SNS 143: Saturday Night Special – Interview with Encouragement Engineer Bob Brumm

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Welcome to tonight's Saturday night, special episode 143.

[00:00:05] Bob Brumm: I'm Bob Brumm. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to find the positivity in life is key.

[00:00:20] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this. The inspired stewardship podcast. My friend Scott Maderer.

[00:00:28] But the realization is that people doing the work are people first. And you've got to look at that idea of what's going on with the people. How are they feeling? I'm not saying it's all hand holding and sing the Barney song or what. But we've got to get the task done, but when you go through mud with a bunch of people and you're doing it in a fun way, and you're doing it energetically.

[00:00:49] Scott Maderer: Welcome and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your [00:01:00] time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast, who will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence.

[00:01:11] So that. Can impact the work

[00:01:14] it's night, Saturday night special. I interview Bob Brum. I asked Bob to explain what an encouragement engineer is and why he calls himself that I asked Bob how we can incorporate positivity into our life without being a Pollyanna. And Bob shares more about how he became an encouragement engineer, despite the challenges he faced.

[00:01:37] One area that a lot of folks need some help with is around the area of productivity. Getting not just more things done, but actually getting the right things done can be really tough. I've got a course called productivity for your passion. That's designed to help you do [00:02:00] this and then to hold you accountable and walk with you so that you can tailor productivity, not just to be getting more done, but actually getting the right things done.

[00:02:11] What's more, we take the approach of looking at your personality and how you actually look at things in the world and tailor the productivity system to your personnel. Because the truth is a lot of the systems that are out there are written really well for somebody with a particular personality type.

[00:02:29] But if you have a different approach to things, they just don't work, but there's tools and techniques and approaches that you can take that will work for anyone. And we help you do that and productivity for your passion. Check it out over@inspiredstewardship.com slash law. Bob Braum is a professional award-winning speaker Arthur and an encouragement engineer, serving corporate collegiate sales, youth organizations, and individuals with encouraging [00:03:00] keynotes, our workshop presentations, Bob guides, audiences to achieve personal and professional growth with positive encouragement and action plans that combat the negativity that inundates our daily lives.

[00:03:13] Bob is a top selling Arthur of eight books and has been a guest on internationally recognized media outlets regarding his encouraging positive perspective, action oriented strategies. And Bob also created his own podcast, encouragement engineering to reach out to listers, to combat the negativity that inundates our daily lies with a positive perspective and positive actions.

[00:03:37] Welcome to the show.

[00:03:39] Bob Brumm: Thanks, Scott. I appreciate your time today. I appreciate being here, looking forward to our conversation. Absolutely.

[00:03:45] Scott Maderer: So we just talked about it a little bit in the intro and how you have a podcast called encouragement engineering. And you talk about yourself as an encouragement engineer.

[00:03:55] So I got to start with that. What do you mean by encouragement engineer? Where does that term come from?

[00:03:59] Bob Brumm: [00:04:00] It's interesting cause there's a little story behind it. When I was in college, I originally went to college. I want to be a construction engineer. Major. That was great. I love the math, but there was this little part that's big in engineering called science and I didn't do so well in that.

[00:04:16] I didn't like it. So I ended up shifting my major into accounting and business. And the more I got into that it was good. It was factual. I liked that. As my career grew, I ended up changing into the it field. And what's interesting with that is there's a lot of acronyms as well as there are in accounting.

[00:04:35] But it was more technical. And so that's where the idea of the encouragement engineer comes about is that path that I took, but it's also something different because it helps people to see a difference as an encouragement engineer. It's similar to what people would call a motivational. But you can't make people be motivated as an engineer.

[00:04:55] You help to see something a little bit differently. You may look at [00:05:00] something and just a little bit different, see something different that nobody else saw. And that's what I try to help people do is see that difference in what they do, how they perform what they're thinking about with their mindset so that I can help them to show.

[00:05:14] The benefits of encouragement, the benefits of a positive attitude of benefits, of a positive mindset in their life, so that they can get through life events, because we all have life events. And as an engineer, you help people to see a way to build on what they have and to get around or do alternative measures if you will to get to the destination they may want.

[00:05:34] Scott Maderer: So let me when I think of an engineer, right? I think of somebody who helps design. Something. They're construction engineer, they're designing a building, they're designing construction roadway, whatever. Different kinds of engineering, electrical engineer, designing electrical systems, whatever.

[00:05:53] So by encouragement engineered, did you, do you mean you help people design the environment? [00:06:00] What. What does that look like in practice? As what I do is a lot of times, it's not only speaking to groups to give them a different perspective about where they are, where they can go, what the opportunities are, but individual coaching.

[00:06:15] Bob Brumm: I help people to see the opportunities in front of them. A lot of times we can get stuck. In our mess, if you will. And we don't see the forest for the trees, as we've often heard, and I help people to take alternative looks at what's going on in your life, what are they looking at? What are they focused on and help them to see the benefits of a different focus?

[00:06:35] When I was young, when I was six years old, I lost my mother to cancer. Two months later I lost my grandmother Christmas day. That same year I lost my grandfather. I realized this pattern called death in our life. But I didn't sit in that soak in it. I realized it was gonna occur. I was the youngest of all my siblings and I had older parents.

[00:06:55] My parents were they lived through the depression. My dad was a world war II vet [00:07:00] in. That helped me to see a perspective of older parents, that people, my age didn't necessarily see. And so it, I help people to do that, to see something that's a little bit alternative, something that will help them to see positivity in their life, something to help them get out of it.

[00:07:16] A situation that they think there's no resolution to. And that's what that's at design. If you will help them to see if a lot of times in the individual coaching, I'll help people to draw out what their ideal day would look like. Literally. Write it out word for word, what does it look like?

[00:07:33] What are you feeling? What are you smelling? How does that make you feel? So their mind can start to shift and help people to see the opportunities that they have in their life.

[00:07:43] Scott Maderer: So you alluded to it just a little bit with the story of your origin and that loss early in your life.

[00:07:51] But how did you take us back on that journey. You talked a little bit about college. How did you get to the point you are today, where this is what you call [00:08:00] yourself? Was it as simple as you graduated college and you said, yep, I'm an encouragement engineer today. Or, you know what happened between those

[00:08:07] Bob Brumm: two?

[00:08:08] Yeah. And it's funny because as I graduated college, it was. Okay. Now I'm a speaker. Now I'm going to do this. I went into the corporate realm. I did the path of corporate work and so forth, but what I kept seeing was the lack of focus towards. Encouragement for others. And it wasn't until, geez.

[00:08:32] Scott Maderer: I would say you mean the beatings will continue until morale improves?

[00:08:35] Yeah, I was at the corporate world. You know what I

[00:08:39] Bob Brumm: mean? I'm trying to be polite here, but yeah. But it wasn't until about 10 years into my career that I went to a conference and I saw. Keith Harrell, give a presentation about positive attitude and how your attitude can really change your focus, who you are.

[00:08:55] And that really encouraged me. And I thought, okay, I'm going to grow [00:09:00] this idea. I want to self growth was very interesting, personal growth. It develop, I develop more of that interest. And so I started going on those lines and following such people as Jim Rome, Tony Robbins Zig Ziegler J James Malinchak is another one, but the people that help people to see alternatives so that they can grow and at personal growth space is critical.

[00:09:24] And that's where I developed the encouragement engineer piece, because not only in the corporate environment, do you not see a lot of encouragement because they get focused on finishing the task or being on budget or being on task. But the realization is the people doing the work are people first. And you've got to look at that idea of what's going on with the people.

[00:09:42] How are they feeling? I'm not saying it's all handling, holding, and singing the Barney song or whatnot, but we've got to get the task done. But when you go through mud with a bunch of people and you're doing it in a fun way, and you're doing an energetic. There's a big difference in how the project gets done, how quickly it gets done, [00:10:00] how the people's attitudes shift from just drudgery to, yeah, let's get this done and work together and you see that team effort come about.

[00:10:06] So

[00:10:07] Scott Maderer: thank you about that. If somebody is hearing this right now and I think a lot of times immediately there's the feeling of yeah. The habits. So what would you say to somebody. Thinking about this and maybe a little skeptical. If they want to begin integrating positivity into their daily life, if they want to give it a shot, what does that actually look like?

[00:10:32] Practically for some. The

[00:10:34] Bob Brumm: great question in. Yeah. It's a lot of times. Yeah. I'll see that all the time. People think positive attitude, all that's Pollyanna. No, it really does help us. It really does help how we look at things, how we perceive things take the drive home. For instance, if any of us go into work, you're driving around town, you're driving on a freeway, whatever it may be, your.

[00:10:54] Run across something that's flying through the traffic, doesn't care about where they're going and they just, they don't use turn signals. [00:11:00] They just cut in front of you, slow down, slam on the brakes. Cause they're going too fast and they get it slowed down for the car is low. Yeah know. And you get that scenario, but how do you look at that scenario?

[00:11:09] Do you react to it? Does it affect you the rest of the drive home? Are you slamming on your steering wheel call and telling that person the number one what do you do? And does it really what is that effect on you? And do you want to continue that effect? So what you can do is what's the alternative.

[00:11:25] Why am I screaming at this person? They don't hear me. They don't see me because they're too busy going through and in and out of traffic, they don't care about me. That's fine. I care about myself. I care about getting home safe. I care about eating dinner with my family, rather than ending up in the hospital, chasing this person down.

[00:11:41] And who knows what could happen at that point. So what is your alternative to the current situation? How do you look at that? Is there a way to shift your perspective so that you can say, okay, I don't need to focus on that. I don't need to focus on that negative energy because all it does is raise my blood pressure.

[00:11:57] You get red in the face. You're not thinking [00:12:00] straight, you don't need all that. So there's certain things you can do in tasks or occurrence. Every day. The first one is how do you wake up in the morning? That alarm clock goes off. Is it as exactly as he used to call it is it's an opportunity clock.

[00:12:14] It's not an alarm clock, it's an opportunity clock. And how are you taking on that day? Isn't an opportunity. You have a clean slate as soon as. Because there are people that don't wake up and as long as we have that opportunity, we have a gift in front of us. And so that's the way I look at the day is it, I say a prayer for my boys.

[00:12:33] I thank God that they're safe. And I, it starts my day off in gratitude. It starts my day off and thanks. And I can move forward in that. That's a good place to start. It's not okay. I gotta do this. I gotta do. No, I get to do those things and I'm sure people have heard this before, but it is true.

[00:12:49] What is that perspective of the tasks we have to do? We all have tasks to do. We have to brush our teeth, we have to get shower, et cetera. We have to feed the dog, let the dog out. Okay. That's great. You have a dog [00:13:00] that loves you. It's unconditional love getting to, and from you have teeth to brush, you have running water and it's not even if you want cold water, you can do that.

[00:13:11] But. Or hot water, whichever you prefer. We have these things and people often say, oh those are first world problems. My cell phone broke. Yeah. Okay. I get that. But you can break it down to your perspective of those situations. So those are some quick things that people can do just starting off their day to shift that perspective.

[00:13:32] If you will drudgery or all got to get through this, gotta go do this. We get to enjoy this opportunity called a day in front of us.

[00:13:42] Scott Maderer: And if they're feeling. W we joked earlier about the corporate world and that's we it's easy to beat up on, on a corporate job, but and again, I actually, the job I left, I loved my job.

[00:13:52] I loved the people I worked with I joke about it now, but it really wasn't. I left something, I hated to do something. I loved, I [00:14:00] just left something. I love to do something. I love more, but at the same time, there are a lot of people that feel. Again, their current situation. What are some what are some tips or are, what else would you add if they need to get out of that kind of stuck in the mire mindset.

[00:14:19] Bob Brumm: And that's always a good one because that's where people, if you will, they lose hope because they feel stuck and that's not what we want. And I go back to a book by oh, Franklin or Victor Frankl and he went through the concentration camps in his mindset was one that there's something better for.

[00:14:41] Beyond this. And that's what we got to look at. What's beyond it because the job can be temporary, even if you've been in it for 30 years. Okay. Eventually you will leave, but what are you doing to take that next step? Are we learning something? Are we picking up an audio book? Are we reading a book on our breaks?

[00:14:57] Are we reading something that really interest us? [00:15:00] If you love I talked to students about this a lot. I know we got to read a lot of things in school and that's it gets boring. It gets drudgery. But what is something you really love? Google offers all kinds of videos and stuff you can learn.

[00:15:15] If you want to learn mechanics about a car, about a skateboard, about an airplane, you can learn it through videos, through things different medias. So you can learn these things. What are you doing to take that next? If you're feeling stuck. Okay. You may feel stuck because your abilities, maybe your hands don't work right.

[00:15:33] That well, so much anymore. Okay. What can you do for exercise is find out exercises you may do to help your hands build strength to stretch them more what types of medicines and the effects they have. So you're building your mind. I think that's a key thing people need to remember is that the more you grow your mind, the more you learn.

[00:15:52] That gives you opportunity. That gives you hope. And that's critical is that hope factor is so critical because it gives us an opportunity to go towards [00:16:00] something that maybe we didn't see before.

[00:16:01] Scott Maderer: So one of the questions that I like to ask all of my guests does, of course my brand is inspired stewardship, and I run my life through that lens of stewardship.

[00:16:11] And yet I've discovered over the years, Not everyone either knows what that word means or has the same definition of that word. So let me ask you, what does the word stewardship mean to you and then going a step further? How has that thought impacted your life?

[00:16:31] Bob Brumm: To me you look at the base definition of, we spoke early a little bit about this.

[00:16:36] The base definition is to take care of property or something and that's great. But your number one property, if you will, is your mind. And I think that's what encouragement positivity, helped you to do is you've got to take care of your mind to see those positive moments, to see that ability, to see your great, see your ability within yourself so that you can see all these opportunities that are really [00:17:00] there.

[00:17:00] You just don't see them. Yeah, and it's important. That's what I help people to do is see those other opportunities, but you've got to take steps. So what are we doing? Help them to see the opportunities or possibilities and what steps are we taking to get. How are we doing to, like you say, get to that next job.

[00:17:18] If you're feeling stuck and you want to get something else, are you learning? Are you growing your mind? Are you looking for things that you can learn in small steps? So you can get to that next step? How are you doing it? Is it complicated? Sometimes we, we will. Over-complicate things as humans, we tend to do that.

[00:17:35] It doesn't have to be complicated. I try not to do that. I do it myself many times. I got to stop myself and say, all right, let's break this down. It's got to be more simple one step at a time because we're not going to climb the mountain by jumping to the top. We got to take the steps and go up the hill, go up the other part, go up the next incline.

[00:17:52] We've got to take the time to do it. And that's a downfall I have as well. Is that idea of patients. We need to [00:18:00] understand that learning takes time. And over time, we grow so much. If you look back to where you were, when you were a kid compared to now, there's a big time gap, but you've learned so much.

[00:18:12] And that's, what's critical is that what you've learned is giving you opportunities, allow you to grow, allowed you to experience new things in life. Those are the things we want to do. So taking that opportunity, I think as a steward, it's helping people to see the benefits they have within themselves already that greatness they already have and helping them to take the steps to get.

[00:18:32] To expose that more to expose it to themselves and to the world more because as we grow, it makes our world and our a better place. And that's just all good for everybody.

[00:18:41] Scott Maderer: So one of those one of the things you said, it reminds me of the one of the things that I tell people is we horribly overestimate what we can do in a.

[00:18:50] Yeah, we horribly underestimate what we can do in a year. It's we we all put too many things on our to-do [00:19:00] list for today, and then we're frustrated at the end of the day. Cause we didn't get all 272 things you put on your list on if we're going to happen. And yet over a year, it's amazing how, if you just do a little bit every single day, how much you can actually.

[00:19:14] Bob Brumm: Yeah, I was oftentimes you'll hear, people will just read for 30 minutes a day. Okay. That's fairly easy to do 30 minutes a day. That can lead up to hundreds of books a year, depending on the size of the book and what you read it's and that growth is just amazing for everyone.

[00:19:32] Scott Maderer: For a number of years, I actually had a goal of reading 52 books a year, so that's a book a week and I would do that.

[00:19:40] And now granted. You have taken speed reading and other things that I read very quickly. So that gives me some of it. Yes. That is an advantage. But even still, I was only reading about a an hour in the morning and an hour at night, every night. And then I average cause some books you can do that.

[00:19:58] You do that and you've finished it in [00:20:00] three or four days. Other books, it takes you two weeks to do that, but it averaged out to where I would read 52 books in a year. Yeah, I will attest to that. You can read a lot more than you think if you just want a few an hour or two a day.

[00:20:12] And again, you don't have to read 52 books in a year, either you can book a month. Most people.

[00:20:20] Bob Brumm: Yeah, definitely. The key thing is we all have this power and it's right in our hand most of the time. And it's a big red button called turn off the Bluetooth, turn off that TV and pick up a book.

[00:20:31] If your audio books too, if you want a multi kind of multitask, but audio books are a good way to do it. Reading physical books, we have the ability to.

[00:20:41] Scott Maderer: Yeah, auto university. If you listen to an audio book on your commute, into work and on your commute home, you'd be surprised at how many books you can listen to in a year.

[00:20:48] I used to call my commute auto you, cause I was always trying to learn something during my drive. So it was, yeah.

[00:20:56] Bob Brumm: Why sit in traffic and hear about the traffic you're already [00:21:00] know you're sitting in and all the weird stuff going on in the world when you could be expanding your mind and laughing and having a good time with what you're listing.

[00:21:07] Scott Maderer: So this is my favorite question and everyone jokes and says it's the easy question. Cause it's apparently not. If I invented a machine and I could grab you out of your seat right now, where you said and transport you into the future, maybe a hundred to 150 years, and you were magically able to look back on your whole life and all of the impact that you've left behind all of the ripples that you've left behind in the world.

[00:21:33] What's the impact you hope you've had on the way.

[00:21:35] Bob Brumm: It's, that's a very interesting question. And I've often had to look at that because of what I've experienced with elder parents dying, et cetera like that. So I understand if you would life preparation, I would make sure I help people to see. And even I've even stated that in my final documentation, if you will do not have a funeral have a party when I'm [00:22:00] gone, I want people to smile.

[00:22:01] I want them to enjoy enjoy the memories, enjoy the time we had, and even do that in your own life. Enjoy the time and the memories and the people around you. It's not about things because we don't take any of that with us when we're gone. It's about how we feel and what people do with us and to us.

[00:22:20] I think that's the important part. It's making people smile, making them feel good is important to me. I like to have people have fun and that would be one of the legacies, if you will. I'd like to make sure I leave on this world. As people have fun and understand the value of positive mindset, positive value in their life so that they can get through different things that will occur in their life.

[00:22:40] Scott Maderer: So what's coming next for you. As you continue on this journey to living out your call and impacting the world.

[00:22:47] Bob Brumm: It's I continue to do this through different sources. I hit my one minute daily motivational videos that I put out, but on the forefront, it's basically I'm [00:23:00] looking to help groups and organizations.

[00:23:02] To see the value of a positive attitude and positive action in their life. And I can speak to those groups. I can do coaching sessions with them. So those are the things that I'm looking for in the near future. As far as I've spoken to many conferences, international conferences as well. Those are always good resources as well, but those are some of the things I'm looking for in the future.

[00:23:22] I continue to write books and I've got eight that I've done already. So I'll be putting out another one. I'm not sure how it's still information if you will. And so that, that will be coming about the next, probably within the next.

[00:23:36] Scott Maderer: You can find out more about Bob over on Facebook and Instagram. He's there as at B R U M S P K for Bob Brum speaks. You can also find him on LinkedIn and YouTube as Bob Brum, or find out more about his services over at his web. That's the best place to find out [00:24:00] more@bobbrumspeaks.com. Course I'll have links to all of this in the show notes as well.

[00:24:05] Bob, is there anything else you'd like to share with the listener?

[00:24:08] Bob Brumm: I just like to let people know we all have things that will occur to us and our mindset is critical for getting through anything. Let's focus on our value. Let's focus on our strength. That's focused on the hope they, the value we have and what we can grow into with a positive attitude.

[00:24:24] Is measurable. And I think that's what we need, especially in our society today, focus on the positive, how can we help each other and help ourselves to grow when we grow, it makes our world a better place to continue that growth. If you need help with that, I'd love to help you.

[00:24:38] Scott Maderer: Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode please do us a favor. [00:25:00] Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate.

[00:25:06] All one word. ITunes rate, it'll take you through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.