Let Me Tell You This About That

Conversations on Resilience and Positivity

• Hess and Delbert • Season 1 • Episode 24

Share episode

Send us a text

Join Hess and Delbert in an engaging episode of “Let Me Tell You This, About That," where they discuss the power of showing up despite life's challenges. From weathering storms or head colds to advocating for clients and family members, they share heartfelt stories and anecdotes. Delving into historical reflections, such as Delbert’s grandfather’s WWII experiences in the 104th Timberwolf Division, and exploring mindfulness practices inspired by Goldie Hawn, the duo illuminates the importance of resilience and spreading positivity. Tune in for an episode filled with warmth, wisdom, and practical advice on making each day count.

Help my friend José wipe out the Stage 4 cancer in his body!
https://gofund.me/e6f61999

In addition to being a podcast host, Hess is also an LCSW--if you'd like to learn more about her work as a therapist, check it out at www.jessicabollinger.com

One of her mission's is for all of our lights to shine--when we see each other and allow ourself to be seen--and we can say to the person in front of us, There You Are! the world will be an amazing place!

Delbert is a realtor in Louisville, KY, and you can find her at Kentucky Select Properties

Her philanthropic work to continue her sister Carole and niece Meghan is Carole's Kitchen. Blessings in a Backpack helps feed the many hungry students in our schools.





Hess:

Hello everyone. This is Hess and you have joined us at, let me tell you this, about that.

Delbert:

Good morning, as always, I'm Delbert on the green couch looking out my picture window to tell you today in Louisville. it's a little gray. We are gonna have a few storms coming through today, but I. One of what we're gonna talk about, part of what we're gonna talk about is showing up. And so I'm gonna show up for my clients, even though have to take shelter a little later today.

Hess:

Yeah. More, more bad weather coming in late afternoon or what time's it gonna hit?

Delbert:

Late afternoon, early evening. I'm hoping it doesn't hit until after six when I get home. but

Hess:

Yeah.

Delbert:

yeah.

Hess:

Yeah. I woke up to letting the dogs out and the concrete's wet. So we've had some drizzle, which is good because I told everybody we planted our seed last night and excuse me, last week in our fields with the with the pasture renovator got all that done so we could use a little moisture so that the seeds come up. And y'all can hear my voice is a little bit hoarse and I'm just so happy because it's a lot better than it was on Friday'cause I couldn't even hardly talk on Friday. That was on my mind. Albert is I gotta do this podcast. I gotta show up on Sunday, and I'm gonna show up. Come heck or high water or voice, or no voice.

Delbert:

I love it. And you showed up for your clients. We just. Had a quick talk before we started our podcast, and Hess was telling me all the way she showed up for her clients and her friends and her family. This week, which is, showing up is so great. Sometimes we don't feel good. We don't feel like showing up, and that's when you really have to kinda kick it into overdrive,

Hess:

Lean into it.

Delbert:

In and dig deep.

Hess:

I had a scratchy throat a week ago, and, the lady Cats were playing on Sunday. Had to go Monday night. Monday night. I had my Soul Matters group. I had pickleball. I did play pickleball Monday, Wednesday, Friday, because I'd rather be on that pickleball ball court with my friends versus being on my couch. But so I had Soul Matters Monday night we had our friends vi Vicki Wilson and her husband and her little girl from New Zealand in for dinner on Tuesday night, Wednesday night. My friend Melissa and Mike Reed backed their boat up in my driveway, the time and tide, and they stopped through on a visit and spent the night here on their boat. Wednesday night, Thursday, I had to take our little Boston Terrier into the Bluegrass Vision Clinic in Louisville to get her eyes examined for her pre-operational visit for her for her eyes. And then Friday I'd moved clients to Friday from Thursday. And I didn't have much voice, but I felt fine. Like my wife Kathy was saying, oh honey, I'm so sorry that you feel so bad. She was telling me that on Friday, I go, Uhuh, I feel great today. You should have been feeling tired for me a few days ago.

Delbert:

You're late.

Hess:

You're late.

Delbert:

you're feeling bad for me. As long as it came, right?

Hess:

And folks like, yeah, if my voice had been the same, it was on Friday, I'd have still been here. I'd say, okay, Delbert, you got the baton. You're gonna do most of the talking.

Delbert:

Which I'm quite chatty. I would've been fine with. I didn't feel like you had a head cold last weekend.'cause I figured you, your voice was due to all the NCAA tournament games that you were cheering for. I Voice. Yeah.

Hess:

I had March Madness voice. I.

Delbert:

Yeah. Yeah.

Hess:

Yeah. Yeah. Bert, tell me again say, tell me again because I want our listeners to know what is a day like for a realtor

Delbert:

Oh my goodness.

Hess:

You had, you, you put this property on you, you listed the property on Thursday and you weren't gonna show it at all until Saturday.'cause the people were gonna be out of town visiting somebody yesterday. So go ahead.

Delbert:

In Louisville, Kentucky, we're super fortunate. Our market is very brisk right now. I think I said that earlier in the year. And, I talk to friends in real estate around the country and the markets in Florida, for example, just aren't as good as they are here. They're very slow and very soft. A lot of inventory similar to our market in 2009. But here, if a house is in really nice condition and it's priced right, those two things are very important. Pricing it right and getting it ready to go. They sell really quickly. So I worked with my buyers or my sellers on their house all week last week. We, we shined up the hardwood floors, we washed windows, we just got sparkling clean, and then I brought some extra things in. I borrowed a big king comforter and, made their bed with some, pillows and. Put some throws and pillows out and we just got it all sparkled up and shined up. And I had my handy person fix some places in their ceiling tiles in the basement. And last minute I noticed there were a few little nicks in the basement. I. Ceiling going down the steps. So I ended up going to Home Depot and getting some paint and like rolling the ceiling, real quick before people came to look at it. I'm like, real estate is not glamorous by any means, but the time I, I got everything set and the brochures out. I had 25 showings yesterday on that cute little house. And so we're getting multiple offers. We're gonna review this evening. So just a really busy, tiring day yesterday, and then today in my life it's Sunday. So I'll have an open house, I'll review offers, and I've also got some people I'm trying to get out to look at some property before the storm hits. So just the spring is super busy. I like it. I was thinking about our conversation last week about, spiraling and getting drilled down into the ground and how, you've gotta get that motion going to come out of that hole. And I'm like, oh my gosh. I was I had back to back showings. Which means, three groups of buyers. And I just had'em scheduled out all, throughout the day. And I was just so happy. And I was driving to my car, listening to music, and I'm like, oh, this is why Hess and Cathy are so happy. They're constantly moving, they're constantly doing things and that's so important. And I'm like, I really am so happy when I'm out. With people showing houses. So anyway, that's my little happy spot. I, and I do love to get houses ready. It's a lot of work, but I have joy in putting the flowers out and fluffing the pillows and just getting it sparkling, so anyway, a lot of little things in my job that bring me joy probably is in everybody's cup of tea. But that's me. And that's my day. And.

Hess:

I love it. I love it. That's kinda you talking about last week you have all these plates, different serving plates, that if you entertain, and so that kind of aesthetics that you do for these houses that you're, that you put on the market it really makes such a difference. The mums that you put out and the fresh cut flowers. When you go to Trader Joe's and you buy all their flowers.

Delbert:

And the people behind me are like, are you like. Planning a wedding or and I'm like, I'm just selling a house, but it does make such a difference and and my clients are like, gosh, we really thought you were pushing us. But they'll go into a house that hasn't been cleaned, it's been on the market for a while. It's smelly. There's no love, and they're like, oh man, we get it. We get the difference that it makes and it just doesn't take that much to make a huge difference in life and real estate and friendship and just going that little extra step makes all the difference in the world.

Hess:

Cool. Cool. All right, so we left you all last week with talking about Papaw because he would always want to spiral up. He had been in World War II in the hundred and fourth division. Of the Army and saw and witnessed so many hard things and presented to you Delbert as oh when your dog passed away, he's oh no, your dog went and got married. I would always try to flip it into telling you something positive

Delbert:

Yeah. He always pivoted towards joy and taught me how to do that even though he saw so many terrible things. And Hess sent me we were talking about him last week and I couldn't remember the name of the concentration camp, so a little bit of housekeeping. The name of that concentration camp in Germany that he helped liberate was called Dora Mittelbau. I hope I'm saying that it's M-I-T-T-E-L. BAU Dormital. And and so Hess was so diligent about looking things up about his infantry. She sent me this encyclopedia link about, what were the things that qualified you to be put in the Holocaust Museum as a liberator. And there are only 36, military divisions that have that distinction. And my papa's a hundred fourth, the Timberwolves were one was because they were there within 48 hours of the first soldier arriving. And and when I was little, he did not talk about the war. He was always pivoting towards joy and trying to entertain us and bring joy into the lives of his whole family. And so he showed up for us in that way big time. But he showed up for those people in that concentration camp. When I was older, he told us stories about, how horrible it smelled when they started wa like they could smell it miles out, they could smell the concentration camp. And they got up to it, a lot of the people in his division, they threw up, they got really sick. They were having huge bouts of trauma, breakdowns, all sorts of things that go on along with all of this. The rescuing and and so they, their infantry is really credited with coming in, I think second and providing food medical attention, clothing, blankets. These poor people were starving. They were naked or half naked. And they had'em working in these tunnels. And they also organized the town, surrounding that camp to, to bury, properly bury the dead over 3000 bodies there. He carried that with him his whole life, but he always showed We didn't know what to call it.

Hess:

Yeah. Flashbacks and so forth.

Delbert:

Yeah.

Hess:

Wow. Wow.

Delbert:

So showing up Papa Charlie is a plus for showing up and just. Getting it done, and and in small ways you and I do that for our clients and our friends and our family every day.

Hess:

Telling the papa story just makes me having a head cold and still seeing clients, like small stuff. But, you Papaw taking care of himself however he could, and that's before they had really good mental health services for the veterans.

Delbert:

I am right.

Hess:

They were just supposed to just like for, forget it. But they go back to their house. Yeah. And he had four kids and he is over there and thinking about his four kids that he's trying to get back to. Wow. Wow. Yeah. So me showing up and having a sore throat. That's icing. That's nothing.

Delbert:

It's still showing up, so don't shortchange it. I'll tell you that we all do what we need to do in our lives and that's what our destiny is like. Has you helped so many people? You're such a leader our friends. Take the lead in our retreats. You help so many people. That's so important. health is so important. I know that firsthand, and I, it's so important how you show up for people, so don't shortchange that at all.

Hess:

For sure. I have a friend that whose father was in Vietnam and she experienced Vietnam through him. That, he brought back a lot of demons that stayed in his head from Vietnam. He knew who he really was, which, you knew your papa, the core of the person and the way that they ever tried to protect themselves. The have all or the Bloody Mary in the morning or something, those are all just adaptations to, to try to survive. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard. It's hard. Yeah.

Delbert:

my kids were little and they'd have a stomach ache, they'd say, I have a Papa Charlie belly.

Hess:

Oh.

Delbert:

had a stomachache. His stomach hurt a lot, a lot of issues and or they'd get a nervous stomach. They'd say, oh, I got a Papaw Charlie Belly.

Hess:

Wow. Wow. So tell me more, you also did more research on the Goldie Hawn work.

Delbert:

Right. Talk about showing up. Here's a shout out to Goldie Hawn. I love her so much. I love all of her movies. And she's also a writer, which I don't think I've read any of her books, or at least not lately. And she says, I. part of being blessed. If you have money, that is a blessing, but it's also a responsibility to show up for people who have than you. So she I. Has this video and it's part of her Mind Up. That's the name of the program. So that's the other part of housekeeping. I couldn't think of the name of it last week, but it's called Mind Up and it's a program for children to help them succeed through mental health, exercises and, that's scientific scientifically based. She is a promoter of that mind up and her wake up is part of that that program that she has. And it's just, you can Google it and watch it. She takes deep breaths before she opens her eyes and then she stretches and then she thinks of three things she's grateful for and before she gets out of bed, she says It's gonna be a great day. And I just love that.

Hess:

Yeah. So that's how you wake up every morning?

Delbert:

Yes. If I don't forget, sometimes I wake up and I go, oh shoot, I forgot the Goldie. Ha, dang it.

Hess:

Yeah.

Delbert:

then I'll, before I start my prayers I'll do my gratitude, my three gratitudes. But I think I just wake up thinking it's gonna be a great day. I'm always anxious. I. the day to start. I get excited like a little, I say that like I'm like a little kid, I'm just like, oh, let me look outside. What's it gonna be like today? I'm excited for this day, and then I start planning around the weather. I'm To take an umbrella tonight to those showings, right?

Hess:

That we might have just gotten squirrely there because we got, I got rain on my starlink satellite dish right then.

Delbert:

Oh.

Hess:

But yeah, that's just so optimistic to think about. It's gonna be a great day. And then you look for, Hey, what's gonna be great? And things that are great versus being like an Eyore, waking up and saying, oh, it's gonna be a bad day. And then it just seems like it keeps getting bad and I can remember. Delbert, this is a Sacred Heart thing. We went to the same grade school, high school Mother of good counsel and Sacred Heart is, it was Sister Patrick in biology class, or it might have been Ms. Herp. And Ms. Herp was really sweet. She always had a little she wore red lipstick and she always had a little red lipstick on her teeth tooth. You remember that?

Delbert:

Yes, I love Ms. Herp.

Hess:

Yeah. If we start to have a bad day, then we slump our shoulders. And then when we have our shoulders slumped, we'd be more apt to trip and stuff like that. And to be more awkward and then it can multiply where we have more of a bad day.

Delbert:

Exactly. And the Ursuline sisters and Ms. Herp, they were really big on posture. Sit up straight. And I'm really grateful for all that. I know it didn't work for everybody, but the discipline really worked for me. And I'm super grateful for it.'cause I was such a wild kid. If I hadn't had that I don't know what would've happened to me.

Hess:

You did have the the place for your cigarettes sewn into your, so it would've been.

Delbert:

Some stuff was stressing me out. I could always go have a smoke by the St. Jude statue. Yeah, I had that going for me. and then they had a smoking lounge, I think junior year we got a smoking lounge. So I could always just go in my smoking lounge with my. Cigarettes in my Wescot pocket. my God, the stitching on that was just atrocious.

Hess:

That's funny. Is it raining there outside your picture window?

Delbert:

not raining. It's just a little gray. One of the other things that I, you always see, people say is, oh, I have to go to work. And you know what? If you have a job that is a blessing, you get to go to work.

Hess:

Just resay saying

Delbert:

Resetting it just pivoting towards joy like I was saying about Papa Charlie. So yeah, today I get to show houses and if it rains, I have the cutest umbrella with yellow daisies on it that I'll get to take with me.

Hess:

Yeah, I was working with a couple the other day and it was like, Hey, I get to, and I get to, and I get to, instead of, I have to,

Delbert:

Right.

Hess:

Uhhuh. Yeah. It's just a little switch and moving from that limbic part of your brain up to your prefrontal cortex, getting that that limbic amygdala, that amygdala part like it's turnstile to get it to go up to a positive thought or what, so that you can spiral back up. Yeah.

Delbert:

out of the ground, move around in whatever the day brings you sunshine or rain and get going. Life is short. It's sweet. Get in there and get all the goodness out.

Hess:

And a lot of people are being affected by what's happening in the world right now. What's happening with our country, and I have something on the bottom of every email I send out that is this when a student asks Butler what the answer is to ending the suffering in the world, she replies, there's no single answer that will solve all of our future problems. There's no magic bullet. Instead, there are thousands of answers at least, and you can be one of them if you choose to be.

Delbert:

I love that. Let's all try to be the answer. One of a thousand.

Hess:

Yeah. Just 1, 1, 1 positive thing that you can do to make a change.

Delbert:

exactly. Whether it's just smiling at somebody in line or, telling somebody you like their hat, you can change somebody's day. I keep seeing these sweatshirts that say, dear person behind me, the world's a better place because you're in it.

Hess:

Wow.

Delbert:

Love the person in front of you, and then they turn around and the sweatshirt on the front says, you're enough. And I'm like, oh my gosh. I want one of those.

Hess:

That's great.

Delbert:

Even though I don't wear sweatshirts that often

Hess:

yeah. You are enough. You are enough.

Delbert:

or if you don't have one, you can just tell people that.

Hess:

And it's tough and hard sometimes. I'm just picturing Papaw's troop going into this, to this concentration camp, smelling it miles away, going in there. Some people are half alive. There's 3000 people that are dead. Bone, just bones half dressed if they are alive, it's just, and they had to really, they had to really bring those people back slowly. You had to be careful with how you nurtured them back from that

Delbert:

Even how much you fed,

Hess:

yeah. Yeah. Wow. I'm listening to, I'm listening to a good book right now, James, and it's Jim from it's Jim's perspective from Huckleberry Finn, and that's written from his point of view and oh gosh what me with white privilege doesn't know about what happened to blacks. Just not even being able to trace their heritage because they weren't in any, they weren't on any, any censor list and families being removed or taken, or people being used as a breeder and so forth. It's just crazy to think that's how we were that can bring me down. But then I gotta okay, this knowledge is good. How can I move forward in a more positive way? I gotta know about these hard things that happened.

Delbert:

Exactly and spread the light,

Hess:

yeah. How can I spread the light? Yeah.

Delbert:

Pods. We hope you can spread the light today and we hope you have great Goldie Hawn Day

Hess:

even though it might be raining where you are, what sunshine can you bring in around you? We love you. Thank you so much for listening. Be sure to subscribe and to share. Give us a little comment or review. You all take care.

Delbert:

Peace and love. Friends, we love you.