The Email That Almost Never Happened | Steve Gamlin | 193

What if the smallest moment… a compliment, a conversation, an email almost deleted… could change the entire course of a life?

In this deeply moving episode of Manders Mindset, host Amanda Russo sits down with motivational speaker, author, and “motivational firewood guy” Steve Gamlin for a conversation about mindset, awareness, resilience, love, and the unexpected moments that shape a life.

Steve shares how a childhood filled with curiosity and imagination eventually led him into radio, stand-up comedy, DJing, public speaking, and writing. But the journey wasn’t always smooth. Behind the scenes were moments of burnout, divorce, crushing debt, and self-doubt that forced him to rebuild his life from the ground up.

At the center of this conversation is one powerful theme: awareness.

Through simple acts of kindness, chance encounters, vision boards, and moments many people might overlook, Steve explains how life constantly offers lessons and opportunities if attention is paid closely enough. Sometimes the smallest ripple can create the biggest impact.

The conversation also explores the remarkable love story between Steve and his late wife, Tina. What began with a single unexpected email after 21 years apart grew into a deeply meaningful relationship Steve describes as a real-life fairytale. With honesty and vulnerability, he shares the joy they built together, the heartbreak of losing her, and the ways love continues to guide his life today.

💡 In this episode, listeners will discover:

✨ Why childlike curiosity can transform everyday life
🌊 How small acts of kindness create ripple effects
🎙️ The childhood dreams that eventually shaped Steve’s career
🔥 How burnout, debt, and life setbacks became turning points
😂 Why stand-up comedy helped shape Steve’s speaking style
💛 Why connection matters more than applause
❤️ How visualization and vision boards helped shape life and relationships
🕊️ How grief and gratitude can coexist after loss
👀 Why awareness changes how life is experienced
🐾 The simple daily reminder to “wag yourself happy”

⏰ Timeline Summary

[02:10] Childlike Curiosity: Steve shares how living with wonder and noticing small moments creates positive ripples in everyday life.
[12:15] A Friend’s Encouragement: The moment a friend challenged Steve to pursue radio and follow the dream he once had.
[18:40] Burnout & Rock Bottom: Radio success, overworking, divorce, and financial struggles force a complete life reset.
[24:55] The Life Coach Question: One simple question sparks a journey into stand-up comedy, Toastmasters, and motivational speaking.
[30:20] Connection Over Applause: Why making a real connection with one person matters more than a standing ovation.
[34:10] The Tina Love Story: Reconnecting after 21 years and the email that unexpectedly changed everything.
[41:30] Loss, Grief & Gratitude: Steve shares the heartbreaking loss of Tina and the ways her presence continues to guide him.
[47:15] Vision Boards & Awareness: How visualization and paying attention to life’s moments can shape an intentional life.
[51:00] Wake Up & Wag Yourself Happy

Website
stevegamlinspeaker.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the Manders Mindstep Podcast. Million Mind. Often. Often healers. And of the million other people. Welcome to Linda's mindset.

SPEAKER_04 0:31

I'm your host, Amanda Bruce, and I am so excited to be joined today by Steve Gamble. He is known as the motivational Iowa guy. He blends back-to-fact basics, positivity, visualization, and humor, teaching his clients to see their desired outcomes, understand their why, and build action plans to achieve them. And his journey is one you definitely want to hear. Thanks for joining me, Steve.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Thanks so much. I am so looking forward to our conversation.

SPEAKER_04 1:05

So who would you say Steve is at the core?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

I'm a little kid with childlike wonder about the world in an almost 58-year-old body. I am amazed by the world around me every single day. And one of my favorite things is to just look around and see something that inspires me and take a picture of it or describe it and use it as a lesson to just share something with the rest of the world and maybe inspire somebody or make them laugh. I'm still a little kid at heart in a six foot two, almost 58-year-old body.

SPEAKER_04 1:42

I love that. So you've never stopped being that little kid?

SPEAKER_00 1:45

No, not at all. Never.

SPEAKER_04 1:54

Anything that helps you embrace that childlike mindset?

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Just being curious about the world and being very interested, especially when I meet people, even strangers. I just love the interaction with the world every day where so many people walk around hunched over, staring at their shoes or at their phone and just wandering through. I walk around like I'm a tourist, no matter where I am, and just looking for cool stuff. And I meet the most amazing people that way. And I get to leave a trail of plus signs behind me, meaning as many positive interactions as possible. Even if it's a simple act of kindness or a smile or paying somebody a compliment. I was at a grocery store recently and I looked at somebody who had like the coolest hat. And I just stopped and looked at her and said, That is the coolest hat I've seen all day today. I could never pull that off, but you you make that hat look awesome. And she just had the biggest smile on her face. And I just love being that way in the world.

SPEAKER_04 2:52

No, I completely agree. And we never know how that one comment will make somebody feel throughout the rest of the day.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

It's like making ripples. I spent my summers on a little pond, a small lake near where I live actually now. And we'd go out in the morning and the water would be like glass. And then maybe a fish would come up to the surface or a bird would come down and touch the water, and you'd watch the ripples just go forever. And that's who I think we can all be as people. If we just keep creating those little ripples like that, I think the world would be a much better place.

SPEAKER_04 3:27

I agree. No, can you take us down memory lane? Tell us a little bit about your childhood, upbringing, family dynamic, however deep you want to take that.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Yeah. Yeah. I I had a great childhood. My mom, my dad, my my younger sister, and myself. We were the the up old midder, uh, yeah, up, upper middle, blue class, blue collar, middle class, and just it was a fun childhood. You know, rode my bike, played little league, played music all the time at the house, did it learned all the construction and carpentry stuff from my dad. Because the minute they bought this house in 1976, boy, we started tearing it apart and working on it. And I got a great childhood education in hard work. And when I was about 11 years old, I had this vision for my life because I wanted to be a radio DJ someday. Because at the time there was a TV show called WKRP in Cincinnati and a DJ called Dr. Johnny Fever, and he was my rock star of a hero. So I wanted to be a radio DJ. Steve Martin was huge in the comedy world at the time. I wanted to be a stand-up comic. And I wanted to write my own books because our mom instilled the love of reading and writing in myself and my sister. And I also wanted to be a teacher of people, but not in a classroom, because I had this amazing fifth-grade teacher named Mrs. And if I finished my work early, she would encourage me to help some of the other students that might have been struggling with a lesson. So when I was 11 years old, she had me coaching other people and helping them to just take what I knew in my energy and just share it with other people. And looking back, what a great education that was. What the heck are you doing with your life? Why didn't you ever get into radio like you said you wanted to? And the reason was I didn't know how to go about it, and I didn't have the guts to go after it. And just that one question from a friend on the right day when I was in the right mood of, well, I have nothing else to lose, I reached out to a local radio DJ named Cindy Brooks here in New Hampshire. And I said, Hey, Cindy, it's Steve. I'm thinking about getting into radio. What do I do? And she said, Well, there's a school down near Boston called Connecticut School of Broadcasting. So I borrowed a couple thousand dollars from my grandfather, and I was the graduating class summer 1992 of Connecticut School of Broadcasting. And a month later, I got an internship, not even paid, zero money. Internship at a local rock radio station that we had grown up listening to. And I drove to that friend's house, that was my friend Danny, and I shared the good news. And he was so proud. And of course, I got the I told you so speech. And three weeks later, Danny passed away. He was 23 years old. He'd had cancer twice before, and it came back very quickly. And it took him. But he got to see me, live the dream that I wanted to live, because he encouraged me to do it. And I learned a very valuable lesson over those 10 years. When somebody else believes in you, when you don't, they see something in you that you didn't see. So you should probably listen to other people when they're propping you up because you can't see past your fear and lack of confidence, but they can see you shining in the light. So I think you should go for it. And that lesson has kept me going all these years.

SPEAKER_04 7:39

I'm sorry for your loss about Danny. That's beautiful though, that he got to see you do that.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 7:47

And that's a little wild too that you managed to do it before he passed, and he passed so young on top of it.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Yeah. Yeah, he was only 23 years old. I was 24 at the time. So yeah, we're looking back now, we're just kids.

SPEAKER_04 8:01

I I feel like he was meant to see you achieve that.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Yeah. Yeah. And I shared that story one time on a podcast, and the host said, Do you believe in guardian angels? And I said, Absolutely. He said, look up what the name Daniel means in the Guardian Angels. So I did. It means it's a person who encourages those who are creative, who are speakers, who are musicians, who are sharing themselves authentically with the world. And when you think about it, that's exactly what he did. So it fit his name pretty well.

SPEAKER_04 8:38

Wow. That's beautiful. And you did radio for 10 years. What made you transition out of radio?

SPEAKER_00 8:47

I was absolutely burnt to a crisp. I worked about 15 years worth of hours in 10. And I'm sure you've heard the expression people say, especially when you're young, you gotta hustle and grind. Well, radio didn't pay much. So in addition to working 50 or 60 hours a week at the radio station, I started the DJ business and was DJing weddings and corporate events on the weekends. So I was working six, seven days a week for 10 years. Burnt myself into the ground. By then, I was married. And by the end of the 2000s, end of the 90s, early 2000s, I was absolutely fried. The Thursday chest pains were starting to happen on Wednesdays. I was not feeling well. I was not sleeping well, and I was just falling apart. Every part of my life felt like it was falling apart. And in a real short window of time, I quit my radio career without a full-time job. I just had this little weekend DJ business to kind of support me. Went through a divorce and found out at age 35 I was about$62,000 in debt because I was not paying attention to where all the money was going. And crash landed at my dad's house, where we had just built a recording studio in his basement. And that's what some of the debt was. I took out a huge business loan to build a recording studio and then quit my only source of income to pay it back. And there's a saying that I use some days your Phoenix rides a pogo stick. So some days you're flying, some days you have just burnt all your tail feathers off sitting in the ashes. And that was definitely a cannonball into the ashes, was all those decisions. But shortly after that, in August of 03, on a very hot and humid day, I had$3 left in my pocket on a Friday afternoon. And I decided to take out my frustrations and self-loathing, because my self-talk used to be brutal on a bucket of golf balls at a local driving range. And I went to the farthest T box because I'm a horrible golfer and I didn't want to dent anyone's car in the parking lot. And I was under this row of steel-towered power lines. So here I am, just smacking the crap out of a bucket of golf balls, and a thunderstorm came ripping through. So there I am in the pouring rain, in the wind, in the thunder, and the lightning, barefoot in the wet grass, holding a golf club in the air and swirling around, just being sarcastic, looking up and saying, Go ahead. I dare you. Go ahead. Take your best shot. Go ahead. My life sucks. And nothing happened. So I hit all my golf balls in the buckets of two other guys who ran from the storm and didn't come back. And at the end of an hour, I couldn't even lift my arms anymore. And I got out to my car and I opened the door and the rain stopped. And the first couple little cracks of light started coming through the dark clouds. And I just started laughing. I thought that was so funny. And I look up and I'm like, all right, God, well played. And the next day I was on the phone with a brand new life coach I just started working with. And he asked, How was your week? And I said, Yeah, listen to what this dumbass did yesterday. And I told him the story about hitting golf balls in a thunderstorm. And when he stopped laughing, which is something you should not do when your client's life sucks, he said, I got two questions. Are you this open and honest about your life with everybody? And I said, Yeah. Self-deprecating, but sure. Have you ever thought of being a motivational speaker or a stand-up comedian? I think you'd really enjoy both. He didn't know those were two of my goals from when I was 11 years old. And here's the coolest part about that. His name was also Daniel. Guardian Angel number two.

SPEAKER_04 12:23

And no, he didn't know about the goals from when you were a kid.

unknown 12:26

Nope.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Nope. And my answer to him was, I've wanted to do those since I was young, but I have no idea how to do it. He goes, Oh, hang on a second. In the pile of junk mail on his desk was a brochure from a local community college. Two weeks later, there was a class called Intro to Stand Up Comedy. And he said, Will you go? And I said, Yeah. And then he asked, Have I ever heard of Toastmasters? I said, Yeah, they kind of teach you how to speak and present and all that. He says, Yeah. You already got the storytelling skills. Just go polish them up. And so two weeks later, I was in my first comedy class, a week after that, my first Toastmasters meeting. And here we are.

SPEAKER_04 13:06

Now, was that your first time meeting with that life coach?

SPEAKER_00 13:11

It was very early on in our relationship. Yeah, we'd only been working together for maybe a month or two at that point.

SPEAKER_04 13:18

Wow. So it was something super basic, super simple that he was just asking.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Yeah, he just heard me share something and something in there. There was a little spark, and he said, I kind of liked I liked the way you just told that story, as pathetic as it was. And he said, There may be something here. And he saw that and just shined a light into the shadows and asked me if I ever thought of doing more of that. And I I dreamed of it, but I never knew how to do it.

SPEAKER_04 13:47

And so you went to the comedy class?

SPEAKER_00 13:50

Yeah. Fell in love with it.

SPEAKER_04 13:52

That's awesome. So you go to the first class and then what I think it was about eight classes.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

And then we had our graduation, which was basically a comedy show at a comedy club where all of us had to go up and do five minutes of comedy. And all I knew was from the first laugh I heard, I wanted to do this a lot more. And I wound up doing comedy for seven years.

SPEAKER_04 14:19

Wow. Seven years. That's a long time. Did you expect to do it that long?

SPEAKER_00 14:25

I wanted to do as long as it was fun and as long as it fit in with my life. And by then, of course, I'd already been speaking because I started comedy and speaking at the same time. And somebody came up after me after a show one night and asked me this question. And I was not a dirty comic, but I talked about adult stuff. And she said, Hey Steve, if the female CEO of a company that was thinking of hiring you to speak came and saw you at the comedy club, and my closing bit was a song parody called the Viagra Song to the tune of We Will Rock You by Queen, would she still hire you for their event? And I said, You know what? Probably not, because she wouldn't know that it's a different version of me. And it wouldn't be her fault for thinking that. So I said, you know what? That's it for the comedy. I'm done. I'll take I'll take the style and I'll take what it taught me and and how to work a crowd into my speaking. And that seven years was the best practice I could have had for being a speaker.

SPEAKER_04 15:27

So after this woman made that comment to you, did you ever get up on the stage again for comedy?

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Nope. Nope. That was enough.

SPEAKER_04 15:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

No.

SPEAKER_04 15:41

And you were fully done from the It was just a shift.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

It was it was kind of like uh, you know, one of the relay races where you just carry carry the baton for a certain amount of time and then you kind of just either drop it or give it to somebody else. I just felt like I let go of the baton.

SPEAKER_04 15:58

That's all you let go of the baton. Hmm. I like that way of looking at it. So then you started speaking more after you let go of the comedy.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:09

And you enjoyed that?

SPEAKER_00 16:11

I love speaking. And so many people think they they said, Oh, I love the applause and this, and it's not that at all for me. It never has been. What I love most about speaking is making a connection with somebody. And I don't just look at the front of the room. I usually try to look for the corners and where people are kind of hiding in the shadows because they don't want to be involved. Maybe they came in late and they just want to sit in the back and they don't make eye contact, they don't raise their hands. They just kind of sit there in the shadows. And the reason I love those people the most is because that's where I used to sit in my life, because I've dealt with self-doubt, lack of confidence, bad self-talk, and everything my entire life. So I used to be that person kind of hiding in the shadows. And what I love most is saying something and projecting it to the shadows. And if I just see that little nod of their head, that means they got it and we just had a connection. That's what I worked the hardest to get is just those little mini connections. I don't care. I had a speaker one time say, I've gotten over 500 standing ovations. So I've gotten one and I cheated to get it just to prove I could get it. I was added at the last minute, so I wasn't even part of the program or the signs. And they brought me up, and I was talking about some days your Phoenix rides a pogo stick. So at the end of it, I said, Hey, I want everybody to please stand up for a moment. Look over your right shoulder, look over your left shoulder. Now look down at your butt. How your tail feathers do? Are they the ones you were born with because you didn't risk anything up till now? Or are they totally burned off because you tried something that didn't work, but you learned something, and now when they grow back, they're going to be brighter and stronger and you can fly higher. Thank you very much. Hope you enjoy the rest of the evening. My name is Steve Gamlin. They start clapping, they're already standing up. That's my standing ovation. And as I looked across the front row, there's my friend sitting right in the front, shaking her head, giving me the finger. Because I got my standing ovation. So, but it's all about connection with people and impact. And what I say at the beginning of every event is the same. If you wake up tomorrow morning and because of our time together, you think one more positive thought, you speak one more kind word, especially to that person in your mirror, and you take one more positive action that our time together is a massive win. So that's taking the pressure off everybody right there.

SPEAKER_04 18:35

I love that. That makes so much sense. That's such an interesting way that you did that to get your standing ovation. That's not what I expected you to say, but oh my gosh, hey, you do what you got to do sometimes. I get what you mean about the connections. I'm not no keynote speaker, but even the podcast and all the connections that I have made from podcasting, whether hosting or guesting. And sometimes people just say one little thing, that one little nugget. And you have it, you know, it's like that one little gem, and you have the connection, but you learn something as well from them. And it's again that ripple. You know what I mean? You share it with somebody else, they share it with somebody else, and it's just I love it.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Yeah. And you wonder, you do a podcast and you wonder, did anybody get anything out of that podcast? And then later on, somebody sends you a message and say, Amanda, I just listened to your podcast with this person. And oh my gosh, it didn't hit me then, but it hit me now. This lesson that I wasn't ready to hear at the time, but all of a sudden, it creates impact because once you put it out there, it just goes. I was walking down the Captain Crunch aisle of a grocery store. This is now almost 13 years ago. I was between meetings and I saw a grocery store and I thought, oh, I need some breakfast bars. So I'm why I always call it the Captain Crunch aisle because that was my favorite cereal, it was Crunchberries when I was a kid. And this gentleman walks past me and he stops and he turns around and he says, Hey man, you're that speaker, right? I turn around. We're the only two people in the aisle. I said, Yes, sir, I'm a speaker. What do you remember? And he said, The monster truck couple, which is one of my stage stories. And he told me what was on the screen on the slide, the name of the story, the highlights of the story, and the lesson of the story, and how he applied them a week after he heard me speak to lend himself a job because I was speaking in front of 85 unemployed people. And I said, Oh my god. And then I asked him, How long ago was that? He went, three years. Guy sees me in a grocery store three years after he heard me speak for free in front of 85 people. And he's got the courage to come up to me and say how it impacted his life. Like I said, that's coming up on 13 years ago, and I hope I never ever forget it, because that's why I do what I do the way I do it.

SPEAKER_04 21:11

Wow. That's phenomenal. What an impact you had on that guy.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

And the impact he had on me by just being brave enough to share it.

SPEAKER_04 21:22

Yeah, that's so true. I'd love to transition a tad. And I know this story, but I know my listeners don't know this story, but I'm just gonna ask straight up, how did you meet Tina? And can you tell us about Tina?

SPEAKER_00 21:42

Yeah, oh my gosh. January of 2007. At that point, I'd been divorced about four years. And I'd started, I was already speaking and I was already digging deep into vision boards and visualization, and I was fascinated by it. And After my divorce, I said, I don't want to be in another relationship until I create the best version of me and create a vision for my dream relationship. So for two years, I was putting pictures of couples walking hand in hand on a beach, standing at the railing of a ship at sunset, laughing in their kitchen, preparing a meal together. I mean, because I'm a hopeless, helpless romantic. I love all that stuff. And I said, this is the relationship I want to create. And in January of 2007, I said, this is the year that I'm going to find her, whoever she may be. And in early June, I wrote down in my journal, I am ready to fall in love. And on June 16th, 2007, I got an email from someone named Tina, according to the subject line. And I almost deleted it because I thought it was junk mail. And then I went back and opened it. And it was from a girl I had gone to high school with and hadn't seen or spoken to since you graduated in June of 1986. So it was 21 years of zero communication. And she said, Hey, I saw your name on classmates.com or whatever. And hey, we should keep in touch. I live in Florida now. And the next day I sent an email back. And then she sent one back with her phone number. And a couple days later, I called her. And the first words out of her mouth after 21 years, it's about time you call. And I just started laughing. I'm like, oh my gosh, that voice, that sweet voice, and that sarcastic sense of humor. And so we started communicating. We started texting and calling each other and just kind of, you know, how's it going? How's your day? And as we start to talk with each other, she wouldn't send me a picture of herself. And she had no social media footprint. So here I am talking to a memory. In a month of the emails and calls and texting, I'm starting to remember I had a crush on Tina in high school, but I never had the guts to ask her out. So a month later, she sends me a text while I'm DJing a wedding. Hey, can I tell you something if you promise not to freak out? And I texted back, sure. And she said, Here's how I felt about you back in school. Here's how I felt when I saw your name online. Here's how I felt when you answered my email. Here's how I felt when I heard your voice. Here's how I feel right now. And she texted 143, which I had to very quickly Google and find out that is text language for I love you. One letter, four letters, three letters. And I texted her back, I love you too. And a month later, in mid-August, she flew from Florida up to New Hampshire because her grandmother was having surgery. And I met her at the airport, and that was the first time I saw her in 21 years, and I fell in love with her all over again. And we got to enjoy 6,386 days in love, 17 and a half years.

SPEAKER_04 25:02

That's beautiful. That's so beautiful. Now, I know this is something you might not know the answer, but did you ever ask her what made her send you that email that day?

SPEAKER_00 25:13

I did. She saw my name and she said, I remembered you as this really sweet, nice, funny guy. And I just wanted to reach out to you. And I asked her, because she knew I almost deleted the email because I thought it was spam. I said, What would you have done if I didn't answer? And she said, I would have thought you didn't want to hear from me, so I never would have reached out to you again. So thank God the squirrels in my head looped back around and said, Hey, open that email. Because I never would have known. And we just we had the most amazing. I mean, here's how my family knew it was perfect true love. My dad took me aside one day and said, You screw this one up, we're keeping her. Your ass is out of here. He said, She is a queen. She is your perfect partner. So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:21

Wow. And you got 17 and a half years with her, you said?

SPEAKER_00 26:25

We did, yeah. Unfortunately, in early December of 2024, Tina was we were both 56 at the time, and Tina had been dealing with menopause for a little over two years, and it hit her like a truck. She hadn't slept a full night in two and a half years. She was stressed out, she was exhausted. And she'd been, you know, really tired and stressed. And we went on a uh Mediterranean cruise in June of that year, and she got sick part way through the cruise, so she was really struggling. And then late summer, she said, I know where our next trip is going to be. We're going, we're going to England. And I said, Great, when? She said, December 8th. I thought, it's cold in England on December 8th. Why are we going there? And she just kind of, you know, flashed her beautiful, gorgeous blue eyes and her smile and said, Well, there's a George Michael tribute concert that's happening in London, being performed by his former musicians and backup singers with the blessing of his estate, which is impossible to get. And she wanted to go because George was her favorite singer of all time. And we were all set to go. We flew to London. We landed on Sunday morning. We had the most amazing, deep, touching, hand-holding, loving, authentic, and vulnerable and silly conversation of our lives that night in the hotel bar. And 12 hours later, she passed away.

SPEAKER_03 28:04

Oh my gosh. And you guys didn't go to the show.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

Nope. The show was a day after she passed. So she didn't get to make it.

SPEAKER_03 28:17

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

But even in the middle of all that, I mean, I was I was there alone, 3,000 miles from home for five days. My sister dropped everything. She lives in Texas. Five days later, she dropped everything and rearranged her entire life and flew over it just to be there for me. And even in the middle of all that, of just shattered, I was grateful because we had gone down to breakfast that morning, had a nice little breakfast, holding hands, we walked back up to our room, and she said, Oh, honey, I've got to do some work. Can you grab my laptop? So I set her up in the little living room area of our hotel room. And I said, Well, I'll go down to the gym and I'll be back up. And she said, Okay. The last words I ever said to her were the same words I used to say when I would come down to the basement to work out here at our house. Love you, bye. And she said, bye. Those were our last words. Went down to the gym, came back up. She was slumped over on the couch. I think I jumped over the coffee table, grabbed the phone, called the front desk. Two people came racing up. And the young lady who has medical training said she still has a pulse. So the two of us worked to revive her while the EMTs were on their way, but she literally passed away in my arms while we're trying to save her, with me crying all over her, telling her I loved her and that she's not supposed to leave me. But I'm grateful she had a pulse when I found her and she didn't die alone, and I just prayed that she wasn't scared.

SPEAKER_03 30:04

Wow. That's so tough. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 30:11

That's good that she wasn't alone when it happened. Oh my gosh. How have you been able to still find and embrace gratitude with that?

SPEAKER_00 30:26

She has still been here with me this whole time. She was there with me in London because when they moved me up to a different room, obviously, I mean the police were there, everything. It's you know, they have to put me somewhere else. I went up to the room and I'm just leaning against the kit the bathroom counter in the mirror, just crying. And behind me, the door went just a couple of inches. And I turned and I just I goosebumps up both arms and I turned around and I nudged the door either way, and I couldn't get it to squeak. And I just said, Okay, you're still here with me. Okay. And she has shown me over and over on almost a daily basis that she's still here with me. And I've asked her to show me about a million more times. But in the smallest ways. She'll show up in a dream. A certain song we'll play on Alexa or YouTube. I'll request one song, and the next one will be one of our songs. It's it's just been amazing that she has shown me she's still here. And on the ninth night in London, she came to me in a dream. It was about three in the morning. And a dear friend of mine who's very into the spiritual world and ancient spirituality and everything said, You might want to invite her to come to you in a dream to just say goodbye. Because she she didn't get to. And on the ninth night, she did. And she was kind of hazy gray. She just kind of appeared in front of me, and she looked right at me and said, I was exhausted. I was so tired. I was done. And that was it. She was gone.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

Wow. How did you feel about that dream?

SPEAKER_00 32:25

I actually felt grateful. Because I talked to so many people. I'm part of now, so many grief support groups and all of these other people in the grief journey. And some people said I've never gotten a single sign from my person who I loved. And I could write a book. Matter of fact, I am writing a book about all the little lessons and moments and stories of our of our love together. Because within five days of Tina dying, I was still in England. I got stuck there two and a half weeks till I could leave the country. Within five days, people were asking, when are the book and the movie coming out? Because your story was amazing.

SPEAKER_04 33:05

Wow. That's soon. People were asking you that.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Yeah. Yeah. We literally brought a fairy tale to life. Just it was everything I could have asked for and more. And I even had that in a journal from that first weekend we saw each other in August of 2007. A few months before she passed, on that August 19th or 17th anniversary, I found my old journals and I took a razor blade, I cut those pages out, and I put them in a card. Because I'd never told her what I wrote down after watching her plane fly away back to Florida. That I wanted Tina to be sweet and kind and gentle and fun and playful and loving and caring and amazing. And the last thing I wrote was, I got all of that and more. So she got to see all those things I wrote about her and about us a couple months before she died.

SPEAKER_04 34:07

Wow. That's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

She used to ask me every once in a while, because I remembered all our anniversaries, she would look at me and go, You realize you're the chick in this relationship, right? And I'd smile and go, Yep.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Our love language was little cards, notes, moments, gestures, snuggling, cuddling. Our love languages matched perfectly, which made life in love so much just better. And after she passed, when I was cleaning up and looking around for stuff in her office, I found all the notes and all the cards and all the letters I'd ever given her. She kept everything.

SPEAKER_04 34:51

That's beautiful. That's great that you got to experience that. Now, I want to transition a tad. You you mentioned about creating a vision board of the relationship you were looking to call it. What what made you think to do a vision board specifically for that?

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Well, it was actually part of my full-on life vision board because I mean, I see people say, I made a vision board, and it's got like a Lamborghini, a yacht, a private jet, a mansion, a helicopter, a big honk and gold watch, and a pile of gold bars and cash. I do vision boards right from the beginning that are my whole life. So I had my physical health, the emotions I wanted to feel, my dream relationship, my core values, my faith, my connection to the world in real ways, and my, at the time, my brand new speaking career and money. So it was my whole life, but in the very center, what was most important to me was creating my dream relationship and then how it was part of everything else. So it's a full-on picture of my whole life. It wasn't just the relationship, that was just part of it. But everything else went outward from there. That was the most important thing. And once it became Tina that year, a picture of us was at the center of every single vision board I've ever made. And matter of fact, I'm working on my new vision board for 2026. And I've got one of my favorite pictures of her. And right above it, it says hashtag honor my Tina. So she's still the center of my universe. It impacts everything I do.

SPEAKER_04 36:45

Wow. Now, when did you start getting into vision boards and making them?

SPEAKER_00 36:50

That same life coach, Dan, who had suggested after hearing me hitting golf balls in a thunderstorm, he said, you know, I really like the your energy. And have you ever heard of The Secret? And I said, No, it's law of attraction. He said, Yeah, and the DVD version just came out. So I went and got it. And it was about an hour and a half long. It was basically a movie with all these different experts talking about law of attraction. There was this one guy named John Asaraf, and for about 90 seconds, he just talked about this thing called the vision board that he had made and how some of his goals and dreams had come true. And I didn't buy anybody's program, I didn't read any books on vision boards. I just thought it was a great idea. And again, childlike wonder, started my own little vision board art project thing. And the first boards I made, it was mostly all material stuff. And I learned very quickly that I didn't care about that. So that's when I started to build not just what I wanted to get, but who I wanted to become in my life. And that's still the most important lesson I teach everybody when it comes to vision boards. So by trial and error, I just kind of started putting one together every year. And then really cool things started to happen. I was becoming aware of opportunities to take action to achieve things. It wasn't like things were just showing up. You know, law of attraction is not like Amazon. You don't just say you want it and it shows up on your doorstep within two days if you have prime. But you start to see the opportunities and you take action and you start to make connections, build relationships, build self-confidence, and then you start to see how it all works together. Because all those parts of your life that I talked about are working together 24-7. So you may as well create a vision for what you want your whole life to be like. And the more I did that, the more really amazing things started to happen. Of course, I told Tina for years, you can never, ever, ever break up with me. Because if you do, you're gonna demolish my speaking career. Because our story is everyone's favorite. I get requested all the time to talk about it. She goes, good to know. I'm like, uh-oh. She loved it. She always rolled her eyes. She was a world champion eye roller. I'd come upstairs from the recording studio and she'd say, How was your podcast? I go, Oh, it's awesome. Did you tell our story? Yep. She'd roll her eyes. But she secretly loved it.

SPEAKER_04 39:31

I think that's beautiful that she got to know that you were sharing the story too. You know? Like physically hear you doing it.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:42

I think that's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Yeah. I was always so proud of our story and just so proud of her for being so authentic and vulnerable to have reached out to me in on June 16th of 2007. And then that conversation we had 12 hours before she died. I was kind of in a down place that week. And I said it to her. I said, I feel bad that you know my energy isn't where it's supposed to be. I wasn't able to help out with the trip and all that. And she just looked at me and said, Will you stop doing that to yourself? We're a team. I love you. You used to help me pay my bills every month. Don't you remember that? And I said, No. She goes, Well, you did. And then she got real vulnerable and said, I feel like all this, meaning her job, which she was very successful at, and in our home, which is beautiful, and all this, she goes, I just feel like I've been lucky, as though she didn't deserve it all. And then I got to coach her a little bit. And I said, Babe, do you realize? And I was almost in tears saying this, I said, Do you realize that none of this would have happened? You wouldn't have the job you have. Created the job for her in Vermont so that she could be next door to me in New Hampshire to move her up from Florida because she had expressed that she wanted us to be together. Her company thought that much of her. They moved her to Vermont. And then when she wanted to be together, together, living together, they created the job at the corporate level for her so we could live together in New Hampshire. Wow. And I said, Do you realize that none of this ever would have happened if you didn't have the guts to send some guy named Steve you hadn't seen or talked to in 21 years an email on June 16th, 2007? I said, baby, none of this happens if you weren't brave. And we were holding hands and I mean, almost literally in tears. And what looking back the 10 days before she died was the most amazing farewell tour we could have ever, we couldn't have scripted it better. We literally had a date night where we went to dinner and a comedy show to see a comedian I hadn't even seen in 15 years, to surprise him. We had an hour and a half of time in between. We drove through our hometown that we both grew up in to our old homes and neighborhoods and just were telling each other stories about where we grew up. And we went and did an act of kindness together. And then we went to the comedy show, and my friend gave her a huge hug and said, I'm finally glad I got to meet Steve's Tina.

SPEAKER_03 42:28

Wow. Wow, Steve, that does sound like a fairy tale that you lived in real life.

SPEAKER_00 42:38

It was. It really was. Someone asked me on a recent podcast, Do you see yourself ever falling in love again? I said, good luck. I said, first off, Tina's gonna have to come to me in a dream like 11 nights in a row and finally smack me and say, Hey, dummy, I sent her. For me to ever even consider being in a relationship because it would never be fair to anyone, because anyone will be compared to Tina. So I'm just happy being me and being half of the most amazing relationship I've ever even witnessed in my life. And I was very blessed to live it for 6,386 amazing of the most amazing days of my life, and hers too.

SPEAKER_04 43:26

That I get. And I I understand what you mean by any anybody would be compared to her.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:33

No, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

So I mean, you know, someday, again, like I said, Tina's gonna have to make it very clear that she's not someone, but I'm just happy being the half of Stephen Tina that lives on telling the stories and how amazing she was.

SPEAKER_04 43:49

No, I think that's so beautiful. I'm curious, when's the book of you guys coming out? Do you know?

SPEAKER_00 43:57

I don't know yet, but I again. And God, another sign that she's here with me. About two months ago, I was driving. Have you ever heard of the book The Go Giver by chance? It's my favorite book. I personally know both of the authors. I've been very blessed to build relationships with them. I mean, they invited me to dinner at their home a couple of years ago, and then this past year, after they found out that I had lost Tina, they said, Oh my gosh, we would love to see you before we go back to Florida and just give you a great big hug. So I was driving to their house and the GPS in my truck, I picked the wrong route. It was taking me in the general direction, but I was off by about a half hour. So I said, Well, I'm just going to pull over here in a parking lot somewhere and make some calls. And I looked up and I saw a sign for Ulta Beauty. I said, Oh my gosh, Tina was practically a shareholder because she bought really nice cosmetics. So I pulled in and then I looked right next to it. There's a little Barnes and Noble bookstore. And I thought, well, okay, I got time to kill. I'll go in and I'll buy a new journal. And there's a whole wall of it. And I said, All right, baby, show me the journal I'm supposed to buy. And I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm like, no, no, no, no. And I see this one way down at the bottom, and it's brown with a big owl artwork on the front. And I flipped it over, it says Handmade in Italy. Six months before she died, we were in Italy on that Mediterranean cruise. And we walked on a 95-degree day through the streets of Sicily, and she went to a very high-end Louis Vuitton store and bought a leather Louis Vuitton bag that she dreamed of owning. So here I am with a hand-stitched in Italy leather journal with an owl on it. And I said, that's the one Tina wants me to buy. So I bought it, got back in my truck, hit the GPS, and realized I was way the hell off, and now I was going to be 20 minutes late for dinner. But I was supposed to be on that wrong road. That's the journal that one page at a time I'm writing the stories of all the little moments that we shared. And that each one has a lesson, and they're all going to be put together when I finish writing them. And that will be the book.

SPEAKER_04 46:24

Each one has a lesson, and I love that.

unknown 46:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:29

I love that you found it found that Joe note, like, and that's what you're putting it in. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

In the Beatles song, All You Need is Love. The third verse says, There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be. It's easy. All you need is love. So there have been so many times in my life where I thought, like the grocery store aisle. I I was meant to be there. I didn't know I was supposed to be there until that gentleman said, Hey man, you're that speaker, right? I didn't know I was supposed to be in that parking lot because I didn't know there was a Barnes and Oba there. If I hadn't seen the Ulta sign and said, Hey, babe, look, it's your Mecca. You know, I wouldn't have pulled in there. But that's where I was supposed to be.

SPEAKER_04 47:16

Wow. That's so beautiful. And I I think you almost even see it more so because you're looking and you're paying attention for it, you know? Some people don't.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

One of the questions I get most often is how in the heck do you come up with all these, you know, pictures and stories? And and people always say the coolest things happen to you. Because I'm not walking around with my head up my butt or staring at my shoes or in my phone. I'm literally walking around looking for something really cool to share a lesson or to paint a mental picture or have a story for the stage. Or you know, I'm I'm not smarter than anybody else. I'm not anything more than anybody else except aware. That's a big one. Be aware and be open and use all your senses. I ask people all the time, what do you ghost look like, feel like, sound like, smell like, taste like? Keep keep all your senses wide open, and you might be aware of just the coolest things this world has to offer.

SPEAKER_04 48:24

Keep all your senses open. Wow, that makes so much sense. Steve, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 48:32

My pleasure. This has been a blast, and I'll give you my number one word, and I mean this in the absolute best way possible. This conversation was effortless.

SPEAKER_04 48:43

I'm glad to hear that. Now, I have have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty?

SPEAKER_00 48:50

I I watch Jay Shetty's stuff and I listen to him quite a bit.

SPEAKER_04 48:53

I'm a big fan. So he's got a podcast called On Purpose, and he ends the podcast with two segments, and I've borrowed them. I end my show with those two segments as well. So the first segment is the many sides to us, and there's five questions, and they need to be answered in one word each. What is one word someone who was meeting you for the first time would use to describe you as humorous. What is one word that someone who knows you extremely well would use to describe you as?

SPEAKER_03 49:38

What is one word you'd use to describe yourself?

SPEAKER_01 49:42

Hopefully.

SPEAKER_04 49:45

What is one word that if someone didn't like you or agree with your mindset would use to describe you as?

SPEAKER_00 49:53

Misguided.

SPEAKER_04 49:57

What is one word you're trying to embody right now?

SPEAKER_00 50:02

Love.

SPEAKER_04 50:06

Second segment is the final five, and these can be answered in up to a sentence.

unknown 50:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 50:12

What is the best advice you've heard or received?

SPEAKER_00 50:16

Leave every situation a little better than you find it.

SPEAKER_04 50:22

Why is that the best?

SPEAKER_00 50:24

It was a lesson I learned by observing one of my grandfathers who did just that.

SPEAKER_04 50:30

What is something that you used to value that you no longer value?

SPEAKER_00 50:37

Material things as a source of status. I don't care. Not important.

SPEAKER_04 50:48

If you could describe what you would want your legacy to be, as if someone was reading it, what would you want it to say?

SPEAKER_00 50:56

Somebody sees an opportunity to do an act of kindness, that they'd ask, What would Steve do? And then they would do it. And I've had a few people already said that, and I'm not even dead yet.

SPEAKER_04 51:12

Oh my gosh. I love that. If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be?

SPEAKER_03 51:23

And I want to know why.

SPEAKER_00 51:25

Yeah. Treat other people with respect that you wish to be treated with. And I think there's a lot of people out there, especially with social media. Boy, they just think they can do and say anything they want to tear other people down. And like Mike Tyson said, you get a lot of people out there running their mouths who've never been punched in the face for it.

SPEAKER_04 51:47

That is true. That is very true. Well, thank you so much, Steve. I really appreciate this.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

My pleasure. Thank you. This has been a blast.

SPEAKER_04 51:57

Yeah, absolutely. And where can listeners connect with you?

SPEAKER_00 52:02

You can find me if you're on social media a lot. I am on Facebook and LinkedIn. You can just look up my name, Steve Gamlin, G-A-M-L-I-N. And that is Steve Gamlinspeaker.com.

SPEAKER_04 52:15

And I do just like to give it back to the guest. Any final words of wisdom you want to share with the listeners?

SPEAKER_00 52:23

This actually comes from a little adopted rescued dog. Tina and her mom adopted him. His name was Super Teddy. And he wrote a book. One of his quotes said, Wake up every day and wag yourself happy. Meaning, choose to surround yourself and immerse yourself in positive things. First thing to start your day, and your day is probably going to go a lot better than some other people who watch the news and listen to people screaming on talk radio. So wake up every day, wag yourself happy.

SPEAKER_04 52:56

Well, thank you, Steve. I really, really appreciate this.

SPEAKER_00 53:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 53:01

And thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Mandarin's Mindset. In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you. I'm voting for you. And you got this. As always, if you enjoyed the show, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five-star rating. Leave a review. And share with anyone you think would benefit from. And don't forget. You are only one mindset just away. I'm shifting away. Thanks guys. Until next time.