In this episode, Mike Gardon chats with Grant Baldwin. Grant made a career change when his wife was 5 months pregnant with their first child. It was scary, but he set himself on an unmistakable path toward a meaningful and rewarding career. As founder and CEO of The Speaker Lab, Grant Baldwin has helped thousands of people build successful and sustainable speaking businesses. Over the last 15 years, Grant has become a sought-after speaker, podcaster, author, and accomplished entrepreneur. Featured on the Inc. 5000 list*, Forbes, Inc. Entrepreneur,* and The Huffington Post, he has committed his expertise and insight to equip others to share their meaningful message with the masses. His leadership and dedication to creating a one-of-a-kind organizational culture are evidenced by the impact of the team he leads. Grant lives near Nashville, Tennessee with his wife, Sheila, and their three daughters.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:
- Grant’s background
- Grant’s career pivot
- How Grant recommends picking a topic to speak about (or a career path)
- Who do you speak to
- What problem do you solve for that audience?
- Be a steakhouse, not a buffet
- The Speaker Lab
- How Grant decided to help other speakers
- How to become a speaker, what you need to know, how to find speaking gigs, etc.
- Why the art of speaking is still important today
- How to become a better speaker
- The elements of a great speech
HELP US OUT!
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BOOKS AND RESOURCES:
- “Look for people who are a step or two ahead of you, who are doing something similar to what you want to do and doing it in a way that you want to do it.” - quote from Grant
- “You have to regularly find things where the challenge exceeds the skillset.” - quote from Grant
- The Speaker Lab Podcast
- The Successful Speaker - Grant’s book that he mentioned
- “Who you are is more important than what you do.” - quote from Grant
- Connect with Grant on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.
- Connect with The Speaker Lab on their website, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.
TRANSCRIPT
Disclaimer: The transcript that follows has been generated using artificial intelligence. We strive to be as accurate as possible, but minor errors and slightly off timestamps may be present due to platform differences.
Mike Gardon (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of CareerCloud Radio. I'm your host Michael Gardon, and I'm on a mission to help you all break work, to unlock meaningful careers that you choose and control. My guest today is Grant Baldwin. Grant made a career change when his wife was five months pregnant with their first child. It was scary, but he set himself on an unmistakable path towards a meaningful and rewarding career. As founder and CEO of the speaker lab grant Baldwin has helped thousands of people build successful and sustainable speaking businesses. Over the last 15 years, Grant has become a sought-after speaker podcaster, author, and accomplished entrepreneur featured on the Inc 5,000 list, Forbes, zinc entrepreneur, and the Huffington post he's committed his expertise and insights to equip others, to share their meaningful message with the masses, his leadership and dedication to creating a one of a kind organizational culture are evidenced by the impact of the teams. Grant lives near Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife, Sheila, and their three daughters. Sheila is his high school sweetheart. I also married my high school sweetheart, and I have three kids, all boys though, as you can probably tell Grant, and I hit it off and had a blast recording this episode, I hope you enjoy it. Grant, welcome to the show. How are you today?
Grant Baldwin (01:13):
Mike, doing well, man. Thanks for letting me hang out with you brother.
Mike Gardon (01:16):
Yeah, super happy to have you on a great topic on speaking
Grant Baldwin (01:50):
Yeah, for sure. So back in high school, I was really involved in my local church and my youth pastor had a really big impact on my life. And I was like, I wanna do that. Like, that seems like a really cool rewarding career and just kinda felt like if I could make the kind of impact on other people that he made on me, like that just seems incredibly rewarding. And so that was kinda the track I was on. I went to Bible college. I was a youth pastor at a different local church for a little while. And as a youth pastor, there are things I like, things I didn't like. One of the things I really enjoyed and I felt like I was decent. The net was speaking each week. I was speaking to students multiple times every so often I'd get to speak on the weekends in a big church, quote unquote.
Grant Baldwin (02:22):
And I just really enjoyed it. And, and so it was one of those things that I wanted to do more of, but at the time this was, you know, 17, 18 years ago, or so there just, wasn't a lot of resources out there in terms of like, how do you find speaking gigs and how much do you charge and who hires speakers and what do you speak about like, how does this mysterious black box work? And so at the time, because there weren't a lot of resources out there, I found myself just stalking other speakers, just emailing other speakers, just pastoring them with questions, just trying to learn anything. And I felt like I had the potential, but I needed the plan. I had the potential, but I needed the plan. And so I learned a couple of things and now eventually started booking some gigs here and there and got to a point where over next couple years I was doing 20, 30 gigs and 30, 40 gigs and 50 60 gigs, and got to a point where I was doing about 60 or 70 gigs a year and loved it. It was awesome. And at the same time, I had a lot of people who asked me like, Hey man, I wanna do that too. I wanna be a speaker. How would I go about doing that? And so started doing some coaching, teaching training around that, and then started leaning more into that. And that's evolved into what I do today. So I run a training company for speakers and teach people how to find book-paid speaking gigs called the speaker lab. And so that's our entire world now.
Mike Gardon (03:27):
So a couple of follow up, you said you thought you had probably some skills or some ability in terms of speaking and that you really wanted to help people. You had this need to kind of help people and were very influenced by your pastor. Would you say that the pursuit of speaking as kind of a profession was mainly driven by like the skill and understanding that you had the skill or did you really see speaking and to audiences as kind of the best way, the biggest platform to sort of influence people?
Grant Baldwin (03:58):
So even in college and I actually worked for a guy who was a full-time speaker. And so I kind of got to see a little bit behind the scenes of like, what does that look like? And I kinda helped him with like travel and logistics and contracts and a few sales and like that sort of thing. And so they gave me at least a little bit of sense of what does it look like behind the curtain? What does it look like to run a speaking business? You know, because being a speaker like people see the glamorous side of that, of standing on stage or meeting people or sending autographs or taking pictures or whatever it may be. But like, there's a lot of like it's running a business. And so it's a big thing that we teach today within the speaker lab.
Grant Baldwin (04:30):
And so that kind of gave me a little bit of a sneak peek behind there. And so speaking was just one of those things. I just, I just really enjoyed it. I felt like I was DSN whenever I would speak. I was like, oh, I think I had like enough self-awareness to realize there's something there. I knew that I wasn't a disaster at it, but I knew, I wasn't the best at it. And I knew I could get better. And so I think that reaching out to, and connecting with some other speakers just also helped me to see what the possibilities were. And I think that that's great career advice for anybody. And this is something I still talk with speakers about today to look for people who are a step or two ahead of you, not light years ahead of you, but a step or two ahead of you who are doing something similar to what you want to do and doing it in a way that you want to do it.
Grant Baldwin (05:09):
Because for me, that helps connect the dots of like, okay, this is possible, or this is what that could look like. And I could see myself doing that. And so it kind of helped me to just kind of crystallized in my mind cuz the idea of like when someone hears I wanna be a speaker, it's like, yeah, but what does that mean? That means a hundred different things to a hundred different people. And so what does that actually look like? And so for me as a former youth pastor, I was interested in speaking to students, I was interested in speaking to high schools, and colleges. And so meeting with some people who were doing that and doing 40, 50, 60, 70 gigs a year speaking at the type of conferences I could see myself speaking at again, it kind of just gave me a roadmap and a path of like, okay, this is what this might look like.
Grant Baldwin (05:46):
And so I, I think another thing, especially since we're talking about like the, from a career angle is when I left that role as a youth pastor like that was a really, really, really difficult transition for me mentally because at the time my wife was four or five months pregnant. I didn't have another job lined up. It wasn't really clear of like, okay, you're gonna, you know, leave this youth pastor gig. You're immediately going into speaking. I just knew like, okay, this youth pastor gig wasn't necessarily what I wanted to do, but I just wasn't really sure what I should be doing instead. And so literally for the next couple months, like again, wife is pregnant, I worked for a security company doing like residential home security system sales, like door-to-door type stuff. I worked a couple of nights a week at some different restaurants as a server like at a fine dining restaurant.
Grant Baldwin (06:29):
And I was just like piecing things together, trying to make ends meet and also kinda like licking my wounds and just figuring out like, all right now what? And so there's kind of this, I don't know, unspoken pressure of, okay. I went to college to do this one particular thing I got into doing it and then it wasn't necessarily what I hoped it would be. So how do I just keep doing that or do I do something different? And so for the next several months, it was really trying to think through like, okay, what do I really wanna do? What is it that I'm good at? What is it that I'm passionate about? What is it where I can, I can make a decent living and where is it that like all these, what's the VIN diagram of all of these different things coming together.
Grant Baldwin (07:02):
And I would say again, those few months there were really, really difficult and challenging, but it also, it was incredibly, I think like those months were really, really pivotal for me getting clarity on like, this is what I wanna do. And speaking was the thing that I, I kept coming back to of just like, okay, I think I can do this. And I know this is not an overnight thing. And I know it's not gonna just magically happen cuz I decide I wanna speak, but I could see myself doing it. And I understood like, okay, what's the path and the steps I need to be taking to get there. And so for anybody who's watching or listening, who's in a spot going like I'm doing something. I'm not sure I enjoy it. I'm not sure I wanna keep doing it. I'm not really sure what I'd rather be doing.
Grant Baldwin (07:34):
That's okay. For me I felt like for speaking, there's no guarantee there, but I felt like I would rather try it and it is a huge disaster than always look back on the end of my life and be like, dang, I think I could have made that work, but I'll never know. Cause I didn't try. And so for me, it was just kinda like, okay, let's lean into speaking. Let's see what happens. Let's maybe it's a huge train wreck, but I, I don't know. And again, I think that was just a, a real pivotal season to really take the time to think through what is it that I want to do versus just going with the path of least resistance or what other people expected me to
Mike Gardon (08:07):
Do so much to unpack or follow up on, on that it's like so well said. And it's something that I think so much of our audience struggled with and certainly, I struggled with at that period of time as well. I mean, I can just remember not knowing what I wanted to do and not having a great passion. Yeah. I feel like I had some skills that I could lean into probably much like, like you did, right. You kind of took this skills approach. I, I have a knack for this, and plus I like it. And so we're gonna go that way, but figuring out how to do that, it seems like college is sort of the place that, that should all take place. Right. In terms of figuring things out. But very often it doesn't. I had a conversation very recently with a guest about that whole thing in terms of like, we almost have it backward, we're getting hired and then we're getting trained instead of like getting acquiring useful skills and figuring, and kind of like taking this options approach to figure out what we like and are good at and then being hired, you know, it's almost backward for a lot of us, which is really interesting.
Grant Baldwin (09:12):
Yeah. I mean you think back for, you know, maybe for you and I, for a lot of people who are watching or listening, you, you go to college in your late teens and your early twenties and you're just like, man, you just own, you're making your best guess. And you can only see I've heard the illustration. Life is very much like driving a car at night. You can only see a few feet ahead of you, but you can make the whole journey that way. I mean, you can literally drive for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles only, ever seeing a few feet in front of you and you don't know the construction that's up ahead or the roadblock or the detour or the tree that fell over the road or the potential car wreck that you had to swerve and miss, or you don't know any of that stuff.
Grant Baldwin (09:46):
You know, when you're in your late teens and early twenties and our oldest daughter, she is 16. And so, you know, we're starting to talk about college stuff and it's also like, I think for us now it's not putting the pressure on, Hey, you need to know, you need to know, you need to know cause like there's a good chance, whatever you go to college for, or even whether or not you go to college and that's a totally different discussion, right? there’s a good chance. You're gonna do a variety of different things throughout the course of your career. You know, it's more and more unusual for someone to do one thing for their entire career. Most people just have a wide variety of different interests and opportunities. I mean, we're recording this in, in, you know, mid-20, 22, and who knows what the opportunities are that are gonna exist in the next 1, 5, 10, 20 years from now, that may be like, that's not even on the menu right now of options or opportunities, but when it is presented, it's like, dang, that seems really cool. I think I'd really like that. It's just not a thing right now. I think it's helpful to also take some pressure off of yourself of feeling like you need to know what you're gonna do for the rest of your life. And that's the only thing like you're not getting married, you're not making some lifelong commitment here. Like you just, you're picking a career path, you're picking a starting point and that may evolve and change over time. And I think that that hopefully that takes some of the pressure off.
Mike Gardon (10:53):
I like the driving at night analogy. I hadn't heard that before, but it's a, it's a pretty good one. The one that I've used is open water swimming. I don't know if you're familiar with swimming at all, but like when you open a water swim, let's say you're swimming like a mile in a lake or something like that. You can go a few feet by having your head down and stroking, but you gotta pick your head up and you gotta look the, see if you're on the yeah. On the right line. And that's the one that I use with people and with kids. And so, you know, when you made that choice and that decision, I mean, you were leaning into it and you were, I think internally feeling like this is the right, at least direction to go. Do you feel like you had to kind of cold Turkey quit in order to make that leap and commit? Or do you think that you could have somehow side hustled it or done it in a different way? And I asked that specifically because again, we get a lot of questions around, what do I do? Do I need a cold Turkey quit when I'm making a change or can I step into this kind of thing?
Grant Baldwin (11:52):
Well, I think a lot of it just kind of depends on the nature of what you're wannabe wanting to be doing. Do you know? So there's gonna be some things where like, you may need to burn the boats and go in and some things where like, so let's take, for example speaking. So one of the things that are challenging about speaking is that when you book a gig, you may get a deposit for that gig, but then, you typically don't get the majority of all of the money for it until the gig actually happens. Well, most gigs are booked several months out. So I may, if we're recording this in July, I may book a gig in January. Well, that's great when January gets here, but I still gotta pay a bill in July. And so I know for me, it took me about 18 months to go from zero gigs on the calendar to make the transition, to be able to go all in on speaking.
Grant Baldwin (12:32):
And I see for most speakers, it takes usually a year, a couple of years because it just, it's kind of like it's a gradual cycle there. And so for me, what I was doing was, again, I was working the security sales job. I was working at a couple of different restaurants. And so as I was booking gigs, I might drop the security job. And then I book some more gigs and I might drop a restaurant gig. And then I might book more speaking gigs and I might drop some, you know, so you're kinda like piecing it together. And I think thankfully, you know, we live in an economy where there's a lot of those type of like gig opportunities, whether that's you're delivering groceries or Uber or whatever it may be where you can kinda like piece together a couple of things. So like when I'm doing the, when I was working at the restaurants or doing the security stuff, like none of this is like career aspirations.
Grant Baldwin (13:10):
I'm just like buying time, like licking my wounds again, kind of figuring out what's next there. And just also trying to like make ends meet and put food on the table. And so as the quote-unquote side hustle of the speaking business continued to take off, then I was just kind of decreasing my dependence on some of these outside things. So I can focus more and more on my energy and effort on speaking. But like when speakers now come to me and say, Hey, I'm, you know, I'm brand new. I wanna quit my job on Friday and become a full-time speaker on Monday. It's like, that's not a thing. Like, it just doesn't work like that. And so I would absolutely not recommend or advise doing something like that, but it is good to have some type of roadmap or some type of plan to figure out how you get from, you know, point a to point B of, of where you wanna be.
Mike Gardon (13:51):
Yeah. So I mean, what you were doing is essentially giving yourself breathing room, extending your runway as we call it through those, through piecing together some jobs. Yeah. We talk about that a lot. And with people being able to freelance, being able to do side gigs using Upwork or, or whatever, to keep the income going and, and covering your expenses while you figure everything out, you don't need a hu a total plan at point a, but you need enough runway to make some mistakes and learn. It's really that kind of like learning glide path. So we talk a lot about freelancing and, and using whatever skill it is that you're getting paid for today in your job, trying to find one client that can pay you to do that in an hourly capacity. And then, you know, kind of talking about and modeling out your runway, like that's sort of the key to creating a path to change. So you, it sounds like, yeah, you were on that, piecing it together with restaurant work and all that kind of stuff, which is really interesting.
Grant Baldwin (14:48):
Like in hindsight now you're like, oh man, everything worked out. It was great. But at the time you're like, you don't know, you're just, you're chasing a dream and you're hoping it works out. And you're, you're just, again, making ends meet and going, you'd book a gig and be like, okay, maybe we're making some progress here. And you know, again, part of the thing with speaking is it can be very cyclical, meaning that you may have a month where you do eight gigs, and then it gets to typically things are slower around December around summertime. And so, you know, December, you may have none gigs, you know, and you're just like, well, crap, you know, now what do I do? And so you do have just kinda these ebbs and flows, and that's also part of entrepreneurship of any kind, you know, whether you wanna be a speaker or you wanna open a bakery or whatever it is that you wanna do, there's just ebbs and flows that you have to be able to kind of stomach and understand how to balance.
Mike Gardon (15:30):
So I assume when you set out to become a speaker, quote, unquote, I mean, you, you have to have some type of expertise or, or topic that you're speaking on. And people ask me this all the time. Like, what should I be known for? What do I, you know, online content creators too, right? Like, yeah, what's my topic and all that kinda stuff. How did you do that? You had obviously the background as a youth pastor, but like how did you pick your topics and what, what did that look like at the time back then?
Grant Baldwin (15:57):
Yeah. And this is something we talk with speakers about all the time there are two key questions you have to ask number one, who do you speak to? And number two, what problem do you solve for that audience? And you wanna be as specific and clear as possible. So when it comes to like, who do you speak to the default for? Some people are like, I don't know, man. I just wanna speak to people. I wanna speak to humans. My message is for everybody. And what do I speak about? Or what problem do I solve? I don't know. What do you want me to speak about? I can speak about anything. You know, I can speak about family or faith or marketing or business or entrepreneurship or sales or golf, or just like on and on the list goes. And even if you know something about all those things, or if you're intrigued by all those things, you can't do that.
Grant Baldwin (16:30):
And so the illustration that we give all the time for speakers, and this is true for anybody trying to figure out their career path is you want to be a steakhouse and not a buffet, a steakhouse and not a buffet. And what I, what I mean by that is like, if you and I are going to get a good steak, like we have a choice. We could go to a buffet where steak is one of a hundred different things that they offer and they're all mediocre. Or we could go to a steakhouse where they do one thing, but they do that one thing really, really, really well. So they don't do lasagna. They don't do pasta. They don't do seafood. They don't do tacos. They do steak. And that's it. And as a speaker, as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, like that's what you wanna do.
Grant Baldwin (17:06):
You want to be a steakhouse and not a buffet. You don't wanna be mediocre at a whole bunch of different things. You wanna be really, really good at one thing. Let me give you another illustration. So let's imagine that God forbid, Mike, you had to have brain surgery. Okay? You have something that goes wrong with your dome. You gotta have brain surgery. You have a choice. You could go to your local family or medical doctor. Mm-hmm
Grant Baldwin (17:40):
You got COVID, you don't go to them. But if you got a brain issue, that's who you go to. And so again, they do one thing, but they do it well. And so it's counterintuitive because oftentimes we think the more things we can speak about, or the more skill sets that we acquire, the more appealing we become in the marketplace. And the reality is the more specific, the more narrow, the more focused, the more clear you are, the easier it is to find and attract the right type of opportunities for you. And again, that's difficult because by narrowing it in, you're making conscious decisions of I'm going to do this, and I'm not going to focus on that. So I'll give you an example, right now within the speaker lab people who are interested in speaking are also typically interested in writing a book or coaching or consulting or doing a course or, uh, doing a podcast or doing online video training.
Grant Baldwin (18:27):
And like there's all these different things that we could get into, but we continually tell ourselves, no, no, we need to be a steakhouse. We need to be good at doing one thing versus being a steakhouse that says, but we could also do pasta, but we could also do tacos, but we could also do salad, but we could also do like, then you become cheesecake factory that has like a thousand-page menu. And is mediocre at a bunch of different things versus like, no, no, just make cheesecake, make cheesecake and just do that one thing, really, really well versus trying to be all things to all people.
Mike Gardon (18:55):
So what was your first paid speaking gig? What was the topic?
Grant Baldwin (18:59):
Early on primarily just focused, on students since that was a world. I understood. I enjoyed speaking to students. I met a couple of guys that I reached out to that were youth speakers and were doing a lot in high schools and colleges and that type of space. So my very first gig, I spoke at a leadership conference in Missouri, which is where I was living at the time. And I spoke for like 30, 45 minutes to a group of about 300 students. And they, they paid me a thousand dollars and it was just absolutely mind-blowing. I, I vividly remember going to speak and I got a standing ovation afterward and I go talk to the event planner. They hand me this check and go to the car. I look at it's a thousand dollars. I knew that's how much it was gonna be.
Grant Baldwin (19:35):
That's what we contracted for. But still, it was just like, I mean, a thousand dollars then was just like a billion dollars. And I, I remember just like, candidly, just breaking down into tears. Like I cannot believe I just got paid a thousand dollars to do this. And it was just absolutely mind-boggling to me. But that, again, that's part of what kinda lit the fire of like, I can do this, I can make this happen and it's not easy, but I believe that I could, I could do that. But it, I also knew, and it's the same thing we tell speakers today. Like it requires a lot of work. It requires a lot of effort. And so just because you want to be a speaker, just because you wanna be an artist, or just because you wanna be a podcaster. Great. So does everybody else like, but you gotta put in the reps, you gotta put in the work.
Mike Gardon (20:13):
So you've spoken all over the world, hundreds of thousands of people, and you could have kind of kept just doing it. I mean, you, you still do obviously, but you decided at some point that there's, uh, an opportunity to help people and to teach people. And I, so I wanted to start talking a little bit about speaker lab, but was there one moment where the light bulb went on with that? And you said, I can continue to do this and I enjoy it. But as part of my mission, I can, there's an opportunity here to help teach people.
Grant Baldwin (20:43):
Yeah, that's a great question. And there was like, I can remember a couple of specific instances. One was that I got to a point where I was doing about 70 gigs a year, and that had me on the road, 80, 90 nights a year. I was away from my family a lot. I'm married to my high school, sweetheart. We got three daughters. It's me and a house full of women. It's the absolute best. I love it. And so as much as I enjoy speaking and, and being on the road is not always miserable, but it's not always glamorous. I enjoy being home. I wanna be a good husband. I wanna be a good father. Like those things are deeply, deeply important to me. And so in order to build a business as a speaker or to make more like you, you have a choice, you can either do more gigs, which I didn't really wanna do, or you needed to switch industries.
Grant Baldwin (21:20):
Cuz there are certain industries that you can charge more than others. You can charge more for speaking to corporations or associations than you can to high schools, right? It's not that one's better or worse, but they're each kind of different. But when you're switching industries, you're basically starting over. And so that wasn't super appealing. In addition, I remember, um, a friend telling me one time that speaking is a high-paying manual labor job in that I would get paid way too well to stand on stage and run my mouth. But the nature of it was, that I had to get on a plane. I had to leave my family. I had to go somewhere. It's like a brain surgeon, you know, a brain surgeon makes a ton of money and they have a really good gig, but they gotta show up and do brain surgery.
Grant Baldwin (21:54):
So if you're sick or if you don't wanna take a vacation or if you, whatever, like you're not getting paid, you're not making anything from that. And so I had a job, I didn't have a business. And so I remember like a one really pivotal moment for me was I was doing a lot of gigs and really enjoying it, doing like some like high profile gigs in that industry and in that pond. And I was in Reno, Nevada for a gig and there's a good speaker friend of mine mentor who was in the area. And so we met up, we went over to lake Tahoe. We drove around, he's probably about 20 years older than me and kinda the speaker mentor figure. And I told him, I was just kinda like, I don't, I felt restless and bored. And so he told me two things. One was, he said, some people like want to be and will be speakers for their entire career.
Grant Baldwin (22:36):
And like, he's a great example of that. He still speaks a ton today and he loves it and does not wanna do anything different. And he said to me, he said, grant, I think you are a really great entrepreneur who happens to be a great speaker. And that really resonated with me. So I just kind of felt like if I stopped speaking that day, like, I'd be fine. I enjoy speaking. But there are a lot of things I enjoy. And so I, but entrepreneurship and business are something I really, really enjoyed. That's something that really lights me up. But the other thing that he said to me that I think is super, super relevant for this conversation for everybody watching and listening, I want you to lean in tune in cuz this is important, but he said you have to regularly find things where the challenge exceeds the skillset, where the challenge exceeds the skillset.
Grant Baldwin (23:16):
This means when I first started speaking, I felt like I was way over my head. I had no clue what I was doing. The challenge exceeded the skillset, but what happens is over time, the longer you do something, it flips and the skillset exceeds the challenge. So I could stand up on a stage in front of a thousand people and do a great job, but inside just be on autopilot and bored cuz I know this joke works and I know how to tell this story. I filled it hundreds and hundreds of times and just works and da, da, da, da. And you're just kind of like again, delivering great, but just kinda like going through the motions. And so he said, you have to regularly find things where the challenge exceeds the skillset, where you feel like you're in over your head and just enough in a healthy way.
Grant Baldwin (23:56):
And so that was such a good piece of advice for me. And it just hit me at the right time where I felt like the skillset had exceeded the challenge. Meaning, was I the best speaker in the world? No, not at all. But like in that world I had done a lot of the major gigs I had done, you know, a lot of the big stages. And so I was just kinda like, wasn't really intriguing to keep climbing that mountain versus finding a different mountain to climb. So again, for everybody watching and listening, you have to regularly find things where the challenge exceeds the skill set. Cause that's fun. That's what's appealing, you know, you and I, before we started recording, we were talking about golf. That's part of what makes golf. So dang fun is because the challenge always exceeds the skillset, no matter how good you get at golf, you go out there and you have the round of your life. But then the next day, like you shoot 20 strokes differently. And you're just like the challenge exceeds this skillset, you know? And there's always something you can be working on. But the challenge is always one step ahead of where your skills are.
Mike Gardon (24:49):
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. It's uh, that's where the growth is. Right? Mm-hmm
Grant Baldwin (25:04):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So we work with people who are where I was when I got started. Meaning again, I had the potential, but I needed the plan. I was interested in speaking, but I didn't know how much do you charge and who hires speakers and what do you speak about, and how does this world work? And that's where I was at. And I know that there are so many people who are in that same spot. And so you may be watching, listen right now, going like, Hey, I'm interested in being a speaker and that's gonna look vastly different to everybody. This means there are some people who are like, I wanna speak five times a year. And some people that are like, I wanna speak 50 or a hundred times a year and it's not that one's better or worse than the other. You just gotta kind of decide what makes sense for you, what it is that you want to do.
Grant Baldwin (25:39):
In addition, there are massive opportunities for virtual speaking now, thanks to the pandemic. And so, you know, that was kind of hesitation for me early on. I want to be a speaker, but I don't wanna be gone all the time. Like I don't want to do this and, and ruin or wreck my family, but there are massive opportunities now for virtual speaking for a lot of people that we talk to and work with, there are people who I've done. Some speaking, I like speaking, I wanna do more of it. I just don't know where to go from here. And so those are the speakers that we work with through 1 0 1 and group coaching and training. We have different programs where we help them with building your website, building, uh, their demo video and finding, speaking leads specifically for them and where it is that they're at, what they're looking to do. And so we just basically like, we're gonna hold your hand, walk with you and try to make this as dead. Simple of like, here's the roadmap you need to follow. We teach you what we call the speaker success roadmap that makes the acronym speak S P E a K. And we walk and guide speakers through that process to help them get to the end result of standing on stage, sharing their message, and making an impact and income with their speaking.
Mike Gardon (26:37):
Got it. So the ideal person that's gonna get the most out of working with you and your team is someone who is literally trying to book speeches and gigs and, create at least an income stream, if not a full-time career out of the profession of speaking.
Grant Baldwin (26:53):
Yep. Yep. You're exactly right. And again, that's gonna look different for everybody. So someone may wanna do this full time and someone may wanna do five gigs on the sign. And again, we work with speakers on, on both ends of the spectrum. We work with speakers in every us state and in 49 different countries around the world and speakers at all different skill levels. So some people are totally clear, I know exactly what I wanna speak about and I know exactly what problem I wanna solve. And some people are like, I got a dozen different things. I got a buffet of choices here, help me narrow it down to become a steakhouse. And one of the things that we have found is it's hard to read the label from inside the jar. Mm-hmm,
Grant Baldwin (27:33):
And which of these makes the most sense? Because just because you're passionate about a topic or you know, something about it or you care something about it, like it doesn't mean people book speakers to talk about that. So we have a team of coaches that work with you, who are, who are professionals in the industry to help you understand what aligns with what event planners and decision-makers are actually hiring speakers to talk about. And so we wanna help again, guide and, uh, hold people's hand through the process there to get them on the path, uh, getting booked and paid to speak.
Mike Gardon (27:59):
So there's very likely a sub-segment of our audience that that's saying, I don't really want to be paid as a speaker. It's 2022. Well, I'm doing all of my work remotely and on slack, and an email. Why is kind of the art of speaking so important still today, even for somebody that's not gonna be on a stage?
Grant Baldwin (28:23):
Yeah. And I think, again, what's great about speaking is there are certain people that are, would be like my wife, who's going, there's zero chance I will ever get up on stage. That is the most unappealing thing that I can possibly think of. Like it just, no, no, thanks at all. Whereas for me, I love it. I absolutely love being up there on stage. It's a ton of fun. And so you, you don't have to be a speaker by any means, but I totally agree with your point, Mike, that being a good communicator is very essential regardless of what you're doing. Right? So being able to clearly articulate a point or an idea or a thought or a question or whatever it may be like, that's really, really important. And so we also live in a society where people who are articulate, who are clear at communication, there's a certain level of authority that we ascribe to those people and certainly a level of prestige or recognition that we ascribe to them. And so again, whether or not you wanna be a professional speaker, being able to really clearly communicate verbally or via against slack or within an email or blog post or whatever, it may be clearly communicating your ideas and getting a message across to other people in whatever capacity is a really, really vital skill.
Mike Gardon (29:27):
Yeah. I think it's sort of like a way to stand out mm-hmm
Mike Gardon (30:15):
So, we do a lot of talking to our audience about how we set ourselves apart. And I think that that skill is one and it's a hard one to tackle. Right. I mean, isn't like, um, aren't people most afraid of public speaking. Like they're even more afraid of it than death or something like that. Oh yeah. I forget the exact wording of it. But so I do think it's elemental and fundamental to anybody that's working in the business to be a good communicator. Uh, do you have some tips just off the top of your head in terms of somebody to become a better speaker?
Grant Baldwin (30:46):
Yeah. I'd say a couple of things that I always would recommend. One is to tell a lot of stories like as humans, we're just drawn to stories. And so if I said, lemme tell you a quick story, which I've tried to do a couple of times here or illustrations or analogies. So lemme tell you about a steakhouse versus a buffet. Let me tell you about, imagine if you had brain surgery, let me tell you about going to Reno and meeting up with this speaker friend, let tell you about my very first gig. And I got handed a check and I, you know, cried like a baby, like trying to like use stories because as humans, we are drawn to stories, we connect with stories. So if I said, let me tell you a story. Like most of us, we immediately lean in going, like, he's gonna tell a story.
Grant Baldwin (31:19):
I don't know where this is going. Is this gonna be funny or sad or inspirational? Is this gonna be boring or depressing? Is this gonna be a hero? I have zero clue, but it's a story. And so I'm in, and so use stories and especially first personal stories, stories that you've lived your experience, like as a speaker, as a communicator, you are a human talking to a collection of other humans. So act like a human, like don't be super robotic, but just like tell stories, like people love stories and they connect with and relate with stories. Another thing I'd definitely recommend, especially if you want to do more speaking and communicating is to take the time to practice. I think oftentimes we see great communicators or storytellers or, and this isn't true with just speaking, but this is true with anything, whether it comes to sports or athletics or golf or bands or musicians, sometimes we just, we see someone doing their craft and we think, oh, they're just really, really good at it.
Grant Baldwin (32:08):
And yeah, like there may be a certain skill set that they have that someone else doesn't have. Like LeBron James is a very, very large human being. He's a very strong human being, but he also likes to work really, really, really hard at his skill at his craft of basketball. And so I think sometimes we see someone, we think they're just naturally good. I can never be that good. But also remember that oftentimes when you're looking at someone do something and they're really, really great at it, everybody starts from zero. Everybody starts from scratch. And so like with a podcast, for example, I host a podcast called the speaker lab podcast. We've done over 400 episodes now on all different subjects and topics speaking. And so my assumption is that episode 400 is better than episode one. My most recent speaking gig was better than that first gig where I got paid a thousand dollars.
Grant Baldwin (32:54):
And so again, everybody starts from zero. And so you, you can't always compare yourself to where someone else is when you're just getting going or you think, oh, I'll never be as good of a speaker. I'll never be as good of a communicator. I'll never be as good as whatever it is that they do. But there is a time when they started from scratch. There are times when they have sucked at that thing that you're trying to accomplish as well. And so also just like not playing this comparison game, but recognize like so much work happens behind the scenes that makes them more comfortable and confident. So by the time they get up on stage, whatever that stage may look like they're prepared and ready to
Mike Gardon (33:25):
Go makes a lot of sense. That's uh, great, great advice. I'm curious from your perspective, like what are some elements of a great speech on stage you're in front of 13,000 people? Is there a little bit of a formula? What, what are some elements, obviously stories, right. You know that's gonna be one that you've hit on, but what else?
Grant Baldwin (33:44):
Yeah, I think it's, you know, it's kinda like a, a movie, for example, meaning that there's no like exact format or formula that you have to follow for a movie, there's going to be certain things that the like themes that you may see from one movie to the next. But sometimes there's a movie where the main character dies in the first 10 minutes and you're like, whoa, I didn't see that coming. Or maybe they play the ending at the beginning. And then you kind of work backward to see how you got to that point. And so it's not like you gotta do an intro and then you gotta do three points and then you gotta do a conclusion or you gotta tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em and then tell 'em and tell 'em what you told I'm like, does that work? Yeah, absolutely.
Grant Baldwin (34:16):
It does work, but it doesn't always have to be some type of cookie-cutter formula routine that you do. So, you know, I think that the best speeches are ones that you can remember that there's something that stands out to you that they make like one point really, really, really clear versus it's not uncommon for someone to hear a speaker. And you, you know, we've both probably experienced this before you heard a speaker. Maybe they were even a good speaker and you leave. And you're just like, I just listened to them for 30 or 45 minutes. I couldn't tell you what they talked about. And it's just, you're kinda like fumbling for some words, trying to put something together, but be really, really clear on like, Hey, here's, you know, the main idea that I wanna drill home, drill home, drill home, have use stories or ways that people can remember.
Grant Baldwin (34:54):
Cause even like, again, everything we've talked about here, the reality is that a lot of people won't remember everything that we've talked about. You may remember that steakhouse buffet analogy, you may remember the challenge exceeding the skillset and the story behind that. And being at lake Tahoe to talking about that conversation, like we remember stories. And so what is it that makes it sticky and memorable from what it is that, that you covered? So I think like doing some of those things, but also not again, not being like stuck into a formula of here's the way that I was taught in speech class and high school or college. And therefore that's the way I have to give a presentation. There's not like do it in a way that resonates and makes sense for you and for the audience.
Mike Gardon (35:31):
Got it. Do you have a favorite speech that you've given or a memorable moment being on stage or a favorite story? That's something that sticks out from your time on stage?
Grant Baldwin (35:41):
Yeah. I mean, part of the fun of speaking is it's a live tightrope, and sometimes you're just like, woo. That was fun. That went really well. And sometimes like I fell off the tight rope, you know? And like everyone is different, you know, it's not like if we're recording this podcast and like right now, it's just you and I talking, if we really, if we really fumbled something like we can stop the recording or we can edit it out later. But when you're on stage and people are staring at you and you're life and you draw a blank like you're alive, you know, so you gotta make it work. So, yeah, there are times when like just crazy weird things have happened. I had a time where a dog came running into the room or speaking to, I don't know, probably 500 people or so dog comes running in just zipping all over the room there.
Grant Baldwin (36:17):
And like, nobody's listening to what you have to say. There was a time when I was speaking. And, uh, I remember this was at a hotel in New Jersey and they were doing like some construction outside the property, and the power got cut to the entire hotel. And so you're just all of suddenly speaking in the dark and you're like, what do you do now? I remember speaking in, uh, Texas several years ago and I was speaking in Galveston and there was a hurricane incoming that was supposed to make landfall the next day. And it was a major hurricane. And so you're trying to like give a speech and nobody's paying attention. Like everybody's looking at their phones and trying to figure out how to get out of town or check on their family or whatever. I'm thinking the same thing. Like, I don't wanna be here. I gotta get outta town. Do you know? So like there are things where you're just like, you get off stage and you're like, dang, that was really good. Like I just crushed that. And then there are times where you're just like, that sucked, that did not go well at all. Like again, that's just part of it. That's part of being a speaker. That's part of being an entrepreneur. That's part of life.
Mike Gardon (37:08):
Excellent. I wanna give you the floor to say anything you wanna say to our audience as we wrap up. If we missed something, if we, if I'm, didn't ask a very good question or you just got something on your mind that you wanna talk to our audience about, I'm gonna give you the
Grant Baldwin (37:21):
Floor. Yeah. I'll give you a couple of things. One is, uh, if you're interested in speaking, you wanna learn more on that topic. Again, if you're listening to this podcast, you probably listen to other podcasts. So check out the speaker-aloud podcast. As I said, we've got over 400 episodes there on everything and anything related to speaking, marketing, speaking fees, different industries and topics, and lots of different stuff there. So definitely check out the speaker-aloud podcast. Also, we got a book called the successful speaker. Uh, lemme grab a copy here. Five steps for, uh, booking gigs, getting paid, and building your platform. So it walks through the roadmap that we teach on how to exactly find a booked gig. So definitely check that out. And then it's just kind of like an overarching thought or idea here. One thing I speak on from time to time and, uh, I tell our team regularly is that who you are is more important than what you do, who you are, is more important than what you do.
Grant Baldwin (38:09):
Means Mike, if you and I are great podcasters, we're great speakers. We're great entrepreneurs. If we're great at what we do, but we drop the ball as husbands, as dads, as moms, as wives, as human beings. If we are a shell of a human being, we are doing it wrong. And so I love being an entrepreneur. I love speaking. I love podcasting. I love everything we've covered and talked about today, but my most important roles are being a good husband and a good father. If I screw up those two things, then everything else has been screwed up. But if I get those two things right, then nothing else matters. So those are the roles that really really matter. So who you are is more important than what you do.
Mike Gardon (38:47):
Fantastic advice that I, I resonate with that's been the driving force in terms of how I've intentionally set up my life to be able to be around, do well at work, but be close, be around and, you know, try to teach the three boys that I have, how to do things the right way and show up and kind of do it all. You have to think about it from that holistic standpoint and then take action steps and be intentional about how you set up your life. So I, I, I appreciate that. I love the sentiment. Where can people find you on the internet? We talked about the speaker lab. We talked about the podcast. In any other spot, people can find out more about you and what you do.
Grant Baldwin (39:30):
Yeah. I mean, everything we do related to speaking is over@thespeakerlab.com and speaker lab.com. I'm on social media, I think on Instagram at G Baldwin, Twitter grant Baldwin. But I don't really do anything on, on those to be honest with you. So yeah, the simplest place to catch me is over@thespeakerlab.com.
Mike Gardon (39:47):
We'll have links to all of those on our show notes page. This has been fantastic. And I really appreciate your time. Thanks for being here. Have an awesome rest of your week,
Grant Baldwin (39:57):
Mike. Thanks, man. I appreciate it.
Mike Gardon (39:59):
All right. Take care.
Outro (40:00):
CareerCloud Radio is a production of CareerCloud.com. Please review this episode on iTunes. We really appreciate it a lot. And thank you for listening.
