In 2020 I started the process with nationaldaycalendar.com to have an official day called National Thoughtful Day. One of my efforts was writing a plea in a post for why we should recognize and celebrate the day. The post is entitled Thoughtful Day Top 5. Since this national day is very young, it hasn’t had much recognition and we decided this year, using video to capture a fews things that I did on August 28, 2022 might help inspire more to celebrate the national day.

Officially, this is the first year that National Thoughtful Day was published on Nationaldaycalendar.com both in print and digitally. My vision for this first year was to honor thoughtful people by bringing them a thoughtful pinch like cookies. Of course, at the last minute I thought about also giving the recipient a plaque that says, “Someone thinks I’m thoughtful.” The plan would be to give the plaque to someone thoughtful and they would keep it until next August 28th when they would pass it along to someone they feel is thoughtful. Ironically, there are two people who could have helped me with getting the plaques made but I couldn’t ask them because they were two people whom I was honoring for the special day.

So on Sunday, August 28, 2022 (National Thoughtful Day), along with Tim Gelt who is my PR advisor and Austin McCool the videographer, we set off early to give to three deserving people a homemade poster sign made by my daughter and a dozen cookies made by a local baker named Kate Boss.

The first stop was at Paul Timmons’ house.  

According to his direct supervisor, Paul has been with the Aurora Police Department since 2001 - serving as a patrol officer, on the Crisis Negotiations Team (Hostage Negotiations) and in the Traffic Section--Motor Enforcement Team (MET). His supervisor also says, “Officer Timmons is a truly dedicated officer with a passion for reducing injuries and deaths as a result.“ Which is evident by the recognition he has received. Paul’s supervisor wanted me to know that Paul has received 3 Meritorious Service Awards and 2 Lifesaving Awards by the Crisis Negotiations Team, several Chief’s Commendations for his efforts and success in crime reduction, his response to the Century 16 Tragedy (Paul saved a life), and his work during the COVID crisis. Paul is recognized almost yearly in the last 12 years by CDOT (Colorado Department of Transportation) and MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers) for his work in occupant protection and DUI enforcement. Paul routinely makes DUI arrests, even though he is assigned to the dayshift and he writes more seatbelt tickets yearly than the rest of the department combined. With all that said, from the very first Broncos game that Paul helped us, I knew he actually cared about us as a family. Paul was assigned by the Broncos to help my family and friends get from the parking lot into the stadium for the games and back to our car after. Whenever I want to leave behind gratuity for all the wonderful support, Paul always says, “This is our job. We don’t do this for tips. We do this because we like you.” My thought is that our safety, our dignity and our enjoyment for the entire experience is in his hands. While most would treat the transport as a transaction because it’s their job, I appreciate the genuine attention Paul gives us. Especially whenever Lady Di, my hub’s aunt, comes to the home games - Paul makes her feel special. He was extremely thoughtful when he took her home after she enjoyed herself at our Cinco de Mayo party. It just proved that he is someone who goes above and beyond for his friends and so in my eyes, I’m not paying for his help, I’m just wanting him to know that he is family.  Like my grandma would always slip me some money as her way of saying, “Thank you for coming to see me. Now go and get something for yourself.”

The next stop was at Carina Martin’s house.

In the short amount of time that I’ve known Carina Martin - I know she’s thoughtful because of the organization she founded - A Precious Child. In my post entitled Tough Calls, I wrote a little about Carina and the grace she gave me once she realized that the project she worked on was not going to happen. I need to mention that this is not an ordinary donation collection center. This facility is led with complete thoughtfulness for the child from the cradle to career. The most remarkable thoughtful part of the process is that the help A Precious Child offers is led with the premise of “dignity” and it’s the primary focus. I fully support the notion that it is this thoughtfulness that empowers those who need the confidence in order to succeed. I think Carina’s vision is so compelling that people want to work towards her goals not only for her but for themselves and they’re eager to be a part of something special. The women who hold top executive positions are a reflection that Carina’s leadership is respected and effective. For my birthday celebration this year, I hosted a party at a local gift shop. It was very sweet of the owner of the shop to donate a portion of the proceeds to A Precious Child. When I planned the party, my friend and I figured out a way for the store to make money so that they could in turn give more money to A Precious Child. Now I am able to donate two baskets of wonderful items to be part of a really big fundraiser in October and we hope that those two baskets will then generate even more money for Carina’s wonderful organization. I’m really glad to be friends with her and I look forward to working with her on many more thoughtful projects.

Last stop - Allie Engelken’s house.

I am proud that the Broncos is one out of 32 NFL teams who has an award-winning community relations department and it is led by Allie Engelken. Everyone has a calling and I think Allie is using her incredible skills to organize and manage many tasks in order to practice what she is good at - helping others to help others. I believe that many of us want to help our communities which is why many organizations have a community relations department. I think that in order to be recognized for good work within the broader community, thoughtfulness has to be key. From my observation, Allie has the ability to see the big picture, break things down into bite size pieces and then she sets us all up to succeed in accomplishing the goal of helping the community.  When others get overwhelmed at the vastness that this job entails, Allie rolls up her sleeves and figures it out.  The thoughtfulness that she brings to the table is that all parties are considered whenever she is faced with a situation that involves the team, the recipient of assistance and the community at large.  Allie, along with her team, considers long-term effects, short-term gains, feelings, financial statuses - there are so many moving parts and she manages it very well.  She is courageous and secure enough in her own career that she will do things behind the scenes and give the credit to someone else because she wants to empower them to do more good things. Allie is super generous, well-liked and easy to work with. The Broncos really got lucky when they hired her. And I’m lucky that she has the time and the energy to help me fulfill my wishes; she is my dream maker on my dream team!

After we delivered all three of those thoughtful pinches to the thoughtful people whom I wanted to honor, Tim, Austin and I went to Englewood Rehabilitation to get set up for my last thoughtful fun task of the day. Lady Di, who is a resident at Englewood Rehabilitation, wanted to go to Las Vegas in October so that she could see Barry Manilow live in concert. When she realized that her plans were not going to work out, I knew she was really sad. I had this feeling that she wanted to take this trip to Las Vegas partly to spend time and treat her sister to a weekend get away and partly to have a big hurrah in case she wasn’t able to get around in the future. My mother-in-law (Lady Di’s sister) and I thought as a consolation, we could look up artists who were coming to Denver so that we could take her to a concert closer to home. However, I came up with a better plan. When I was organizing my birthday weekend, I realized that it would be difficult to include Lady Di for either/both events - the shopping party at Wish Gifts and the Broncos pre-season game against the Vikings due to logistics. I felt better if I planned something that she would enjoy in an easier way. So I reached out to a musician that Lady Di discovered when she was out to dinner at a local Colorado restaurant. I asked if David Marais would be interested in singing at the rehab facility. He said yes. This worked out so well because this thoughtful pinch benefitted the other residents, nursing staff, cafeteria staff etc as well as Lady Di since they were all able to enjoy the live entertainment. It was truly very lovely.

One last pinch. Surprise, Tim Gelt!

Once the musician was set up and Lady Di was comfortably watching and singing along, it was time for Tim and Austin to go home. I didn’t get a chance to contact Austin sooner so I couldn’t coordinate a surprise honoring of Tim. When I walked them out of the facility, I gave the last dozen cookies to Tim without any video recording of the event. I told Tim how much I appreciated his thoughtfulness. I would not have been able to be as far along with some of my goals without his assistance.

I will always be grateful for Erich, with the Broncos, for connecting me to Tim Gelt. It took Erich maybe 5 minutes of conversation with me to know that Tim would be able to help me. I found out why it was easy for Erich to know that we’d connect in my first meeting with Tim; it’s because we think alike. I thought everyone thought like me until I launched my Thoughtful Pinch App in 2019 and it was a total flop. But when Tim immediately understood what the app was, I thought, there is finally someone else in the universe who thinks like me! It became Tim’s mission to help me convince people that this app will make a difference. Also, when I shared my vision of having all the professional sports teams come together by way of the GM wives connecting, he was again, so excited to have someone think like him. He had wondered about this exact vision for over a decade. And still, during this first meeting with Tim, when it came to the moment that he learned about National Thoughtful Day, he said that we really needed to promote this day because it was for people like us. He thought it would be a perfect way to illustrate/demonstrate how others can begin to think like us. Even though Tim and I had different paths that led us to realize that we think differently from others, these projects have been helpful in validating that we are thoughtful, not weird, for thinking this way. It has been so great to have a partnership with Tim!

The best part of the morning of 8/28 when I was letting Paul, Carina and Allie know that I think they are really thoughtful was sneakily setting up the surprise and then knocking on the door. Paul said it was like getting the knock on the door for the Hall of Fame. I could only hope that this national day grows so big, that it will be like that honor of getting a knock on the door to get into the Hall of Fame. Maybe the Hall of Thoughtfulness.

Pinches,

Barb