#467: The Impact of Gratitude with Dr. Peggy DeLong [Transcript]

Maryalice Goldsmith: Maryalice Goldsmith, Director of Student Success. And I am so glad to be here with you today. I am taking over the Speaker Lab podcast because I want to introduce you to some of our amazing students. And today I have a really good one. It is always a true honor to share their stories. I promise that you are going to learn from their experiences and be inspired by their perseverance and success. So without any further ado hello, Peggy DeLong. How are you?

Peggy DeLong: Good, how are you? Maryalice. Thanks for having me.

Maryalice Goldsmith: I’m really excited to speak with you today on the podcast. I know your story is going to inspire so many, and I know that the journey you have been on has been an amazing one. We started the podcast and you’re like, I’ve been busy. And I know you’ve been busy with personal life, but also building the business. And so I think you’re going to really speak to how we can juggle all the things and be successful. So I want to start off by reading your expert positioning statement, one of the first things that we do here at the Speaker Lab with our students. You say, I help busy college students harness the power of gratitude so that they can feel less stressed and more fulfilled, regardless of the problems in their lives and the world.

What a powerful statement, especially in today’s day and age. How did you hone in on this specific topic?

What do you speak about and how did you hone in to that topic?

Peggy DeLong: Well, I was an ungrateful teen and an ungrateful young adult. And it took a tragedy in my life to discover the power of gratitude. I am on a mission to help people harness what is free, accessible to us at any minute of the day, feels good in the moment, and when we do, it regularly results in long-term positive mental health. During a time of my life, the worst time of my life, is when I discovered the power of gratitude. So what I love to tell people is, don’t save gratitude for your good days. Gratitude is truly most powerful on your worst days. And for me, that was when I was 26, and I was engaged to a wonderful man and ready to start graduate school. And all of a sudden, things took a turn for the worst.

He was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer and unfortunately passed away seven months later. And it was during the last days of his life when the doctors said that there was nothing left that they could do for him and that he was going to die. Those 42 days at the hospital is when I discovered the power of gratitude through a simple cup of hazelnut coffee, of all things. And it was the predictability, yes, so simple and so incredibly powerful. What I love about gratitude is it is so simple. We don’t need to wait for wonderful huge things to happen to harness the power of gratitude. So on the worst days of my life, it was through hazelnut coffee. Every day was so unpredictable.

I didn’t know some days if he’d be able to open his eyes, other days he wasn’t able to speak. I didn’t know if he was going to die that day. But one thing that was predictable was that I could get a cup of hazelnut coffee. And when all of the visitors had to leave and I was allowed to stay as a family member, I would sit by his side and drink that cup of hazelnut coffee and write in my journal. And it brought me so much comfort. It was the one thing that was predictable when everything else was so nauseatingly unpredictable. And my 26-year-old self had no idea that what I was doing was practicing gratitude. Only in hindsight did it all make sense to me.

So, if I can find gratitude in a cup of hazelnut coffee on my worst days when my fiance is dying, it is my mission to help other people harness it in everyday life, because it truly makes life more fulfilling and provides hope. And I love that there’s so much psychological research and brain science behind it too, because many times people think that it’s this fluffy woo woo thing out there, but there’s such really rigorous science behind the power of gratitude. So as a psychologist, that’s really important to me also.

Maryalice Goldsmith: Yeah. Wow, what a story. I had no idea. That’s unbelievable. And I think I often think that we go through things for reasons. There’s always a reason. And the fact that you found gratitude through probably one of the darkest times in your life or even just the most uncontrollable time, there’s no control over that situation. But that coffee allowed you to just really be in the moment and wow, yeah, that’s pretty impressive.

You talk about the psychology of gratitude and what it does. I think that might be important too, as students are listening to this podcast, as aspiring speakers who are considering becoming a student to really deep dive into their speaking business. This stuff gets hard, right? And I think you could really speak to this. This is something you have to work every day. How has gratitude helped you really stay in the thick of it when it might have been easy being like, oh, forget this, I’ll just counsel people.

Peggy DeLong: Well, because it’s an immediate mood booster and I love that. The science shows us that that when we think about what we’re grateful for, it releases serotonin and dopamine in our brains. Serotonin is responsible for that feeling of satiation, like having enough, feeling good, like after a great meal or a wonderful conversation with a close friend and dopamine elevates mood. It’s that happiness that elevates. Just getting a little bit of a dose of that helps to elevate mood. And simply by thinking about what we’re grateful for, it does that.

Functional MRIs show us that when we do it on a regular basis, we are truly forming new neural pathways in our brains to be more positive thinkers. So I always practice what I preach and gratitude, if I’m feeling in the slumps, it’s my go to every day and it really is not even an effort anymore.

It’s so much a part of who I am and just my being and my thinking. And it started with conscious intention, but then over the course of time, our brains do the work for us. It becomes just part of who we are and part of our natural thinking so that we don’t even need to focus on trying to be grateful. It just becomes natural.

Maryalice Goldsmith: Yeah, well, people don’t realize this, but the brain actually doesn’t like to think and that’s why we create these habits, right? And so when I was doing a lot of health coaching, I would say to people, when’s the last time you thought about getting in your car, putting the key in the engine and starting the engine, pulling the gear into reverse and pulling out? You don’t think about it because the brain just knows exactly when it sees the car, it knows what’s going to happen next. And so the brain doesn’t like to think. And that’s why it’s really important to build those habits.

So I love how you really preference that, that for some of us, gratitude might be a struggle. Like say you grew up in a home where there wasn’t a lot of gratitude. It might be like speaking a new language, but it doesn’t mean you can’t if you practice it on a daily basis, if you really carve out time to practice it, it can be a powerful muscle in the brain that doesn’t maybe not a muscle in the brain, but it doesn’t have to think. It just kind of naturally starts downloading a more positive aspect. I love that.

What are some ways that you do it?

How do you practice what you preach?

Peggy DeLong: One of my favorites is to use my emotional pain as a trigger to practice gratitude. And what I mean by that is I think that as a society, we want to avoid emotional pain at all costs, and unfortunately, that results in becoming emotionally numb. So then we deprive ourselves of the fullness of joy. And I use gratitude as a way to remind myself that if I am experiencing grief or sadness or disappointment, to resist that human temptation, to avoid and deny and to allow myself to feel it, and then to use gratitude as a way to move forward.

So right now, I’m in the throes of grief with three adult children leaving home for college within a matter of days. What went from a very loud household with lots of activity and friends and parties to now very quiet with the three of them at school, very healthy, and they’re where they need to be. But it feels like loss and grief. So I allow myself to feel that, but then I know that when I look for an underlying value, it helps me move forward.

The value related to grief is love. I wouldn’t be experiencing the grief if I didn’t have the positive value of love. So then I think about how much I love them. Or a silver lining. What is the silver lining? Or a lesson within the emotional pain. That’s one really powerful way to use gratitude. And I think that it does two things. It helps people experience emotional pain, which is an absolute necessity for moving forward with any difficulty, and it also helps to show that you can move forward and not get stuck there.

In my experience as a therapist, one of the top reasons that people are concerned about allowing themselves to feel the fullness of emotional pain is the fear of getting stuck there. And gratitude is a wonderful way to trust that you’re not going to get stuck there. And sometimes it just takes one time of using that method, and then it shows you that you can move forward and not feel. So the heaviness of grief so that you’re more likely to do it again in the future.

Maryalice Goldsmith: Yeah. Amazing. Well, I love this topic. I think it is so needed and so profound, especially if the college students could get this at that age, what a different life they will live. We’re going to talk about that a little bit more, but I also want to understand what inspired you to seek the help of the Speaker Lab to build your business as a speaker?

What inspired you to join TSL?

Peggy DeLong: Well, a couple of things came together at perfect timing. Actually, three things. Two opportunities literally fell in my lap. I’ve been a speaker for 20 years, often speaking for free, lots of different reasons and not making much movement. And then all of a sudden, the largest audience opportunity came my way without pitching, and the largest fee came my way. So I thought I really better level up my game. And at the same time, I heard a wonderful podcast episode with you and Nanette, and it was just the perfect timing. And you were talking about your why and the many aspects of the why, including spiritual and financial, and I felt like I had everything covered but the financial piece.

The spiritual I love, the gratitude is spiritual and everything else. But I was missing the financial piece. And you were talking about having a clunker, and that could be your reason for wanting to level up, to get rid of that clunker. And that’s exactly what I had. My children were driving. The three of them were sharing this wonderful Honda Pilot that got us through many years and had 250,000 miles on it. Wow. But we were ready for a nuclear.

And that really resonated with me just hearing that and that it was possible. And that was the missing piece for me. So I love that now that I can provide more for my family, I’m doing the same thing, but I’m speaking to larger audiences with a different fee. And the audience I think it’s even more powerful for the audience now that I’m a part of TSL, that I’ve received all this training through the Speaker Lab. But it really started with those three things coming together at the perfect time. Two wonderful opportunities that I didn’t even pinch. It just kind of magically. Well, not magically.

It was 20 years of speaking and then hearing that episode.

Maryalice Goldsmith: Yeah, no, it’s great. So you kind of touched on this a bit in terms of where you are today because of the Speaker Lab. I’d love to know what kind of clarity you did. The VIP accelerator and the Elite program little combo there, which contains our signature speak framework. So I’d love to know the clarity those programs provided for you during your time with us.

What helped you gain clarity in the program?

Peggy DeLong: There were two modules that were particularly helpful for me. I had a topic, so I knew what the topic was. But the module about preparing your talk was really helpful. The template and the guidelines, it helped me fill in stories where I needed to fill in a story, and applications for real life examples so that the audience could then take what I was saying and put it into their own lives. So that really helped me gain clarity and make it a much better talk. And then the other part was the last module. No one to scale. K for no one to scale.

And I consider myself a multipassionate entrepreneur almost to the point that it’s to my disadvantage that I have a hard time focusing on one thing. And this helped me pull it all together, all under the umbrella of gratitude, so that I’m able to have with my clients books. Everything that I do is kind of pulled together under the umbrella of gratitude. And that last module helped me really make sense of it all. So I didn’t feel pulled in so many different directions and scattered that I can have offers that make sense, that kind of just flow together. And that last module really helped me pull it together.

Maryalice Goldsmith: Yeah. That’s awesome. So the Talk creation template is often a surprise to our students. They come to us with all this knowledge and expertise and information. It’s like, how do I compartmentalize it all? And so that really does help refine the content that our speakers come. So I’m so glad that was helpful for you. And module five is often the thing that just makes you go, oh, my gosh, I can make so much of this business. So I love that it gave you that clarity.

What else stood out for you during this experience that was so impactful? I know you talked about some of the content, but maybe touch on some of the power of the coaching and the community.

What impacted you the most during your program experience?

Peggy DeLong: It was having access to people who have been there before. So when it came to that, one organization wanted me to name my price. And I was so panicked, I didn’t know what to do. I was just able to write a simple email to Rick, who helped guide me through the language that I should use and the confidence that this is where I belong. It was just some simple sentences that he gave me within a very quick time frame so that I was able to get back to this organization with confidence and without batting an eye. My fee was accepted!

I was going to go much lower before reaching out to Rick. So it was so nice to have somebody supporting me and guiding me every step of the way through that process of my very first where I feel like I made it. This was the one experience where I really feel like I made it as a speaker.

And it was just so wonderful to have that accessibility to somebody to guide me.

Maryalice Goldsmith: Oh, that is so powerful. You said so many powerful things right there, Peg. I mean, the confidence, the having that person to reach out to, raising your prices that is so amazing. I love all of.

Such a goal of ours to really journey with you and walk along this process with you. And so I know Rick is so amazing and he goes above and beyond. And so the fact and all of our coaches, quite honestly and so I love that you leaned into the coaching and literally said, I need help in this moment to really step up in my confidence. Really well done by you. Well done. The coaching only works if the student leans into it, and you have clearly, clearly done that and so proud of you. I mean, it’s just so exciting to watch. Okay, let’s talk about your talks.

I know you’re out there making a huge impact, so can you share with us some of the things that you talk about?

What are the topics of your keynotes?

Peggy DeLong: Sure. I offer gratitude, another one on joy, resilience, and crafting the life that you want to live. And what has been interesting is that even though my target has been college students with those that are interested in having me speak, they’ve asked me to speak with staff. So now, in addition to my keynote, I provide an in depth workshop for staff as well, because it’s not just the college students who are struggling. There was a mental health epidemic before the Pandemic, which only got worse with the Pandemic and the college staff, professors, college counseling centers, they’re the ones working with the college students on a regular basis. They need support as well.

That was an unintended outcome with my pitches that they were asking me to speak with staff as well. So I welcome that, and I love that gratitude is universal, that anybody can benefit from gratitude.

So I often give my keynote for a large audience with staff and students and then dive deeper with either a group of students or a group of staff. But my favorite to talk about is gratitude, but I offer joy, resilience, and crafting the life you want to live as well.

Maryalice Goldsmith: That’s such a great example of how you can take a topic or take a keynote around a topic and then turn it into a workshop. I think the fact that you went to impact an audience of college students and organically, there was another need that university saw in terms of their staff. And like you said, gratitude is universal. A lot of the things that we talk about are universal. And so I think people get really concerned about Niching Down, and this is such a great example of not being afraid to niche because you’ll be shocked how you organically grow in other ways.

Peggy DeLong: Yes, and that was probably the hardest thing for me, to narrow it down and niche down. But that’s exactly what has happened, that complete strangers and organizations have found me simply because they know I speak about gratitude, and they’re looking for a speaker on gratitude. So it’s opened tremendous doors for me by doing that. But it was really hard in the beginning to narrow my focus.

Maryalice Goldsmith: Yeah. Niching down is challenging. Our students really come to us excited, and they want to help so many people, and then we’re like, well, let’s slow down and really hone in on one area, but there’s so much benefit to doing it that way, and you’re proof of that. I’d love to talk about also that you have your topic, but then you also have a framework that you help teach. I think you actually have two frameworks that you teach, so I’d love for you to share more about that.

What framework do you teach?

Peggy DeLong: Sure. Regardless of the topic of my talk, I work under a framework that I call the four P’s related to mental health, and that is prioritize plan practice, prosper, prioritize your mental health plan health promoting activities, practice them often and prosper even during difficult times. I like to think of mental health as that we need to work on it today for what’s to come tomorrow, and it feels good along the way. So I teach methods like gratitude and other things that feel good while we’re doing them. So it’s not a chore. You can actually look forward to doing these things. And when you do them on a regular basis, you are setting yourself up for positive mental health in the future. It doesn’t just happen very similar to physical health.

We need to be mindful of it. If you need to be strength training, walking, moving your body on a regular basis, the same thing with mental health. So that’s where prioritizing it. And most of all, planning for busy people, you have to plan it and put it in your calendar like you would an appointment with a doctor. Then keep that appointment for yourself. You will prosper during difficult times when you do this on a regular basis.

Maryalice Goldsmith: That’s amazing. I really love that. Because gratitude really does help the soul feel lighter, right? And freer, right. If you’re feeding gratitude, you’re not feeding fear as much, right? And so I love that you have a plan in place to help the human brain wrap their mind around this process. So it’s not like, oh yeah, just go be grateful. Yeah, it’s easy. Wake up and be grateful, right? There needs to be for some people, it’s not that easy. It hasn’t been taught, it hasn’t been mirrored.

And so to be able to plug into a plan really helps it happen faster, makes the person feel happier and lighter and joyful and excited to get back to being grateful, even when life shows up on life’s terms.

Peggy DeLong: That’s exactly what gratitude does. It makes the world feel lighter. And then within that framework of the four P’s, when I’m specifically talking about gratitude, I have another framework that I call the Grateful Day, and it’s five daily exercises in gratitude that take less than five minutes. So the busy college student or busy professional can do these five things in less than five minutes.

They start from the first minute you wake up in the morning, and then that’s when the first exercise is. And then the last exercise is right when your head hits the pillow at the end of the day and then the three other ones during the day, you can do whenever the spirit moves you. But that’s another framework that is really helpful. It just guides people through these five simple exercises that truly do translate to more happiness and fulfillment in life.

Maryalice Goldsmith: That’s incredible. I absolutely love that. I think it helps busy people make this a non negotiable, which is going to make their life so much better. You’re doing incredible work with this, Peggy. I absolutely love it. Talk to us about the moment where you were so grateful that you became a speaker and that you thought you were right where you were meant to be.

Peggy DeLong: Yes. It was really an incredible experience where my daughter had received a request for proposals on her campus, and the students are required to secure the speakers. And she knew that I’d like to speak, so she proposed me without me even knowing. And then when it was accepted, she said, mom, are you free March 2? I said okay, I’ll show up. And she was bombarded with texts after my talk. So she was in the audience in the front row with about 100 other professors, fellow students, and I’ve spoken thousands of times, but this was the most nerve wracking, having my daughter in the front row, and the stakes were high, and immediately afterwards, she received so many texts. Thank you for your mom’s talk. Can I just say, your mom is awesome.

And so I really knew that I was onto something when my talk resonated with these very busy, high achieving college students. And that really helped propel me to further understand that this is the audience that I want to speak with.

Maryalice Goldsmith: I love it. What an incredible experience for you and for your daughter. Talk about gratitude. I can’t imagine your daughter sitting in the front row looking up at you and you seeing her. Yeah. It must have been really an amazing experience. I’m so glad you had it, because the fact that she believed in you had to help you believe in yourself even more. Right? So it’s really amazing and so affirming that you are right where you are meant to be in front of the right audience with the right topic, making an incredible impact.

Really awesome. So excited for you. Okay, so let’s talk about what were some of the game changers in terms of what you learned here at the speaker Lab that made you go, oh, my gosh, this is really going to make an amazing impact on me and my business. Maybe it’s a system, maybe it’s a piece of content. Maybe it’s even something a coach said. What was that thing that you were like, I need this now, and I know this is going to change the game.

What changed the game for your business to grow?

Peggy DeLong: The game changer for me was using Pipedrive, having that system for me to keep track of my contacts, and then I put notes in for myself when I need to follow up, and then I get really detailed about what I want to say so I don’t forget. And having that system has been such a game changer for me, and I am not tech savvy at all. I really resist using technology. I don’t know why. My brain just doesn’t work that way. It’s hard for me. So I like to be spoon fed the information. And I love that Eric Ream was so kind and created a video for people like me to walk you through exactly what you need to do to set up your pipe drive, how it looks on your screen.

So that was so helpful for me. So once I saw what I needed to do, I went right into action, put in all my contacts when I wanted to follow up. And so when I get a no or not, now, I can put when I need to reach out to somebody in the future. If I was using my old system, I would completely forget. So it’s just been such a wonderful practice for me to get on every morning, look what I need to do, and most of all, follow through with what I’ve set myself up for myself.

Maryalice Goldsmith: Systems are so important. I love that you have this down pat. And can you share a little bit how you’re using it for your speaking business successfully?

What does your routine for success look like?

Peggy DeLong: I look at it the night before, so just so I kind of know what’s coming. And that’s how I start my morning, looking at pipe drive and what needs to get done, because sometimes there’ll be nothing there, and other times ten things. So I like to know ahead the day before, just with my private practice in psychology, most of my clients prefer to not just have sessions in the morning, so that’s when I do my pipe drive and my writing.

So I block out at least an hour of every morning, and I start that day. And if I don’t have anything on my pipe drive, then I like to journal. That’s a wonderful way for me to kind of set my intention for the day. That’s another practice that I look forward to. So that’s how I fill the time if I don’t have anything in my pipe drive for that day.

Maryalice Goldsmith: Yeah, that’s so great, and thank you for sharing that. I think whether you’re a student of the speaker lab or you’re a potential student of the speaker lab, this is where the rubber meets them at or the road. It’s the part of the business that’s not fun, necessarily. Well, not for everyone. Some people find this really fun, mining leads and working your pipe drive. But I think, Peggy, you have so many components that are figured out. Being an entrepreneur can be lonely. And so the fact that you have a system in place, you’re journaling every morning, you practice gratitude, you are set up for major wins here, major.

Because I think what happens is when people get into this part of the business where they have to work leads and they’re getting a lot more no’s than yeses, they can really falter with their mindset. But the fact that you have that mindset, that journaling, and that gratitude, that mindset of gratitude, you are set up to win, sister. I’m so excited for you. So excited. Okay, talk to us about how do you balance your coaching business, your speaking business, and your personal life while still being successful. I think you’d have some great advice around that, so I’d love to hear more on that.

Peggy DeLong: Well, I practice what I preach, and those four P’s are so important to me. So prioritizing my mental health is number one. I cannot do for anybody else if I first haven’t taken care of my own mental health. So some days that might be being out in nature journaling. There are lots of different things that I do for my own mental health, but that has been the number one. Another thing that’s been really hard for me is learning to say no. No to the things that really don’t align with my message or it’s just been really hard for me. I wanted to say yes to everything, but I have found that I am much more productive.

My energy and emotions feel better when I am able to say no to things that just don’t feel right. And I use my intuition, just a gut feeling to guide me with that and trusting that it’s been really hard because there’s been a lot of resistance.

People who previously had me speak for free still want me to speak for free, and I don’t do that much anymore. I will every now and then for a nonprofit that really speaks to me, but most of the time that has to end up in being a no because I just can’t do it all. So that was a tough lesson.

Maryalice Goldsmith: Yeah, but such an important lesson, right? Sometimes our biggest yes is to ourselves is when we say no to things that aren’t going to serve us. And you’re not just a speaker, you run a professional therapy business. You have children. There’s a lot of things there. So it’s really important to have those healthy boundaries. You’re filling your cup and not just pouring everything out of you. Because we all know that just ends up in burnout and all that stuff. So I love that you have all this in place. Okay, so we have a lot of different people that listen to our podcast, students, potential students, speakers. I’d love for you to share.

Is there any piece of advice that you receive that you wish that you had sooner and that if you had sooner, it would have changed the trajectory of your journey?

What advice would you give to someone who wants to start speaking professionally?

Peggy DeLong: Yes, and that would be the advice that I received when asked what my fee is to then ask what their budget is. I have found that what I was going to say is much lower than what they were thinking about paying me. And I’m very grateful that a few event organizers have shared that with me. So now I know I resist that temptation to say something right away. Pause and then ask them what their budget is. Or what do they pay experts with my experience, so that it just has worked out much better that way.

Maryalice Goldsmith: That’s awesome. And I know it has helped you raise your rates significantly compared to when you first started at the Speaker Lab. And so that’s profound. Let’s transition. This has been awesome. So appreciate you. I’d like to transition into some fun questions. So how do you prepare for your speeches?

Peggy DeLong: I like to write it out word for word and pretty much memorize it. Because then I know when I get on the stage, I feel so comfortable that if something goes wrong, I can get right back on track. That has just really helped me to know exactly what I’m going to say. I feel so confident because I have memorized it. My signature talk I’ve really been working on for ten years. And so it’s not that I just memorized it over a month or even six months. It has improved over the course of time.

That is one thing that really helps me, is just to memorize it. Knowing what I want to say and where I want to pause. Also where I want to stand on the stage to deliver a stronger impact, etc. I simply feel more confident, and it goes much better. That’s a practice that I like to do.

Maryalice Goldsmith: Awesome. Okay. Do you have a prestage or pre talk routine that you do right before you get on the stage?

Peggy DeLong: Deep breathing definitely helps to calm the nerves. I like to practice one time the night before. Then one time in the morning and not think about it for the rest of the day. Just enjoy my day. So if I’m at a hotel or at a place that I’m not familiar with, I will go and explore what’s nearby, particularly out in nature. That is really helpful for me.

Then when I get on stage, just some deep breaths and reminding myself about why I’m doing this. It’s not about me, that it’s the message that I want to get out there. There’s such, unfortunately, a crisis with mental health in the country. We also have a problem with access to quality mental health care. So I focus on my message and that I want to share with people that gratitude is a simple way to improve mental health. That is absolutely free.

Maryalice Goldsmith: Love that. Is there anything that you have with you or take with you? Like slides, good luck charm, a podium? Like something you must have when you do your talks?

What must you have when you speak?

Peggy DeLong: When I started speaking, I was behind the podium. Now I am far away from the podium as can be. I love putting myself yes, putting myself out there, moving. So I don’t like the podium and I much prefer a lavalier or just not being able to. I found that microphones get heavy! Even though they don’t weigh much when you’re holding it, they start to get heavy! I like to use my hands. So I don’t like a microphone. But what I have that’s very special to me is a Swarovsky pen that some girlfriends gave me when I published my first book. They got together and bought me this beautiful pen to sign my books. And that’s my lucky pen that I bring with me wherever I go.

Maryalice Goldsmith: I love that. I love the growth there. I love the connection with the pen, with your friends. Really special. What is something that you absolutely love about speaking?

What do you love most about speaking?

Peggy DeLong: I love being able to share a simple way to improve mental health. Once again, that it’s free, that it’s accessible at any minute of the day. It doesn’t require any props other than just your brain. It feels good in the moment and it has long term benefits for mental health. That is what I just love, being able to share that message. Being able to impact a life in the simplest of ways through the power of gratitude.

Maryalice Goldsmith: Well, Peggy, you are such a rock star student. It has been such a pleasure working with you, watching your journey, being a part of your journey. I truly believe that you are going to make a impact to people that will be far beyond what you can ever comprehend. The work that you’re doing, the way that you’re doing it from such a servant heart. It’s such a pleasure knowing you.

Peggy DeLong: Thank you, Maryalice.

Maryalice Goldsmith: We wish you all the best. Thanks so much, everyone, for listening. We hope you have a phenomenal day. If you’re not a student of the Speaker Lab, come on over and check us out. Go to thespeakerlab.com and book a strategy call. All right, have a great day, everyone.