27: Grant Baldwin – Who are you? vs. What do you have or do? – #isharehope

Grant Baldwin is a nationally known keynote speaker and expert at helping people find and do work they love. His podcast “How Did You Get Into That?” has over 30,000 listeners every month and has been ranked the #1 ranked Careers show in iTunes. As a speaker, Grant has given hundreds of presentations and has spoken to over 350,000 people in 45 different states through leadership conferences, conventions, and other events. His book and curriculum for students, “Reality Check,” is taught in 400 high schools around the country. While Grant does love speaking and inspiring others, his favorite roles are being a husband and father. He is married to his high school sweetheart and together they have a Barbie dream filled with three daughters. They live in Nashville, Tennessee.

“I’m Greg Hickman and I Share Hope. I actually want to hear about Grant Baldwin. I know him, I talk to him personally, but I’ve never seen him speak on stage. I saw a highlight reel, I mean he’s just a really inspiring dude and he’s out there engaging with young people, giving them hope, giving them motivation, so I’d actually be really interested to hear where his hope came from because I’ve never really talked about that with him. I’m Greg Hickman and I Share Hope and you’re about to listen to Grant Baldwin.”

27: Grant Baldwin – Who are you? vs. What do you have or do? – #isharehope

“You have a choice. You can look at those things like this is a miserable thing and this sucks and I can be ticked off and miserable and jaded or I can decide that this is life, this isn’t fair, maybe I didn’t do anything to deserve it, but it happens. That’s when it makes for a better story in the end. It makes for a better come back. With all things I’d like to say hence the great the crisis, the greater the comeback. This is Grant Baldwin, host of the How Did You Get into That Podcast and I Share Hope.” – Grant Baldwin

Intro:

Welcome to I Share Hope! The podcast where world leaders share their real stories of hope and how you can use actionable hope to start changing your life today and now here’s your host, Chris Williams.

Chris Williams:  

Grant Baldwin is a nationally known Keynote speaker and expert in helping people find and do what they love. His podcast, How Did You Get into That has over 30,000 listeners every month. That’s really impressive. That’s also been ranked the number one career show in iTunes. A speaker to hundreds of people, actually hundreds of thousands of people, over 350,000 people he’s spoken to, I’m sure more than that at this point, 45 different states throughout the US and he has a book and curriculum for students’ reality check. It’s taught in over 400 high schools around the country.

Grant obviously loves doing what he does, but he says his real passion in life is his family, wife, three daughters and they’re in Nashville, Tennessee. Grant, thanks so much for your time today. So, tell us about you, Nashville, what’s going on?

Grant Baldwin:

Chris, it’s an honor to hang out with you man. I appreciate you letting me be here. We just moved in Nashville about three weeks ago or so. I’m self-employed. I’ve been self-employed for several years. We home school our girls so we could live wherever. We’re kind of going through the process like alright, we could live wherever like, I grew up in Missouri, all of our family is there, it’s a great place and I really enjoyed where we were at. I knew several people in Nashville and I mentioned it to my wife in passing one day and like, would you ever be interested in moving in there? Kind of just throwing it out there and not even really serious myself. She says, yeah that sounds fun, we should do that, so we’re here now and that completely backfired, but digging it so far. I’m really liking it. A lot of fun and I think we’re right.

Chris Williams: 

That’s great man. I’m glad to have you in the same state. Welcome addition. You know how this works, so we’re going to ask you five questions about hope and I’d love to catch on to really, your philosophy and thinking in how you do this because you obviously delivered to a lot of people. You must be a person of hope as well. So, answer them any way you like and we’ll add them to our set of data and share this with as many people as we can.

Question 1: What is your definition of hope or your favorite quote about hope?

Grant Baldwin:

A quote I use often that I think would tie in well is that “who you are is more important than what you do”. A lot of people are very driven or very motivated. We want to do something, we want to be successful, we want to be someone but oftentimes we can do that and the thing that’s left in our wake behind us is our family and our relationships and the people that really, really matter to us. If I make a difference in a lot of other lives, if I’m a great speaker, if I’m a great podcaster, if I’m a great fill in the blank… If I drop the ball as a husband or as a father or in those roles that really, really matter to me, then I’ve really missed the mark and I’ve really dropped the ball in a big way.

I really believe that and it’s something that I try to really live by that who you are is more important than what you do.

Chris Williams:  

That’s great. Great point and it’s so overlooked. You’re right. I did that a lot of time in my life just getting so focused on what I’m going to get next to, what I want to do next that I mean – I forget my dad and husband and my community member and friend roles, so good call.

Grant Baldwin: 

Exactly. It’s not like we’re intentionally doing it. I think we’re all busy and we all have a lot going on and we live in a culture and a society where oftentimes we applaud business. Oftentimes when we meet with other people, we interact with other people, we’re like “hey, you keeping busy?” because like the rest of us are keeping busy, trying to keep up with the rest of us. There is kind of this internal pressure to just keep up with everybody else and what everybody else has going on that we often just stop and think about why do I need to keep up with all these people in the first place? Why am I trying to do this? What is it that I’m trying to accomplish? Am I just trying to impress someone else or am I trying to reach a certain goal or am I just doing this just to do this? What’s the purpose and the meaning behind what I’m trying to accomplish?

Chris Williams: 

Great point

Question 2: Who’s given you the most hope? Who’s been the person who’s delivered that kind of hope to you in your life?

Grant Baldwin:

A person who’s been a huge impact for me would probably be my mom. She’s been a big influence in my world. I think the world of her and she’s an incredibly strong woman. I know whenever or like anytime life is beating me up or I am looking for that dose of encouragement or hope or wisdom, she is definitely someone that I go to frequently. I would say my mom, my wife, and my daughters. I got three little girls, so I’m surrounded by women apparently, but all of those girls provide hope in one way or another.

Chris Williams:

That’s a great point. Stories of families and friends so often come into that. Those people that were just there and got your back when the chips are down. Good.

Question 3: When was a time in your life when you really had to lean on that hope that you’re talking about and pull through? What’s happened back there that made you really challenge what you think about that and see if it’s real?

Grant Baldwin:

Growing up in high school, I was really involved with my local youth group and my youth pastor had a big impact in my world and I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a youth pastor. I wanted to make an impact in the lives of other people and provide that hope for other people. I went to Bible College, I was a youth pastor for a little while. There’s parts of it that I enjoyed, parts of it that I didn’t and so I ended up leaving that position, that role that I was in and I felt like my life had gone back to the drawing board where I was trying to figure out, what am I doing? Why am I here? What is it that I’m supposed to be doing with my life because this thing that I thought that I was supposed to do, I was okay at it, but it wasn’t really what I thought it would be or hoped it would be.

I found for about nine months, where’s my life going and what am I supposed to do with my career? This one particular career, one that could fit and now what am I supposed to do? I’m just asking all of these deep questions. I’m like what the crap is going on here?

At the time, it was just a brutal time, but looking back now it was such a transformational period and it’s just a season in my life that help shape define who I am and what I’m doing today. I think oftentimes, it relates to just those dark moments in life and whether that’d be, you know, you have a death of a relationship or a death of a family member or some type of illness or disease. Anytime you have those types of experiences, oftentimes you have to realize you have a choice. You can look at those things like this is a miserable thing and this sucks and I can be ticked off and miserable and jaded or I can decide this is life, this isn’t fair, maybe I didn’t do anything to deserve it, but it happens. So, I have a choice on how I get to go through this. I’ll give a quick example.

I have a younger brother and a younger sister. My younger sister had been married to a guy for several years and then they’ve been trying to have a baby and so she had found out that she got pregnant with their first child and on the day that she found out she was pregnant, he told her that he wanted a divorce. Just a crappy, sucky situation and so I remember when she came over to our house and was telling us this and she was understandably distraught and just devastated about all this – kind of like both ends of it, it’s like my marriage is falling apart but I just found out I’m having this thing that I’ve wanted for so long.

This is such a weird thought, but I remember vividly thinking like this is going to make a great story. I remember telling her that later and like at the moment you can’t see that. You’re right there in the midst of this horrible situation, but today fast forward, about 18  months or so, she’s got this amazingly beautiful, awesome little girl and she went on to quit her job and has a really successful business and her life is really, really good.

It was one of those things. Again, from me, a person outside looking in and I’ve gone like anytime something happened, it could be the type of thing that beats you up and destroys your or it’s the type of thing where it’s like this is going to make a really good story. Another thing is like a movie. Anytime you go see a good movie, what makes a good movie is when at the beginning there is all these conflict and drama and everything is falling apart, but it works on the end. If you could just watch a movie about someone whose life just worked out constantly and they never had any issues or problems or relational issues or anything like that, that’s a really boring movie because that’s not real life. What you want in a movie, when someone’s life is just messed and is falling apart, that’s when it makes for a better story in the end. It makes for a better comeback.

With all things I’d like to say, the greater the crisis, the greater the comeback. It just makes it again a better story. So, anytime any of us experience something in life whether it’d be a death of a loved one, a divorce or losing a job or just trying to figure out what your purpose and meaning is on this planet, understand that you always have a choice. While you’re in that moment, yes it may be miserable and yes you may feel like life is just beating you up, but you do have a choice in how that plays out in your story in the future.

Chris Williams:

Wow. A greater crisis makes a greater comeback. That’s great advice and you’re right man, all the stories and all the people I look up to while I’m thinking wow, my life is so bad and this one situation, it’s true – if I’m going to watch their stories it’s because they’ve gone through something really tough and boy, that really gets me back into perspective. What’s going on in my life, it will come back around. Good point.

Grant Baldwin: 

Yes. I think in the midst of it – this is why I think it’s important to… I think journaling is really important because I think it’s important to just kind of emotionally vomit and just like let it out. This is what I’m chewing on, this is what I’m wrestling with. One thing that’s fun to do then is just to go back and be like, man, I see this one season or this one month or this one week or even just this one day where like life was just kicking my face in but now I look back it would be like, you know what? It all worked out and it played out okay. So, just know that here in the Midwest for example, storms come and storms go. Whenever there’s a tornado that passes, it’s not going to be there forever. It’s going to suck for a little while and then it’s going to be okay.

Today is a beautiful, sunny day out, but it may rain at some point. There’s a good chance it’s going to rain and so you want to be prepared for that moment. Know that it is coming, but when it comes it’s not going to be there forever. Storms come and storms go.

Chris Williams: 

Wow. Good advice. Great advice.

Question 4: How are you using hope in your everyday life? What are you doing with your experience and where are you at today? Not just as a great public speaker and motivator, but what are you doing that the rest of us can do?

Grant Baldwin:

The podcast of what we’re doing is a big thing. I’d say both of those are things that I think anybody could do if they decided that it was a fit for them or it was something that they wanted to pursue or something that they were interested in. Sometimes it’s easy to look at someone who has a podcast or someone who is speaking on a stage and thinking, well they’ve got some special talent or ability that I just don’t have. I just think that’s not true.

One of the illustrations I like to use is I got an iPhone, an iPhone 6 here and it’s the newest one, but this is the 6th version. The first version, iPhone 1, wasn’t as cool as this. Whenever you first start speaking version 1 of your talk or episode 1 of a podcast sucks. It’s always going to suck. Just know that that is the worst it will ever be, but you’re not worried about version 1. You’re just trying to get version 1 out the door and then you can improve, you can get better from there. Whether that’s a podcast or whether that’s a blog or whether that’s speaking or whatever that s, just know that you are always growing and developing as a human. So, the podcast and speaking, those are definitely ways that I try to share hope, but I think even just – to me, I kind of alluded to this earlier that the people that really matter the most to me are my family and my wife and my daughters, so living a life of adventure, living a life of hope with them, my girls are 8, 6 and 4 and so as they are in these early years of life, just trying to figure out what life is all about, reminding them that there’s going to be times that suck, there’s going to be times that are rough, there are going to be times that are miserable, but know that you can have hope and everything works out, it’s going to be okay. Take a deep breath and so just trying to instill some of that perspective for them.

Chris Williams:

Good advice on that one too. What a great age to have kids at.

Grant Baldwin: 

Sure. I really believe that. My favorite role is being a husband and being a father. That’s so much fun to me. That’s why I want to be successful on business, I want to be a successful entrepreneur, I want to make a difference in a lot of lives, I want to provide hope for as many people as possible, but the people that really, really matter to me, the people that I really want to make some type of significant impact is for my family because those are the people that mean the most to me in this world.

Chris Williams:

Wow. Good advice. Making that practical for me, I’m learning to grow in hope and so many people who are listening are too.

Question 5: How can I or anybody who’s listening take some really clear steps tomorrow? What can I do today even? Simple A, B, Cs.

Grant Baldwin: 

I’ll give you a couple of thoughts here. One on the big picture, from a 30,000-foot level, I think it’s important for people to stop and think about what is it that I’m passionate about? What is it that I’m good at? What is it that I enjoy doing? How do those things translate into opportunities that I can provide hope and I can share hope? Oftentimes, the biggest impact that you can make in the life of someone else is through things that mean something to you, things that are significant to you. So for me,speaking is something that’s really important. It’s something I feel like I’m pretty decent at. It’s something I’m passionate about, I’m good at, and I enjoy doing. So therefore, it’s a natural way for me to share and provide to others.

There are some of those from like a big perspective of what you can do to share hope, but I think there’s also oftentimes just like little, simple things. Things that may mean nothing to you, but may mean everything to someone else. For example, I try to write a lot of thank you cards, just like actual, physical, handwritten thank you cards and it takes me a minute or two minutes. It’s not a big deal, but to someone else that may mean everything. One of those types of things where maybe it’s atext message like someone that you just haven’t talked to in a while. All you do is you just text them, hey I was just thinking about you, hope you’re doing well, you’re awesome. That’s it. Whenever I send emails, I always end my emails and a lot of times I end my conversations by telling hey you’re awesome and that’s it. Two simple words, but then I notice sometimes people email me back and they’re like, oh that was really cool. I really appreciate it. Just like, you just don’t know what’s happening on the other side and you don’t know what someone might be going through or what someone may be experiencing.

So oftentimes, we look for these huge ways and things that we can do to make a difference. I want to cure cancer and I want to solve world hunger and I want to do these massive things. There’s nothing wrong with that, but oftentimes the biggest difference that you can make in the life of someone else is through something that may mean nothing to you, but it may mean everything to them.

Look for those small, little things. It could be a text message, it could be a phone call, it could be an email, and it could be as simple as just responding to a tweet or re tweeting something. Just something small that is not a big deal to you, but you have no idea what is going on and that the difference that it could make for someone else.

Chris Williams:

Wow that’s good. So simple and something we can all do. So right. We could all send a tweet or a text message or a handwritten thank you notes. I didn’t know they still made thank you notes. Paper? You mean the stuff that crinkles?

Grant Baldwin: 

Actual, physical paper. You got to search for it, but it’s out there.

Chris Williams:

They have stamps still too, huh?

Grant Baldwin:

They do. They’re not making a lot off of them, but they make them.

Chris Williams:

Good, good stuff man. So, question here that’s not part of the five, but fun to ask. If you’re down and just need to get your head back in gear, pop in some music in, what are you going to listen to?

Grant Baldwin: 

Oh man. To be honest with you, I don’t listen to a lot of music. I listen to a lot of different podcasts and a lot of times whenever I am at home working, a lot of times I put my headphone on and I will listen to a site, focusatwill.com.

Chris Williams:

I love it. Yes, I use it.

Grant Baldwin: 

I use that and it’s just kind of instrumental stuff or even just white noise works. White noise is a really sexy music that I listen to.But yeah, honestly it’s kind of random. I don’t listen to a ton of music. Let me pull up my phone right here. If I’m working out or running or biking or something, I’ll listen to some rock or some rap or something.

Chris Williams: 

No man, focusatwill, that totally nails it. Nobody has ever said that on here and no marketing push here at all. They sure don’t give me any money, they just charge me money, but focusatwill is really cool. You just pick your genre and you set a timer and it kind of keeps you focused. It actually allows you to be more productive too.

Grant Baldwin:

Yeah. They tell you it’s supposed to help you psychologically stay focused and maybe it’s that or maybe it’s just a psychological mind game that we’re paying for. That’s what I listen to during the day.

Chris Williams:

Awesome. Good one. I’m going to put that on the show notes. That’s a great resource. It really is. Okay, how can we follow you? If we want to get in touch with you and see where you’re at and what you’re doing, give me some ways to get in touch.

Grant Baldwin:

Online, grantbaldwin.com is where all the stuff is. The podcast again is called How Did You Get into That on Twitter or at GrantBaldwin. Anything that I can do, feel free to email me as well, grant@grantbaldwin.com let me know what you’re chewing on or wrestling with, anything I can do to help you and support you as you go about sharing hope.

Chris Williams:

If you’re listening to this, that is a great resource. Anybody like Grant who says shoot me a message on the blog or social media, he’s got a lot to offer, so definitely get in touch there. Great.

Grant, thanks so much for your time. Just brilliant, brilliant time with you and such actionable, simple ways that we can grow and share hope on a daily basis. Thank you.

Grant Baldwin: 

Cool. Thanks Chris. It was an awesome opportunity. I appreciate it man.

You’ve just listened to I Share Hope. If you’re ready to make a change, head to our website at isharehope.com and claim your free copy of the Top Ten Actions of Hope from World Leaders to use hope in your own life. Thanks for listening and we’ll talk to you next time.

Chris Williams:

So you get in front of hundreds and thousands of people and are you nervous? Are you standing there thinking, oh my goodness I got to think of something funny so I don’t just fall apart here?

Grant Baldwin:

Yes and no. I still get nervous. Usually like the first 10 to 15 seconds when you’re out there, you’re just feeling it out. I can tell within the first 30 seconds how the rest of the next 45 minutes is going to go. So if my first few jokes are bombing, then you know it’s going to be a long 45 minutes. But if it’s working, you feel good going into it. Some of it – it’s not as nervous, just getting up there and just getting going. The non-glamorous part of speaking that nobody sees is just there’s a lot of waiting around and it’s a lot of sitting backstage and it’s a lot of just, alright, just tell me when and you’re just waiting for hours and hours for at some point, the conference for or the session for you to jump up there and do your thing.