Speaker Success Secrets: Spread Your Purpose-Driven Message and Get Paid for It w/ Grant Baldwin

Show notes as a general guide below. Somewhat in order and not written in perfect grammar because we want you to actually listen to the show!

• Grant’s last “oh shit” moment.
• The future of public speaking with the rise of virtual events, AI, and holographic technology.
• Why public speaking became Grant’s passion.
• Grant’s experience with his first non-paid and paid speaking gigs.
• The two things that make a talk/speech work.
• Sebastian on purpose and intention setting in regard to speaking.
• The five foundational questions that public speakers should ask themselves.
• The importance for purpose-driven leaders and conscious business founders to become good speakers in order to spread their message.
• How those who are just starting out can make money via public speaking without a massive following on social or a best-selling book.
• Tips for creating a great demo video for those just getting started in public speaking.
• Whether the public speaking industry has become harder to make money in as it gets more saturated.
• Top tip for honing in energy and overcoming anxiety and fear around public speaking.
• The top two traits a conscious speaker must embody.
• Grant’s book “The Successful Speaker” and online courses.

Connect with Grant Baldwin at Speakers Lab
Connect with Grand Baldwin on LinkedIn
Connect with Sebastian on Instagram
SebastianNaum.com

Below is a transcript of the video podcast created by Seb’s Robot buddy, Zekton. He tends to make mistakes so please forgive him if you find errors or some funky sounding sentences. For the real deal, watch the video or click on your favorite audio Podcast platform above! Enjoy!

Sebastian Naum (00:07):
What’s up, fam. Today I had on Grant Baldwin. Grant is the founder of the Speaker Lab. He’s a nationally known speaker, podcaster, and author who has helped thousands of people start and build their own speaking business through his courses. Over the last 13 years, grant has spoken to over 500,000 people in 47 different states, regularly featured in the national media, including Forbes Inc. Entrepreneur in the Huffington Post. His reality check curriculum is taught in over 400 high schools nationwide, a podcaster. Since 2014, he has published over 300 podcast episodes that have been downloaded over 1.5 million times. Grant is the co-author of the book, the Successful Speaker, which has helped thousands of people to unlock their true potential. When it comes to public speaking, you may wonder what is the direct relationship between public speaking and conscious leadership, or using business as a force for good? Well, if you’re passionate about spreading your mission and about expanding your why, then becoming a better and more powerful speaker is a no-brainer for helping you spread your mission faster and whiter. Guys, if you like the show, please share with a homie. Tag me on social and definitely subscribe. It means the world to me. Enjoy the show.

Sebastian Naum (01:22):
Grant, welcome to the show, brother

Grant Baldwin (01:25):
Sebastian. Let’s get into it. We got a lot to cover today. Yeah,

Sebastian Naum (01:28):
We do. Yeah, we do. That’s great. First, first thing I’d like to ask my guest, grant, is when was your la what is your last Oh moment. What is the first thing that comes to mind? Oh. Could be good, could be bad, could be anything.

Grant Baldwin (01:39):
Uh, all right, I’ll give you something. So, um, I, uh, I’ve had it on my bucket list for a while to be, to get my pilot’s license, and I had no practical need, uh, for it, other than I just, I think it’d be kind of cool. And so I had, um, I had, I was at a, uh, a team retreat, uh, for our company. Um, this was maybe nine months ago, 10 months ago or something. And, uh, there’s a guy on our team who had been, had started taking pilot lessons and flying lessons, and I was kinda like, all right, if this guy can do it, I can do it. I’m, I’m, I’m in, lemme sign me up here. So, uh, I came back from that event and, uh, called around, there’s a neighbor who’s a pilot, and I, I got some info from him, found a, a flight school, started taking lessons.

Grant Baldwin (02:21):
And so for the past eight months I’ve been taking lessons. And, uh, and it all culminated actually, literally just a couple days ago. Uh, this was four days ago where I had my, my final exam. And so, uh, it’s called a check ride. And so this is where, this is the final exam. You’re meeting with a someone from the f a a and they’re examining like your flying skills, and then they’re doing an oral test for a couple hours with you. And just like you got a, it’s a crapload of information. And so just leading up to that was just, it was a lot of information. It was super intense. Then you show up, um, uh, for the actual exam, for the actual test. Fast forward, I passed the test. I’m officially a pilot. I got my license. And, uh, so I congrat, I have a big monkey off my back. But man, for the day of the test leading up to this, it was just a lot of like, holy crap, what have I got myself into? This is, yeah, this is a lot of work right now, so. Well, I’m feel good about that.

Sebastian Naum (03:16):
That’s great, man. Congratulations. Thank you. I mean, I’m glad it’s a lot of work. It should be a lot of work to

Grant Baldwin (03:21):
Be a pilot. It should. It should. I, I, I’m, I’m married to my high school sweetheart. We got three daughters. So it’s me and a household of women. It’s the best. And so I I, my girls are all, I got one daughter who’s like all in, she’s like, Hey, tell me when we’re flying. I’m in. Then my wife and my other two girls are like, eh, I don’t know about this. And I keep reminding ’em. I was like, Hey, they don’t just give out a pilot’s license to anyone. Like, yeah, they got like, part of the litmus test. They’re kind of running through as like, for an examiner is, would I send my family up with this guy? And so, uh, yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s a, there’s a lot to it and there’s a lot going on up there. Um, but there’s a lot of stuff they, they drill you on and prep you for and train you for. So, uh, I don’t know, one, one of these days, maybe they’ll all get in a plane with me.

Sebastian Naum (03:57):
That’s epic, man. That’s awesome. That’s super exciting. Uh, grant, we’re gonna start, uh, sort of backwards. I just wanna ask you, what does the future of public speaking look like with virtual events, with, uh, you know, artificial intelligence, uh, with holographs? Like what ho what is, what holograms, what, what does that all look like in the future?

Grant Baldwin (04:15):
Yeah, virtual speaking is definitely one of those things that, that has become a really big deal because of the pandemic. So I think, um, you know, uh, when the pandemic hit, it became like one of the worst possible scenarios for the public speaking industry. So mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, any public speaker had who had a, any number of bookings, all of a sudden, literally overnight had no bookings, and everything just dried up. Everything stopped. And for a little while there where everyone’s kind of figuring out like, what, what, now what happens? And, and when you’re in an industry that’s dependent on people getting together, and all of a sudden now nobody can get together, what do you do? And so one of the things that’s been interesting is prior to the pandemic, virtual speaking was never really a thing. It wasn’t something that that event planners really took seriously.

Grant Baldwin (04:52):
It wasn’t something that speakers really took seriously. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and then the, the pandemic hits, and all of a sudden the, uh, virtual speaking becomes the only option. It becomes the only game in town. And fast forward to now a couple years later, what we’ve seen is that as live events have come back, they’ve not come back in replacement of virtual events, but they’ve come back in addition to virtual events mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so you have a massive amount of, of live opportunities exist. You also have a massive amount of virtual opportunities that exist in this day and age. Like people crave community, they crave being around each other. And so we’re all, you know, zoom fatigue’s a real thing. We wanna be around people. We love high fives and handshakes and hugs, that sort of thing. But at the same time, like Zoom and, and virtual opportunities becomes a real viable option.

Grant Baldwin (05:33):
Uh, oftentimes we see oftentimes, uh, hybrid opportunities where maybe someone may go speak at something in person, and then maybe for the next couple months they’ll do some follow up stuff via Zoom or through something virtual to help kind of implement and apply drive home what it is that they spoke about in person. And so virtual creates a, a lot of opportunities. I think, um, as it relates to things like ai, AI is kind of interesting as it relates to content creation. I think this is certainly something that for speakers who, um, if they’re trying to put different ideas and put different thoughts out, if they’re trying to create new talks or new ideas, I don’t know that necessarily we’re at a point where something like, uh, chat G P T could just say, Hey, write me a motivational pep talk, and like, it spits something out.

Grant Baldwin (06:11):
You know, maybe at the same time, like, you know, you wanna customize something and create it and make it your own. But what I think it helps with is it gives you some jumping off points and it gives you some starting points and can kind of help cut down on some potential research that you may, may wanna do. So, yeah, I think there’s a lot of interesting things that may be coming, um, uh, even as it relates to, let’s say, the blockchain and some opportunities there for speakers to, uh, let’s say create perhaps their own token and use that as some form of currency with event planners mm-hmm. <affirmative> or for their audiences. And so yeah, there’s a lot of, of interesting opportunities, um, of ways that, that, uh, you know, new technology will be able to impact that, the speaking community.

Sebastian Naum (06:51):
Yeah, it’s super interesting. I’ve been messing around a lot with Chad, G P t I would say, more than messing around. And I think the key there is the prompt engineering aspect. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> is how you prompted, how you, how you tweak it and everything. And I mean, it could definitely write incredible stuff if you’d know how to prompt it properly, you know? Correct. Um, yeah. So, uh, why public speaking? Why is this a passion for you? How, how did this become a thing for you, grant?

Grant Baldwin (07:13):
Yeah, if we go back in time in high school, I was really involved in my local church, uh, and my youth pastor had a big impact in my life, and I was like, I wanna do that. Like, that seems like a really cool gig, and kind of felt like if, if I could make the kind of impact and difference that, uh, and others that he made in my life, that just seemed incredibly fulfilling and, and rewarding. And so that’s kinda the path I was on. Uh, I went to Bible college. I was a youth pastor at a different church for a little while. Um, parts of what I liked, parts of I didn’t like, but the, the thing I really enjoyed, the thing I was, I felt like I was good at was speaking and speaking was one of those things where, um, I felt like it came easy to me.

Grant Baldwin (07:42):
I felt like, um, I, I really enjoyed it. And so I was speaking, uh, on a weekly basis to students, was speaking every so often on the weekend in big church and, and just, uh, I, I just enjoyed it. It was super, super fulfilling and rewarding. And so when I left that role, um, I, I was like, I wanna be a speaker, but I was like, I don’t even know what that means, but it just seemed like a really cool type of profession. And so at the time, this was 17, 18 years ago or so, there was no, like, there’s no podcast, there’s no books, there’s no courses. Yeah. There no training. There was no coaches about speaking. So I found myself just like emailing other speakers, harassing other speakers, can I pick your brain? Let me stalk you for a minute. You know, just like asking them questions and learning some stuff, uh, that was helpful.

Grant Baldwin (08:18):
And so I started booking some gigs and that led to more gigs and more gigs, and eventually got to a point where I was doing about 60, 70 paid speaking gigs a year. Uh, and then I had a lot of people who ask me like, Hey, I, I wanna be a speaker. How would I do that? You know? And they had a lot of the same questions that I had when I got started. So things like, how do you find gigs and how much you charge and who hires speakers, and what do you speaker about? And like, how does this mysterious world work? And so started doing some coaching training around that, and that really evolved into what we do today. And so, uh, about seven years ago we started the speaker lab, and the speaker lab is basically a coaching training company, teaching people the ins and outs of the speaking business, and how do you find a book paid speaking gigs.

Sebastian Naum (08:55):
Yeah. How did you, so do you feel, so when you were speaking right in the beginning, all of this was just outta passion, outta love mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, it was, you know, for free, essentially. What was that, that transition into that first time you got paid? Was it some, what? Do you feel that you had to go through a certain amount of time where you weren’t getting paid for in order to get good enough to get paid? Or is it just like a mental click and a little bit of strategy and boom, you’re now getting paid to speak?

Grant Baldwin (09:20):
Yeah. I mean, no, make, make no mistake. Like, when, when I started speaking, like I was, I was charging for it. Like this was my livelihood right away. This is how, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So this was, and, and one of the things that helped was, um, again, having been a youth pastor, it had given me a lot of bats. I had a lot of reps. Well, it didn’t mean I was the best speaker in the world or something, but yeah. You know, I think a mistake that oftentimes, uh, speakers make or, uh, assumptions pe speakers make is that, well, I’m not, you know, I’m not as good as such and such of a speaker, you know? Yeah. I could never be as good as Tony Robbins or fill in the blank Sure. Or whoever. It’s like, well, you know, we, we look at where someone’s at.

Grant Baldwin (09:52):
We think, well, I may, I may not be as as good as them, but, but most events can’t afford someone like that. They’re not looking for someone like that. What they’re looking for for market is absolutely. So they, they don’t have, you know, 50, a hundred, $200,000 worth of budget. They may have a thousand dollars and they still want a good speaker for that, you know, and they may have 500 bucks. Uh, and so there’s a lot of opportunities that exist for speakers who are, who are good, just getting started getting going. Yeah. Uh, and so, yeah, I, I think this idea of you have to do a bunch of free gigs, you know, free gigs aren’t necessarily bad. We can talk about that if you want, but Yeah, yeah. We’ll talk

Sebastian Naum (10:26):
About it

Grant Baldwin (10:27):
Earlier. Yeah. But, yeah. But, but I think this idea of you gotta like, earn your stripes or, you know, whatever it may be, like, no, like work with what you’ve got, do it with excellence and, and improve as you go. But like the idea of you have to have x number of free gigs before you can justify charging. Like, I, I don’t necessarily buy that. Uh, but like for me, I was, I was, I, I was charging out of the gate because that was, that was how I was gonna, uh, um, provide for my family. That’s how I was gonna eat and live indoors.

Sebastian Naum (10:53):
That’s great. Yeah. I feel like half, half of that battle is just knowing your own worth and feeling worthy of getting paid to speak. You already felt that you went after it, right?

Grant Baldwin (11:01):
Yeah. I mean, made no mistake. Like, the idea of like, anyone paying you to, to like stand on stage and run your mouth is like absurd. It’s crazy, you know? And so the very first gig I did, um, very first, like professional gig I did, where on my own went and found this gig, got booked for it, they paid me, uh, a thousand dollars to speak for like 30 minutes, a group of about 300 people. And I remember they handed me the check, and I mean, it might as well have been a billion dollars. I was just like, I cannot believe they paid me a thousand dollars to speak. That was so much fun. I got a standing ovation, it was awesome. It was yada yada yam. And I remember like vividly like going to my car afterwards and just breaking down in tears. Like, I cannot believe that that was just such a cool experience. They paid me a lot of money for this. And so, yes, I got a lot of joy, satisfaction, fulfillment, love out of that experience, but at the same time, I was providing something of value. And so it’s important that I receive something of, of value in exchange, and in that case, it happened to be in the form of, of currency, the form of a check. But that, again, that currency could look a a lot of different ways.

Sebastian Naum (12:00):
Absolutely. And, and also, there’s so much more that goes into it. It’s not just a half an hour that you talked, right. There’s a lot of prep, right. That is involved in your past life experience that brought you to that moment too. So I think that there’s something there as well. Uh, grant, what, what are, if ju if you just had to say two things, what are two things that make a speech or a public talk work?

Grant Baldwin (12:20):
Yeah. Uh, I think a couple things come to mind. One is to, um, really spend the time practicing and preparing. I think that the best speakers on the planet, uh, they really spend a lot of time behind the scenes. So a misconception here that the speakers are, are just like, they’re naturally charismatic and they just scribble some ideas on a napkin and hop up on stage, and it just kind of wing it. And it all just works out. Like, it just doesn’t work like that. Like, they really spend a lot of time thinking through their stories and transitions and intros and outros and, and, uh, all the different parts of how does this all work together. So a good example of this is you take like a professional athlete, okay? So if you think about, like the Super Bowl, for example, you know, you with the Super Bowl, those, those athletes, they come out on the field and those N F L players, and they are incredibly, incredibly good at what they do.

Grant Baldwin (13:03):
They are naturally athletic human beings, but they’ve also spent like their entire career practicing and preparing and training for this moment. So they may be nervous, they may feel some butterflies, but at the same time, it’s not like, oh my gosh, I’m gonna get there and forget what I’m supposed to do. No. Like, they’ve prepared for this moment. You know, another example is like a comedian. You know, sometimes we think like, well, comedians, they’re just, they’re just funny. Yeah. Like, they’re naturally funny people. But when we watch like a, a Netflix special, for example, yeah, we think like they just get up there for an hour and just kind of riff and it all works out. It’s like, no, no. They’ve spent so many times in like small little clubs testing something and like, okay, that didn’t work, or that was funny. Let’s lean into that a little bit more.

Grant Baldwin (13:41):
So by the time you see them up on, you know, on a Netflix special or something, it’s really been dialed in and polished. And again, that’s the same thing that’s true for a speaker, is they really spend a lot of time crafting, working on behind the scenes, their ideas, their concepts. So by the time they get up on stage, like it’s really well, uh, well thought out and well oiled. So whether you’re a brand new speaker just getting started, or you’ve been at it for a long time, one of the best things you can do is really spend a lot of time like practicing and preparing behind the scenes.

Sebastian Naum (14:09):
Yeah. That’s huge. Uh, you know, I was just watching the Chris Rock special on Netflix, and I was telling my friend, I was like, it, it’s like not only just, you know, uh, the stringing of one thing to the next mm-hmm. <affirmative> all the way through, but it’s an hour long that is a full on hour long script that you technically have memorized. Like, that is no joke. Yeah. No, it’s, it’s, and redoing, you know?

Grant Baldwin (14:33):
Correct. Yeah. It’s very significant. Where like, when you’re, when you’re live, like, it’s not like, ah, I didn’t like that. Let me, let me redo that. Let me say that again. You know, uh, if you’re shooting a video or a podcast or whatever it may be, where we can go back, we can edit, we can tweak, like you’re, you’re live on stage, and so you gotta know Yeah. Where you’re going. Uh, so for someone to stand on stage and for, you know, 30, 45, 60 minutes, 90 minutes, and not use notes, not use the script, and yeah. Keep people’s attention for that long is really, really, really difficult. Um, absolutely. Um, you know, comedians Yeah. And speakers do it all the time.

Sebastian Naum (15:06):
Absolutely. Grant purpose and intention are so important. You know, most people ha hardly ever ask themselves a true why or even set an intention before they start to present or have an important conversation. I find that purpose and intention setting prior to just about anything or so crucial and powerful. And I mean, anything, you’re about to join your friends for dinner on a Tuesday night. You’re about to have a conversation with your partner about a disagreement. You’re about to give a speech, big talk, or you’re joining your friends for a weekend in the mountains. You know, setting an intention before you go into something, changes everything. Share a little bit of your experience, uh, in terms of intention and public speaking.

Grant Baldwin (15:45):
Yeah, I, you know, I think that, uh, again, um, when you’re, you’re, you’re sitting backstage, you’re, you’ve, you owe it to the audience to really be polished, prepared and ready. And so, you know, again, the best speakers don’t just come up there and shoot from the hip and hope it works out. Like you, you have no idea. One thing I I remind our speakers of all the time is you have no idea who’s in the audience, what they’ve dealt with, what they’re going through. You know, the conversation they just have with the spouse, the fight they just had with their kid, the bad news they just got from their boss, the bad news they got from the doctor. Like, I mean, any number of things. And, and every speaker has some like crazy stories of like, someone who shared something with them. You’re like, holy crap, I had no idea.

Grant Baldwin (16:24):
And so it’s just really, really important that you bring your absolute best as a speaker, that you be fully engaged and that you’d be totally locked in. And so, regardless of what has happened in life, regardless of what’s taking place in your own world as a professional speaker, you’ve gotta show up and be on. So let me give you an example. I remember, uh, a few years ago I was, um, uh, I was in, um, Denver and was invited to speak. Um, uh, I spoke of something and then I was supposed to be flying to Chicago and then driving to speak at another organization. And it was in Denver. I don’t remember what time of year it was, but it’s dumping snow, dumping snow, and, uh, we’re on the tarmac and fli delayed flies delayed, flies delayed. And so it ends up like, I mean, middle of the night, we, Hey

Grant Baldwin (17:30):
Finally, take off and we’ll fly to Chicago. We land in Chicago at like three, four in the morning, haven’t slept. I get in a car, I drive to this other, this next venue, uh, I’m, I’m like stopping at a gas station to grab something to eat. And, um, uh, I, I show up. I’m changing in the parking lot in my car. I’m brushing my teeth in the, in the parking lot and just finding a place where I can like spit. Nobody’s gonna be watching me or something. And then I go in and, you know what I gotta be on, like, I have to be yeah. Fully engaged and fully prepared, cuz the audience, they don’t know what I just went through. And they don’t even care, right? They came to see a speaker, they came to this conference, they came to this event. And so I have to, I have to bring my best, which means I have to set my intention that hey, who no matter what’s going on in my own world, no matter what’s going on in their world, no matter what’s happening outside of our, our control here, like, you have to show up and bring your best.

Grant Baldwin (18:22):
So, yeah, I think, um, again, a good example of just being like setting that intention of, of being fully engaged for, for the sake of the audience.

Sebastian Naum (18:30):
Yeah. And, and how do you, what about in terms of sort of your, why is that going to change depending on what, a lot of times, obviously, depending, depending on what talk, who your audience is, but is there a why that you have, that you remind yourself of that helps you sort of get in that presence?

Grant Baldwin (18:49):
Yeah, I would say two things. One is going to be, you know, doing something in, in service of the audience and making an impact, making a difference. I know, like in my own career, I’ve had the opportunity to speak to hundreds of thousands of people, like live in person, not virtually, but in person type of events. Uh, I know the, the ripple effect that a speaker can make. And so if we think about for yourself and I, for, uh, anybody watching or listening, I mean, I think we can all come up with some type of speaker who has impacted us in some way. And maybe it’s someone that you know personally, maybe it’s someone that you, you’ve never met, but you were at a conference or an event, or maybe it was a professor, like someone said something in a talk. And like you, maybe you don’t even remember anything else that they said, but that one line just stuck with you.

Grant Baldwin (19:28):
It resonated with you. Maybe it changed the trajectory of your life. And so I think about the nature of what it is that we do as speakers, and the ability to have that kind of impact and that ripple effect, uh, in the lives of others is extremely, extremely powerful. So that’d be one thing. The other thing I would say is, you know, personally, I know that, um, being a speaker has provided an amazing, amazing life for my, my, my wife, my family. Like I mentioned, I’m married to my high school sweetheart. We just celebrated 21 years of marriage, 26 years together. Um, me and a house full of women. Uh, and it, it’s absolutely amazing. And being a speaker and being in the speaking industry has created an amazing life for us. Like, I would not trade lives with anybody. I absolutely love the life that I have. And so when I stand up on stage and, and speak, or whenever I help another speaker, uh, with their own business and, and book a gig and, and share their message, I know that it’s, it’s impacting them. It’s impacting their family, it’s impacting their audience. And it’s also selfishly it’s impacting me. Uh, and so yeah, the, the, the benefit of, uh, being a, a speaker, whether you wanna do a couple gigs or, you know, a hundred gigs a year, like it really is significant.

Sebastian Naum (20:35):
Absolutely. Yeah. Grant, you talk about five foundational questions that public speakers should ask themselves. Are there certain questions that you tell when that you teach that people should be asking themselves in regards to becoming a successful

Grant Baldwin (20:49):
Speaker? Yeah. What we teach is a, a five step process, um, makes the acronym speak, s p e a K. And so maybe what we can do is, I all, I can just walk through that, that process real quick. Yeah. Run through it, yeah. At, at a high level, and then we can jump in wherever you want. So we call it the, um, the speak framework, the Speaker Success Roadmap. Uh, so again, it makes this acronym speak, s p e a K. So s is select a problem to solve, select a problem to solve. So two key questions that speakers need to ask. Number one is, who do you speak to? And number two, what problem do you solve for that audience? Now again, the mistake here that a lot of speakers make is we try to go as broad and vague as possible. And so who do I speak to?

Grant Baldwin (21:24):
I don’t know, man. I speak to humans. I speak to people. My message is for everybody. Uh, and when we talk about like, well, what do you, what do you speak about? What problem do you solve? It’s like, well, what do you want me to speak about? I can speak about anything. We can talk about podcasting or business or marketing or faith or family or sports or hobbies or fitness or like, on and on the list goes. And like, that just doesn’t work. And so what we always remind speakers of is you want to be the steakhouse and not the buffet and the steakhouse, not the buffet, meaning Sebastian, if you and I are going out for a bite to eat, we’re looking for a good steak. Like we have a choice. We could go to a steakhouse where they do one thing, or we could go to a, uh, a buffet where they do a whole bunch of different things, and steak is just one of those options.

Grant Baldwin (22:01):
And they’re medi, they’re all mediocre, right? But a steakhouse, they do one thing, and they’re really, really good at that one thing. So they don’t do tacos, they don’t do lasagna, they don’t do sushi, they don’t do cupcakes. They, they, we do steak and that’s it. They’re not trying to appeal to vegetarians. We do one thing, and we’re really good at that. And so, again, the mistake here, and it’s counterintuitive, but speakers think like, but I gotta talk about all these different things and be available on, uh, accessible, but to all these different, uh, types of audiences. And it’s like, that’s, that’s not what people are looking for. So solve one specific problem for one specific audience. The more narrow you are, the more focused you are, the easier it is to actually find and book gigs. So that’s the s selecting a problem to solve.

Grant Baldwin (22:36):
The p is to prepare your talk to be really, really clear on the solution that you’re providing. So, and not, not only the solution that you’re providing, but how you’re providing that solution. Are you doing that in person? Are you doing that virtually? Like we talked about? Uh, are you doing that through, um, workshops or keynotes or seminars or breakouts or consulting? There’s a lot of different ways that you can go about doing that. Next part of the process e is to establish yourself as the expert. So two key marketing assets that you need. Number one is you need a website. And number two is you need a demo video. Now, what exactly is a demo video? So I want you to think of this like a movie trailer. So before anybody, any one of us, we would go see a movie. We wanna watch that trailer.

Grant Baldwin (23:14):
And a trailer is basically, they take a two hour movie, they boil it down to two or three minutes, and within those two or three minutes, you have an idea of who’s in it, what’s the plot, what’s the theme, what’s the genre and the goal of a movie trailer. And the goal of a demo video is to make people want to see more. And so for an event planner, a decision maker who’s considering hiring you, one thing you have to remember is they are in the risk mitigation business. Meaning if I hire you and I put you up on stage and I hand you a microphone, I’ll let you talk to some, some of my people, and I give you money to do all of these things, I gotta make sure that, that you’re not gonna embarrass me. I gotta make sure that you’re gonna make me look good, right?

Grant Baldwin (23:47):
It’s a big risk. So an event planner, they want to see a video, they wanna see something that gives you, gives them some level of confidence that if I hire you, you’re going to do a good job. They don’t need to see an entire, uh, video. They don’t need to see an entire 60 minute talk to, to determine whether or not you’re a great fit. Right? Maybe you’re a great speaker, you’re just not what they’re looking for. So the demo video helps with that. The fourth thing, a, is acquire paid speaking gigs. Acquire paid speaking gigs. Now this is the part people wanna fast forward to, like, dude, just tell me how to book gigs, right? But you gotta have these other foundational pieces in place. First, if you’re not clear on the s selecting a problem to solve, who do I speak to? What problem do I solve?

Grant Baldwin (24:23):
Oh, man, I don’t, doesn’t matter. Just, I just wanna know how to book gigs. Okay? Let’s talk about how to prepare your talk. Uh, I’ll just wing it. I, I don’t need that. I just know, wanna know how to book gigs. All right, let’s talk about establishing yourself as the expert, your website, your demo video. Nah, I don’t need that stuff. I’ll, I’ll just figure, you gotta have these things in place first before we get to the parts about acquiring gigs. Now, this is, again, the part where, uh, speakers think, all right, I got my website, I got my video, and now I just sit back and I wait for the phone to ring. Like, that just doesn’t work. Like your, your mom is like thrilled about your website. She’s gonna tell both of her friends. Nobody else cares. So at this point, we have to be much more proactive than reactive.

Grant Baldwin (24:58):
Meaning some speakers say, my website’s up now. I just sit back and I, I, it all happens from here. It’s like, it doesn’t. So we gotta be a lot more proactive in getting the ball rolling. And what that means is identifying specific conferences, events, event planners, decision makers, uh, organizations and groups that are already hiring speakers. You don’t have to convince them to hire speaker. They’re already planning on hiring a speaker. You’re just showing them why you are a good fit for their event. So reaching out to them, following up to them starting conversations, this is a, a big part of what it is that, that we teach. And the last part of the process, Kay, excuse me, is know when to scale. No, when to scale. Meaning a lot of people who are interested in speaking are also interested in writing a book, coaching, consulting, you know, doing a course, doing any number of things. And you can do all the things. You just can’t do all the things at once. So if something’s gonna come first, something’s gonna come last. You gotta be clear about how speaking fits into the mix. So I know we covered a lot there, but that’s kind of high level of the speaker success roadmap.

Sebastian Naum (25:53):
Love that. Thanks for that grant. Um, if there is, I think that a, a common question for somebody that’s starting out there, uh, in terms of, right, a demo video or a reel, right? Or whatever that is. It’s if somebody is just getting started and they don’t have all that existing content, like, it’s kinda like the chicken, chicken and the egg, right? Yep. You’re right. How do you, is it like a fake till you make it type thing? How do, how do you suggest going about that for someone starting?

Grant Baldwin (26:19):
Yeah. And so you’re right that it is like this chicken egg situation. I need bookings in order to get footage and need footage in order to get bookings, which comes first. Yeah. So what we teach is, there’s a couple different things you could do. Okay? One is that you could find some local event to speak at for free. Okay? My very first demo video was, uh, I, uh, I was a former youth pastor. There’s a friend of mine who was a youth pastor I went to and spoke at his youth group of about 30 teenagers or so. So I borrowed a little handy cam from a friend. I sit up on the side of the room. The audio wasn’t great. The lighting wasn’t great. Uh, the acoustics weren’t great, but it worked, right? So I think one thing that’s important to note is when it comes to like your demo video, your website is, you’re gonna have multiple iterations of this over time.

Grant Baldwin (26:59):
So sometimes people feel like, man, I, you know, my footage isn’t the best. Like at this point in my career, fast forward, I’ve had 6, 7, 8 demo videos and 6, 7, 8 versions of websites. And so each time you speak, you get footage and you can get better footage and higher quality footage and better events and bigger, bigger venues and bigger audiences and yada ya. But like, that’s not what you have in the beginning. So work with what you’ve got and improve as you go. Do it with excellence, but improve as you go. So, absolutely. Again, my first video was, I just spoke at an event for free. Another option that you can do, and we’ve seen a lot of people that do this and do this well, is that you could, you could, um, uh, record something, um, uh, all alone. Okay? Now this feels weird. And if you’re gonna do this, do this in the type of setting where someone would actually hire you to speak.

Grant Baldwin (27:45):
Meaning nobody’s hiring you to speak in your kitchen or your bathroom or your bedroom or anything like that. So you want to go to a ballroom, a banquet hall, an auditorium, a theater, a conference center, some type of setting where someone would actually hire you to speak and record yourself in that type of environment. Okay? I’ll give you, even if there’s no people there, you just, even if there’s no people there, I’ll give you an example. Um, one of my early demo videos, um, was the entire video was, uh, it was really good footage. It was a tight shot of me on stage. It was kind of cut from some different clips. Um, and sometimes I’ll show it to speakers and I’ll say, all right, lemme show you my demo video. How many people were in the room here? Cause you never see anybody else in the room.

Grant Baldwin (28:24):
And I was asked how many people are in the room? And people guess, you know, nobody just a cameraman, a thousand, a hundred, you know, like, you make whatever guess you want, there’s 3000 people in the room, but you have no clue cuz it’s just me on stage, right? And so, yeah. Uh, so yeah, you can, you can do that. I can get it. It feels weird and feels kind of, you know, hokey or whatever, but like that works and it can be super, super effective. So, uh, so I, I would recommend again, um, uh, you would rather have something like that that’s done well, yeah, you can actually do that with your iPhone. Like the, the cameras and video cameras available on iPhones today are amazing. So you don’t have to borrow handy cam or flip camera or whatever, like you can use, uh, uh, a iPhone, set it up on a tripod. And that can be super effective.

Sebastian Naum (29:05):
And you can also be, essentially, you could be talking, but then later on you can actually not have that audio and just narrate over it. Right? And you can kind of narrate usually

Grant Baldwin (29:14):
Some B-roll reel. Yeah,

Sebastian Naum (29:15):
Yeah, yeah. It’s all B-roll, right? And you’re kind of pitching, so the whole talk as you narrating.

Grant Baldwin (29:19):
Yeah. I mean I would definitely recommend though that you, um, because you, uh, I think one thing that speakers can make a mistake on is the demo video is meant to, uh, highlight you speaking, right? And so a mistake that speakers make sometimes with a video is it’s them kind of introducing themselves, Hey, my name is Grant and, and then it’s B-roll playing of them, uh, you know, me or whoever’s speaking. Yeah. Um, but they never actually see that person speaking, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so you gotta remember at the end of the day, like that’s what the event planner is hiring. Yeah. And so maybe you’re a great person, like maybe you have like, sometimes speakers will splice in some, um, podcast interviews or media appearances and that’s great. But as an event planner, I’m not hiring you to do a media appearance cuz you talking one-on-one in an interview type setting in front of a camera is different than I’m gonna hire you to talk in front of, you know, 500 people in my audience. So people wanna see do I,

Sebastian Naum (30:10):
If anything, you can mix it up, you can have some narration and then kind of bring in the speaking and sort of the audience and this and that.

Grant Baldwin (30:16):
Yeah. I don’t think it’s bad necessarily to have some of that. But again, I would, you know, it’s kind of salt, you know, you, you want a little of it, but too much of it. And you’re like, that’s not what I’m hiring you for. I’m not hiring you to do immediate appearance. I’m hiring you to to speak and that’s what I wanna see.

Sebastian Naum (30:28):
Got it. Got it. Grant for purpose-driven business leaders for conscious CEOs, entrepreneurs and things like that, there’s so many, um, mission driven brands that are coming out. There are more and more mission driven brands, and I am o obviously, uh, passionate about those types of brands and companies. Um, and, and now we’re seeing that more and more companies and brands need a face behind them and CEOs and founders, they’re having to be those faces. How important is it now more than ever for those mission-driven leaders to be great speakers in order to represent their mission and their brands?

Grant Baldwin (31:09):
Yeah, that’s a great question. So in this day and age, like speaking is still like one of those really, really high up the radar, uh, roles, professions that we view with amazing, uh, credibility with recognition, with prestige. And so if you go to a conference or an event or whatever form and you see someone up on stage, there’s just a level of just like, that person must have their crap together cuz they’re up on stage. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and I’m not. And so, you know, it’s kind of similar to like, you meet someone who’s a brain surgeon or rocket scientist, you’re like, whoa, okay. You know, like there’s just a certain amount and, and culture in society, a certain amount of cache that we associate with that. And the same thing is true with a speaker. And so, uh, for, for someone who may be watching or listening, going like, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna be on the road all the time, I don’t wanna speak all the time.

Grant Baldwin (31:52):
It’s like, that’s great. One of the great things about being a speaker is that you get to decide how it makes sense for you. Meaning I know speakers that do a hundred plus gigs a year, and that’s great. And there’re speakers that do five gigs a year, and that’s great. And it ultimately decide, it ultimately comes down to what makes sense for you and what do you decide, uh, you wanna do in a way that fits in for your business. Speaking can also work really, really well from like a lead generation standpoint. So we know that at the end of the day, people do business with people they know, like, and trust. And when you are sitting in an audience listening to a speaker and you just, you build some type of connection and like, okay, I feel like I trust this person. I feel like they know what they’re talking about.

Grant Baldwin (32:28):
I feel like I could see myself working with this person. I like this person. Uh, and so it builds that relationship and that rapport in a way that like a lot of other mediums don’t, you know, if you’re reading someone’s blog post or you’re on their newsletter, like I can read words, but when I’m in person or I’m watching them speak, like I get a better connection of what that person’s like when after they finish speaking, I can shake their hand or talk to them or pick their brain or ask a question and I build some type of connection with them. Uh, and if they are providing a solution to a need that I have, I’m a lot more likely to want to work with him. So there’s a lot of speakers that, that we work with who use speaking for lead generation and for building, um, uh, recognition and kind of credibility in their space. And so, you know, whether you wanna be, even if you’re, you’re watching or listen, like I don’t wanna be a full-time speaker, that’s fine. You don’t need to be a full-time speaker, but speaking should absolutely still be something that should be considered in your, your arsenal.

Sebastian Naum (33:21):
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Agreed. Um, if you’ve got, nowadays, you know, social media has such an impact and, um, you know, somebody’s starting out, they feel like they’ve got an important message, they’ve got a very like, important mission to get across, whether it is that they’re a founder or a CEO or whatever else it may be that they’re trying to inspire or cause change with in the world, and they don’t have the massive social media following, they don’t have the best selling book. I feel like some of these things today, like we’re just so inundated with, you know, influencers, the massive social media followings and books, all of the, like how do you, how, what do you tell those, those people that have the mission, they have the skills, but they don’t have that social following, they don’t have that book. You know, how how do you, what do you advise to them?

Grant Baldwin (34:12):
Yeah, I think again, it’s just another kind of misconception that in order to be a speaker you have to, uh, have a huge social following. You have to, um, have, be an influencer. You have to have a big name, you have to have a book. You have to have accomplished something crazy in life. You need to have cured cancer. You need to have, uh, be a war veteran. You need to have climbed, uh, Mount Everest blindfolded in your shorts. Like you need to do something. You’re like, oh, well, of course that person’s a speaker. Listen. Yeah, I’m a white male from the Midwest who’s had a pretty normal average life. Like, there’s nothing on paper. You’re like, ah, all right. That dude. Yeah, that makes sense. Like, lemme give you an example. When, when I got started speaking, I met a guy who’s become a good friend, um, and he’s a very good speaker.

Grant Baldwin (34:49):
He has a crazy story. He had cancer as a child, had a leg amputated, went on to become a one-legged downhill skier in the Paralympics. And so I meet him and I’m just like, I, yeah, I can’t compete with that. Like, I have twice as many legs as him. I’m not a good skier. I got nothing that’s gonna qu like, oh yeah, therefore I should speak. Like, no, no, none of that. Right? But again, let’s go back to that speak framework. What you have to do at the end of the day is you have to solve problems. Like if you can solve a problem for an audience, for a group of people, they’re not, they don’t care how many followers you have. They don’t care whether or not you have a look. If you have a bunch of followers or if you have a book.

Grant Baldwin (35:24):
Is that nice? Sure, it’s nice, but it’s not like a prerequisite that you have to have those things either. Like you can solve a problem or you can’t. Now, one thing I’d also caveat that with is that sometimes speakers, um, are kind of like, Hey, here’s the thing that I’m passionate about, right? And this, I, I wanna tell people about this. I wanna change the world with this message. And there’s an overlap here between what you are interested in, what you’re knowledgeable on, what you’re passionate about, and what is it that organizations and groups actually hire speakers to talk about. Because just because you’re passionate about it, if you’re like, Hey, I’m the world’s foremost, foremost expert on underwater basket weaving, great, nobody cares. Like nobody’s hiring speakers to talk about that. And you may be a big deal in some little pond, which is fine, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Grant Baldwin (36:08):
But if it’s not an, uh, not something where groups or organizations are used to hiring speakers to talk about that, like it’s hard to make that work. Uh, I’ll give you another example. Um, there’s a lady I was talking to a while back and I said, Hey, tell me more about what you wanna speak on. And she said, I wanna talk, um, to school boards about what’s wrong with public education and what they need to do differently. And I was like, let’s think about this for a second. Do you think that they’re like, I get like the, the cause the mission of I wanna help education, I wanna improve education, I wanna make a difference in child’s and children’s lives, right? I get all that, that’s all well and good, but you think like schools and school boards and districts are gonna hire you to come in and berate them about what they’re doing wrong.

Grant Baldwin (36:45):
Like, that doesn’t make sense. No. Why would anyone pay for that? Right? So you’re telling them problems that they already know exist. What you need to provide is solutions, identify problems and, and provide solutions to the problems that they have. That’s what people pay for. So again, there’s this overlap between like what you’re interested in, what you’re passionate about, what your knowledge belong, and what is it that organizations and groups pay, uh, actually hire and pay for speakers to talk about. One of the note on that is I think it’s also easy for speakers to kinda get confused on, let’s say you do have some story and you’re like, I’ve overcome some crazy obstacle. You know, here’s some life challenge that I’ve had. And there’s plenty of people that have those. Okay, that’s all well and good, but at the end of the day, the audience wants to know what’s in it for me.

Grant Baldwin (37:25):
Let’s say that you’ve overcome cancer. Let’s say that you had massive, let’s say you were bankrupt and then fought your way back, and now you’re living o on the, uh, uh, the highlights. Like all those things are well and good, but honestly the audience doesn’t care. They wanna know good for you. What does that have to do with me? So mistake speakers make sometimes is they think that I have a cool story, people wanna hear my story, why wouldn’t you wanna hear my story? I wanna get up on stage and I just want to tell my story. Uh, and sometimes like, speakers, mistakes speaking for like therapy, and I’m gonna get up on stage and I’m gonna work out my crap on, uh, on stage in front of other people. Like, nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants to hear that. What we want you to do is say, how does your thing relate to me? How does it fix my problem? How does it solve my issue? How does it fix my marriage? How does it help me with my kids? How does it help my business? That’s what I care about. I care about me at the end of the day. And so as speakers, we have to help solve the problem that exists within the audience.

Sebastian Naum (38:21):
So perhaps that could be done where you’re telling an incredibly engaging story that everyone’s super stoked on and maybe inspired by, and maybe that takes up 80% of maybe you talking up there, but you really have to tie that in and leave them with something that’s gonna be powerful for them and has to relate to their lives, right? You don’t necessarily have to be constantly doing it, right. You can still engage through storytelling and then tie it back to them.

Grant Baldwin (38:46):
Yeah, absolutely. I think that the difference is like, when you’re telling stories, and I’m a huge fan of stories like air on the side of telling too many stories, then not enough stores. Like people love stories and, and even tell first person stories, tell story. Like I tell a lot of first person stories and, and, and they’re just like, sometimes they’re just silly stories. I’ll tell a story about going skydiving. I tell a story about my first car or a story about going to Disney with my girls. Yeah. You know, like just these like normal human experience type of stories. Like tell those stories by all means. The difference though is are you telling a story that makes you the hero or is it making the audience the hero? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Like, that’s really important to think about because there’s times where, you know, you have, you’ve, you’ve heard a story before, whether it’s from a speaker just in conversation, and you’re like, what was the point of that? Like, you just told that to just make yourself look good and like there’s no, that didn’t move the needle, that didn’t, doesn’t help me at all. You know? Uh, and so as a speaker, what you’re providing is what everything that you’re doing as a speaker is in service of the audience of providing for the audience, of helping and, and serving the audience. And so just make sure, like if you’re gonna tell the story, what’s the point of that story and how does it connect back to the audience?

Sebastian Naum (39:50):
So that’s a really interesting point there, grant, making them the hero, that sounds like a tough thing to, to do. I mean, are we talking about if we’re, if giving them value, are you, is, are you, is that an an analogy for you in that sense? Making them the hero, you just giving them value?

Grant Baldwin (40:06):
Yeah. No, absolutely. Like being clear on how does this actually help the audience? How does this make any impact for you? Or is it just like a story of, you know, whoa is me look at this crazy thing that I did. Yeah. Or look at my accomplishment or this thing that I overcame. And then like, if that doesn’t, if that doesn’t help make any impact for the audience, then you shouldn’t be telling that story.

Sebastian Naum (40:26):
Makes sense. Makes absolute sense. Um, grant, is this industry getting saturated where there are less and less opportunities because more and more people are kind of becoming savvy to speaking and sharing and, you know, pushing their mission and all that? Or is it, is there actually more opportunity than ever because of what you’re talking about in terms of the virtual? Is it kind of even,

Grant Baldwin (40:45):
Uh, I think there’s more opportunity than ever, uh, because of the virtual. So again, when, when virtual ha when the pandemic happened and virtual comes in on the scene than what we saw was a lot of, of groups and organizations that, uh, may have never hosted an event, may have never had the budget to, may have never considered hosting an event. Yeah. But all of a sudden it’s like, wait, all I gotta do is set up a Zoom link and now I could host something and we could bring in a speaker. And it just created these opportunities that didn’t largely, largely exist before. And because literally the entire world was educated on this at the same time, then it’s not a, it’s not a, a farfetched thing for any group organization to consider virtual. And they’re like, we’ve never done virtual. Well, we all did virtual.

Grant Baldwin (41:26):
Yeah. And so everybody’s used to it and they understand kind of that, the dynamics of it. So I, I think again, like there, there’s this mistake of like, um, assuming there’s, you know, there’s too many speakers or there’s enough speakers, I’m like, there’s still thousands and thousands of events that happen every single day in every possible niche. It’s absurd how many different, I’ll give you an example. There’s, um, a student we worked with who’s a veterinarian, and uh, I remember she got her, she got booked for her first paid gig. And I was like, you got, you did it awesome. Like, tell me about the gig. And she said, I’m getting paid $5,000 to give a talk. So that’s awesome. Like, who’s the group? Who are you speaking to this again? She’s a veterinarian. She’s speaking at a pet sitting conference, a pet sitting conference.

Grant Baldwin (42:08):
She’s paid $5,000. And so she’d come to me and said, uh, Hey, are there opportunities to speak in the pet sitting space? I would’ve been like, I, I wouldn’t think so. But again, like I’m, I’m don’t claim to know every possible organization or industry or little niche within a niche, uh, of speaking events. And so, you know, that’s a good example of, um, there are people that again, are paid all the time, all dollar amounts, all over the world on all different subjects and topics. So no, absolutely. They’re not, there’s plenty of space in addition, like even a speaker that’s killing it, they’re absolutely crushing it. The most they can do is 365 gigs a year. That’s the absolute capacity. Right. So it’s not like I’m selling, you know, uh, chapstick that I happen to have here in my hand and like, I can sell an unlimited amount of chapstick. Correct. Unlimited, no, I, I have 365 bottles of chapstick, and that’s literally all I can sell. You know, like a, a speaker can only do so much and they’re not gonna do 365. So the real capacity mm-hmm. Is significantly less. And that’s just, that’s the reality of, of, of speaking is there’s only, there’s not one person who can do all the gigs. Like the pond is big enough, the pool is big enough for, right.

Sebastian Naum (43:17):
So that finite amount of opportunity actually makes it a more even playing field, essentially.

Grant Baldwin (43:23):
Totally. Because like, you know, even if you do, it’s not like a zero sum game where like, if you do a hundred gigs, like, oh, great, well, I guess that means there’s nothing I can do. No, no. There’s still a hundred that I could do. Or 20 I, yeah. You know, so there’s still plenty to go around.

Sebastian Naum (43:37):
One of the last questions I wanna ask you here, grant, is for people that really struggle with fear and anxiety as they’re about to talk, give a speech, or even sometimes, you know, I like to, um, relate this to conversations or an important talk or a presentation. It doesn’t have to be in front of a thousand people, right? Yep. How do you feel that, going back to your why, your mission, your intention, how can do you feel that can really help with overcoming fear and anxiety?

Grant Baldwin (44:01):
Yeah, I think one of the best things speakers can do is really spend a lot of time practicing and preparing. And so, again, that the best speakers in the world that, like we’ve been saying, they don’t just wing it. They don’t just make something up like they show up prepared. And so you may still have some of those nerves, you may still have some of those butterflies, um, but you show up with a level of confidence. Okay? So if you think about like, some of the, the biggest moments that you’ve ever had in your life, uh, so I think about for me, um, when I got engaged, uh, to my wife, when my daughters were born, like some of those big life moments, I felt those same butterflies. And it wasn’t like, oh my gosh, I’m gonna propose to her and she’s gonna say no.

Grant Baldwin (44:35):
Like, it was like, no, no. Like, it’s kind of the, uh, the body’s way of just being like, Hey, hey, heads up buddy. Like, this is a big deal. <laugh> like, pay attention here, right? And so sometimes we confuse those butterflies with like nerves or anxiety of just like, oh, you’re gonna, you’re gonna fail. And like we talked about the Super Bowl earlier, and like those N NFL players, they are professional athletes. They’ve been doing this a long time. They’re really good at what they do. I guarantee they felt those same butterflies, did that mean that they were gonna fail? No, they just meant that they were, it’s excitement. It’s a, it’s adrenaline, right? So how do you minimize that? How do you calm that this, again, you show up prepared? Okay, I mentioned this final exam. I had this check, right? I had for my private pilot license, literally just a couple days ago.

Grant Baldwin (45:12):
Boy, I was like, crapload of work. But if I showed up and just like, yeah, we’re just gonna like wing it literally and figuratively, like, it’s probably not gonna go well. But I spent so much time practicing and preparing, so I, I felt some of the butterflies, but I also, I felt really calm. I was just like, no, I, I got this. Like, I’ve put in the work I’m ready for, let’s fire away with questions. I’m, let’s do this. I’m, send me through whatever drills you want. I’m, I’m ready to go because I had done the work. And so the speakers that like do the work and are prac practice and prepare, they show up a lot more confident and ready to go.

Sebastian Naum (45:42):
Right on. Right on. Grant, I ask everyone, what are two traits that a conscious leader must embody? I’ll ask you, what are two traits that a conscious speaker must embody? Mm-hmm.

Grant Baldwin (45:54):
<affirmative>. Uh, okay. One is that, um, so I, I use this line a lot with our team, with our students, is that, um, who you are is more important than what you do. Who you are is more important than what you do. Meaning, um, if you and I, we love speaking, we love podcasting. We love entrepreneurship. There’s nothing wrong with any of those things, but, um, our most important roles are like being good husbands or fathers or wives, or moms or sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, like human beings, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so if, if, if we’re great at what we do from a professional sense, but we drop the ball as a, as a person, or we’re a shell of a human being, like we’re doing something wrong. I love entrepreneurship. I love speaking, I love podcasting, I love all these things, but by far, my most important roles are being a good husband to my wife and being an amazing dad to my girls.

Grant Baldwin (46:46):
Like my wife had a choice. She stuck with me at this point. I got our locked into a lifetime contract. My girls didn’t have a choice. Like, they just came out and they’re like, you’re my dad. That’s it. Uh, and like, they’re stuck with me. And so, like, I got one shot at this. And so it’s really important that, again, who you are is more important than what, than what you do. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, one of the thought I would say is that if you, if you, um, want to, to be successful as a speaker, you’ve gotta be ready to put in the work. And so the, the people who are just like, oh, I’m gonna kind of kick the tires on this and maybe this works, or maybe this doesn’t, or like we touched on earlier, I just wanna stand on stage and share my message.

Grant Baldwin (47:21):
And hopefully it helps people like you, you want to do this from a place of service, but at the same time recognize like you’re running a business and you need to treat it as such. And so when we talk about, you know, like conscious profits, that means like having a, a purpose, like a mission to what you’re doing, but also like you’re running a business. And so you’ve gotta treat it as such, you know? So it’s not just like, I, I can, you know, I just go willy-nilly. Like, no, no, I, I’m, I’m providing something about you. I need to receive something about you. I need to treat this like a business. I can make an impact and make an income at the same time. Yeah, they’re not mutually exclusive. I can, I can do both. I’m capable of both. So that’s certainly true with, with being a speaker.

Sebastian Naum (47:57):
Absolutely. Love that. Absolutely love that. Well, um, you guys can get this successful speaker, which is Grant’s book. I’m gonna put in the links below, check out his online courses and all that good stuff. So there it is. So Grant, uh, thank you for being on. Keep being you, being a purpose driven leader. Appreciate you, brother.

Grant Baldwin (48:15):
Thanks, man.