A package arrived on my doorstep.

Ordinary.

Forgettable.

Until it wasn’t.

In this episode, I share a moment of unexpected awe triggered by something most of us barely notice anymore. A cardboard box. A doorbell. A delivery notification. What followed was a cascade of realization about just how many lives, skills, systems, and unseen acts of effort converge so that a single package can arrive at our door.

I reflect on the old proverb often called For Want of a Nail, a centuries-old story about how the absence of one small thing can lead to catastrophic downstream consequences. From a missing nail, to a lost shoe, to a fallen kingdom. That story is usually told as a warning. This episode explores the opposite direction.

What happens when a small, seemingly insignificant moment leads to massive positive outcomes?

Holding that package, I trace the invisible web behind it. The driver who needed health, strength, and training. The truck that required parts, materials, and maintenance. The metal that required mines. The mines that required machines. The machines that required inventors. The inventors who needed teachers. The teachers who needed food. The farmers who needed sun, soil, rain, and forces far beyond human control.

All of it so that I could click “add to cart” and open a box.

...

This episode is not a denial of the real problems that exist in global systems. Exploitation, environmental harm, corruption, and injustice are real and worth confronting. But that is not the path I take today. Today is about gratitude. About choosing to see the human effort that usually remains invisible. About honoring the thousands of small contributions that make modern life possible.

I offer a direct thank you to the people behind the ideas, the funding, the design, the engineering, the manufacturing, the packing, the coding, the logistics, the driving, the maintenance, the teaching, the parenting, the farming, and the natural forces that sustain it all. This is a reminder that we never receive alone. We are always beneficiaries of lives we will never meet.

Gratitude, in this framing, is not sentimentality. It is perspective. It is state management. It is leadership. And it is a practice that can transform an ordinary moment into a grounding reminder of our interdependence.

This episode is an invitation to pause before the next package is opened. To see the invisible threads. To let gratitude recalibrate your state. And to remember that even the smallest things often carry the weight of the world behind them.

If this episode resonated with you, consider who else might need the reminder. Share it. Pay it forward. And as always, go forth and influence for good... every day.

We often hear that time is our scarcest non-renewable resource. This episode challenges that assumption.

While time is finite, it is not the true constraint shaping our lives, our relationships, or our outcomes. The real limiting factor is attention. Attention is more scarce than time, more fragile than time, and far more powerful in determining how time is experienced and used.

Attention is not just about where it goes. It includes how long it stays, how deeply it is applied, the intent behind it, and even when it is deployed. Attention can be placed in the present, replayed in the past, or projected into a future that may or may not arrive.

Because attention is a subset of time, it is what gives time its quality. Two people can spend the same hour and walk away with entirely different results based on how their attention was used.

This episode invites reflection without judgment.

• Where is your attention going when you are with other people?
• How often does it drift to devices, feeds, background noise, or idle distractions?
• How long do you stay with a task or a conversation before fragmenting?
• How present are you while you are there?
• What is your purpose for placing attention where you do?

A key distinction explored here is the difference between paying attention and investing attention. Paying attention is often transactional, reactive, short term, and consumptive. It frequently leaves us feeling drained, fragmented, or wondering where the time went. Investing attention is deliberate, chosen, deeper, and oriented toward return. It is how relationships grow, conversations change lives, skills compound, and meaning accumulates over time.

When attention is invested rather than paid, it tends to energize rather than exhaust. It feels coherent rather than scattered. It flows rather than fragments. Investing attention shapes who we become because it reinforces patterns of presence, care, service, and growth. This is why attention is never neutral. Where attention goes, energy flows, and that thing grows.

The episode reframes productivity away from time management and toward attentional stewardship.

Managing attention well leads to better use of time, better management of energy, and more intentional action. Especially during moments of change, renewal, or reflection such as a new year, an anniversary, or a personal turning point, the question is not how to manage time better. The question is how to be more deliberate with attention.

The central takeaway is simple and demanding:

Time is not your scarcest non-renewable resource. Attention is.

Be deliberate.

Be intentional.

Where you place your attention will shape the quality of your life, your relationships, your growth, your service, and your legacy.

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[ ***** PS - Dr. Tori offers an influence immersion where he can help you 1-on-1 to level-up your influence and communication. Apply here: https://www.drtori.com/coaching-application-1on1 ***** ]

What if the good you do doesn’t stop when you do it?

In this episode, Dr. Ed Tori reflects on a powerful discovery: a newspaper article from 1995 that his late mother had saved - a story about his college t-shirt fundraisers that raised thousands for charity. Hidden in the article was a forgotten thread: he had once donated in the name of a 7-year-old boy named Nate Jones, who had raised $100 for a homeless shelter.

Decades later, that act reemerged - shaping reflection, identity, and a concept Dr. Tori’s mentor would later call “The Nate Jones Effect.”

Some math can’t be done on paper.

The smallest good can ripple through:

• Identities - A child who gives learns who he is.

• Communities - A stranger multiplies the act in his name.

• Generations - Children decades later read about it and are moved to do good.

The lesson: good doesn’t just add up; it compounds - invisibly, exponentially, sometimes beyond your lifetime.

1. Who is your “Nate Jones”? Who quietly moved you to do something good?

2. When was the last time you multiplied someone else’s goodness instead of just admiring it?

3. How might your unseen acts be shaping someone’s story right now - someone you’ll never meet?

We often look for proof of our impact - reports, outcomes, numbers.

But spiritual math lives in the ripples: in the people inspired, the words repeated, the habits that echo.

You may never see the results, but the ledger is real.

Keep doing good - the math is already working in your favor.

“What if every ripple of good that spreads from your actions is written down - every life touched, every story sparked, every unseen echo? That’s spiritual math.”

This week:

• Notice a small good act by someone else.

• Multiply it - anonymously, in their name.

• Let it ripple.

• HypnoticGiftsBook.com - A framework for transforming lives through a single conversation.

• DrTori.com/coaching-application-1on1 - Apply for personal influence coaching with Dr. Tori.

Loss changes the rhythm of life. It reshapes conversations, rewires memories, and redefines silence. But hidden inside grief is often a quiet invitation - to carry forward what was best in the one we’ve lost.

In this episode, Dr. Ed Tori shares a powerful conversational frame that helps others (and ourselves) move not on from loss, but with it. It begins with true listening - TING - the kind of listening that uses your whole presence. From that deep attention, something extraordinary can happen.

Here’s the simple, human pattern:

• Listen wholly. Not to fix. Not to fill silence. Just to hold space.

• Notice permission signals. When someone shifts from facts to stories, they’re inviting depth.

• Spot the light. When they describe a beautiful trait of the one they’ve lost - pause there.

• Invite expansion. “Tell me more about how they made others feel loved.”

• Honor it. Acknowledge its beauty. Sit in it for a beat.

• Then, gently reframe. “If you were to bring a little more of that into your own life, what might that look like?”

It’s not about replacing or distracting from grief. It’s about transformation through continuation - helping someone find the living thread of their loved one in the acts and traits they admired most.

Grief doesn’t have to be the end of connection. It can be a new beginning of carrying forward what was good, kind, and true.

Think of someone you’ve lost.

What was their superpower?

What would it look like if you paid it forward - even once this week?

• TING - The Art of Listening

• HypnoticGiftsBook.com - Discover how to transform someone’s life in a single conversation

• DrTori.com/coaching-application-1on1 - For 1:1 influence immersion coaching

We honor those we’ve lost not by moving on - but by moving with them, through every act of kindness we continue in their name.

Here are the compelling show notes for Episode 063 – “The Social Media Post I Was Too Scared to Post” of The Influence Every Day Show with Dr. Ed Tori. These are designed to stand alone—providing value even if someone never hits play.

What punctuation, perception, and perspective have to do with your past—and your power.

A single sentence.

Six words.

No context.

woman - without - her - man - is - nothing

Which is it?

• Woman without her man is nothing.
• Woman: Without her, man is nothing.

In today’s episode, Dr. Ed Tori explores how the placement of punctuation - in language and in life - radically alters meaning.

We punctuate our experiences all the time:

• “That failure ended everything.”

• “That failure… led to everything.”

  Same events. Different punctuation. Entirely different life.

• Punctuation isn’t grammar - it’s power. The same words, when punctuated differently, can inspire, insult, or transform.

• Every email you read, every text you skim, every sentence you judge - reveals more about you than the sender.

• The meaning of your memories often hinges not on what happened, but where you pause, what you emphasize, and how you tell the story.

• Coaches, therapists, and wise friends don’t change your life. They change your punctuation.

• You can do the same for others - in one single conversation.

“How you punctuate your experiences will change your entire life.”

• Re-read a text or email that upset you. What assumptions did you make? What if the sender emphasized something different?

• Choose a past failure or difficult memory. Try re-punctuating it. Where else could the pause have been? What might it have led to?

• Pay attention to the voice inside your head: What are you emphasizing? What are you minimizing?

• 💬 Learn how to shift lives through conversation: HypnoticGiftsBook.com

• 🧠 Work with Dr. Tori 1-on-1: Coaching Application

In this episode, Dr. Ed Tori poses a deceptively powerful question:

“How different would your week be if you pretended everyone you met was sent to teach you something?”

From annoying coworkers to passive-aggressive emails… from toddler tantrums to micromanagers… from Lyft drivers to your own children - this episode unpacks how adopting a “curious student” frame in everyday interactions can unlock surprising insight, emotional mastery, and even life-changing wisdom.

This isn’t just mindset work. It’s moment-by-moment training in influence, communication, and presence.

• How friction can become feedback (and feedback can become fuel)

• Why a 5-star Uber driver changed how Ed approaches every conversation

• What criticism at the dinner table might really be offering you

• The leadership lesson hiding inside micromanagement

• A profound insight Ed’s mom got from a 5-year-old version of him

• A practice you can start today that will change how people respond to you forever

For the next 7 days, pretend every person you meet - friend, stranger, critic, or child - is there to teach you something. Ask yourself:

“What’s the lesson here?”

• Leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review on your favorite podcasting platform

• Share this episode with a friend who’s facing a challenging week

• Subscribe so you never miss a chance to influence for good