Day 26: Seeing Yourself Through Someone Else's Eyes

Nine years ago, my friend Rebecca wrote me a letter that I've never forgotten. Today, I finally read it out loud—and let's just say there were a few tears along the way.

In this episode, I reflect on what it feels like to see yourself through someone else's eyes, share the hilarious story behind Rebecca's infamous "cow tongue" comment, and talk about why the people we surround ourselves with can change the direction of our lives.

I also share my first impressions of Empty Your Backpack by Sam Demma, a book that's reminding me how important it is to invest in relationships that encourage, challenge, and inspire us.

Sometimes the greatest gift isn't advice...it's having someone who truly sees the best in you.

Transcript

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Good morning everyone. Welcome to another edition of 10 unedited minutes with Marlena. Oh it is. Sorry, I had to adjust. It is Thursday, July 23rd, and it's beautiful out. Beautiful. Let's get into it. So today's podcast is brought to you by my sweet, amazing dear friend, Rebecca Conklin Kleibomer. Rebecca has agreed to sponsor my podcast uh sh for two months, and she did so because she loves me, she wants to see this podcast succeed, and she loves the work I'm doing with it. So to honor her, I decided to dedicate the next two months worth of episodes to Rebecca, and I wanted to do that by just loving on her or reminiscing about a sweet memory of our friendship. Just take a couple minutes at the beginning of each episode and do that. And I saved the last 28 days worth of episodes for Rebecca's love letters. You see, back in February of 17, Rebecca dedicated the entire month of February to love. And she took each day and wrote a love letter to one of her family and friends, uh, people who meant a lot to her. And today, I've kind of been waiting on this day, guys, but today she wrote one to me. So we're gonna try to get through this. I I forewarn you, I pre-read it. There were tears, and then there was laughter, and then there was, oh my god. So there's gonna be all kinds of emotions in this, but because it's to me, I feel like I can give a little backstory before I read this letter. Okay, so at the time, these letters, uh, let me start that over. These letters were written, what, nine years ago? So I was right in the thick of owning my uh meat market dahlien bakery called the Doe Hook. And um, yeah, it was during a period where it every year was um um improvement. And so we were doing good, right? We were flying high. It was in our in our best era of owning the doe hook, okay? So I don't know why that's relevant, but anyway, life was good in this era, okay? So here we go. On February 8th, uh Rebecca wrote, Dear Marlena, you are a lifesaver in every sense of the word. My dear friend, you are as sweet as the moniker candy itself. Your cheerfulness is as bright as the rainbow of colors, and your embrace is big enough for all kinds of flavors of people. Just being around you is such a treat. Your business is the very stuff of life, providing sustenance to folks that is prepared with love and dedication and service. I am so freaking proud of you, and I am so grateful that your deli and bakery is doing well. And I got some tongue out of it, LOL. I think all of the long hours you put into this adventure from the classes toward your business degree to the time you spend on your feet at the counter now, and I am impressed by your fortitude. I've known you to be like this in all the professions you have had. You certainly saved everyone's ass on a number of occasions when you were in the back shop at the newspaper where we first met. And I mean, come on, your work with the diocese was all about saving folks, right? Whatever it is that you are doing, you are doing so with commitment and care for others and pride in the work itself. And I just love you for that. The love you have for your family is pure saving grace. I love that we share a background of being raised on a farm where we cut our teeth on the reality that you all have to take care of each other. Your home is one of hospitality and heart, a place where obstacles are overcome and hardships are endured, where forgiveness flows. Your same loving hand held a little d your same loving hand held a little daughter's through a scary diagnosis to thriving health, and a sister's through suffering to eternal glory. You saved the Sorry. I gotta get through this. See what I mean? Sorry. You saved the very life of a certain waitress at an all-you-can eat buffet, whom I had heard to tell me to go on a diet, but you correctly had heard offer me a refill on my soda. Life saver. You probably saved me from going to jail that day, too. You have saved me over and over from loneliness, from bad decisions, from living my whole life and not knowing what it means to stick your finger towards the windshield. To stick your finger towards a windshield and cross a state line first on a road trip. I could thread the candies of your loveliness on a necklace and suck it forever. I love you, Marlena. Always Rebecca. Beautiful, beautiful. It's always humbling to read or um experience how other people see you, right? To experience what they see through their eyes. And this I'm speechless, Rebecca. This letter, I was speechless when you wrote it nine years ago, and I'm speechless to this day. So um what was I going? I was going, oh, when you said I got some tongue out of it, that just so all my listeners know, that is because Rebecca bought cow tongue from me and took it home and cooked it for her husband. And cow tongue is not uh something that a lot of people around here eat. It is definitely um something that is a delicacy in other cultures, not in America. So I had bought a case of it for somebody who wanted one cow tongue. This was back of the dough hook, and I think um there was like 10 tongues in this case. So yeah, it I had I had to sell them, and I sold one to Rebecca and she loved every minute of it. And for those of you that don't know, uh cow tongue is used in the um like Hispanic dishes, like on tacos. I've eaten them before. I'm not a fan of it, I think it's chewy, and I just can't get past eating something that licked its own butt. So sorry, can't do it. Anyway. Oh, Rebecca, thank you, thank you, thank you for um just being an amazing friend. I just love you so much. Um, so what are we getting into today? This kind of leads into um something uh another friend of mine sent to me. And um it, you know, when they say surround yourself with good people and good things come your way, I truly believe that. And that's what I try to put into my friend circle is people who um are supportive of each other and lift each other up. And this one friend, I'm gonna call her out, and she's probably gonna like roll her eyes, but Balana sent me the name of this um motivational speaker, um, podcaster, philanthropist, whatever, and told me that I needed to follow him. And his name is Sam Dima, and he's from Canada. And um I I literally just started following him on social media and some of his his talks or whatever. And um I saw an ad for his book, and it's called Empty Your Backpack. So I bought it. It was $5 on um on uh for a digital copy. Um Kindle. Why can't I ever think of that word, Kindle? So I could read it on my Kindle, right? And I am about three-fourths of the way through it. It's not a long book, it's only like 175 pages, give or take a few. And you probably could read it in one sitting, but um I'm taking a little bit more time because you know I'm a busy cow. So anyway, I'm about three-fourths of the way through it. And this guy, he he's in his early 20s, right? But he is so so smart, he's an entrepreneur, he follows his heart, follows his gut, and he talks about his life. I'm just gonna give it to you real quick. Um, in high school, his dream was to be a professional soccer player, and he had injury after injury after injury, and he overcame each one of those injuries, and um he actually I feel did he play, I don't know. He never said if he actually played professional soccer or not, but um he traveled the world as a early teenager to um pursue this dream, and he the dream was shattered because he just sustained too many injuries. So then one day he's like 17, 18 years old, I think, and he's just trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life, and he decided one day I he started a podcast and he started down the social media path, and I think he really truly enjoyed that, and I think that's truly what he wanted to do, but at 17 he just couldn't admit it because as he said, that is the era where everybody says you have to go to college. Once you graduate from high school, you gotta go to college, and so that's what he did. So he um went to college, he didn't even finish his first semester, and he dropped out because he hated it, and he said, This is not what I want to do. I feel like I'm wasting my time. So his parents thankfully supported him quitting college, and he did. And one day he was walking home from I'm going to assume school, and he picked up a piece of trash, and he said, Man, there's a lot of trash laying around. So he made a conscious effort to pick up one full bag of trash on his way to school every single day. And he just said, That's it. That's he said I didn't have any agenda with it. I just decided I was going to pick up one bag of trash on my way to school every day. And he said, I set that goal and I set that um regimen. Why can't I think of the words today? I set that regimen, um, that habit each day. And he said, after a while, he said I was um talking to somebody and I told them about this, and they said, we need to talk. So he started this, long story short, he started this movement where um they have one day and they just pick up trash around his town, and he tells a story of how he built that as a 17-year-old, him and his friend, and they started by saving 140 bags of trash in his backyard because they were gonna have the leaning tower of trash and call a bunch of media out and just have this huge event. And he said, We had no idea how to write a press release, we had no idea how to publicly speak, how to, you know, start a group, whatever. And he said, we just reached into our bag of contacts, into our network, and we figured it out. And like I think he said over a hundred people showed up to this day, and media outlets showed up. He got, I mean, it's just crazy. But um to this day, that community still has the leaning bag, whatever you call it. So he has gone on to be a motivational speaker, he targets um students and you know, schools across North America, and he's also a um an author, and he's pretty big on social media. So he talks about his journey, how it literally started with just this passing thought of he was going to pick up one bag of trash on the way to school every day, and look at what it's led to. He said that bag of trash led to a national movement um to better the environment, which led to a speaking career, which led to my me writing a couple books, and he's very successful right now, and he's very inspiring, and just as a young kid, he's super inspiring. He talked about in this book, um, I think what this is what made me buy this book. See, it's all coming back to me as I'm talking. Um, he shared the story of his neighbor guy, waved him over one day, and he said, Hey, I just wanted to tell you I bought your book. And Sam's like, Oh, great, you know, what'd you think? Whatever. And the neighbor guy said, Um, it caused me to, I should say, motivated me to give up my um white what it let me collect my thoughts here. It motivated me to give up my corporate job and start my own business. And he said, I want it for my whole life, I just want to fix bikes. So that's what he does. And so this neighbor now fixes bikes for bicyclists all over the world, and he's also successful at it. So Sam's whole point is if you can think it, you can do it. If it's a dream, it can be a reality. Don't live your life doing things you don't want to do. Live your life doing things that are meaningful to you, and success will come. The rest will come. And since I've given up um the dough hook, that's kind of what I've been doing. I've been trying to find things that are meaningful to me. And I said that from day one when people ask me, so now that you don't have the dough hook, what are you gonna do? And I've always said it has to be a job that's impactful and meaningful and makes a difference. And yeah, I haven't found that job yet. But I started this podcast, and I started this podcast just as a way for me to have structure in my life, a reason to get up every morning and sit down at this desk and talk to this microphone like it's my kid, and my kid, my best friend. And it's kind of it's kind of led down some paths that I'm kind of excited about and interested in, and maybe I'll pursue, maybe I won't, but um we'll see. And if I keep talking, we're gonna have to turn this into 20 minutes with Marlena. But our time is up today, guys. Go out there, Google Sam Dima, find that book, empty your backpack, and read it. Tell me what you think. I want to know because it's inspiring to me, and I'm probably gonna finish it today. So thank you, Rebecca, for sponsoring this podcast, for believing in me, and thank you for that beautiful letter you wrote nine years ago. I love you. I love you all. Pray for me. I pray for you every single day, and we'll see you tomorrow. Bye.