17
So I think that they can create their own story by going out and buying someone a cup
32:23
of coffee today for the person in line behind them or calling a relative or a friend they
32:28
haven't talked to in a while and just checking them in with them or sending them a text that
32:31
they're thinking about them.
32:34
I think that sometimes we're constantly looking for stuff that we could be doing ourselves.
32:39
Um, but I think also, yeah, to go on a trip, you just have to go.
32:45
I mean, I was terrified.
32:47
I, I didn't really exactly have a plan.
32:49
I mapped out, um, I really had just mapped out from a thing on Google that was the best
32:57
route around the United States.
32:59
And um, I printed it out and I put some tax and post-its on it with people reaching out
33:04
and connecting to me.
33:05
And then I completely kind of went off.
33:07
I mean, they used it as a basis, but I went off.
33:08
I think he's doing it with landmarks.
33:10
I was obviously not doing landmarks.
33:12
Um, but yeah, you just kind of have to start and, um, it's, it's always going to be scary.
33:18
There's always going to be something that comes up.
33:19
There's always going to be a reason to push it to the next day or week or month or year
33:23
or I'll do this when I'm retired or I'll do, and this is not a retirement gig.
33:26
Um, but you know, just we'll come up with a million excuses.
33:30
So you really just have to do it.
33:33
Just start, say, why not today and do it?
33:35
Why not today?
33:36
Yes.
33:37
So, um, I always try to pinpoint back to my dad, like people like, I never met your dad,
33:44
but I like, when we talk, find connections.
33:46
So the first one is my dad always saw the good and nothing was ever not figure out.
33:52
You know, it was like some, something happened.
33:55
He's like, well, something good will come and he would search for the good.
33:58
Um, the adventure of your trip.
34:00
Um, we, and you have to listen to my podcast episode.
34:04
I did last, it was, um, came out March 2nd and I interviewed my mom and one of the courageous
34:11
stories I shared, which kind of type of dovetails with what you did is when I was 16 year old,
34:17
16 years old and my parents bought a camper, a 30 foot RV and we traveled all the way around
34:22
the U S. Um, didn't hit every state, but went a lot and I was 16.
34:26
So I really didn't want to do it.
34:28
Um, but my dad took five weeks out of, he worked for himself and we'd stop and he literally
34:35
get on a pay phone and do work calls, but we did that adventure and our guide was an
34:41
old map and an R a camping guide and we go, okay, where's the next campsite that had the
34:46
most amenities, the pools and the fun things that we could all do.
34:50
Um, because at that point there were five of us, my youngest sister, when they started
34:53
on the trip was five weeks old.
34:55
I'm like, my mom's like, I haven't done anything courageous in my life.
34:58
I'm like, you kidding me?
35:00
That was pretty darn crazy and courageous.
35:02
Uh, yeah.
35:03
So true.
35:04
Yeah.
35:05
I feel like your mom, for her to think like, I don't have a story or this or that, like,
35:11
I always felt like people were doing that on the journey too.
35:13
Like they didn't feel their story was big enough and they were constantly comparing it
35:16
to something else, but it's, she has been showing up in your life always.
35:23
Like that is such a.
35:25
And that's what I told her.
35:26
I said, you're the most important person to interview and we all have stories and there's
35:32
in a little things, just like the more good stories, it's the why not say it's the little
35:36
things.
35:37
It's some people, it's, you know, getting out of bed in the morning is hard for some
35:42
people and you know, all the little things that.
35:45
Yeah.
35:46
So all the little courageous things that we do and the good things we do and it just adds
35:53
up.
35:54
And so we need to say, why not today do more good?
35:57
How's that for a tagline?
35:58
I'll switch it.
35:59
And I think that we all have someone, you know, in our life that really impacted us that
36:04
we've lost.
36:05
And so at the very least, let's live our life for them.
36:08
Exactly.
36:09
They can't anymore.
36:10
And so what are we going to do to, to honor the fact that we're still here and we can
36:16
get stuff done.
36:17
Yeah.
36:18
Yeah.
36:19
Last week I had a big birthday and I wasn't really excited about it because life has been
36:23
hard recently and I had to come to realization like I'm still here and I'm still kicking
36:27
and I feel great.
36:29
And you know what?
36:30
I need to live my life to the fullest because there's some people that aren't in my life
36:34
that haven't been able to and didn't make it as long as I have.
36:37
So yeah, lots of lessons.
36:40
So thank you for your story and sharing it.
36:42
I'm excited.
36:43
I've got a couple of fun ideas.
36:44
I think I might do with your episode, but thank you for joining us and thank you everybody
36:49
for joining us on this inspiring journey.
36:52
For every day as an opportunity, take action, chase your dream and make a difference.
36:57
So why not today?
36:59
Subscribe, like, share, follow the podcast.
37:02
You can always find the podcast at whynottodaypodcast.com.
37:05
We have a Facebook community now that's just the why not today community.
37:09
And remember, say why not today?
37:11
Just never know when you can do some more good.
37:15
So thank you, Mary, for being our guest today.
37:18
Thank you for having me.