The Hope Doctor - with Dale Smith Thomas

Hello, beautiful people. Welcome, welcome. I'm your host, Dr. Zoe, and I'm excited to talk today with my friend Dale Smith Thomas. We're gonna talk about hope. She was on my show way back in my early episodes of being on the radio. She's the founder and president of Winners by Choice. She's also an international motivational speaker, frequent guest on radio and TV, and of course, she's a former Mrs. Tennessee. She's also the host of a new podcast she's developing called The Hope Doctors. I so look forward to this podcast coming out and I will share it with you guys when it goes live. And of course, she's the author of the book, Good Morning Gorgeous. I love Dayl's spirit. She lifts me up whenever I speak to her. And I hope that this episode gives you guys a little hope. Hi there, I'm Dr. Zoe. I'm glad you're here. This is the place for developing your strength as a woman and helping you navigate difficult relationships in your life, Including that sometimes difficult relationship with yourself. Being a strong woman is not about what other people can see, and it's not about how loud you are about it. It's a quiet knowing. This isn't therapy, but you may feel like you've been to therapy after one of my episodes. Here, we also explore the intersection of psychology and faith, all with the purpose of creating a new kind of strong. Welcome to Redefining Your Superwoman. Dale. This is the second time you've been on my podcast. You were one of my early guests, I believe. I didn't go back to look at the episode, but that was back when I was doing my radio show still, and I'm so happy to have you here again.

Oh, I, you know, I didn't even realize that until you said that, and that I just, I felt so honored that I was on the early ones, and I'm just so proud of you and all the work that you're doing. And, and you don't even know, but I listen to you so much, and I'm just happy and so proud of you. And, and I feel like you're one of my soul sisters even though we've never met. But when this whole stay-at-home thing is over, I'm coming out there and we're gonna sit down face-to-face, my friend.

We are. We have to. And I've been following you ever since we've had, you know, the episode. And same thing, I feel that— I just feel so close to you, and I love what you are doing, and I love the message that you are sending to women. You know, you are definitely body goals when it comes to our outer I love looking at your, at your Instagram. But of course, we know that beauty isn't skin deep. Beauty is actually soul deep, and you absolutely possess that as well. So I love that. I love that about you.

Well, you know, I'm— I turned 60 last year. I laughingly say I turned 40-20. I tell my audiences, I turned 40-20, do the math. And, you know, I think growing up and when you You grow up and you think about— I remember when my mother turned 50, I thought she was so old. And it's amazing how image is just a perspective. And I, I loved turning 60. And so thank you for saying that. And I determine every day that, you know, my beauty, my gorgeousness has to come from the inside out, and then it's just reflected on the outside.

Well, it certainly is. It certainly is.

Thank you.

So today we are going to talk about hope, and you have been described You're described as the hope doctor.

Uh-huh.

And of course, you've written your book, Good Morning Gorgeous. Love that book. It sits on my bookshelf. But today we're gonna talk about hope. And I know you've shared on your Instagram about how COVID is affecting you. I've been sharing the past couple of weeks about how COVID's affecting me. We know there's this general energy in the world right now. And the cool thing is some things are starting to open up. Yeah. But I also know people are still very fearful of even going out and, you know, everything that, you know, happen from now going forward. And so I wanted to have you on the show today not to talk about COVID to talk about hope.

Right. And you know what, whether it's COVID or anything else— and I actually did a message for a hospital yesterday— yes, we know how to protect ourselves against physical viruses by increasing our immune system, but I think we neglect the viruses of the mind that are so powerful, which are fear and doubt. And what— whatever we're facing in life, whether it's something like COVID or something else, we are affected by these viruses of the mind. And that's why I started The Hope Doctors. And hope for me means helping other people excel. And so I believe the hope doctors of the world are people like you who are hope doctors and hope dealers, and that we have to build up our mental immune systems to fight these viruses of fear, doubt, and unbelief because The virus of fear can run faster and stronger than any physical virus out there.

It sure can. I've talked about the aftereffects, the unintended consequences of everything that's going on right now, and it's going to be the mental health of our society. So I want to talk about Hope Doctors because number one, I love the title and I can't wait to talk a little bit about what you're doing. But first let's talk about Oh, you know what? We forgot to do your Superwoman win and Superwoman fail.

Oh my gosh, how did we forget that?

We just, we were just diving in. So

let's dive in.

Can you share that with us? Can you share that with my audience? Your Superwoman win and Superwoman fail.

My Superwoman win, uh, I think was, was when I finally really jumped off the high dive and wrote Good Morning Gorgeous. And it took me 5 years to write it and that inner censor was like beating me across the head going, why is it so long to write? You must not be an author. You know, all that garbage.

Yes.

And so I think my Superwoman win was to finally release that because as long as that book was in my computer, it was safe. It was safe. It was safe from criticism. But what I had to realize, it was also safe from not empowering others. And then that's when I finally let it go. And I realized that I was only holding onto that because of my own fear, my own insecurity. And so I would think finally just letting that book go and releasing it to, to the universe and to the public and saying, if it touches one life, then I have done my job. And actually I am, I am getting, I'm getting responses from around the world and it has just been such a blessing. So my— My message to those of you that are walking through something like that, sometimes we just have to let go. We just have to let go and trust. And then my Superwoman fail, I think actually it was a fail in the eyes of the world, but actually was probably a Superwoman win on the other side. Mm-hmm. But I competed at Mrs. Tennessee in 1990. 100 years ago, and won a state pageant here in Tennessee as a married woman with my first husband. My child was 3. I won a pageant when my kid was 3.

That's amazing.

That's a big deal. And so that was the launch of my speaking career was during that year. And so I planned to, prepared for, to go to Mrs. America and win that big sparkly hat. And I thought, if I can win Mrs. America, I can have a national speaking career. I can reach more women about finding yourself and overcoming obstacles because I faced an eating disorder and overcame that and changed a horribly negative attitude, yada, yada, yada. Well, I got to Mrs. America and girlfriend, I didn't even make the top 10. And I'm like, what just happened? I mean, I had visualized this. I'm like—

Right.

What just happened? And so I had an opportunity at that point to view that failure as 2 things. It could be the end of my career or the launchpad of my career. I could decide if someone's opinion of me was going to be my reality or not. I could let those judges decide my future or not. And I chose to let that be my launchpad and not my anchor. And so my Superwoman fail turned in and led to my Superwoman win because of the way I decided to look at it. So whatever failure is out there, I believe like Napoleon Hill taught years ago, there's a seed of benefit in every single one of them. Yes. But it's all in the perspective because I could have ended it for myself at that moment. I could have said, I'm not worthy. I didn't even make the top 10. I must not be as fabulous as I think I might be as a speaker. And I could have ended my journey right there backstage at that competition. But I choose— I chose to let that ending just be my beginning.

That is so beautiful. And that is so true. All of our failures, actually—

All of them.

All of them, every single one can be turned around to a win. And that's why I want us to honor them. Because, right, yeah, if we pay attention and realize the lessons we've learned, the, you know, we— strength does unfortunately often come from pain, and that's okay. That's absolutely okay.

Maybe you've heard before, and maybe your audience has, but it's one that I really subscribe to. It says every experience in life, we either win or we learn. Instead of win or lose, we win or we learn. But we only learn if we choose to. It's not going to automatically lay itself out there. You got to go— sometimes you got to go on a treasure hunt. You have got to go find that lesson, and you've got to give yourself some time. I had to give myself time to grieve that I had lost, because once you go to that national level, you can never go back. It's not like you can have this failure and try, try again at that level.

Mm-hmm.

Once you compete— and most people don't know that— once you compete at Miss USA, Or Miss America or Mrs. America like I did, you're one and done.

You don't get to go back. I didn't know that.

You don't— you do not get to go back. No. If you make it to the national level, unless that rule has changed in the last few years, usually you're one and done. And so at that point, you've got to say, what do I learn? So I love that you're doing that, and thank you for asking me that question because I don't really now So many years removed from my, quote, pageant experience do I usually share that because a lot of people turn their nose up at that kind of experience. But honestly, that experience was such a life teacher for me and it just happened to be the avenue that I walked to get to where I am today.

Wonderful. Thank you for sharing that journey. And about your book, that meant so much to me because I am— I'm not even counting if it's 2 or 3 years into writing my book. Right. So that gave me so much hope as we talk about today. And for you women out there, whatever it is that you are growing, whatever dreams you have in your life that are taking too long, use this conversation as inspiration that it doesn't matter how long it takes, as long as you keep putting one foot in front of the other. And like Dale said, just get it out though.

Yeah.

Just get it out.

And you have to keep watering it. And I actually posted a quote this morning on Instagram, and I grew up on a farm in North Mississippi. And this is how I hope that our audience today will visualize this in your dream. Your dream is like a seed that you planted in the ground and you water it with your faith and your diligence and your attention to it. But let me ask you this, if you planted something in the ground and it didn't come up the next day, are you digging it up to see if it's still in there?

Mm-hmm.

You're not digging that seed out of the ground because we all know that we have— there's a season for that.

Yes.

And there's that, that gestation has to happen. And sometimes it's longer. But if you have been given that dream, if you know in your soul, and if you'll get quiet and listen, and I hope that we talk about that, it's a practice that has changed my life. If you will get quiet and listen, and you know this is your dream, only you can fulfill this dream. And so if you go digging it up and tossing it out, that dream just goes. And it's yours. It's your set of unique qualities. It's your unique set of gifts. So water it till it comes up. I don't care if it's 10 minutes, 10 days, 10 years. I don't care if it's the rest of your life. You just keep walking. And I do believe that it will, it will, it will be honored.

And you guys just heard that from the Hope Doctor.

Ah, yes, you did, because she preaching to herself today.

Yes, you are. So let's get into this. Can you talk to me about prescriptions that you give to women for hope?

Oh, absolutely. I would love to. And especially right now, and I'll be just really transparent and vulnerable with all of you, this— I have been rocked more by this whole experience the last 5 to 6 weeks than I have been rocked by things in a long time. And I'll tell you why. Speaking and sharing and doing what I do, I don't consider just my career. It's my calling. Yes, it is my career. I mean, I have a corporation and a business to run, but of course it's my career. But bigger than that, it's my calling. And it went from full force, so much going on, to zero overnight.

My goodness.

And Yes, the financial impact of my company has been devastating. I won't lie. But the bigger devastation for me was feeling like my calling could not be expressed out there and deal that hope that I have been out there doing. And a lot of my work in the last 5 years has been in healthcare. And I thought, now is the time these people need this the most.

Right.

And I am side blind. So I had to allow myself to grieve through that, first of all. And sometimes I'm— I've been really hard on myself. Why aren't you being positive? Or, you teach this for a living, what are you doing? But sometimes when things come at you, you got to sit still and just listen. And you got to say, what am I feeling right now? And I was feeling loss. Mm-hmm. And I had to allow myself to grieve that loss. And so the way I started to turn that around, and one of my daily prescriptions for hope is creating a morning routine. And one of the things, especially through this COVID situation and then through any difficult situation in life, I think we have to double down on the daily empowering practices. And for me, that's that hour of power in the morning. And those of you listening may be screaming at me right now saying, I don't have an hour. Okay. Okay, find 15 minutes,

right?

You know, stop scrolling, stop scrolling, stop scrolling. Y'all know what I mean. Stop scrolling, stop scrolling for 15 minutes.

Yes.

And I'm not asking you to add something. I'm asking you to exchange something. Stop watching that Netflix that you're overloading on right now, which we all are doing, and it's fabulous. Stop for 15 minutes. So Create a morning routine. And so what I've done, even though I'm not traveling anymore, the other thing, prescription I've done for myself is to continue to maintain my schedule. I'm an early bird. I get up every day around 5 o'clock and I spend this hour of power from 5 to 6. Now it's like 5 to 7 because I can.

Right.

But I journal, I read, I meditate. And I just sit in quiet and I'll listen. And then I'm adding, of course, exercise, also do that. But those are some of the prescriptions that I, I just can't even stress enough. And one of the pieces that— and I don't know if you found this— one of the pieces that I found that I've put out there for over 25 years now to audiences is this: the power of journaling. Yeah. And I get so much pushback on that, it is just unbelievable.

Well, first of all, you just sound like me. This is exactly what I talk to my clients about. If my clients are listening right now, they'll be like, yes, that's what Dr. Zoe tells me. But I do the same thing, and that hour in the morning, if I don't get it, I feel it for the rest of the day. It might be hard to get up. Yeah, but when you get up and you invest in yourself and your spirit And your body for that first hour of the day, it makes a difference in your life.

And you know what? The world is coming. The world is coming. And I've been teaching this for years, but they have proven scientifically that whatever we put into our brain the first 30 minutes of the day determines our productivity and our attitude for the rest of the day.

Yes.

Whoa. Stop. Stop, people. Think. And one of the other prescriptions that I actually put out to a group of hospital employees yesterday is we've got to limit our news. We've got to limit the news that we're getting. And right now especially, and I'm guilty, I caught myself doing it. And I'm not a news watcher. I believe that I can get my news in 30 seconds on Yahoo if I need to.

Mm-hmm.

But through this whole process, I found that I was watching because I was in the kitchen and cooking and I watched the local news, then I watched the nightly news, then the local news come on after that. And before I knew it, you know, I'm an hour and a half in.

Right.

And then again, it comes on at 10 o'clock and we're not even aware of that. We're— and I went, whoa.

Right. And people are having panic attacks and they're feeling depression and not sure why. And I can tell you, I've seen this in my practice. Any— all of my clients who come in and they're having these experiences, one of the first things I tell them is stop the media.

Stop it.

Absolutely stop it. You can ask your spouse if there's an emergency, they can let you know about it, but you need to stop it. And they come back in the next week and they're saying, I feel so much better. I stopped the media. And they weren't realizing how influential that voice, those pictures, you know, that you're letting in your brain, how much it's affecting your mental health.

Well, I went through a course out at UC Berkeley called The Science of Happiness, and some of the science— scientific data is saying that our, our minds are twice as likely to capture those images and to hang on to them. We hang on to the danger and the drastic, very hard images. That's why more people are afraid of flying or dying in an airplane crash than they are in a car crash, even though the statistics tell us that air travel is safer. But we see those drastic images when a plane crashes.

Right.

And so that's why I said that we have to double down. And I believe it's like trying to run your car on water. Your car's not going to run. It's just not going to run if you don't put the right fuel in it. Neither is your soul. So I told the hospital group yesterday, you know, if you don't feel like you can give it all the way up, monitor what you're doing with the news and the media and cut it in half. And that means social media too, if it's negative, because a lot of that is negative too. And then I challenged people to replace that. What can you replace it with? Because you've got to replace it with some positive fuel like your show and like my Hope Doctors show that's coming. And John Krasinski's now— I don't know if you've seen it. Oh yes, yes, I have

seen

that. It's so great, and it's so great, and it's so great that it's some good news. And those are just choices, but they are choices we have to intentionally make. They're not gonna just automatically happen.

Right. And the beautiful thing, and the thing that provides us hope, is that we have the control. We can do that. We can personally decide to put good things in our brain and create a positive environment for ourselves. So, so that is very hopeful,

right? And you know, one of the things— because when I started feeling all this uncertainty, I started asking myself all the wrong questions. And I think that's what we automatically do, because the question started, why is this happening? Which, let me ask you, let me tell you this, and I know you believe this, Zoe. When you ask that question, You might as well just get on back because there ain't no answer coming for that,

right?

Why did this happen? There is no answer. You have wasted your time and energy throwing it at something that's never coming back to you.

When you ask yourself questions that have no answer, or you ask yourself questions and don't bother to answer them, it creates more anxiety in your brain. Yes, leaving your brain hanging.

Yes, absolutely. And so I started asking, you know, I was asking the wrong questions. What if? What if? You know? And it was like the uncertainty was just so looming. And so all of a sudden, it was like that whole light bulb went on of all the teaching that I've done and all the learning I've done. Uncertainty can either be our enemy or our opening.

Love that. Love it.

And I decided it was going to be my opening, and I am having to stretch and grow in ways that I did not That I am— I have gone into kicking and screaming. I am not good at this technology piece. It is just like, ah. And so yesterday when I had— I talked for 20 minutes on a video, my son came over and filmed it. And I just— it is, it is such a, such a place of growth. But I want everybody to know, if you're uncomfortable You need to celebrate it because that means growth is in process, because we do not grow when it's not uncomfortable. We just don't.

We just don't. And it's the truth. So we gotta embrace it when we're there, and then also embrace the beautifulness of our growth and, and when we are in that place too. So awesome. So you've got to tell me about this class that you're taking. Was it a happiness class at Yale, or—

No, at UC Berkeley. There is one at Yale too.

Oh, okay.

It's called The Science of Happiness. I did it all online. I'm happy to send you that. It's the Greater Good Science Center. And they give you all the statistics about happiness and how that, you know, if we use optimism as a strategy, it's not— for me, it's not the glass is half full or half empty. The glass is refillable. And we get to choose. But there's all the scientific data that says, you know, we're healthier, we're happier, we live longer, actually 10 years longer, if we prescribe to this spirit of optimism. And, you know, I think that comes down to paying attention because our minds are on automatic pilot. It's like we get in the car, we know how to drive. We don't even have to think about it. We get in, we brush our teeth. We know how to do that. And but we have these automatic thoughts that have— that we've created. And so many of them are negative that we've got to get in the moment Pay attention in that moment and choose the positive path. And sometimes especially that is really, really hard to do. And faith and fear both require us to believe in something we can't see. Mm-hmm. And— but I believe faith and fear can't reside in the same space, just like negativity and positivity can't. So if you find yourself in that negative space of all that negative language, You've got to put a halt to it. You got to put the car in park and turn it around.

You're right. And you know, some people do have a more difficult time with this because they have been more trained in their childhood to think negatively, or maybe they've had negative trauma that's happened to them, and so they have a hypervigilant type lens. But the reality is that the lens through which we see the world— and we can change that lens Yes. But the lens through which we see the world is how we're going to experience the world. We will find what we look for.

And that was me.

Yes. That was me. Yes, that's all of us.

I was that child. I was that child growing up. I raised a positive child. I raised a fearless child. I went way too far with that. When he started driving race cars, I'm like, what, what, what did I do here? I taught him to be fearless.

You swung that pendulum, but that was a good thing.

I went way overboard, but I was the kid that was so afraid. I was the kid that was negative. And my sweet mama, I love her so dearly, but she worried about everything. And it was, you know, everything was about worry and doubt. And so I never ever knew there was another way until it was, uh, I met someone who was following a dream and define the odds. And so if you're hearing us and you're saying, that's just the way I grew up, or that's just the way I am, well, that can— that excuse cannot last any longer. It's, it's a choice. Once you become aware that it's a possibility, it's a choice. So I had to retrain my brain. I really did. And I did that, um, back in the, uh, early '80s. I started listening to every cassette tape I could get my hands on with positive teachings. I started reading every book and Zig Ziglar and Denis Waitley and Oh yes, love them. You know, all of the positive books, and I have hundreds now in my library. But this is, as Jim Rohn, the great philosopher— if you don't know him, everybody needs to listen to Jim Rohn, R-O-H-N— one of the things he always says, this is a class we never graduate from, and we— it's a class that we have to attend daily. So I was that person. I was the person that had to retrain myself So I know that it's possible, but it has to be a decision. And that's another thing that I've experienced through this is that fear is a reaction. Courage is a decision. And we have to make that decision to step into courage every single day.

Beautiful. And, you know, I have had that same experience. I wasn't extremely fearful, but I had a lot of anxiety and tended to see things very negatively. And one of the things that I noticed was my grandfather, whatever happened in life, he was always like, huh, okay, well, we'll deal with it. Yeah. Yeah, he would just roll off of him and I would just watch him. And I was amazed by that ability to just kind of let things roll off. And I began that practice as well. And so I think that the lesson that people can hear is that you just have to start the practice. Of the creating the lens that you want to see the world through.

Right. And you have to, you have to be aware. We've got the power. The, the point of power is always in the present moment. But I ask audiences around the world, how many of you drove to work today and you don't remember getting here? And almost every hand goes up in the room. You know why? We're not focused on driving. We're already so far ahead. And I think women And I've asked women's audiences this, you know, are you in the room with me right now? I need you to be in the room with me right now. And they kind of laugh. I say, okay, thank y'all for coming back because I know where you were. You've already been through this seminar. You have left work, you've gone to the grocery store, you fixed dinner, you have put the kids to bed, and you already got the list made for tomorrow. Exactly. Because we're the greatest multitaskers of the world. But I think what happens with that, we get so far ahead that we're missing these moments of opportunity and growth and expansion because we're not bringing— and I think women more than anybody, we've got to bring ourselves back to the present moment.

Mm-hmm. Beautiful. Well, ladies, men listening, I hope you have felt our dose of hope today. Dale, can you tell us about the Hope Doctors? Tell us about what's going on with that, what you're creating, where we can find it.

Oh, absolutely. And I'll tell you how that came about. I received a letter from someone that was in my audience. And honestly, I'll address a little bit of this. I, when I first started speaking in healthcare, that old nagging voice in my head said, you're not qualified to speak there because you have a phys ed degree from Mississippi State, you know, and so not qualified in healthcare. And I got a letter from a woman in my audience that And said, your name should read Dale Smith Thomas, PhD, the Hope Doctor. I went,

oh,

beautiful. So she gave me that. And then I thought, what is hope? It's helping other people excel. So yes, that is what I am. I am out there helping other people excel. So now we have the new Instagram account, the Hope Doctors. And you can follow me through Dale Smith Thomas, the Hope Doctors. We are starting the podcast. I have one episode up out on my YouTube channel with my friend Country music legend Pam Tillis. And she overcame cancer and is still going strong. And so what the Hope Doctors will be about is I'll be bringing people on to be interviewed that, that shares hope in their own way, like you. And so I am creating hope dealers. So the Hope Doctors is creating hope dealers. So I hope all of you Well, listen to this today. Listen to these messages we shared. Don't keep it to yourself. You become a hope dealer today and spread it out into your family, to your community, and we will continue to spread hope around the world.

I love it. We couldn't end on a better note. Thank you so much for coming on my show number 2. I'm sure there will probably be a number 3, and I look forward to getting on your podcast. Thank you for listening to the Dr. Zoe show, Redefining Your Superwoman. New shows go up every Tuesday. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode. And text the word strong to 38470 to get my weekly encouragement. I look forward to connecting with you amazing women on social media throughout the week. Have a super week!