How a Positive Perspective Encourages Us on Our Journey

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Welcome to all of our listeners tuning in to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. This is Joe Casciani, your host for this program. I'm very happy to welcome each of our listeners today. As many of you know, these podcasts are recorded and available within one week on the club website, livingto100.club. We focus on successful aging, longevity, and making it over those hurdles. And one of the best parts about hosting these conversations is bringing in guests to share valuable information with our listeners, information that makes us much more informed helps us to live longer and healthier and inspires us to do better. Today is no exception. Our guest today is Bob Brum. Bob is a professional speaker, podcaster, and training and coaching keynote speaker and motivational consultant. Bob's life philosophy is centered on the principle of doing, and with this he empowers audiences to build on a lifestyle that individuals want—getting stuff done. He's an advocate for achieving positive perspectives to become what you want to be. Bob has authored 8 books and presented to numerous audiences, both publicly and individually. He streamlines your thinking and teaches you how to automate your new optimistic perspective. Born and raised in Michigan, he relocated to St. Petersburg, Florida, over 25 years ago. He lives his best life while walking the talk with his wife Kim, his 3 sons, and his canine mascot Chief. Bob, welcome to our program today.

Thank you, Joe. I appreciate it, and I'm looking forward to our conversation today.

Great. Yeah, me too. Yeah, thanks for being here. I always like to open by asking our guests to tell us a little bit about the journey that brought you to where you are today.

Well, it was a journey. Now, it— the journey that I've been on has been one of, I would say, it's a lot different than most people my age. I was the youngest of my— in my family, and my dad was 47 when I was born. So I've got an older family and I understand that scenario. I lived through it. But when I was 6 years old, I lost my mother to cancer. That same year I lost my grandmother about a month after that, and then my grandfather that same year on Christmas Day. So I learned at an early age the idea of death and the realities of life, if you will. And that continued throughout as I started to grow older because I had older relatives. And that's, you know, just the phases of life. People get older and so forth, and you, you experience those scenarios. But I learned from those scenarios. And it wasn't, you know, when I was 6 years old, I didn't realize this. I was not that bright then. But as I got older, I realized, you know what, we learn something from these experiences. And I learned that no matter what happens, we have to keep going. And I thought back to this scenario when my mother— I was getting ready for my mother's funeral. I was 6 years old. I went into the closet. I remember thinking, the sun's still coming up, but she's not here. And it was that enlightenment, if you will, as I got older and look back at that, I thought, wow, you know what? We have to do that. No matter what happens in our life, we've got to keep moving. We've got to keep going usually. And that's a perspective that we have to realize we can do it. We're built with an innate strength given to us by our creator that we can continue on, that we can do great things, that we have greatness within us. And that is a perspective I've always tried to carry with us, is helping people to realize their perspective that they have greatness within us, within them, and they can continue no matter what it is. They can get through hard things. Is it going to be easy? No. Is it going to hurt? Yes. Are your hands going to bleed sometimes? Yes. Are you going to cry? Sure. But we have an innate greatness within us that allows us to get through that, a strength that we can get through many, many things. That's, you know, something to hang on to no matter what occurs. That's something to hang on to. And that's what's guided me throughout my life. I mean, you know, it's not always been straightforward and easy. When I went to college, I wanted to be a constructional engineering major. And I realized I didn't like physics or science. Well, that doesn't work too well in the engineering field. I like the math, I like dealing with money, so I switched to business and accounting. And so, you know, we go through these things in life and changing. And that's some of the things I've learned is that, you know what, I knew I could do this. I knew I could get that degree. What it was gonna be focused in, the path changed a little bit and that's okay, but I continued on. I continued taking those, the courses I needed to take and continued to do the work. And so that's what I try to help people with is help them to, you know, build in that idea that we can get through this, we can do it, we have great abilities. And no matter what happens, our path may change, but continue moving forward, continue taking those steps. And so that's what I try to help people with.

Yeah, that's a philosophy I agree with 100%. As you know, when we talk about this internal strength and resilience and determination, when I was on your podcast, that is something I can get behind 100%. It's always there, right? It's— yeah, the flame is always there no matter what happens. It might get blocked or, you know, suppressed or locked away, but it's always there. And yeah, we have to be able to get in touch with that.

Yeah. And your group is a good example of that. I mean, Living to 100, I mean, what a concept. I mean, you're going to go through some stuff, and there's going to be friends, there's going to be relatives, spouses that may not be there for your whole path. But if you're going down that path, you want to keep going, these things will happen. You can, you know, get the counseling you need, you can get through these things, you have great strength. And if your goal is to get there to 100 and live a good life, our mindset is a great piece of that. Yeah, yeah.

We've all learned that we get knocked down from time to time, but no matter how many times we get knocked down, we can get back up off the mat, right? Yes, yes. Again and again. Yeah. So I know you do a lot of public speaking and you speak to different audiences. Tell us a little bit about the, the audiences and what your messages are. I mean, I know you just touched on that, but what are the audiences? Who do you speak to? Well, I speak to corporate clients.

I speak to youth groups as well as colleges and universities, but a consistent message is the key that one, we're all people first, and that no matter what we're doing, like I said, we have great value within us. We have strengths, especially in corporate environments. They forget that we're people first. And with people, you're going to have a lot of baggage. You're going to have stuff that doesn't go right for that person. But you don't know. You don't know that the kid's misbehaving on the way to work and they had to drop them off, a screaming toddler at a sitter or daycare. You don't know that maybe their high school student isn't doing so well in school and needs some help, but they don't have the time and they're stressed out about it. We have all these things going on in our lives. And the point is that, yeah, we need to get tasks done at work, but we're people first. And those people have great strengths. And maybe, you know, if the person needs to alleviate that stress of morning commute with a child and a toddler, maybe somebody else can take over in the morning for their duties or something. We can shift things around to make everything work. It's not always easy, but we can do it. And that's a key piece of bringing people together to know we're all in this together. We want— what's the ultimate goal? Yeah, to get things done for the organization, and that's great, but back it up a little bit and realize, you know, some people may not feel good that day, or if they're, you know, things are going on elsewhere in their life. We all have these expansive things going on behind the scenes that everybody sees, and so we, we need to understand that with people. When I talk to colleges and youth organizations, the idea of taking action towards a goal is a key concept that I talk about, and sometimes that's scary for people. You know, a college student coming up to the reality of, oh no, what am I going to do? I'm done with these classes and I got to get down into reality. Sometimes that's fearful. You know, there's ideas to overcome that. There's actions we can take to help you to learn to fit into that workflow scenario and the, the corporate environment, if that's where you're going to go. Knowing your value of the knowledge you just learned and some of the skills you have, that you can look at things a little differently. But, you know, besides people that have been in an organization for 25+ years, there's a lot a lot of different insights that a new student or new college graduate will have that other corporate audiences may not see or forget they've seen that before. With high school students, it's the same thing. That idea of taking that action, taking positive action is key. You can't let people get in your head a lot of times. And that's where a lot of this insecurity can come from, is people thinking one thing and saying it to you, and all of a sudden you think you're value has gone down, that you're not worth something, but your value is not gone down. It is very much at the high level. You just have to adhere to that. You have to hold on to that strength and knowing your knowledge, knowing your greatness is within you. You're going to go through some trials, but you can get through this. And so helping people understand that is a constant concept throughout what I speak to, not only the corporate audiences, students, colleges and universities, but also to, you know, youth groups and non-for-profits as well, is that action and positive value that we share, that we can share not only with ourselves but with others. And that makes our world a better place when we can share that positive value with people.

Sure, it sounds like you tailor your message to the different audiences, but then as you say, you kind of step back and you see there are so many similarities among all of your audience members, no matter what age, if they're at work or in school or at home. So there's these similarities, and, and one of the points you drive home is this idea of finding that inner strength that gets hidden away sometime. And, you know, we're stuck, we're afraid to set those goals, we're afraid to take, take those steps. And that's an important message for everybody, I can see that.

Thank you. Yeah, I, I really like watching the audience as you remind them of this. They're like, Oh yeah. And I mean, I remember talking to some high school students and telling them how they have capabilities to do things. And this one girl wanted to do fashion stuff. And I told her, I gave her some ideas of, well, check with this person or talk to these type of people. You have the ability to talk to these people and show them what you've created. And she came up to me afterwards. She goes, I've never been told I can do that. Wow. You know, to not tell somebody they have an opportunity No matter how— just taking a step is an opportunity. We have to realize that and remind people of that and do it ourselves, too. I think that's a big thing. We can do this as well. Take that step. If you're not sure of something, okay, you can Google it, right? You can call somebody, you can ask questions. We're allowed to do that. And people forget or they get timid and don't do it.

Yeah, we get locked up sometimes. We're afraid to take those steps. But as you say, one— One tiny step starts to build that confidence. Yes, starts to build that momentum, and we can take another step and a third step, on and on. Yeah, so it's, um, I'm curious about the, you know, you talked about when we feel rejected or feel criticized and our, you know, our self-esteem goes down. And I, I believe that our self-esteem is is intrinsic. It's always there. It doesn't matter what other people say about us or what even we accomplish. That value and worth is a constant. And if we let other people kind of criticize or find fault with us, yeah, we can feel worse, but it doesn't diminish our value as a person. I use this, you know, kind of my experience with nursing home patients a lot because sometimes they would have these surgeries and, you know, maybe cancer or maybe an amputation, and their body becomes different, right? They lose a limb or they have some facial disfigurement. But I always explain to them, that doesn't change your, your value as a person. You're still, you know, you're still as worthwhile as you were before, and it doesn't matter how you look. It doesn't matter what our physical appearance is. And I think that's especially true for teenagers. Because they're so vulnerable to that peer pressure and having the right look and having the right clothing so they feel important. But boy, it's hard to, hard to convince them that they don't, don't need that. Yeah.

And that's, that's, that is a hard group because they think there's so much value in the others. But, you know, as we go back and, and I always hear Darren Hardy say something like this, that, you know, in your 20s you're worried about what everybody else thinks, in your 40s you start to worry about what you think, in your 60s you realize the people you're worried about thinking about you don't even know who you are, don't even care, you know. Well, and it's true, you know, nobody really cares about what's going on in your life. We got to remember that. I mean, our family and friends may— our close friends and family, yeah, they may understand that and care about what goes on in your life, but the majority of the people you're worried about what goes on or what you— they think of you, they don't care. You know, it's that, like you said, that value you have as a person, that, that your wholeness, your greatness, no matter what happens, you're still there. As long as you're on this earth, you still have that value.

We do put a lot of weight on what other people say about us or their attitudes toward us and all that. So you have a book, uh, Positive Purpose. I read your book, it's great. Thank you. Can you share with us some of your recommendations? I know one of the chapters on How to start your day, how to have a positive start to your day. What's your thinking here?

Well, I, I love mornings, so I'm, I'm one of the people that, you know, I just, I love the opportunity of the morning. And I think we need to look at every day— the ability to be able to get up is a privilege. Some people didn't have that option today, and I think it's critical that we understand that value. So when, you know, when the I hate the term alarm clock, but when you're, you know, your morning awakening tone or whatever it may be wakes you up, be thankful. Say a thank you prayer that you heard that alarm, that you heard that noise, whatever it may be, that you have another day. I do that when my alarm goes off and it's, you know, thank you for this day. And I pray a small prayer for my children that they're always safe, to keep them safe and healthy. And Just that starts the day in a good way, because when your feet hit the floor, you're already in a thankful tone. And your mindset starts to gear towards that, you know, and then you get up and you move around and you're thankful your blood's moving, you're thankful you're moving and you go in and get yourself ready and you're able to do that. And then you go have some breakfast or, or I do exercises so I can make sure my blood's flowing to my brain and my body and the muscles get moving a little bit and do some exercise. And then I sit down and I read. And I read some Bible verses. I also focus on what that says and some ideas for myself to what I've got to do that day. So I help to set that foundation for the day in a good way. And I'm up early, so I don't have right away constant interruptions or any of that chaos that much of our day can provide. I don't have that. I'm up very early so I can have that quiet time and just set my day in the right tone. And I think that's important for a lot of people to set their day in the right tone from the beginning. And if you bookend that, your day comes out pretty good. You know, you, you're thankful in the morning, you're thankful in the evening. You realize what you've got accomplished, and you got a roof over your head, and there's people in your life. You can be thankful for these things. And, you know, that's a good way to finish your day and start it.

Yeah, it is about gratitude, right? As you say, you wake up and you appreciate what you have. Yeah, yeah, another day out of us. I like to use the you know, just the description of opening up with waking up with a smile on your face and looking ahead to what your day, you know, will provide for you. What's in store for you? What do I want to accomplish today? What's my, what's my tiny objective, or what's my big goal? What do I want to accomplish today?

And if you, if I can, for the listeners, listen to what he just said. It's not, oh, the tasks I have to do or the work I have to do. It's grateful for what I get to do. The verbiage you use is critical. You know, speaking to ourselves, we've got to use the right verbiage. And you're great. You gave a great example of that. So that's key, is what verbiage are we using for the things we get to do during the day? It's not just tasks or what do I have to do, but I get to do these things and I have an opportunity to do these things.

Yeah, that's good. It's our self-talk, right? What we say to ourselves. It kind of creates our mood, creates our outlook, and, you know, it gets that momentum going. It definitely does. One of your chapters is about the journey being more important than the destination. Help us understand your thinking here.

Well, that one was interesting for me because so many times, uh, with 3 boys, you get 3 boys in a car and drive, you know, if anybody that's experienced this driving on a road trip, um, The car gets stinky, gets loud, you know. Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Yeah, right, you know, you're trying to focus on getting that done, you know, get through this. But we've got to realize half the fun is the journey. It's not just getting to the destination. Okay, cool, we're here, now what? Well, you know, some of the fun is with the kids, you know, the things they see, the comments they make, or, you know, the fun they're having in the car. How are we looking at that time? Yeah, it's okay. The car might get a little messy. So what? You can clean it up later, right? You're having fun. They're having fun. We've got to learn to let go sometimes on our path and realize the journey in the path. And I work on this all the time. There's many times where I want to get someplace and I don't have the patience and I got to stop, slow down, and let's have patience. This could take a little while. Just enjoy the journey. And I think so many times in our society, our society runs at 900 miles a second, 20 different directions all the time. We got to slow down and smell the coffee once in a while, you know. Look at the dandelions coming up through the sidewalk. They're pretty yellow, you know. They got the puffy things when they get— go into bloom. Take the time to take a minute and go outside and just enjoy, you know, our surroundings, um, the sun and the, you know, the greenery, whatever you have around you. It's it's nice to just take that time to slow down a little bit, enjoy that journey.

We can be so focused on the goal, the destination, that we lose sight of where we are. We're out of touch with what's going on. I have that feeling when I, you know, I see people taking pictures maybe at a concert or something, and they're just taking photographs. It's like you're missing out on this important, you know, event here, and you're taking— I get it that people want want memories, they want the records of their, yeah, their event. But they do seem like they're missing out on the essence of that event by constantly, you know, using their, their phone to take photos.

Yeah. And, you know, as parents, we, we do that a lot because, yeah, we want to capture that, that picture. But sometimes it's just fun to watch them play. Sure. You know, and, and watch the, you know, the, the mind and the wonder that they had, the kids have and we just need to let that be. We don't have to have a picture of every little thing sometimes.

Yeah, it's funny, I remember a quote by Picasso, the painter, and he said the, the real value of art, the real artistic expression, was in creating the painting, not in having the painting finished, right? So for him, the enjoyment, the pleasure that he got in creating his art was just that. It was taking the time to create the picture or the painting and not just focus solely on the final product. And I think that's what we're talking about here, right? Enjoying the process rather than the final product. Yeah.

And that, like I said, that's sometimes hard in our society today because we're always so rush, rush to get things done. Yeah. And I want to check it off on that list. That's great. But let's enjoy the moment. And believe me, I'm still learning this. So it's a, it's always a work in progress.

That's a good lesson for all of us. I agree. Yeah. How about GIGO? G-I-G-O. What is that about? GIGO is—

it's a mindset. Garbage in, garbage out. What are we focusing on? Okay, think of it like this. If we take a glass of water, okay, clear glass of water, looks great, nice and cold, it's crystal, you know, crystal clear, and you can drink it, you can taste it, you can feel it go through your body cooling you off. Now take that same glass of water and pour some dirt into it. Okay, it doesn't look so great now, does it? Okay, but if we're putting bad stuff in and we pour it out, it's still— it's dirty water, right? But we're doing the same thing with our mind. And I think we need to look at that in our society today because so many times, what are we doing? We have the news on, we have CNN, we have all these different news stories on. And what do they focus on? They focus on the fear, they focus on the arguments, they focus on the division, they focus on you know, all this bad news, and that's going into our mind. And the more that goes into our mind, the worse we feel. We feel tense. We feel, you know, ah, get mad at people. And you might respond to somebody in a bad way because you're, you're mad at something else. That mindset carries over. And so that what you put in comes out in other ways and towards other people, and that's maybe not the way you want to do it. So The key with that is what are you putting into your mind? Are you putting good things in? Are you putting positive messages in? What are you listening to on your drive to work? Is it the news? Is it the sports scores? Is it how the people didn't perform on the sports event you wanted to perform? Is it the traffic and the traffic jam that you're sitting in that you already know there's a traffic jam about and you're sitting in the middle of it and they're going to reiterate it 3 times on why it's backed up. And so then you get to the office and you're like, ah, already. It doesn't work. Are you, you know, if you start to listen to the music that you really like, you know, you start to have fun with it, you get a good beat going and you're just enjoying it. And then, you know, you're not too worried about the traffic. You're not so worried about what's going on in the world, about situations you can't control. And then when you're at the office, all of a sudden you feel good. People wonder, what's wrong with him? You know, why is he so sparky? Why is he so fun? And they want to be around that. And it's a great thing because then you start to spread that enjoyment and that fun to others and it brightens their day. And then you have a whole bunch of people having bright days. I mean, not a bad concept, you know?

Yeah, you're right. I, I can see that because we have to be mindful of whatever kind of negative content we are exposed to and what we take it. And a lot of times it does make us grouchy and irritable, but I think sometimes we don't even know it. Absorbing all of this bad stuff coming at us in the news, wherever. And we don't even realize how it's affecting us. And that's, I think that's your point, Bob, right? That it's going to spill out. Oh, yeah, it will. The dirty water is going to spill out somehow.

Yeah. And we have the power to stop that by turning that off. What's our focus? Is our focus on, oh, our aches and pains and that this doesn't work and that doesn't work? Or is it the fact that we're alive and that, hey, I can go see Charlie here. Maybe I can have a cup of coffee. Coffee with Susie and see how she's doing. And, you know, the ability to be able to interact with people, how are we focusing on what goes into our life? You know, that's a concept people— maybe we need to shift that to the better a little bit, you know? Sure.

You know, I, I like to talk a lot about, you know, focus on living longer and living healthier. And we are going to face those hurdles, those setbacks that come along, you know, whether it's a physical loss or change or an illness, or maybe a personal loss, a loss of a loved one, friends, you know, even our pets can be, you know, very, very difficult to, to manage, cope with. So what, what's your advice for getting through difficult situations?

Well, and I've had a few myself, you know, I'm coming through my life, it's, it's, you know, those things are, are never easy. At the time, it does. It's painful and it hurts. I'm not denying that by any means. I'm not discounting it by any means. What I try to remember again is, as I said before, that value, that great value we have within us, that's key to understand and remember. The other thing is knowing this too shall pass, as Anthony Robbins would say. It will. As the world turns, if you will, it's always going to continue to move. Is it going to be easy? No. You know, when I lost my father, it wasn't easy. It took time to— and, you know, there's times I still, you know, pain, if you will. I still have heartache, if you will, that he's gone. But I understand, too, that I've got to grow. There's, as my aunt explained to me after he passed away, you know what, there's certain things he put in you that nobody can ever take away. Those memories, those skills, those knowledge, that's something nobody can take away. And I think that's important to people to remember is there's skills and knowledge we have that nobody can ever take away, but we can grow with and continue that, you know, that movement. Like I said, taking those little steps, that's key. I think that's a critical thing is, like you said, it can lead to bigger things. When you take one step towards a mailbox, that's great. Then you take another and then you take another. And then all of a sudden you're at the mailbox and you're able to get the mail and then you get to walk back. Or, you know, you do that for a couple of weeks and then all of a sudden you realize, hey, maybe I can reach that next mailbox. You walk down to the next mailbox and you come back. So there's that piece of continued growth. I think that's exciting. Remember that growth is exciting. Remember when we were little and we'd learn, you know, new things and we were so excited to show our parents what we learned? Where did that go when we got older? You know, that's a key piece to, to help overcome things, is that we can grow. We can, can always grow because if we're, you know, as long as we're living, we're— we can grow. It's our choice to grow though.

Sorry, I read a line recently that, you know, as children we go into schools as a question mark and we leave as a period. So, you know, it takes away that kind of uncertainty, that questioning, that wonderment, and okay, here's all the answers, now you're leaving with a period. And I think that's what you're talking about here.

That's very true. I haven't heard that, but that's a good one.

I like that. Yeah, yeah, it's a good one. It struck me. So, um, I think what we're also talking about is mindset, right? I can versus I can't. We, you know, we've all heard that line from Henry Ford who said, whether you think you can or you can't, you're right. You know, what we believe and is going to determine and color how well we accomplish things or how well we don't accomplish things, right? So share your, your thoughts about that.

I can versus I can't. Well, and it is a mindset. I mean, I was thinking about this earlier in preparing for this, and it took me back to a story Zig Ziglar told about somebody that worked with him, Mamie McCullough. And it was interesting because she was a teacher, an English teacher, and she had students that weren't doing so well. And her idea was, you know, okay, we're going to do a project. And because the students would say, well, I can't do that, I can't do that, she got tired of it. She's all right, Everybody, I want you to bring in— I want you to bring in a can tomorrow. It's kind of what she said, just bring in a can. Well, in the meantime, she cut out all these phrases of can from different magazines and newspapers and things like that, just the word I can. And so when they brought in these cans, what she did was help put a label on them. And I've got one right here. Here's a label and it's basically a can that says, yes, I can. OK, and what it was, was she helped them to put that idea of I can on a can. And that's a can that whenever they said I can't, I want you to deposit something in there, whether it's a pencil, whether it's a note, whether it's a dollar, whether it's a quarter, put something in that can. But you keep this can at your desk to make you realize, yes, I can. Can. So it's reminding you that you can do something. And I think that's important for people to realize is that idea that we have capabilities and we can do things. Is it easy? No. That focus on positiveness rather than negativeness. Anybody can say I can't. That's easy, right? But the I can is challenging because you have to learn things. You might have to do certain things. You might have to take time to do something. But that's okay. What is your result that you're going to get? Think of that, that, you know, people climb Mount Everest. Why? I don't know. But they want to get to that peak and see that view, right? That's the objective. And they go through all that other stuff to get to see that curve of the earth and that view and say they've done this. That's a goal that, you know, whatever it is, what is your Mount Everest? Is it learning to change a tire? Is it changing the carburetor on your car? Is it fixing the garden? In front of your house, whatever that may be, taking those steps and knowing that you can achieve it and focusing on that you can achieve it, that's going to help you to achieve it because you're going to get— start to get determined. You're going to start to get persistent that you want to do these tasks that are needed to get that done. Um, recently I had— I think it was last year, my pool pump failed. I was like, oh great, you know, okay, now I gotta call the pool company. What's this? What's that? And I started looking at it and I thought, well, wait a second. This pool pump looks just like my sprinkler pump that I changed recently. Wait a second. Go on here. Go here. I looked online. Sure enough, they had a part that I needed. That part was half the price that the pool company would have been charging to replace it. Got the part shipped to my house, went out there, changed some things, flip, flip, flip, and boom. Within a couple of hours, I had a pool pump running again. But I didn't sit there and say, well, I can't. Now I got to spend twice as much to go do it. To me, the financial burden is what I didn't want. I didn't want to spend the extra money when I had the skills of— I can change bolts and nuts and everything like that. I had the skills, why not do this? And so that helped me to focus on that positiveness of I can do it, and I got it done.

Yeah, I, you know, like Ford said, we can say I can or I can't, and either way we're right. Whatever we want to believe is is true for us. And I saw that so many times with older adults who, you know, had some physical setback like a stroke, and they were learning to walk again. And, you know, that determination, that belief, yes I can. Yeah, it's a tough road. Yeah, not minimizing that. You're not minimizing. It's a tough road. But when we believe, we have, you know, we have that inner fire to tap into, that inner reserve of strength and determination. And that says a lot. I mean, that gets us, that gets us miles ahead of people who say I can't, right?

Definitely. Napoleon Hill used to say that, right? That was that fire, that drive, that innate ability that allowed you to go after your goals and achieve great things.

Yeah, I heard a line, I think it's Joel Weldon, I don't know if you know him, but public speaker, he uses this expression, uh, Success comes in cans, not cannots. There you go. Yes, and he's got a can of course with that saying. Yeah, success comes in cans, not cannots. So, um, I always like to talk about visualization. You know, we, we hear a lot of stories, especially about professional athletes and downhill skiers, especially how they can visualize their, their course before they actually run it, and they find where they kind of visualize where they're going to have the toughest turns and spots. And how does visualization kind of create that momentum for us? Where is that? What is that? What does that do for us when we visualize our goals or our path forward?

Well, as we've been talking about, I think it gives us that fire. And when I coach clients, I talk about this idea is, what is your ideal day? And I have them write it out, piece of paper and a pen. Don't type it, write it out. Because when you write something out, you're writing it, you kind of talk to yourself. So you're hearing yourself say it and you're seeing it. So you're learning 3 different ways, which is pretty much 80-some percent of learning is that kinesthetic, audio, and visual. It helps cover the majority of the learning. But what is that ultimate goal? What does that look like to you? What does it taste like to you? Can you smell it? That type of thing. So it's so vivid in your mind. Then when you, you find yourself, okay, I really, really want that, and that gives that inner drive, that gives that, that fire not only in your heart but in your head. And when your head starts to see that, it thinks, okay, now how can I get there? Because your subconscious mind is always going. So your subconscious mind starts to look at different ways that it could find a solution for that. Okay, if I want to go to Georgia, what's the best route? Okay, well, I need to have a car, right, or a plane or something. How can I do this?

What's the price of a ticket for a plane?

What's gas costs, what's the best route to drive. You start to put together all these things you need to do, and pretty soon you have the tasks you need to accomplish that. When we have a task in that path, then we just— it's, you know, following it is fairly easy. It's discipline that helps you to follow it, but following it is pretty easy. The hard part is seeing the end result but nothing in between. You know, as Martin Luther King would say, taking that step off the staircase when you don't see the whole staircase is the hardest part. So as we visualize what we truly want, our mind helps us to take those steps and bring back the tasks we need to accomplish that goal. We look from the end and it helps to bridge that gap, if you will, so that next step you're taking is already there, then the next one and the next one. And that's, that's key because it does give you that drive. It gives you that peace of mind that knows that you can accomplish that because you visualize it, you can see it, and you start to you know, feel it, taste it. It's just, it gets that excitement going.

So we plant that flag on our distant goal, whatever, and without thinking about every step consciously, we know the body can find a way, our mind can find a way to make those turns right and left, up or down, whatever it's going to take to reach that, reach that flag. We rely on our kind of our intuition or whatever we want to call it. To keep us moving forward without the conscious steps along the way, right?

I think our subconscious mind— people forget how powerful it is, you know, and it's always working. So utilize that. It's— and I think part of the discipline piece is taking— letting that time, you know, come about. Uh, we want it now. We're, you know, microwave society in a crockpot world, and we need to, you know, let that time come about as it does. If you want to save $100,000, you're not going to do it in a month unless you have some big money somewhere. You're just not going to do it in a month. It takes time. And then you break it down. What can you know? What is your budget now? Okay, can you increase that as you go further, as you get better employment, as you get more skills, you get more salary, you know, put more away? How are you saving that? And, you know, it's, it's the same type of thing. What's that ultimate flag, like you said, out there? But then our mind will help us to find those ways. You know, as we're, as we're starting to save more, maybe we realize, hey, you know what, um, now I can save a little bit more that will earn more interest, and that compound interest effect will help us get to that $100,000 mark a lot quicker. Um, there's a lot of pieces that come into play as we learn and grow from those actions we take. Yeah, it's our own solutions, right?

I mean The solutions don't come knocking on our door and say, here I am, I'm going to help you find your way. Yeah, let's take that planning, right, and, and goal setting and determination. And when we set our mind to it, as you say, our mind or unconscious, whatever that drive is, it kind of propels us forward. Yeah, whatever the goal is. Yeah, that's beautiful. Sure. You've written a lot of books, Bob. I, I I looked and I saw you've written like 8 books. Yeah, I'm sure they're all different, but are there some, some messages, some common themes that kind of is woven through these books?

Yeah, it's, it's interesting because my first book was, as we just mentioned about, it was about money-saving strategies of all things. And I was at a spot, you know, I had young kids, we were at a ball field all the time, and, you know, I kept hearing parents say I just don't know where my money goes. I'm thinking, how can you not know where your money goes? This is kind of critical. And these are parents with young kids. Well, the money's going, you know, hot dog here at the ball field, this and that, and it's kind of frivolous spending. And so that was my first book, was the idea about money-saving strategies. And it was interesting because that came about— I was in Toastmasters and was helping a friend of mine. I talked to her class at a local college. And she said, you really need to write these ideas down, like in a book or something. Okay, that's a good idea. Let's write a book. So each chapter was a different piece of the book that came about for that idea of money-saving strategies. And then I got into the— I thought about that and I was like, well, wait a second, these have some key concepts that help with personal development. And so the majority of my other books are on that positiveness, positive focus, taking action towards goals that idea that, you know, how do we get to where we want to be? And that's what the majority of the message is behind a lot of the other books, is more on the personal growth side. Because even with the Money Saving Strategy book— I was thinking about this the other day— that gives you steps to take to save towards a goal. Well, personal development's the same thing, steps towards a goal, right? But now it's with yourself, with your mind. And so it's a little bit harder concept, but as you explain these concepts, and I explain it in a way that I've experienced things. It may not be the clinically correct way sometimes, but I think it resonates with people because it's real, you know? And it's about the idea of, you know, you're not going to get something for nothing, if you will. You've got to get out there and take action. You've got to get out there and get off the video game sometime and go help people. Look at the world. Realize that there's other people out there that might need help. And that you— if you're, you know, if you're a young person, you probably have abilities and skills that somebody may not have anymore. You can help them. You know, simple manners are something that can be great for people. Our society seems to have forgotten those, and I think bringing those back and showing people the greatness of your manners and how that makes you feel is a great way to give people great happiness in a time, you know, in a time that maybe we need this more often. So that's what a lot of the other books are more towards, a personal growth concepts and personal development, sharing that positiveness.

Good strategies, sure. And they're all available on your website, I take it?

Yes, yes, and Amazon. Okay, and Amazon.

So you also have a podcast, Encouragement Engineering. I love that title. Thank you. What do you like to focus on? I, you know, we've probably been talking about it this whole hour, but we have been.

And that's what it is. You've been a guest on the podcast. Your episode's going to be coming up in September, and it's that idea of positive focus in life. Yeah, things are going to happen to us. And what can we do to overcome those hurdles? What do we do to grow ourselves, help others, share that greatness with the world? I think that's what the Encouragement Engineering podcast does, is help to help people to combat the negativity that inundates our daily lives. I think that's so important because we need to focus on the goodness in our world. We need to focus on our goodness and share that with others so they can grow as well. You know, if we share that with others, it's just going to be a great world. And, and that wouldn't, that wouldn't be a bad thing. Not a bad thing.

No, that's a good message. I keep repeating over and over, that's an important message. Yeah. So we're just about out of time. Can you share any, any encouraging words that our listeners can take away from our conversation? What would you like them to take away from this today?

Well, in a couple of the, the episodes I've had recently on my podcast. One is about kindness and the other is about, you know, love. And I think that's some of the key things we can give in our world. Give kindness, and that's a way of giving love. And you never know how it's going to affect somebody. You know, being kind to somebody is an easy gift any of us can give, and we have that within us. We have that ability. You don't know how that person is doing at this time in their life or this day. Being kind, having manners, just showing some love is a simple way to share those good feelings with others. Smile. It's a simple thing to give away. You can always give away. You got plenty of them. You know, share that with others. Share that goodness you have within you with others so that maybe they can see, well, you know, this world is OK and they can share that with somebody else, too. I think that's a great thing because We don't want to walk around just, you know, sour and, you know, groaning at people. Enjoy what we have. Enjoy our time. Enjoy our ability to breathe the great air we have.

Yeah, that's good. The kindness is the same as showing love for one another and kind of appreciating, recognizing other people, especially if they're maybe hurting or they're not doing as well as, you know, we'd like them to be. So that kindness is also a way of loving them and giving and being supportive and really understanding and tolerating them too and accepting differences, right? I always say, yeah, we've got to accept the differences. Look, we're all different, but that makes us all the same because we're also so different. We all bleed red. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, good, good. Well, it looks like we're out of time, Bob. This was a great conversation, but Before we wrap up, I just want to remind our listeners about a few items. I'm pleased to announce a new co-sponsor for our podcast with the program, A Mighty Good Time. Are you looking for ways to engage and stay active? Check out amightygoodtime.com. It's a one-stop shop for events and activities for those 50 and over. It's free to search and it's free to post. Amightygoodtime.com. Also, be sure to visit our website and see the option to work with Dr. Joe— that's me— for one-on-one conversations about managing setbacks, overcoming a negative outlook, and getting back to feeling engaged and motivated again. Visit the Work with Dr. Joe page on our website and see the options available. You can also pick up a copy of my book on Amazon, Living Longer Is the New Normal. I think that whatever age you're at, inspiration and a positive mindset can be put to good use. That's my message in the book and something that our guest today, I'm sure, has affirmed. And be sure to sign up to our email list for announcements and newsletters for reliable information and resources about moving forward. And while you're there, you can download a free copy of my 9 Tips for Living Longer. It's loaded with practical and useful strategies for successful aging. And staying positive. Bob, thanks again for being a guest on our show today. For those who might want to contact you, how can they do that?

Thank you for having me, Joe. They can contact me at my social media sites. I'm on bobbrummspeaks.com. They can check at Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, even on Twitter. They can follow me on, on all those. Feel free to look me up on theencouragementengineer.com. And that gives you the podcast. It shows you who the guests are and information about the guests. So I look forward to hearing from you. That's great.

BobBrumSpeaks.com and EncouragementEngineer.com. Yeah, correct.

Thank you, Joe. I appreciate it.

You're sure welcome. And thanks to everyone for listening to our episode. Hope to see you next time.

Hey everybody, Jared Sebaste here, host of Retire Repurposed. This podcast is dedicated to help people transition into fulfilling and purposeful retirements. Retirement is a big life change. In fact, the two most dangerous years of a person's life are the year they were born and the year they retired. Few people could just flip the switch from working a career 30 or 40+ years, retiring on Friday, without methodical steps to living what we call a repurposed retirement. To listen now, search Retire Repurpose on your favorite podcast platform, Senior Resource, or Life Audio.