Show Transcript

00:00:00

Hey, what's up? Kevin here, host of Grit, Grace, & Inspiration. Before you dive into today's episode, I'm curious. Do you ever feel like life is just a little bit too difficult? It's nights where you can't sleep, it's days that you just don't feel good, and sometimes you just wish there could be something to help you out?

00:00:21

Well, if that's you, you might want to check out today's sponsor and that's NAKED Warrior Recovery, offering the highest quality CBD products on the market. Be sure to check out today's show notes, where you can grab an exclusive discount offered only to the listers of Grit, Grace, & Inspiration.

00:02:04

What's going on, and how are you today? Kevin Lowe here, your host. Today is episode 133, bringing you yet another episode packed full of the stuff this podcast is known for. That's a little bit of inspiration, a little bit of motivation, a little bit encouragement, all presented for one reason to help you take on the day every day, no matter what obstacles or challenges stand in your way. Today's episode is an interview with a lady named Marjorie Turner Hollman.

00:02:43

Marjorie is pretty much a living ray of sunlight, shining her light onto the world, one walking trail at a time. It's so easy for all of us in our everyday lives to not pay attention to the beautiful world in which we live in. I myself am up front and honest. There are some days when I don't even step outside. But the conversation had with Marjorie today really has me rethinking this mindset, really thinking to myself, wow, maybe I do need to make it a part of my schedule, a part of my routine, to get out and enjoy nature, to enjoy the world.

00:03:31

And that's exactly what Marjorie is doing. Now, what's special about Marjorie, though, is that Marjorie is doing so despite a physical disability. Because nearly 30 years ago, marjorie would undergo brain surgery, the outcome would leave her partially paralyzed. But Marjorie realized that she needed to be outdoors. No matter what it took for her to do it, she needed to be in nature.

00:04:06

She needed to experience the healing properties that only nature has to offer. Her story is truly remarkable. It's guaranteed to light you up, and it's going to really, I believe, inspire you to get out and start enjoying this world. Marjorie is the author of a series of books where she talks about what she calls easy walks, and they're basically guidebooks helping you discover easy walking trails suited for a variety of different disabilities and abilities. With all of that said, I hope that today's episode encourages you to take a pause on life and step out and experience the world, because, well, that's where true life begins.

00:05:02

Today's episode is sponsored by our amazing partner, Naked Warrior Recovery. They are sponsoring this podcast for the fall of 2022 and offering you a listener of the podcast, an exclusive 20% discount when you go shopping for any of their CBD products. They're THC free and are guaranteed to have something to help your life or even your pet's life. Be sure to check them out at NW-Recovery.com using promo code LOWE to get an extra 20% off. Again.

00:05:49

That's promo code LOWE. And of course, their information, along with the link, is inside of today's show notes. So go ahead, scroll down, visit those show notes, click the link, and start shopping today and help me support this amazing sponsor, Naked Warrior Recovery. With that said, it's time for me to turn it over to Marjorie Turner Hollman.

00:06:15

Enjoy today's episode.

00:06:21

Marjorie, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much, Kevin. I can't wait to find out what we're going to talk about. This is going to be fun. And thank you so much for having me.

00:06:33

Well, absolutely. Well, Marjorie, my whole idea for our episode today is to kind of give people this overview of your life story, what has brought you to where you are today, why you're doing what you're doing in your life today. And so I would love to start with one of the parts of your story that I'm most curious about is I believe about 30 years ago that you had a brain surgery, correct? I did. So if you wouldn't mind maybe paint a picture for us taking us off from this point of going back in time, what was going on in life then, and we'll go from there.

00:07:17

Sure. What was going on before my surgery was that I was a single parent of two wonderful children who have now grown up and are still wonderful, but they're a lot older. I was a single mother. I had figured out how to support us with a house cleaning business and had become a professional storyteller. On top of that, I was juggling both of those and being a mom until age 37.

00:07:47

And I had a seizure and was quickly diagnosed and having a serious brain tumor that needed immediate surgery. Oh, wow. I had that surgery and to everyone's surprise, I woke up and my entire right side was paralyzed. Wow. Marjorie, you were 37 when you found that you have this tumor.

00:08:15

What type of tumor was it? Was it cancerous or anything like that? It's termed a benign tumor, a meningioma. Kevin but the location of where it was was a malignant location. It was going to kill me.

00:08:31

It was really quite serious. It fit into meningioma, which people say, oh, that's a good kind of tumor, meaning maybe it's not going to kill you. But in my case it did almost. But it's not considered cancerous in its nature, so it isn't a fast growing tumor. Okay, well, I'm always so curious when anybody starts talking about brain tumors because that is what I had.

00:08:59

And mine was a craniotherm geoma, and so it was positioned in the crosshairs of my optic nerve, had encased my pituitary gland, and then was pressing against the carotid artery.

00:09:16

Yeah. And so with this range, have you had any type of side effects, looking back at it that were signs that you had something wrong? In retrospect, yes. I had weird sensations in my leg and probably had a seizure in my sleep, chewed up my tongue, and I just didn't even recognize what was going on until this grandma generalized seizure occurred. Yes.

00:09:50

Okay, wow. So now what was the cause for leaving? Was it your left side that you said was left paralyzed? No, my right side and your right side.

00:10:04

Go figure. Was that from the seizure or from the removal of the tumor? It was from the surgery. I was not paralyzed while I was waiting for the surgery, but no, it was the twelve hour surgery that nearly killed me. Wow.

00:10:25

Now, where were you living at the time? Because I believe you're a floridian, correct? I was born in Fort Lauderdale. Yes. And you're in Florida, I believe.

00:10:36

I am. Fort Lauderdale. So south of where you are. I was desperate to see snow, so as soon as I got I chose to come up here to Gordon College, which is a Christian college up on the North Shore, north of Boston. And that's what got me to New England.

00:10:56

Yes. I did see snow, and I still love snow. Yes. That's what got me out of Florida. I married and had my two kids and was in that same house that I still am today, 40 years later, when it happened.

00:11:19

Yeah. Okay. Wow. That's incredible. So talk to me a little bit more about with the side effects becoming paralyzed.

00:11:33

Explain to my listeners how that affected life. Well, it affected everything. I couldn't get myself to the bathroom, I couldn't get myself across a room. I needed support for everything. And very quickly I realized that this wasn't going to be a crisis, that everyone could jump in and fix it and make it all better, that this was going to be longterm.

00:12:00

And that made it really frightening because most of us are really good at handling short term crises. But it's a lot different kind of a commitment to continue to support a person who's going to continue needing support in the long term, at least in my own family, we're really good for that. Short term, the long term stuff, it's a lot harder. Yeah, I think that is so true. And it's something I've not really thought about it in that way, but you are so right.

00:12:39

It's one thing, like you said, to kind of mirror what you're saying is it's easy to think of, okay, we got to do this, do this, because it's going to get better. But then the reality that it's not getting better, this is the new reality. Right? Yeah. Right.

00:12:56

Yeah. And I have regained quite a bit of mobility. So as opposed to those who understand that not only aren't they going to get better, but they're going to get progressively worse. I know people who are in those situations. Emotionally, it's a very different thing because I was embracing continued very slow and erratic healing, and even just the emotional healing, but I wasn't faced with it's just going to get worse and worse.

00:13:33

Things have gotten better slowly, not exactly the way I would have hoped for, but they have very different emotional dynamic. Yes, absolutely. So are you in a wheelchair? I am not, no. Kevin I'm able to walk around the house easily.

00:13:56

I have railings on the stairs. I'm not safe going up. And downstairs, we made my house pretty trip proof. All the rubs are gone, flat surfaces, support bars in the bathroom, in the shower, railings, on the stairs to get outside, but I am able to walk. But when there's uneven surfaces, trails, even just out in public, I use what are called heightening poles.

00:14:27

They're like ski poles, and they've got little rubber tips on them just to give me a little more solid traction. Does that make sense? Of course, yeah. No, that makes total sense. Now, I'm curious because you talked about that.

00:14:42

You have obviously regained some mobility from when it first happened. So how did that process was that through, like, physical therapy? How did that occur? I had three sessions of physical therapy. I had no real insurance.

00:15:00

People assume you get physical therapy and no, I pretty much got left to figure it out. The whole point was when I woke up from surgery and they were asking me what I could feel and poked my foot and such, yes, I could feel it. So that was the upside, because they said, oh, good, you have the hope of getting movement back. Okay. The downside was I could feel it.

00:15:31

And when healthy muscles don't move, that's not how your muscles are supposed to work. And it causes a tremendous amount of pain. Really? Oh, wow. It was pretty crappy.

00:15:46

Yes. So what was the process then of you regaining strength then? It was the muscle connections to my brain needed to kind of reestablish. And so I started getting movement probably in my finger first. Yes, my fingers.

00:16:06

And I started I think I said it's my right side, so it's very right handed. But in neurological healing, movement comes before rhythm. So I was able to start moving my fingers, but nothing rhythmic. And you think that that rhythm isn't that essential. But things like being able to move in a circle just to put yourself on a washcloth, to write, using a pen to do the letter O was really tricky.

00:16:43

Writing numbers, there's a lot of rounded eights and nines. Yes, those were very difficult. But even things like shaking some salt on your food, even still I'm good for one shake. Okay.

00:17:06

A lot of that rhythm hasn't returned. Some has. My foot was later. The leg was farther away from my brain, so that came later and wasn't at all clear. But it started with my big toe and moved from there.

00:17:24

Okay. That's so interesting. And I can't help but even just think to myself, though of like you said that you were right handed and this paralyzed your right side. Then really having to learn how to navigate life again with the other side, with the left hand, which happened to. Be I wasn't very good at that and I'm very dominant right hand.

00:17:55

So even salad was really tough because the lettuce doesn't stay under fork.

00:18:05

Exactly. So I was really grateful when I could start using a utensil with my right hand. Yes. So I didn't ever learn to write with my left hand. I muddled.

00:18:18

Yes. Okay, so let's dive into the meat and potatoes of this interview. What has really brought us together? Is this all of a sudden because I'm anxious to find out the process. What has brought you to this point of the outdoors.

00:18:36

So talk to me about the power that the outdoors have had for you. Oh, my goodness. I am very, very lucky here south of Boston that I live in what's called a little lake neighborhood. These are little small cottages built right overlooking local lake. Oh, wow.

00:18:57

As I was beginning to get out and walk, I had people go with me that my kids would talk about, let's go take mom for a walk. It's kind of like your puppy.

00:19:12

But we had the lake and so we would head down our hill and walk along the lake. It's a paved road, really, but it's very quiet. It's a dead end. And so we would walk down along the lake and I could see the water. I could see the birds, the great blue heron, fishing other geese and the ducks, and it just gave me something to consistently get out and do this.

00:19:41

But also, because I was going to the same place, I could see the changes. As healing began, I was able to walk a little farther. I was able to get stronger. When people say, well, they don't like going to the same place, they want to have some variety, and they get bored with the same place. The truth is that the seasons change even when you're in the same place.

00:20:10

At least when we're in New England, florida is a pretty tough changes. You have to kind of watch for fall, and in one day it's gone and start growing again. Yes. And oftentimes I realize that the trees are very confused also because.

00:20:33

That was a way of giving me healing. I wrote at some point about walking along Silver Lake and started the piece, as I have the Heart of a World traveler, but I've got the body of a day tripper.

00:20:53

That's where I found myself walking along Silver Lake. And that was about it. For close to seven years, I really wasn't able to get out much, and I had the lake as a refuge and just stuck in the house and not looking at the same four walls. Yes, I think that is such a thing about nature, about, you know, I feel like it has such a healing property to being out in nature. And this even goes back to me being a kid growing up, going camping in the woods, literally, when you can be in the middle of nowhere and hear no sounds of civilization, only the sounds of nature, of the forest, it's truly powerful.

00:21:49

Yes. I have always wanted this is going to be a little aside, but I've always wanted to learn bird songs, because even if you can't see the birds, you can learn to hear them. And when you can recognize the names of birds, it's like making a new friend. And just recently I came across an app. I don't know if it's one you could use or not, or your listeners, but it's from the Cornell Lab of ornithology all things birds.

00:22:22

And it's an app called Merlin, and it turns your phone into a super bird call recorder. Oh, wow. You press a button and your phone starts recording the birds that you hear, and as soon as it recognizes a bird, it puts across those screens. So, again, I don't know how you manage this, but it says it's an American robin or something else. And so you can train your ear to what you're hearing, because many times you can't see birds in the woods, but you can hear them.

00:23:02

It's a tool for me, who I don't retain oral input real well. It's something that makes it so it just keeps repeating every time the bird sings. It's a robin. Again. It's again.

00:23:19

Here it is again. Yes. So those are just some of the things that bring you joy.

00:23:29

I can tell you that my favorite part of the whole day is early in the morning, and I can't see that the sun is beginning to rise, but I don't need to because the birds tell me. And so inside of my house, I can start hearing the birds start coming alive, and you hear them start chirping and singing. And you know, at that moment, the sun is beginning to rise, and it is the most calming sensation there can be. Yes. You don't need an alarm clock.

00:24:05

No. It's amazing. Yeah. Tell me now about so you started on this walking and walking around, I believe you called it Silver Lake. Correct, correct.

00:24:19

Yes. So at what point then do you find yourself venturing out and exploring more places? But I guess at the same token, I would like to ask is how do you go about discovering new places? Because your mobility does require it to be not rugged terrain and stuff. Right.

00:24:43

I've written a whole book about how to find easy walks wherever you are. Well, no. It's finding easy walks wherever you are. And it describes the process my family and I use to find places that I can enjoy outdoors, regardless of what part of the country we're in, or even abroad as well. Okay.

00:25:07

Probably the biggest impact was that was my husband of 16 years. When we married, he said, well, where are their trails around here? And we started looking for them. And he knows my abilities. He knows what are hard for me and what are not.

00:25:28

I've learned to describe an easy walk, and that's capital E, capital W, and that's my brand. But I've learned to describe, when I'm telling people what I'm looking for, that easy walks means not too many roots, not too many rocks, relatively level, firm footing with something of interest along the way that's for me, an easy walk doesn't matter distance. A lot of times people think, oh, it's short, so that's an easy walk. No, for me, it's all about trail services. Yes, absolutely.

00:26:11

That's what got me started, was looking for places with my husband that he and I could enjoy. Sometimes, even when it's a real unknown, he'll go and explore first and then come back and say, no, that really wouldn't be so good for you. He was fine. He's very mobile, but he knows. Or other times when I was writing my first, what I call hyperlocal books of finding easy walks in Massachusetts, I went town by town by town, and I would ask people what the trails were like, and I'd ask those kinds of things like I just described, not too many roots, not too many rocks.

00:26:55

And people would say, well, why don't you try here? And my husband didn't always have the time to go with me. He works full time. So I would find it actually it was a way of making new friends because it was sort of a quest. And I would say, would you help me go check this out?

00:27:14

I'm writing a book and I need some help. And I've made some wonderful friends just because of that. Oh, wow. That's so amazing. Your books, are they more of a would you call almost like a travel guide, like that somebody would pick up when they're traveling to one of these specific destinations?

00:27:37

The first three, yes, the first really gets you where's the trailhead? Can I bring my dog? Where's the parking? Is there a fee? Are there bathrooms or not?

00:27:51

About approximately how long is the trail and what can you expect to see when you get there or to enjoy? The fourth book was the Finding Easy Walks. And so it's more here's what our family does and where are some typical places. The fourth book, finding Easy Walks Wherever You Are talks about possible places strategies that we use State parks, city parks, town parks, county parks, army Corps of Engineers properties, national parks, town commons. Up here in New England, practically every town has a town common.

00:28:36

They got benches. A lot of times they have paved pathways. I've got a whole list of possible types of places that you can look to find easy walks. But also, here's the language that you want to ask, which I had explained the not too, not too many rocks asking about trail services. So it's a small book, but it talks about Etiquette for taking your dog on these properties, etiquette for using a rail trail, which are by their nature, if they're finished, they're going to be handicapped accessible.

00:29:17

So with Joe cuts and flat, solid, firm footing, and at least for my friends who are visually impaired, they talk about the importance of having those edges between the pavement or the stone dust and the grass even, that makes it so they're able to navigate. If they have any kind of partial site, like I believe you do, that it gives clues as opposed to not clue. Yes, exactly. I'm curious, how did you go from this woman who is just loving to be out in nature and doing these walks to deciding to go on to write all of these books about it? But there's a story there too, of course.

00:30:11

OK. Because before I was writing any of these books, I had these seven years at home where I couldn't drive, and I started writing emails. This was back when emails were new, and getting one or two emails a day was really exciting. Yes. Which is very different from that.

00:30:34

It is. It really is. But to kind of lessen my isolation, I just started writing stories of what my kids were doing, you know, the little vignettes of silly things that were doing. And my wonderful neighbor who would host a party at the drop of a hat or a anniversary of winter sandbox for kids that built. I mean, just silly, silly stuff.

00:31:02

But in the midst of that, because it was emails, I didn't feel like it was important writing that I would judge myself about my writing quality or my grammar. So I just sent these. But then I also, because I was in the midst of this day by day, healing or not healing and uncertainty of the future. It was a lot of short meditations about what's it like to live with a changed life. I didn't realize that was the theme at the time, but over the years became these meditations and reflections or even just processing how it was feeling right then.

00:31:46

Some of the stuff I wrote for newspapers, very shortly I sent them a couple of my stories, said, would you give me a chance to try this? Got my neighbor to drive me to local things and she would take pictures and I would write things up. And I'm still doing that 20 plus years later for local newspapers. Not as much because I don't have as much time, but that gave me training in writing. Editors evidently liked the profiles of people that I wrote and so they kept asking me to do more.

00:32:23

And those were the ones I really enjoyed, drawing people's stories up like what you're doing and asking the questions that get people to tell their story. Yeah, and I wanted to do more of that. And I stumbled across the world of what's called personal history and that's interviewing people, recording. So this is what you've done so far, but then taking those recordings, transcribing them and transforming those conversations into readable written narrative. Yeah, that's personal history.

00:33:02

But the goal typically is to either make it a recording or a video or in my case, to make selfpublished books. And so I had to learn the whole world of self publishing, which has really changed in the last 20 plus years from traditional publishing to more. Many more people are doing self publishing and being profitable in it. It's not just vanity press. It's a way to get your work out there and you've got more control over it.

00:33:36

So that's I really knew how to make books because of this work. And when I saw the need, people didn't know where to find outdoor trails. I thought maybe I could write a book about it. And I started doing the research. So that's how it got started.

00:33:53

Wow, that's so incredible. Yeah. I didn't realize each open door, I didn't realize where it was leading. I was very surprised when this easy walk kind of took over my life and has become an obsession of sorts. Yeah, well, I mean, I must say that I believe that that's one of the beautiful things about life is seeing how these doorways that we walk into.

00:34:25

We have no idea what it's going to lead to. And yet more because of the one door we chose, another door opens. Another door opens. One door closes, which is good because then it allows another door to open. And it's amazing.

00:34:41

Yeah. I mean, there's no guarantee about those doors opening. Sometimes you have to kind of knock on them. Really? And sometimes you need to say, that's not good for my head.

00:34:53

I need to go in a different direction. And it's not a smooth. A door closes, so then that window opens. Well, you may have to sit in that dark room for a while, and it's not a smooth path. Sometimes there's some big gaps in there, and those are really hard.

00:35:14

Those are very challenging. And so the stories that say, oh, you know, God provided well, yes, I believe, I know God provides. But there's times that there are some gaps and it's not at all clear what that provision is going to be. Absolutely. Well, that brings me to something that I would love to ask you about because obviously what happened to you, it was a traumatic injury that I'm sure affected your life in many ways.

00:35:51

Would you say that the evolution of this getting outside and walking was truly a healing of its own, a life changer that kind of helped you through that process? Oh, absolutely, yes. Anytime I see a blue sky day, which is I just call it it's a blue sky day, there's just this compulsion to get out. And it's a mixed feeling because a lot of those blue sky days really hot. That's hard.

00:36:29

But there's just something beautiful about all that light. Yeah. Thankfully. I also like rain. It kind of is energizing for me.

00:36:41

It's all good for me. The biggest thing I have problems with is humid heat, which is a lot of in Florida. And I see that's either from being really innovating with the heat or dangerous fall from the ice. It's just nice to get outside and hear the birds.

00:37:11

Absolutely. Now, I would love to ask, though, because correct me if I'm wrong, one of your most recent books, though, is more of a story about your life, correct? It is. It's what's called a topical memoir. You've got only two types of memoirs.

00:37:31

People are typically very familiar. They're not autobiography per se. That typically is a chronological memoir. But there's either the chronological or the topical. And topical doesn't start out with I was born, I went to school, I got married, I had kids.

00:37:52

Topical focuses on one specific focus of your life, and that's the whole book. It can incorporate the background from where you grew up or other such things, but the total focus, the theme of the book, is one specific concept, and that's what my book, my Liturgy of Easy Walks, finding the Sacred Every Day in Some Very Strange Places is a topical memoir. Basically the last 30 some years of my life, since I was faced with a changed life, with. Losing my mobility and gaining a lot of it back. Yes.

00:38:39

Now, how was the writing process for you writing this book compared to the others? Because they are so very different. I'm curious, did you find it easier, harder, different? Very different. The others are really travel writing.

00:38:58

It's all about where you're going, how to get there, what to do. And they're very practical travel guides. I call them travel guides. This latest book, Being a Memoir, it was quite different because I had the title before I knew what the contents were. The other books, I knew what the contents were.

00:39:22

And especially for the first one, I wasn't quite sure what the title was. So I wrote it first and then figured out the title. This book, the title was really a gift to me. I went to one of my colleges, Gordon, that I mentioned before, and they interviewed me doing a personal profile of me as an author and about one of my books. So we talked, had a nice conversation, like we're having here, and then the resulting written profile, the headline that the author put on it was A Liturgy of Easy Walks, which just blew me away.

00:40:06

I didn't know where that came from. We didn't talk a lot about God per se. We weren't talking churchy language. We weren't talking about much of anything except my outdoor love of the environment and how healing it is. Yeah.

00:40:26

And she came up, she heard the spiritual side of it, the faith side of it, the spiritual journey side of it, and titled it The Liturgy of Easy Walks. And I thought, that's my next book, but now I had to figure out what's going to be in it. And I realized as I looked through all of my writing from the last 30 years, that there were a number of these little essays that I'd written that were very introspective and really touched on the spiritual side of life, even if it's just taking a walk and taking in what's out there. But a lot of them were about my healing and the physical and the emotional and the spiritual healing that has taken place over the past 30 years. That was the focus of the book, and that's what?

00:41:24

Does it go in or get out? Was did it stay with that basic team? Yes. That's wonderful. Wow.

00:41:35

So those little pieces of writing that you found, did you actually place those in the book or just use those? Okay. They're all little liturgies. They're just one or two page meditations, as it were, on different themes put into groups. One is walking, one is healing different chapters.

00:41:57

Another chapter is the strength of family and friends. Another one is not by bread alone which is cooking with my grandkids and other such. And then Lessons Learned was the last chapter. I put them into those chapter categories. Thankfully, my sister helped me find because it's hard, you're so close to stuff.

00:42:21

And so she was able to say, here's your themes and here's the ones that ought to go in there. And I took her feedback and made it work for what sounded best. I love it. I absolutely love it. Where can we find all of your books, including this one that you've just told us about?

00:42:43

They're all on Amazon. And if you just search March, Return or Holmen, there's an author page or the books will come up and they're all available on Amazon. Well, wonderful. Well for you listing. If you are interested in checking out any of Marjorie's book on Amazon, please be sure to check out the episode Show Notes, where I will be sure that a link is provided so it's easy for you to access all of the goodness that Marjorie has provided.

00:43:13

Marjorie, you're such a breath of fresh air on just your view of life, and I truly mean that. And especially because it's so easy for us to just get wrapped up in our everyday lives. We go through the motions. There's times, even for myself, times, days that I never even take a step outside. I'm just busy working, doing things.

00:43:44

But listening to you today in this conversation, I'm like, what a beautiful reminder to take the time to appreciate the beautiful place that we're on. Yeah, I'm very lucky that I'm surrounded by woods here. I'm looking out the window right now and I'm seeing the greenery and flowers. I've got a little space for my garden and I can go and talk to my tomatoes and cheer them on, my little basil plants that will make delicious pesto, and my blueberry bushes that are laden with blueberries right now, and my blackberries. They're really simple things, but they give me a lot of joy.

00:44:32

Yes, absolutely. Well, Marjorie, I want to sincerely thank you for taking the time out of your day to sit down with me to be a guest on my podcast and to just share your view on life. As I said, you just have such this presence of just sunshine of beauty about you. And I believe that anybody listening to this podcast today that their day can be made better just by listening to you. So thank you.

00:45:06

Oh, my goodness. Well, thank you, Kevin. It's just been delightful to spend some time. You asked really good questions and everybody has bad days. I can be a really good performer, and I love this storyteller.

00:45:24

It's the daily stuff that can get us all down, and so being able to find just anything to change a little bit of that rhythm can be really helpful, and I don't know what that's going to be for anybody else. It's hard for me to figure out sometimes for myself. But you do the best you can and find the humor that you're able to, and you draw out, at least for me, the humorous things, too. So thank you. Well, thank you.

00:45:57

That means so much. And for you listening today, I want to thank you, of course, for tuning into another episode here on the podcast. But even more so, I truly hope that today's conversation can be something that can inspire you, remind you to keep searching for those open doors, knock on the ones that are closed, and if you're lucky, find one that leads you outside into the sunshine, into the grasses where the birds are singing, because that's where life is. It's in the world. And so Marjorie is a beautiful reminder to us all to step outside and enjoy life.

00:46:41

Hey, real quick, before you go, I have one last thought to leave you with. I, of course, hope that you've enjoyed today's episode. But more importantly, I want to remind you that I never want you to listen to an episode of this podcast to hear something that I have to say or that my guests have to share and think, wow, I wish I could be like them. I wish I could overcome my own challenges and do the great things that they are doing, but I just can't. Well, friend, that's where you're wrong.

00:47:14

You are capable, you are able, and you darn sure are deserving of having all that you can imagine in this life. There's nothing special about me or any guests I have on this podcast. We are all just normal people trying to make it in this life. And so I encourage you to take a look at yourself in the mirror and remind yourself that, you know what? I can do it too.

00:47:41

Now, of course, if you would like help along that way, reach out to me. Whether that's a listener of this podcast, a friend, or if you'd like to work with me as a coach, my contact information is inside of every episode show notes just like this one. So go down, check out my contact information and reach out to me today. With that said, I encourage you to take on the day every day with Brit great and inspiration.