207. Bryan Crum | Neighbor, Love Yourself

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, we interview one of the world's top authors, and as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better. In today's episode, we have the pleasure to interview Brian Crumb, author of Neighbor, Love Yourself. Brian began his career as a hospice chaplain working in Southeast Ohio. He spent years helping people reflect on life, confront their mortality, and embrace a Savior who is waiting for all of us with open arms. Brian also has a bachelor's degree in biblical studies, an MBA from ITT Tech, and certifications in bioethics and world health from Harvard. But the most important things he has learned has come from sitting at the bedside of people who are dying. Brian is on a mission to help people understand and realize that they are meant to love their life and story. In this episode, you'll learn about Brian's journey in becoming a hospice chaplain and the lessons he learned, how simple things can cause huge ripples in your life, the power of minimizing regret in your life and how replacing small daily habits can increase your enjoyment of life, helping you realize that you too have a story to share, and why self-doubt is the root of regret. You are far more valuable than you realize, and I believe by the end of this episode, you will agree. Now get ready to learn and enjoy this incredible conversation with— Brian.

Mr. Brian Crumb, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. We're excited to have you today. I'd like to start with a period in your life. Your newborn daughter just arrived and you sent your wife a photo that got you in a little bit of trouble. So I'd love to have you tell everybody that story because my first baby is due in October and maybe I'll recreate it with my wife and see what she thinks.

Oh, great. I love it, Nick. Thanks for the opportunity to be on Book Thinkers. And of course, you would start with that one, right? Of course. Yeah, so new, new dad, and really proud dad. And at the time, Ann Geddes, if you're familiar with her artwork at all, was pretty popular. And she was doing things like making pictures of babies popping out of pumpkins, and they were planted in flowerpots and all kinds of creative ways that she was taking photographs of, of these newborn infants. And with a new baby, I thought I had a perfect photo op. And so I placed my daughter— true story, unfortunately— in a turkey basting pan, swaddled her, and then I set the pan on the open oven rack. And to my credit, I made sure the oven was off. I double-checked it several times. I made sure this the door would stay down, like stay open so we wouldn't like catapult this new child across the kitchen. But my wife still did not, does not to this day think it was funny. But I wanted to send her this picture of a baby that had the caption, fresh out of the oven, right? I still think it's kind of cool, but she's not on that page at all. By any stretch.

Oh, I— how long ago was that?

So my daughter's 16. So, you know, we're 15 years and what, I don't know, 7 months, something like that.

Oh, that's funny. And what does your daughter think about it?

She still loves it. And I unfortunately was, was asked to delete the photo, so I can't show it to her. And had we kept it, I think it would have been pretty cool and Probably we'd be sharing it these days, but unfortunately, um, it's a photo my daughter will never see.

Oh, that's awesome. Well, we'll see if, uh, we'll see if my wife hears this podcast episode and tells me not to do that. We'll see. Maybe I'll send you a photo in a couple of months. So again, thanks for coming on today. We're going to dive into your book in just a moment, but why don't you tell the audience a little bit about you in your own words and Tell us about your time as a hospice chaplain.

Yeah, so my name's Brian, and I'm just a guy that's trying to help us see how we're designed, because I think the more we discover our design, the more empowered we are to live, um, just these really great lives today. I worked for over a decade as a hospice chaplain, and I got to sit and listen to hundreds of life stories. And some of them were really great and inspirational, and some of them really sad and, and, you know, would make you think and contemplate your own existence and your own decisions. And what I've learned is too many of us get to the end of our story, and we don't love our story. And I think we're meant to just love the story that each of us live. So I'm just this guy on a mission to help people fall in love with God's greatest creation. That's us. With— to help people fall in love with their own story.

Yeah, we are God's greatest creation, huh? Well, how did you get into that line of work? How did you become a hospice chaplain?

Yeah, for me, it's probably like this for a lot of you out there, but sometimes the simplest things cause these huge ripples in life. And for me, it was my mother-in-law bringing me a A job posting. She had cut a job that was advertised in the newspaper. That's how— remember, we used to get jobs from the newspaper? Like, that's how ancient I am. But she brought me this clipping that had a job posting by one of the hospitals for a hospice chaplain and said, I think you'd be good at this. I see some things in you that probably would align well. With this job. And it's just taught me that there's— we all need to be that for each other. You know, we need to call out some of the good things we see in each other and tell each other, I think you're good at fill in the blank. You know, I think we need to surround ourselves with people that do that for us. And then we need to be that for people too.

I shared with you during the first time we met that I read a book years and years ago called The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware. And she was an end-of-life life palliative care nurse, and she'd spend the last couple of days or weeks or maybe months with somebody as they transitioned on from this life to the next. And so, uh, I'm fascinated by this subject of regret, you know, making sure that I minimize regret in the present moment so that I don't end up having like this accumulated version of regret that's really big and heavy in the future. So how often do you today think about death and minimizing regret?

I think that's the biggest conversation I had for 10+ years working that job, is mostly people had regret about something they wish they had done and didn't do, or something that they had said and wish they hadn't said. You know, there's— we all have regrets about certain aspects of our story. And so I've been on this mission to help folks not be regretful as they get near the end. I, I read an article by a guy named Miles Monroe. And he said that the wealthiest place on earth is the cemetery, because it holds all of these great things that people never shared with the world. It's got songs that, you know, people meant to write but didn't write. It's got these books that people should have written but never wrote. It's got all of these things that they wish they had done but never did. And so I think for us, it's, let's do those things now. You know, let's walk back from our time in the cemetery and let's do them now so we don't have regrets later.

Yeah, as you can see, since we're on video, I highlighted that little section of the book. I'll read the actual passage to everybody just because I believe it's so incredibly powerful. And then I have a couple more follow-up questions on this subject. So you wrote, Pastor and author Miles Monroe once said, the wealthiest place on earth is the cemetery. It holds the treasures that people never served to humanity. It is wealthy because buried in the cemetery are books that were never written. In the graveyard is music that no one ever had a chance to hear, songs that were never sung. The graveyard is filled with magazines that were never published. The cemetery is filled with businesses that were never opened. What a tragedy. And so, in your own life today, what are you actively thinking about in regards to this? Do you think about, is my week set up so that I don't end, you know, so that I live up to my potential? Or is it just in the back of your head somewhere? Like, how present is that thought for you? I'm sitting here today with Ken Rusk, who has done hundreds of millions of dollars in business. He's also sold tens of thousands of books and changed countless lives. We're sitting here today because he is sponsoring today's episode. So Ken, tell everybody about your course. Well, thank you. I built a course called The Path to a Successful Life. It's designed around trying to get somebody unstuck. You know, sometimes you're feeling like you're kind of stuck in where you are and you're not really sure what you want your life to look like or how to go about getting it. Well, for the cost of about dinner and a movie and maybe the time you'd spend on a weekend, you can know exactly what you want your future to look like. And how to go about getting it. You know the power of vision. That's why you watch podcasts like this. So click the link below, get signed up, and let me know what your experience is like.

It is so present. As a matter of fact, this week we're tackling it. I'm dealing with it because I just— I'm to a point where I want to do less Netflix, more writing. You know, I want to do more things that contribute and less things where I just occupy my attention and time. And it— I'm not a Days of Our Lives fan, but I made this discovery this week. See if you think this is interesting. There's like 56 seasons. I was Googling like, what is the longest show ever? You know, like how long could you binge watch a show if you really wanted to do that forever? And there's like 14,000 episodes of Days of Our Lives. No offense to you Days of Our Lives fans out there. This is great if you love it. But I was doing some math. I'm like, if I watched 4 episodes a day, it would take me over 10 years to binge watch Days of Our Lives, and I'd be 10 years in the rearview mirror, you know. So I'm just on this kick right now where I don't want to get to the end of my story and have things I wish I would have done. So I'm trying to be more intentional with my schedule, you know, each day, each week. Like, what could I do today that I think will contribute, that I think will count? And so, for me, the way I'm carving out some time, at least right now, is let's cut back on some of the shows that I'm binge-watching right now because I'll be honest, I kind of had leaned the other way. So, it's time to pull the reins in on that one. So, that's where I'm at just today.

Yeah, I feel the same way, and I'm happy that you're sharing this vulnerably with all of us. I'll do a little sharing as well. Recently, I joined a coaching company called Strategic Coach. They help entrepreneurs scale their businesses, and they were talking about the founder of the company, Dan Sullivan. He cut TV out completely, got rid of them in his house. He won't watch TV anymore. And he did some math. Now, he was— he had a good rein on it, I think, before he even started watching TV. But let's say that I watch 3 hours of TV a night. I'm just doing this math in real time with you. So, 3 times 7 is 21 times 52 is over 1,000 hours of TV a year. Now, if I was to divide that into 40-hour work weeks, that's 27. That's so much.

Oh, wow.

27 work weeks.

That added up fast. Yeah.

So, what are you replacing that time with in this super version of your reality where you get a handle on it and you stop watching TV?

I'm doubling down on this, Nick. I'm getting hardcore with myself. So, July for me was kind of like, you know how you have Christmas in July? I was thinking I need a New Year's resolution in July. Like, I'm going to start over. Anything that wasn't going well with the resolutions, I'm going to reframe and, you know, kick them off again. And so I'm going all out. So I've replaced Netflix with CrossFit. And if you could see me, you would know this is a challenge. Like, I'm starting ground zero here, but we're going to try to get in shape. And then I'm going to try to read more. You know, you definitely would testify to the power found within books. So, um, definitely going to replace some screen time with some page time.

Yeah, books are so great because especially in the evening, they don't emit blue light, so they don't keep us up and wired, uh, you know. And for the most part, you're delaying gratification. Not every personal development or spiritual book is a ton of fun to read up front, not as fun Not kicking as much dopamine as, let's say, a good Netflix show, but, you know, we're so much better off in the long term. So, I love those decisions and the CrossFit piece is awesome too. Tell us about Stripey Bottom and the power of words. I'd love to hear your take on this.

Oh, you're the perfect person to ask about this too because Stripey Bottom was my first attempt at being an author. And it was an epic fail because it is a children's book. And the title tells you about the book. It's a runaway diaper rash and the lengths that a doctor and nurse go to to treat this rash. And it's this crazy rash that when the nurse pulls the diaper down on this baby, she sees these stripes and she's like, oh my gosh, This baby has stripy bottom, the worst kind of diaper rash ever. And so it's just this really funny, really innocent book. And my daughter was about 3rd grade at the time, and we thought this would be really fun for her to read to her class at school. And the teacher said, you know, I think this would encourage reading. Let's get all the kindergarten classes together And your daughter can read to all of them. We'll give her a microphone. We'll put the pictures up on the screen. It's it's beautifully illustrated. It'll be really fun. Great plan, but the principal ends up reading the book, and the principal says, "This is inappropriate. Like this is banned from our school for two bad words: for the word bottom, and then." The book also has the word butt crack strategically placed throughout several pages because it describes this runaway diaper rash. And so this book that we were so excited to share was banned from its intended audience for 2 bad words. Here I am, this chaplain guy, and my first attempt at being an author is banned for foul language. So just this epic fail that's funny to think about now, but It's caused me to realize that all of us have an audience that we have a story to share with. But most of us are letting one or two bad words keep us from sharing that story with its intended audience, you know, and it's, you might have an audience of one person, or you might have an audience of hundreds, I don't know. But I'm convinced, after hearing all of these life stories, that All of us have one audience to speak to. It might be you went through a horrible bankruptcy and somebody's going through that now. That's your audience. It might be somebody's going through a rocky divorce. You've survived one. That's your audience. So I think all of us have an audience, but we've convinced ourselves, I'm not good enough to share my story with them, or I'm not talented enough or not smart enough. And those are just the bad words holding us back. We gotta get those outta the way and push forward because there's a lot of people that would benefit from your wisdom.

I think so too. One of my mentors, Rory Vaden at Brand Builders Group, he always says, you are most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. And that's just so true for all of us. And you can't let a couple of bad words hold you back. We need those good words, the forward momentum. So I'm curious. Is this book a representation of that for you? Is this book serving a version of you that needed to hear this message maybe a number of years ago?

For sure. And it's kind of one of those things you've probably heard other authors say this. You start out writing to other folks and you're doing it from a good place, like you genuinely want to help them. And then you discover somewhere about the middle of the book, maybe the end, you're kind of writing to yourself too. And certainly that was true of me. I discovered I didn't have the confidence I wanted. I didn't have, you know, the self-assurance that I thought was healthy. And I looked around at my family and I said, I want my daughter to have a sturdy confidence. I want my wife to believe in herself. And how can I help them do that as a dad, as a husband, if I'm not there myself? And so there's a lot of that in this book too.

What, what does your wife think of the book? And what does your daughter think of the book? Have they both had a chance to read it?

My daughter, my daughter's favorite book is still Stripey Bottom. She does like this one, but I think it's gonna be hard to top that one for her. She's still been very supportive. My wife was my first reader on every rough draft along the way. So She's been invested from day one and, and probably my biggest cheerleader for sure.

Yeah, that's fantastic. Is Stripey Bottoms still available?

It is still out there on Amazon, uh, and we do occasionally sell those every week. We'll see a sale or two pop through, so you can still find that, um, in all of its comedy out there. Oh, nice.

Yeah, I will, um, With, with my first baby coming in October, uh, I'm collecting children's books, especially ones that have a story like yours is so funny and memorable. So we'll be sure to include a link to it in the show notes for anybody that's available.

Awesome.

And, uh, I'll also buy a copy. So that's awesome. Okay, one of the other parts of your book that I really loved right in the beginning, and I, and I'll read this, you say God designed us With all the necessary components to experience lives we love. Still, most of us don't know how to operate the equipment, don't understand our capabilities, or simply don't realize what equipment we already possess. Can you expand on that a little bit? What do you mean?

Yeah, God's given us each these tools. Like, we are so valuable, so well designed. We're the ultimate creation when you look at all the things he made. When he got to us, he takes a step back. You can read this in the beginning of the Bible, and he says, "This is very good." Unfortunately, we've overwritten that very good with other statements about ourselves that just aren't true. You know, and they're usually things like we were talking about: not beautiful enough, not talented enough. And so I think this book, every chapter has a feature. that you're meant to uncover about yourself. You know, it's a discovery that you make about yourself that points out all of the ways you're valuable, all the ways you're intricately designed, all the ways that you're creatively made to have this powerful story. Most of us haven't really realized that yet. And so it's an eye-opening moment, but there is truth there. And the more you delve into that, the more you discover. that there are some really incredible features inside yourself.

Yeah, such a beautiful way to put it. I mean, the proof is in the pudding right there in Genesis when God creates man. And then we're born and we get conditioned and we consume media and we have inputs from teachers and parents, and then we start comparing ourselves to others. And it— at some point in that journey, the negative self-talk starts to take over, the curiosity goes down, and We just, you know, we're just getting by, scarcity mindset for a while. And then hopefully a book like this knocks you on the side of the head and it wakes you up to your potential a little bit and you go, oh yeah, I do remember that I am perfectly well equipped to live up to my potential. And so that by the time a hospice chaplain is visiting you towards the end of your life, you don't end up having regrets. So For somebody listening today that says, you know, I decided to listen to this podcast because something caught my attention, maybe the name of the episode or the name of the book title, maybe the hospice chaplain piece was interesting and they wanted to learn more about you. And they say, yeah, you know what, I am fully equipped but still stuck, still not making progress, just thinking I'm under my potential but not really acting on that gap to close it. What advice do you have for that person?

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Yeah, for those folks, I think we'd probably start with the conversation about doubt. If I were sitting down one-on-one, I'd say, let's talk about how you believe yourself, in yourself. Let's talk about self-doubt. For me, I've discovered that's the root of regret is just we all start with these doubts in ourselves. And for me also, I think doubt is like a goat. You know, you think about a goat, a goat eats everything. And doubt's like that. Doubt will eat everything we feed it. And we serve up some pretty good meals. We give it our confidence, we give it our dreams, we allow doubt to eat Our best plans, sometimes our best schedules of the day, doubt can devour. And so my advice would be start by putting doubt on a diet. Stop feeding the goat. You know, let's, let's reduce the amount of things we're serving to that goat. And as we do, just like a regular diet, that doubt's going to lose weight and not have as much power in our lives. So that'd be my starting advice.

Yeah, that's great advice. And I can see you're implementing it in your own life right now, which is, you know, what areas of your life can you put on a diet and what can you eliminate? Netflix is an example of that. There's a chapter reflection at the end of that chapter where you have people also list their natural abilities. Like, when was the last time you thought about what you're really good at and you focused on that instead of what you're really bad at? And so, I'm curious. I'll put you on the spot, Brian. you're naturally good at if you had to list a handful of things that are in that natural ability bucket for yourself?

I'm one of those annoying people that wake up positive. Like, I just wake up happy most days. And so—

Me too.

Yeah, you can attest there's folks around us that they, they may admire that, but they don't admire that first thing in the morning. So, so that's a natural gift of mine. And then I'm discovering I'm just able to, to write and share some of that positivity on the page. So I'm trying to do more of that out there. Um, my real-time example, my daughter, 16, we're teaching her to drive. She's doing pretty good, but she is mixing up the pedals. It's kind of, kind of the worst thing that you could, worst problem you could have. Um, and she's definitely thrown me into the windshield a couple of times stomping that brake. But for me, I think finding things that you're good at and doing more of those is just like hitting the gas in your life. So, I'm just trying to move forward more and stay off the brake a little more.

Yeah, that's funny. Just like you, I am energetic and very positive in the morning. And so, I'll share a story with you that happened today. I woke up. Brought the dog for a walk, went to the gym. I came back. Now, my wife, who's 7+ months pregnant, she's getting a little bit of extra sleep right now. So, she was just getting up and brushing her teeth, and I had all the exercise endorphins flowing. And she made a comment about herself that I didn't love. And so, I said, hey, what are 3 things that you're grateful for? I'd love to hear them. And she's in the middle of brushing her teeth, and she just woke up 2 minutes ago. And here I am, all jazzed up in the meeting. like, come on, speak some positive words into the mirror. And she's like, she, she did, uh, I'll give her credit for that. But it was like, oh, come on, this again? You know?

Love it.

We have to give space to those positive words. Tell us about— and I thought this was another really cool concept from your book— your core identities being fireproof. I thought this was interesting. What does that mean?

Yeah, so I saw this news story, true story, uh, Louisiana. This house catches fire. It's a tiny house and it burns for like 4 hours, full inferno. And the firemen show up and they put out this fire. They work for many hours to get the flames out. When they do, they shine their light through the smoke and they see written on the beams of this house, like the raw 2x4s, are all of these biblical scriptures. And the firemen are like, couldn't explain it, the fire reached the 2x4s and just stopped. And I would be the skeptic to say, ah, you know, coincidence, I don't know, some other reason or explanation. But the firemen's testimony in this news reporting was so significant. They're like, we can't explain it. And so I think for us, we have this inner framework that holds up our lives. And whenever there's truth written on those beams, those parts of our lives are sturdy. Whenever there is fiction written on the inner framework, we find some weak spots. And so a lot of what I've had to do as a hospice chaplain is help people look inside, erase fiction, write in truth. And that's probably the best advice for us today too, to help us keep moving forward is let's, let's write good positive, true statements inside ourselves. As we do, we're going to become this fireproof existence.

Wow, that's good. Erase fiction and write truth. Yeah, could be a good book title too.

There you go. There you go.

Brian, now that we're getting towards the end of the podcast, I have a couple more questions for you. First, Just tell everybody, if they've listened to the podcast so far and they're just not quite sure if they want a copy of Neighbor, Love Yourself, what are some final words about the book?

Yeah, so the book is so fun. It's a light— lighter read, but it will make you laugh. There are belly laugh moments. It will make you think for sure. There are definitely moments that will make you cry. Um, there are some, some heart felt inspirations in this book. It's mostly going to help you fall in love with you in a really healthy way. So it's a book about you, and if you don't want to read about you, don't read this book. But if you want to read a little bit about yourself, this one will, will be a good read for you.

Yeah, and my, my advice for people who do choose to read the book and they've already bought one on Amazon and they're just waiting for it to show up Do the chapter reflections. I think that when you spend a little bit more time thinking about a book, you spend a little bit more time thinking about yourself, and you truly implement it, you'll get more out of it too. Uh, Brad, how did you decide to support teens in the foster care system with the proceeds from this book?

You know, as I— as we got to the publishing phase with this, with the publisher, I just realized if there's anyone we want to help with their story, It's teens. They're at the beginning of their story. And if there are certain teens to help that haven't fallen in love with their story yet, it's probably teens in the foster system. We've had some opportunity to meet, to interact with, and to really get to know some of those teens. And I decided that's where the dollars from this book should go. So I actually don't make a dollar off of this. All the proceeds that would typically go to an author will go to help teens in the foster system. So my— what I've been telling folks is don't buy the book, buy 2. Buy one for yourself, buy one as a pick-me-up for somebody that's on your street or somebody in your circle that just needs a boost. And as you do, you're going to help a teen in the foster system who I already know would benefit from your support.

And you know what's so cool about gifting books? as well is that people who read them, they don't attribute the value gained to the author most of the time. They attribute it to the person that gifted them the copy. And so it's a little double whammy there. Not only are you helping that person, but you're also helping yourself. There's a reciprocal nature to gifting books. You become somebody known as the person that provides value and gifts books. And that's, that's a cool place to be too.

All right.

True.

Final, final 2 questions. First, where can people go to learn more about you or buy a copy of the book?

Yeah, check out neighborloveyourself.com. You'll find out all the places you can buy the book. You can also check out my Facebook page or my website, briancrum.com, and find just a bunch of stuff that'll keep you motivated and moving forward.

Okay, good. And the very last question, which is usually asked by my co-anchor, on the podcast, my co-host Luke, is some variation of, Brian, imagine you disappear. Stripey Bottom's gone, Neighbor Love Yourself is gone, all of your work, anything you've ever contributed to, it just vanishes like that. But you can leave the world with one message, and it's up on a big fat billboard in the middle of Times Square. What would you say to everybody?

I'd say God loves you just as you are, and there's so much out there in the world that you're meant to do.

Hmm, I love that. I'll sit in that one for a few minutes. Well, Mr. Brian Crumb, thank you so much for coming on the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books podcast. Thank you for choosing to work with us. For anybody that wants to see my take on the book, go check out some of our posts on Instagram. We'll have Luke link those in the caption below. And, uh, I look forward to the next conversation, my friend.

Thanks, Nick. Thanks for the opportunity. Thanks, Luke.

Appreciate it. That is a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. It would mean the world to us if you could write a review and share this episode with a few of your friends. I mean, these books truly have the power to change people's lives, and by reviewing or sharing our podcast, you're helping us make an impact. If you have any recommendations for future guests or any constructive feedback for us on how we can improve our show, please feel free to submit a form on our website, www.bookthinkers.com, or send us a direct message on Instagram @bookthinkers. With that, I am signing off, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Don't forget, Go read something.