Episode 077 – Bob Brumm

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Richard Matthews 0:02
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Hello, and welcome back to The HERO Show. My name is Richard Matthews and I am live. On the line today with Bob Brumm. Bob, are you there?

Bob Brumm 1:13
Yes, I am. Thank you, Richard.

Richard Matthews 1:15
Awesome. So glad to have you here again, for those of you guys who’ve been following along with my journey, we’re still stuck at the radiator repair shop in St. Charles, Missouri. And Bob was just telling me he’s down in Tampa, Florida, 79 degrees versus 16 degrees. So I’m a little jealous of Bob this morning. But for those of you don’t know who Bob is- He is a professional award-winning speaker, author, Encouragement Engineer, which is not something I’ve ever heard of before. So let’s talk about that. Serving corporate collegiate sales and youth organizations with encouraging keynotes, workshops and presentations. You also work with individuals to achieve personal and professional growth and positive encouragement to take action to achieve goals or exchange existing restrictive habits into positive outcomes. You got several top selling books and you even, it says here, you help people achieve their goals and work to save over $500 a month, which sounds like it’s a lot of fun. So what I want to start with is what is it that you’re known for now? Why do people hire you? What does your customer base look like? What is your business about?

Bob Brumm 2:19
Thank you. What I’m about is the idea of a positive perspective. And what’s key with that is today’s society we see so many things, all we got to do is turn on the news. We’ll see so many negative stories. I mean, it’s an hour long newscast. 55 minutes a day is tragedy, mishaps, government bickering, political correctness, whatever you may want to call it. And then the last five minutes if you did that, is maybe a good humor story or a good human interest story. We need to change that idea because I think that’s what invades our society so much today that we just need to help people to see the positive perspective on a daily basis. Everything goes on in our life for a reason. And it’s going to be good or bad. And we’ve got to be able to get through that. And I think it’s critical that we be able to get through that. Looking at them with the perspective that helps us to move on.

Richard Matthews 3:10
Absolutely. I know, one of the things that has struck me as we’ve been traveling is that you hear on the news all the time, that our country is like the worst, and people are the worst. And everywhere you go, people are being murdered all around the streets. If you listen to the news, you would think that America is just the worst place ever. And having traveled all across the country, the only thing that I’ve ever seen is what an incredible country and what incredible people we have, even being, broken down on the side of the road. It is hard to be broken down on the side of the road for more than 10 minutes without the stranger stopping by and asking them how they can help.

Bob Brumm 3:49
And that’s important. We don’t hear about that. You know, why not expose more of that, why not share that with people, why not share with those experiences you have with others next time you air. Primary objective is to share that idea with people, that there is greatness in our world, that we have it within us, we need to share that with everyone.

Richard Matthews 4:09
Absolutely. So you share that in the form of books and speaking is that generally what you do?

Bob Brumm 4:15
Yes, I do workshops as well for groups to help them to get over. A lot of times a group dynamic sometimes, you know, I’ve spoken at groups where they were recently sold, and the people didn’t know what was going on with their job. So there’s some insecurity, it’s like going into a hostile situation right off the bat, and you help to reassure that group; One it’s going to be okay, Two the skills they have within them are critical to not only what they do now, but wherever they may go. Whatever may happen in the future, what you have within you, is going to be with you and that is great stuff. God didn’t make any mistakes. So it’s just a matter of taking that and moving it out and realizing it moving it forward.

Richard Matthews 4:54
Absolutely. So I want to talk a little bit about your origin story, right? Every hero has an origin story. It’s where you started to realize that you were different, that maybe you had superpowers, and maybe you could use them to help other people. How did you get started on this journey to become an entrepreneur and get into the world of speaking and authorship, and helping groups the way you do?

Bob Brumm 5:11
Well,it started really early in my life. When I was very young, I lost my mother to cancer. I was six years old. And I was at summer camp, and I, coming back from that, my dad told me, and I was sick, and I didn’t quite understand it. About two months later, I lost my grandmother, my mother’s side. And then Christmas Day, that same year, I lost my grandfather. My father said, being the youngest of a larger family. It was something you learn very quickly that this was going to continue to happen, if you will. As I grew older, it happened more. You know, based on what life gives us, and that’s what I started to realize. Maybe I’m here for purpose, because I can still remember to this day, getting up and getting ready for her funeral. And the sun was still coming up. But I was getting ready for a funeral. And I realized, you know, it took me a little while to go back and realize I don’t think I did this at six years old. But to realize the fact that the world still turns, no matter what happens, we have to continue, we have to go on, we have to help take what was in us and grow with that. These weren’t easy events. And it helped me to grow. It helped me become a better person, helped me to realize looking at things in a different way that could help people to see something great, see something good out of a situation and not all situations are gonna be good. There’s gonna be good ones. There’s gonna be bad ones. I mean, you broke down. That’s kind of a crappy situation. But the thing is, okay, yeah, you had that phone call when you’re driving. It’s not what you want to hear and people are going to help you. I’ve been in a situation where you know, you’re driving down the road, and a tire blows out and within literally within five minutes, I had one of, you know, the trucks helping me change a tire. So, you know, what can we see out of that? Well, we see people that are helpful, we see people that are there for us that we don’t realize, you know, like you said, based on the news stories, you may not hear that. But there’s so much in our world that we need to be able to overcome, and realize that we have greatness within us. I think one of the key things, you know, as I learned my experiences through a life of life event called Death is that we’re all going to be there someday going in the box, big or small. It’s just a matter of one if we can push it off a long time. Great, but how are we going to do that? What are we putting into our mind and our hearts to make sure we’re good with what goes on in life because things are going to happen. It’s inevitable for all of us, that, you know, there’s going to be good there’s going to be bad. And as a preacher, I heard one time said, No, you’re not coming out of a storm. You’re going into one to be prepared because it’s a roller coaster. And yeah, yes. You know, it always is.

Richard Matthews 7:58
I know one of the things that one of my early mentors used to tell me. It’s like, it doesn’t matter what happens today. Tomorrow, the sun’s still going to come up and the flowers are still going to bloom. Yes. Right. And I was like, barring nuclear apocalypse, you know, the flowers will still bloom. But even if nuclear apocalypse, there’s still the sun’s gonna come up, in my behind a nuclear cloud, but it’s not gonna happen, right? The world’s gonna turn. And you realize that it doesn’t really matter what’s going on in your life. The world still goes on, and you still have to get up and engage with it. Yes. And you get to choose how you engage with what’s happening in your life. And I was just talking with my business partner about being stuck here in the RV Resort and realizing -an RV repair shop, and you know, it’s just that there’s no no reason to be upset about those things. And you can continue to, you know, you can change your frame of reference, right.

Bob Brumm 8:58
Yes, definitely.

Richard Matthews 8:59
How you look at it and what you’re doing. And how cool is it that we have access to things like insurance to pay for repairs, and there’s people who are skilled enough to take the damn radiator off because like, I watched them do it. And I was like, Yeah, I don’t want to do that at all. It could be so much worse.

Bob Brumm 9:18
Yes, exactly.

You could be doing it in 16 degree weather and that would be no fun at all. Yeah, so you get to choose your perspective on the things that are happening in your life, good and bad and indifferent. And the guests I had on yesterday for our show, we were talking about your choice to like happiness is not as not a thing that happens to you. We talk. You know, in our language, we say I am happy like it’s a state of being. And that’s just not the way it works. Happiness is a choice. You get to be happy. You choose happiness, you choose joy. In spite of your situation. So my question for you then is how did you get started into the world of speaking like when did that happen for you?

That’s always a good question because it’s as an encouragement engineer, I tie it into my background as an engineer. I wanted to be an engineer, structural engineer when I went to college, and it was in college and I actually saw a sign for. They wanted a Toastmasters group, they wanted people to come to the meeting. Okay, well, the way they wrote that I looked at it, I read it as like, I do not want any part of that they made it sound like a roast. And I was like, why would anybody go to this? Well, several years later, I had a coworker, they said, Hey, want to come to this Toastmasters group. And I got to go to the meeting, and I saw what it really was. And that’s a little note, everybody, if you’re going to write a description of what you do, write it well, because you’re going to, you know, people want to know what they’re getting into, to get there. So make sure you read it well. But when I went to it I realized wow. I could really share some stuff with people. And I just started speaking. And I liked it so much the first two weeks I was in a group, you have to do an initial 10 speeches, I went through those 10 speeches. Within two weeks, I went to other clubs and talked as a guest speaker, I went around town, I met some great people doing it. But I just drove that energy that, hey, this is really cool. You can share some great things with people and the enthusiasm you can do and all the different aspects of the speech that you could help enlighten people with. It really got me going and I really enjoyed it. And when I speak to different audiences, I’ve spoken to middle schools, I’ve spoken to high schoolers. In middle school kids. You wouldn’t believe how much of a sponge they are. I mean, you talk about stuff and their eyes just light up. And high school kids will sit there and they’re like, yeah, yeah, I know this, but then there’s one that you catch, and you realize that he’s also heard something and he’s sitting like this at the edge of his seat, “I got it.” Just take that one person that says, “Hey, I got it and understand what I’m getting at.” And that alignment is what it’s about. And that’s the enjoyment to share with others. Again, it goes back to the whole idea of a positive perspective because no matter what’s going on, if you have to be at that session, and I’m going to be talking about it, I’m going to engage you. Hopefully you get at least one thing out of it. That’s what’s key is let’s give them that knowledge. Let’s give them that idea that there is going to be something that’s positive, something that’s enlightening for them.

Richard Matthews 12:27
Awesome. So you got into Toastmasters and really started that progress. Did you ever, have you gotten into the point where you get paid speaking gigs now?

Bob Brumm 12:37
Yes, I do. I do that now. I mean, this was years ago, I’ve been doing it. I’ve been on my own doing speaking for about nine years. And it’s, I do have a full time job, as well. I’m part of an IT group. So that’s why sometimes you may hear me call, ‘The IT Geek that can Speak,’ because I understand the IT environment. I’ve got 25 years in the telecom IT industry. That group, it’s a corporate environment that a lot of times, IT people will focus on the problem. That’s what they do. They solve problems, but they bury themselves in the problem. And it’s like, Guys, let’s stop a minute. And let’s look back at what we need to focus on here is the solution. How can we get this done quicker? What do we need? What is the resource we need, and you can help direct a group differently. You can also help them to see when you speak it a lot of times it’s acronym SOUP. And I also have a background in accounting. So I’m familiar with acronyms. But when you’re trying to talk to management to get funding, that’s important not to give all the acronyms but explain why you need the funding. What is it going to do for the organization and having that breadth of knowledge is really helpful. So it’s, it’s important to be able to look at the different paradigms that people are focused on and shift that paradigm so that they can see the opportunities of what they do.

Richard Matthews 13:55
Absolutely. So my next question for you has to do with your superpowers? What is it that you do or build or offer this world that really helps solve problems for people. Helps the things you used to slay this world’s villains, so to speak. And the way that I’ve been framing this for people, is if you look at your set of skills and you see like all the things that you’re good at, what we’re looking for is like, what do you see is like the common thread that sort of ties them all together, that you’re like, Hey, this is the one skill that really empowers the rest of my skill set. What do you think that would be for you?

Bob Brumm 14:33
I say positive attitude and an attitude of not stopping. That’s sometimes that can be a curse, because you want to go, go, go and accomplish something and get something done well. And so you wear yourself out quickly. Get a step back, and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized I can’t do that much anymore. But you realize it, we can get this done. I do a lot of home projects at home. And so some of those scenarios, building out a room or whatever — Oh, and that’s crazy. It’s not that bad if you break it down. Okay, what’s the first process? Hey, you got to end this, you got to put up the framing, okay, then you gotta put room for electrical, then you got to remember the drywall the installation and all the later. It’s like making a cake, what’s the recipe and you put that together? So that positive attitude knowing that you know what, I can do this, it starts by looking at it backwards. And even in corporate situations, what is the issue you’re having? Let’s look at it backwards. If that didn’t occur, or somebody didn’t say this, and they did, but now how do we do it? Why did they do that? Why are they not liking what accounting is saying? Why are they arguing with a group that says, you know, we can’t do that because our business has to be at 24 hours a day. And you explain the differences. You explain the whys. You explain Okay, why do you have to be 24? Why do you think you have to be 24 hours? Can we implement something that’s maybe offer an hour on a Sunday, two hours on a Sunday. Those types of things. So that idea of having a positive perspective and going after something fully with your heart, with your head. That’s I think some of the superpowers that I hold in my tool belt.

Richard Matthews 16:14
Awesome. And it’s interesting to, to think about, like the positive attitude as a superpower. But when you really look at it, you’re bringing that to, to each situation you come into and realizing that hey, there’s even if it’s a problem, like you don’t have if, you know, when you get into the negative attitude, the “I can’t.” “This sucks.” This is a problem. You shut your brain off.

Bob Brumm 16:33
Oh, yeah, definitely. Yes.

So if you can come into it with asking with that positive attitude and asking positive questions, why, how can we fix this? Where’s the underlying problem, you can actually solve things and move things forward?

And you’ll see that in a lot of corporate environments where you’ve had two people that have been there for years. We’ve always done it that way or it’s never going to change. Let’s go to a perfect world and say it does, what are you going to do then? They’re kind of stymied, and not sure what to do. But then you can draw it out of them and ask more questions. And what would that feel like –? How can you think that would come about? What were two things that would help you to deliver if that was an option? Or if that came about, and help them to see that opportunity? And from that hope and encouragement. That light at the end of the tunnel isn’t a train.

Richard Matthews 17:23
And you’re helping them ask smarter questions as well. And when they ask themselves better questions, they start getting better answers. So the flip side of a superpower is, of course, your fatal flaw, right? And fatal flaw is the thing that holds you back in your business. And for the purpose of our show, what we’re looking for is less that you have a fatal flaw and more of what have you done to sort of overcome that so other listeners who suffer from something similar might be able to learn from you. Like for me, it’s always been perfectionism and not getting things out to market because I’m trying to make it 100 percent perfect. So what has that been for you?

Bob Brumm 18:04
Patience. And I say that because I’m saying I want to get it out to market and yet it’s not going to be perfect. But I’m so focused on getting it out that sometimes we really need to look at this really need to slow down and in — I wish to give the idea of response and real reaction. A lot of times we’re driving in traffic and we’re going to react to the driver that cuts us off. You know, give them a, tell them they’re number one in a certain way. We may scream at them and suffer along, that they can’t hear us. Okay, well good does that really do? But at the same time, it’s like, wait a second. Why don’t you slow down and respond to this because what if they’re going to traffic that quick because their loved ones in the hospital? What if they just got a call and their kids hurt and they’re trying to get somewhere to make sure their kids are okay? You don’t know their situation, and it’s not your job to necessarily know it. What’s the point of slow down and respond instead of react is critical. And I find myself that’s one of the things that sometimes affects me because I might get to something and it’s not – especially with marketing. It’s an opportunity and you get excited about the opportunity, but you gotta look at several layers, you got to take the time to really look at it. And even with some of the books, my earlier books, if you read them they read like I will talk. And I think that’s a positive and a negative. You know, editors may say it man, this thing, I’m not sure about this, but people that understand the way I talk and the passion I have can see it in the way I’ve written the books. And Dean Graziosi, he talked about that same aspect that he had for one of his latest books. And it was, it felt good, it’s like, okay, there’s, there’s a value to this telling the story this way. And sometimes that impatience and not knowing everything about it. That’ll get it out quicker, to those that really want and like you said that perfectionism can hold you back a bit but I’m a lot of times for me I’d say the patience would be the one thing that I work on I’m doing the clutch and the brake and the picking, I’m trying to build that all into the same the scenario with that.

Richard Matthews 20:16
Where you want to go fast and then realize I can’t go fast. I gotta get it right. Give it a little effort.

Bob Brumm 20:22
Yes.

Richard Matthews 20:24
Makes a lot of sense. So my next question for you has to do with your common enemy. And a common enemy is the thing that, in the frame of your clients that you work with, if you could wave your magic wand and remove one thing from their life mindset or something that you know, is holding people back. And that you are constantly battling, butting up against and realizing that, people struggle with this thing. What is that? What is that for you and your clients?

Bob Brumm 20:54
That idea of lack of hope. I think you’ll see that in corporate environments like I said it’s always been done this way or management’s never going to change. You might see it in kids in school, sometimes if you’re talking to high schools and colleges that I’m not sure what to do. I’m not sure how the market will take me when I’m graduating school. It’s interesting with college kids that when you talk about that idea of actually getting out there and doing some, they kind of get the deer in the headlight look, and there that’s, that’s what’s going through their mind is I’m not sure I’ll be accepted. Why? Try it and ask the question, ask that person, what are you looking for? What value can I bring to you to realize the value you have and how that matches with others? How can we build that into what we do every day? in corporate environments, you have a value your subject matter expert in a certain thing. Take that into your daily work. Know people that will – if they ask you a question is because, you know, it so well that they’re asking you, the expert of what that is and how that works. If you get questions kickback, make sure to help them to understand why they’re asking that question to help them to understand the value you bring to that. So I would say that would be the one thing that I would see, like a magic, wave the magic wand that people see the realization that the value they have and the hope that offers people not only for themselves, but others too.

Richard Matthews 22:19
Absolutely. I know that like, particularly with the students thing, like as they’re growing up and the things that I’ve sort of learned from being a young entrepreneur to being a more experienced entrepreneur, doing these things is like, as you go through different stages of your life, they line up with different stages of value you have to offer people, right, as someone who’s new and young and fresh and doesn’t have a lot of experience. The thing that you bring to the table is a fresh perspective, and a young perspective. And that’s valuable in certain situations. And as you gain more experience and gain more knowledge in the area that you’re working in. You can you like now you have experience here. stirring the table, right and like the value that you bring changes as you –

Bob Brumm 23:04
It does. And I think you bring up a good point because a lot of times with the way the market is going with corporate environments, that younger audience brings a high value of a different perspective, because our technology changes so fast, we need to ride that and be able to run with that idea that it’s moving fast and we’ve got to be able to accept the change. Sometimes that’s hard when you’ve got people that have been in a company 30 plus years, it’s hard for them to change a question and they’re not sure about it what’s going to happen, but you on the like on the other side, they can tell you you’ll come across a problem and they’re not sure about it. And they could tell you right off the bat what it is without even looking at something.

Richard Matthews 23:44
There’s value to both sides of that coin the youth and the experienced.

Bob Brumm 23:48
Definitely.

Richard Matthews 23:50
Awesome. So if the lack of hope is the thing you fight against your driving force is the thing you fight for. So just like Spider Man fights to save New York, Batman fights to save Gotham or, Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. What is it that you fight for? When you’re on stage speaking to people or in your corporate environment, when you’re helping the groups.

Bob Brumm 24:13
Say I would fight for that focus of hope, that focus of a positive attitude, because I think positive attitude is exactly what I always say is that positive attitude will get you a lot further than a negative attitude. And that’s key, because that’s the basis of who we are. If we’re not thinking here positively. It’s all over, we’re done before we start, and that’s not fair to ourselves. That’s not fair to painting that beautiful picture we could have for that day. That initial attitude we have about any situation, knowing that it will clear up, knowing that it will be okay. As any Anthony Robbins would say in that TV show he had, “This too shall pass.” This, whatever the event may be, will pass. Again, the world is still turning and we’ve got to have an attitude of positiveness. It will get us going, get us to take action, get us to ask the questions. Get us to go by that initial thing that we may need for whatever the project may be. But take that initial step, take that initial action. A lot of times when I’m talking to students, it’s the idea of going to ask a girl out. I know today, everybody text everything. No, put down the tech, go ask somebody out if you want to go to a movie. What are they going to say? No. Okay, that’s two letters, you scared or two letters. You’re going to get two letters stop you in life? No. We can’t. That’s an opportunity. Because if they say yes, imagine what you have. You have the opportunity, getting to know somebody, having a great time with somebody, whatever the case may be. But there’s that opportunity. We’ve got to remember that in our head, and it starts with the attitude we have about the day. It starts with, what’s this day going to bring? Is it going to bring great things? Is it going to be hard or easy? It may be hard, but it can bring great things because we’re on the green side of the grass and that’s a great place to be.

Richard Matthews 26:00
Absolutely. And your example cracks me up a little bit because, like if you look at systems over the last 20 years, like one of the big things is I can’t believe he broke up with me over text and it’s like if you look at our our kids’ generation, they have their entire relationship is 100% based in texts, so it’s totally normal.

Bob Brumm 26:18
Well, it was interesting yesterday I gave some blood and they walked into the lobby and he said, Yeah, today anymore you talk to anybody and nobody’s talking to anybody, everybody sitting out here with a blue face. So or the guy was going driving past a bus stop as a kid and he said they’re all blue faced. They’re just doing this on a text. It’s like nobody’s talking anymore. Let’s get to know somebody asked somebody a question

Richard Matthews 26:42
I don’t understand it. We kick our kids outside all the time. That’s like –

Bob Brumm 26:45
Good, good.

Richard Matthews 26:46
__ Electronic devices and go play with the other kids have some fun, you know,

Bob Brumm 26:51
And look at you, “why?”

Richard Matthews 26:54
Well, my kids actually, it might be just something that we’ve – because we’ve done it so frequently that, they get two or three hours playing on their devices and they’re bored. And they’re like, you want to go outside and play? And that’s, I think it’s a good thing hopefully we keep that going as they get older.

Bob Brumm 27:15
Try to do that because mine are older and they would, we’d always be at a ball field, soccer field, whatever. And so they’re even now as they’re older, they’re always busy. So –

Richard Matthews 27:28
That makes a lot of sense. You have teens?

Bob Brumm 27:33
I have one teen left. He’s 17. And then my other one, ____ one up from that is 21 and a 22-year old.

Richard Matthews 27:41
Nice. You got any grandkids yet? Because I was about 22. And I had my first one.

Bob Brumm 27:47
No. I’m okay with it. All in due time.

Richard Matthews 27:53
They had plenty of time. I just wanted to be young, when I was when I had kids. So yeah, and I wanted to be on with them. If that makes sense.

Bob Brumm 28:03
Good for you.

Richard Matthews 28:05
So my next question for you is more on the practical side of actually running a business where you speak regularly. We call this our Hero’s tool belt, right? Maybe you have a big magical hammer like Thor, a bulletproof vest, like your neighborhood police officer. Maybe just really love how Evernote helps you organize your thoughts. What I’m curious about is like, what’s a practical tool that you couldn’t live without today in managing your business? Especially for? Like, I don’t know, a lot of people are really familiar with how the speaking business works, but how do you manage leads? And how do you make sure that you’re getting in front of enough stages and actually pulling in revenue from that business? What are some of the tools that make that happen that you couldn’t live without?

Bob Brumm 28:45
I think a big advantage today is social media. That really helps. Because you can get the word out fast and you can show examples of your speaking, You can show people testimonials quickly and expansively. I mean, you can go to different groups on LinkedIn, and Facebook and be part of these 10,000 people groups and get the word out so much quicker. It used to be, you’d be on the phone calling people, Okay, what about this person, about this person and then asking the question, you still need to do that. But it might be Hey, by the way, who hires you for speakers and they say, Oh, this would be this person or that person, or I’m not sure. And they may list their phone number.

So then you can call that event coordinator, whoever that person may be and say, Hey, by the way, I got your note, thank you so much for responding. And you have that conversation, that one on one dialogue that all of a sudden you get to, if you will meet the person, not just through social media, but -and when they hear your voice. They understand your energy, they hear what you’re about. And so that’s still a good piece of what I do. And I think those are some big pieces of building that business is not only the marketing of social media, but contacting those people and saying, “Here’s what I’m about, how can I help you?” And the social media helps you to do that? Because with podcasts and video, things you can put out, they see who you are, how much energy you have and what you’re about when you talk. And that’s critical speaking business. Just

Richard Matthews 30:14
Just curiosity, question from me, because I don’t actually do any of the stage speaking. Does coming on and doing interviews like this, on shows like mine, actually help you book stages?

Bob Brumm 30:26
Yeah. Because people will see, you may have a small dialogue of what you talk about three or four topics, if you will. This gives – think of who you are as a person, what type of interaction do you do, how much energy do you have when you talk? They could see my hands moving, they can understand, okay, if he’s on stage, I bet he’s moving around a little bit. And I do when I’m on stage. It’s hard for a camera to follow me sometimes unless it’s back further because I do have the energy I move around a lot. I give that energy to the audience because sometimes those people are there to – And they’re in events that they have to be at. When you have to be in something, they’re sitting like this. But as I said before, I and I talked to this one group one time, and by the end, there’s a guy that was just on the edge of his seat, and it was great. And that’s what you want to do. You want to change that perspective for people so they understand who you are, what you’re about and the energy you can offer their audience.

Richard Matthews 31:20
And I know, for one of the things that I know has helped a lot of speaker friends of mine is like understanding who the person you’re selling to is. And understanding that the person you’re selling to is that event coordinator, right, the one who is putting the event together, and has to hire the speakers and get the BIOS and put the things together and actually, like make it all happen and like if you can make their job easier. Like it’s easier to book the stage right? So if you have all of your ducks in a row, and you see like, “Hey, here’s me in a package and you can just do all the things you need to put your email marketing together and put your pieces together.” You don’t have to email back and forth. It’s all there. It’s easier to say yes to you than it would be to another potential speaker. Is that right?

Yeah, definitely, as Jim James Malinchak would always say, “Don’t be the odd guy out that says, Well, I need to have green M&Ms on the right side of the stage. All I need is a microphone and this crowd. If you can supply that, you don’t have a microphone, I’m gonna yell, I don’t care. I’ll do it. I’ll help you out here.” Make their job easier. You’re trying to show them the value they can bring to that audience. And if you’re that conduit, great, so be it. If not, it’ll be somebody else. But I guarantee it. They’re gonna have some energy, they’re going to be smiling. They’re gonna enjoy what they hear when they have me in. So try to help them out that way.

So talk a little bit about your own personal heroes. Just like Frodo had Gandalf or Luke had Obi Wan Kenobi, Robert Kiyosaki had his Rich Dad, who were some of your heroes, were they real life mentors? Were they speakers or authors? Peers who were a couple, just a couple years ahead of you, and how important were they to what you’ve accomplished so far in your entrepreneurial career?

Bob Brumm 33:05
Well, the first one that comes to my mind is my father, he passed away six years ago, the age of 90, so I’m thankful I had the time with him. But he grew up through the Great Depression, fought World War Two, and built his own business. So I got to see all those aspects. And then he took care of us after my mother passed away. I saw aspects of him in that generation that he constantly gave. It wasn’t about then, it was about a bigger picture. The greatest generation that ever lived, you saw them go through a lot of trials and tribulations of hardships, and they knew how to get through it, and it was buckled down and you move you get through it. They were strong, strong people. Other people that have influenced me, I guess you could say or a hero would be Zig Ziglar was some of that time frame too, but he could talk to people and relate to you In a manner that brought you right in. He was relatable. You understood what he was going through, what he talked about and, that his tone was so gracious. And that was always enlightening to me because he can make, as he always talked about, he could talk up to 1500 words a second or whatever, and you know, sometimes in spurts of 300 and he’d always have funnies in his speech. So he’d have an interest of comedic pieces in there. Which is always it helps make things real. Let’s be funny and laugh at yourself and laugh at others. Tony Robbins, Jim Rohn, James Malinchak for college groups. Dean Graziosi, lately because listening to some of his podcasts, they’re real. He gives it in a blunt manner if you it’s not so much blunt, but it’s just down to earth. And I think I will get back to some of that today. In some instances, Darren Hardy’s another one he gives it to you straight it as it is. He grew up with a single parent and his dad was a football coach. And it was grunt, you know, do the work, grind it out. And that resonates well with me. Other people, it may not. But it’s going after that and doing that physical. Doing that work that needs to be done to get to get where you are. And so those are some of the people I think have been heroes in my life.

Richard Matthews 35:21
Yeah. And it’s interesting to me, like you see a common thread through the people that you mentioned that realize that there’s no, there’s no magic to success. Success is you just have to eat dirt. You just have to go forward and make it happen. The hard thing that you’re looking at and don’t want to do, you just have to do it. You have to push through, you have to make it happen. And that’s how successful people succeed is they just do the work. There’s no shortcut to doing the work.

Bob Brumm 35:57
No, there’s not. You’re going to get your knuckles skinned. You’re gonna hurt your hands, it’s going to be hard, sometimes talking to those conversations you have to have. It’s not easy they go on in my life as well as anybody else’s. And it’s hard. But like I said, you just gotta go through it, you gotta get it done. And it’s not always easy. It’s not always fun. But, you know, with that hope with that positive attitude, the outcome we know will eventually be good.

Richard Matthews 36:23
And like one of the things that I’ve always has always helped me with that stuff is realizing that for me, it was just making the distinction, that part of what makes the work enjoyable is realizing that the joy is the journey. It’s like, it’s not the end destination that you’re getting to that’s fun because you’ll get there and you’ll be like, I was nothing. You realize it was actually doing meaningful work, is what brings the joy.

Bob Brumm 36:58
It reminds me of a couple things. When you get married, my wife and I, still talking about this, get all that preparation, six months, all this, all the stress, and all that. And 20 minutes you’re looking at watching what just happened? And can we do this again?And all this for 20 minutes. You know, I remember building a fish tank in a bar in my basement up north when I lived up there. And that idea that, “Oh, wow, look at this cool thing,” when you’re done. But then it takes you that time after you’re done to realize, you know, all that complaining and the bickering and the journey was really pretty cool. And look, happiness because of that, look what is accomplished because of that journey.

Richard Matthews 37:43
It’s you realize that no matter what the end result is, desire is more fun and more fulfilling than having the thing. And you realize that it’s the fighting through a journey that is where life happens.

Bob Brumm 38:07
Think about that string building all throughout it.

Richard Matthews 38:11
So much fun. So I want to bring it home for our listeners a little bit, and talk about your guiding principles. What are the top one or two principles you use regularly today that you think contribute to your influence in the success of your speaking business? Maybe something you wish you had known when you first started out on this journey as an entrepreneur.

Bob Brumm 38:29
I would say again, going over it so many times in through different speeches, different companies, different clients, taking that action taking that it doesn’t matter necessarily what the action is, but you start here, okay, if the idea is in your heart, in your head, that’s the inspiration. That’s what will get you going. You’ve got to have that fire in your belly, that desire like you talked about to go after that end result. But you gotta take action. You’re not going to get a million dollars just by sitting there going, “I want a million dollars, I want a million dollars, I want to make…” No, you’ve got to get up and do something to get that. You’ve got to take that action and that can be talking to …

Richard Matthews 39:12
I can’t just sit here and talk about a million dollars and get it.

Bob Brumm 39:19
Ever hear of lotto?

Even that, okay. You want to play that, you want to have a chance you gotta go buy a ticket, if you’re not gonna buy a ticket, it ain’t gonna come to you. And no matter what,

Richard Matthews 39:30
You gotta have the money to buy the ticket from somewhere.

Bob Brumm 39:34
You gotta open your wallet.

It’s that idea of taking an action knowing in your head and in your heart that if you take that action, you know, it’s it can be okay. It’s going to be okay. It’s not going to hurt that bad. But the result you want could come about. Don’t look at the Okay, what if it does? Okay, so what if it doesn’t deal with that later, but focus on the fact that, you know, it could come about. Think about that line in Jim Carrey, was it ‘Dumb and Dumber?’ And then, he says, “What’s my chances?” And she says, “No, you don’t have a chance. Basically, 99.997%” He goes, so there’s still a chance.

Exactly. There’s that option, there’s a positive outlook, there’s always that option that, you know, something could come out of this. And that could be great. My son is interested because he’s part of a Men’s Bathroom Choir. And they posted this video of them singing. And I thought, well, we you know, we could do that better. And they just, they’d sang the song in the men’s room in high school, and this thing’s got almost a million views on YouTube. It’s crazy. But what if they didn’t do that? Okay, they’d be still going to school, just doing their choir thing, doing a band thing, whenever that. But now they’ve been interviewed on the local radio stations, they’re going to these different events. People are seeing what they can do and the quality of their singing, the quality of them coming together.

Richard Matthews 41:01
That’s cool.

Bob Brumm 41:02
So you YouTube, that young men’s bathroom choir, it’s their vocal tunes that are really good. I mean, when I was in high school, that’s the last thing I thought, it was the acoustics in the men’s room.

Richard Matthews 41:13
… to grab a link and stick it in the show notes for our guest so they can listen. In the bathroom. There you go.

Bob Brumm 41:21
There’s 15 – do it.

Richard Matthews 41:26
So the thing that strikes me there about the whole taking action thing is something that I used to struggle with this thinking earlier in my entrepreneurial career, everyone tells you you have to take massive action. And I used to think what that meant was that you just are always in action all the time. And if you ever stopped taking action, like to sleep or rest or play or do anything other than work, that you’ll never get anywhere, which is also incorrect. And realize that the whole idea of taking massive action is more along the lines of how can I make a little bit of progress every day towards that journey you’re on. Right? And, you know, if you’re writing a book, can I write a few lines today, right? If you’re, you know, I’m working on a sales presentation. And I was like, a couple of days ago, I got the offer done. And yesterday, I got the slide up, like design done, and today, I’m going to get a little thing done. And you know, I’m putting, putting in a little bit of progress every day, over the long haul, it snowballs.

Bob Brumm 42:35
And your mind is fresh on each one of those pieces. And it gives you that better quality overall product. And instead of it all at once, because I’ve done that writing books, too, and you try to write it all at once you get all these ideas by the last two, three chapters. It’s like, Man, you’re worn out, and so a little bit every day really keeps it fresh and keeps it exciting.

Richard Matthews 42:57
I know. Like one of the things that I’ve realized too is like I’m writing a book right now on processes, right. How you think through workflows and processes. And I’ve been writing one story at a time. And I’ll write a story. And then I’ll leave it for a couple of days and come back and look at it, and, and then write the next story and realizing that like doing that has allowed me to connect the stories together better, and think through them a little better. And I think it’s gonna end up being a better product because of it. But, so like, as opposed to like, I’m just gonna write the whole thing today, or over the next couple of days. And it’s, you just end up with better quality work. And also, you enjoy your life more. Because like, as much as work is a good part of your life. Like, I got four kids, we’re traveling, I got other things I want to do. – work. So if I can check off the box of a little progress and all the things that I’m working today, then you know, I can get three or four hours of work done and then shut it all down and go enjoy my life with my kids right and still make massive progress growing your business.

Bob Brumm 44:00
That’s a different paradigm that’s over the years has come about because of the way our industry has been and the technology that offers us the opportunity to do that. And I think that’s great, you’re able to do that. And that’s a paradigm that our society needs to remember, it’s shifting. And so 8-10 hours a day in an office doesn’t have to be that anymore. And it makes a better quality of life, giving us a better product, better production better people.

Richard Matthews 44:26
It’s amazing to me, like if I look back five, six years ago in my business, I was working 12 to 18 hours a day. And now, I work anywhere from three to four hours a day, and I have six times seven times the revenue. I’ve got employees and staff and like

Bob Brumm 44:47
Damn you, Tim Ferriss.

Richard Matthews 44:51
I get so much more done. And it’s much better for your life, but it’s, one of my core principles now in running my business and talking to people and helping clients everything is this this idea of giving yourself permission to play. And we used to think that I used to think anyways, that playing and recreation was something that you earned on the other side of hard work. And I’ve realized since that play and recreation and rest are a requirement before you have productive work, and it because so it’s a complete, flipping the script and you realize that like, man, if you actually take care of yourself and come to your work rested, then you are more creative, you get better stuff done, you get higher quality work, put an output and you gotta give yourself permission to play.

Bob Brumm 45:50
So there’s a reason why they tell you to put the mask on yourself first on planes, right. And then you can help others because if you don’t have it, you’re no good.

Richard Matthews 45:58
You can’t take care of your kids if you’re dead?

Bob Brumm 46:00
No, exactly.

Richard Matthews 46:04
So last thing I do on the show is something we call the Hero’s Challenge. Hero’s challenge is simple. Basically, do you have someone in your life or in your network you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they? First names are fine. And why do you think they should come and share their story with our guests on the show?

Bob Brumm 46:23
Wow. I run into a lot of entrepreneurs in what I do and through my network, one that came right to mind when as soon as you said, that is Chris Krimitsos. So, he’s running Podfest 2020, he’s been doing this for about four or five years. I knew him back before he had kids. He was doing a show here locally in Tampa. And he got international social media fame when one of the guests picked up a chair and threw it at the other guest. And I went, it went viral. Yeah, I mean, you just see him kind of duck out of the way like, oh, but it went viral. And he’s a great, great connector. He cares about people. And I think that’s an interesting thing, especially when you’re putting on these events like he does, I mean, expecting over 3,000 people at this year’s Pod Fest, and he just wrote a book called Start Ugly. And the total, it’s a short book, easy read. But it’s a point of, “Get out there and start it.” Because if you analyze it, think about it, somebody is going to come up with the idea and get it done. So you want to be out there, even if it’s, you know, get it out there, get the idea out there, start it, and he’ll talk to other entrepreneurs that have done that. And huge successful entrepreneurs. The guy that started the hit, the magnetic strip on the back of credit cards. He’s had him at several of his events, other people he’s had, you know and he’s just a down to Earth guy that cares about making sure the environment is taken care of his podcast, people are taking care of the group. It’s a group dynamic that, “Hey, you know, we’re here to help each other. Tell us information. Let’s share your information so we all grow together.” That’s an, I would say one person that comes to mind when you say that.

Richard Matthews 48:07
Awesome. So we’ll see if we can connect later and get him on the show as well. Okay, my last question here for you. I’ve got, and thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s been incredible having you here. Where can people find you if they are looking either for your books or to hire you to speak for their groups and more importantly, who are the right kinds of people to reach out to hire you?

Bob Brumm 48:31
The right type of people, let’s go there because a lot of people get stumped with it. You mentioned it before event coordinators, especially college event coordinators, corporate event coordinators, event planners, if you’re having special events for encouraging your students, your employees, employee engagement, corporate culture, directors of groups that may be I have the authority to bring in external speakers those would be great contacts for me. People can find me at my website at the https://www.bobbrummspeaks.com/

That’s B-O-B- B-R-U-M-M speaks dot com. I’m also on YouTube. I’m also on social media, my Facebook LinkedIn, you can search me there. YouTube, I also have a podcast myself Encouragement Engineering that gives a daily one minute motivational, encouragement quote every day. We keep it on a weekly basis. And we run it five days a week, and we just give an idea to think about for the day. And so it’s just a one minute thing. I’m looking, probably looking in the future to start having some guests so I’ll make sure I get in contact with you.

Richard Matthews 49:36
That’ll be fun. So thank you so much for coming on Bob. If you are one of those event coordinators and you are looking to have someone come on in and speak about encouragement and Encouragement Engineering, that kind of stuff for your teams. actually reach out to https://www.bobbrummspeaks.com/

You have any final words of wisdom for our audience before we hit the stop record button, Bob?

I just want to say thank you, Richard, for having me today and for the audience. Remember to take the action. We live in a world where we gotta take that Action, that light at the end of the tunnel is opportunity. It’s not a train coming, but we got to take the action to think positively as you move forward in life because every day is a new day we can paint a new picture. We’re on the green side of the grass right now. There’s some people that didn’t get that option. But remember to go after that opportunity and take those steps to do what you have to do

You heard him, take action. Thank you so much, Bob, for coming on the show.

Thank you, Richard, appreciate it.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai