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Overview
Besides his writing, Robb also does speaking about finance. He enjoys helping people and being able to give them financial advice to help their lives. His speaking gigs are full of advice, which has helped his speaking career.
We discuss having a book and speaking based on that book. This is just one area of additional revenue stream that Robb has and recommends.
His Book
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Transcript
I wanna talk some, not just author stuff, because you’re a unique case for people I talked to in interview with a book. Because the author part, the book is not your only biggest focus.
You have a financial advising career, and you are a speaker. So I wanted to just chat with you a little bit on why you chose to do tho all of that and how it, it works, how it’s affecting you. So first of all, you’re a financial advisor. Why did you want to start speaking and why did you wanna write a book and combine all three of.
Well,
Robb: actually each piece came at different times. Okay. Like I was saying, in 1990 19 93, 9 11 happened and all that, and then I got downsized, and that’s how I got into the financial side. Okay. As I was in that I was speaking more about. getting off the drugs and all this kind of good stuff, and it melded together because I, I love talking to people.
I like to see the light go on and all that kinda stuff. And so the two just melded together. The book aspect, it came along a little bit later and to ask the right questions, get the right answers, that book was birthed out of anger because so many people don’t know that. They don’t know what they think.
And then I wrote a couple of other books called are You Willing And Start Over. And those books were with the transformation of my life because there was a time when I wanted to take a long walk off of a short period, okay. It had gotten that bad for me. I just didn’t know what to do.
And I looked at my life and I looked at what I was doing. , the drugs and the alcohol. I had to walk away from that. Okay. Then the funny thing that happens is once you stop doing that, you gotta start doing something else or else that’ll just fill, it’ll just come right back in. And so I started reading and I found out you can’t argue with the.
Okay. There’s a battle that goes on and it happens in those six inches between your ears. you go from, wow, I didn’t know that to man. I can’t believe this to all, could this really be true to, maybe they’re right. Okay. It’s I like to call it mental gymnastics. Okay. I would suggest to anybody that is making a change in their life.
Every book that you. Read it out loud. Read it out loud. The reason why I suggest that is because you see it, you say
Stephen: it and you hear it. Agreed. I like that
Robb: That bolsters it inside that psyche, man. And you just the book it shortens the journey. It shortens the journey so much.
You ever heard that old expression experience as the
Stephen: best? Yes, but it’s incorrect. Do you ?
Robb: Yeah. Do you, you believe that?
Stephen: Okay. To some degree, .
Robb: Let’s take the degrees out and let’s get it down right here. Okay. Experience is the slowest, most unforgiving teacher that you ever want to get with, okay?
So that, like I said, somebody else’s experience is the best. You ever heard that old cliche that everybody can teach you something? Yes. You know what? Everything ain’t worth learning. .
Stephen: Okay. They can teach you something. You got you, but it may not be the best, may not be correct. ,
Robb: that guy standing over there on that corner with that bottle of wild Irish rose in his hand.
He’s teaching me something that I don’t even have to talk
Stephen: about, right? .
Robb: Okay but no, the the idea that we are so much more than what we have become. We gotta get a we gotta get a firm grip on that first, and then we have to discover those talents and abilities that we have that are, they’re, that are just they’re just land.
They’re dormant inside us. and something’s we need a catalyst to get them started, to get those juices flowing. And so those juices start flowing through a couple of things. Number one is anger. What upsets you? Number two, what makes you happy? Those are two areas you can look at to determine what it is that you can develop in your life to impact others in a positive,
Stephen: yeah.
In the one talk I. I tell the that if you wanna be successful, there’s really two things you gotta think about. You gotta think about what you’re passionate about and what you can focus on. Because what the conjunction between those two things is that’s where you’ll be successful. And so let me ask you this.
You could have been just a financial advisor. You could have been working for a company, gone out to people and had your job, your life, your career but in instead, you. Going around speaking and doing books. Did you do this because it makes you more successful financially? It gives you other avenues in case one disappears.
Is it just because you enjoyed doing it? Why did you choose to add? Because a lot of people are like, oh, once I work all day, I’m done. I wanna go home, watch tv, and I’m done with my life.
Robb: For me it was a little bit deeper than that because I. I’m not happy with just to fail.
Okay. We wanna make sure that we’re solving the problem. Alright. There was a story I once heard where , the lady was telling the pastor, she said, oh pastor, that was a real good sermon. You cleared out a lot of cobwebs. And the pastor told her, come back tomorrow sister, and we gonna take care of the spider
Okay? So see it’s not a bandaid. . All right. What I do is I educate people about these different products that we’re sitting down, talking about and all this kinda stuff. I find that people are much more appreciative when you help them solve problem as opposed to introducing another problem.
I have seen cases where people have been sold insurance products that they out. I e term. Okay. There’s not no good or no bad, but there are certain places where certain things fit in the other and certain places where things don’t fit. And I’ve seen situations where people have bought these policies because of the price and it doesn’t meet their expectations down the road.
Okay? And so that’s where I just bring people up to speed as far as the education goes. The speaking is a beautiful thing. , it hits so many people right between the eyes. They be like wow. Look, really? Wow. Wow. And so I’ve put a lot of information together over the years, and I share that really quickly with a lot of people.
And I have them take notes when they’re writing when I’m speaking to take notes, whatever applies to you. Write your question down there and all that kinda stuff. So at the end, I have the q and a. and we go, we do the deep dive into it. I enjoy it. It I just totally enjoy it.
It,
Stephen: it’s phenomenal. So one of the things, a lot of the authors here now is revenue streams, having multiple revenue streams. So that’s what you’ve got. You’ve got. Job, your career, you’ve got speaking and you’ve got your book. Have you thought of any additional things you wanna do? Like maybe an online course or teaching a class somewhere, or obviously more books a workbook or is there anything else you’ve thought of that you might
Robb: add?
The the idea. Spending all these different plates, it keeps you very busy, but are you being productive? That’s the question. Okay. Me, myself, I focus more on educating my client base. It’s, there’s an endless stream of clients out there that, that need what I’m delivering.
Okay. And that’s where I’m at. It’s. So much more about me putting all these different programs and all that out there. I’ve got some relevant knowledge right now that needs to get out to the masses. Okay. And. The best way that I’ve found so far is one at a time. . Okay. Just keep on moving.
And the speaking arrangements. I speak at affinity groups small businesses churches and things like that, and share the information there on that level. And a lot of people are receptive that way. because they’re okay. There’s some things. And when it comes to finances, a lot of people
Stephen: don’t wanna top looks like we
froze.
Robb: They don’t want just put it all out there. So in the atmospheres that that I’m presenting to them they feel very comfortable with that.
Stephen: Okay. Do you have any plans for another book? Or I know I sat in on one of your talks. Do you have a plan for any additional talks or.
Robb: Yeah I get invited to different organizations and all that. And I’ve got several different topics too. The one that you attended was Get your Butt out of the way. I’ve got several other programs that that I do. Yeah, there’ll be, I’ll post ’em on my website at www.rhillenterprisesinnc.com or you can punch in R O B H I L speaker and you’ll get information about me.
But yeah I post them. A lot of the the talks that I give are for specific groups, so they’re not just open to the. , you understand what I’m saying? They’re geared towards delivering a message to a certain demographic within their organization. Yeah, we can, you can go on my website and look at the different subjects that are there and.
Perhaps you’d like to book me.
Stephen: Okay. . That, that, that’s a thought. I enjoyed your talk. I was actually thinking it’d be great. Cause the talk I, the main talk I give is focus towards parents of younger kids, middle school age kids. and basically telling them, look, we’re now preparing our kids for the future work world.
It’s not like it used to be. Kids can’t turn 16 and get a McDonald’s job or get a cashier job at Target or Walmart. All those early entry level jobs are disappearing. And later in life my parents, they had back in the fifties, people, the expectation, the thinking was I would get a.
and I would use that job the rest of my life and I’d retire and get a gold watch at the end. But I always ask anybody know anyone right now that has only had one job their whole life and very few people ever raised their hands anymore because we just don’t have that anymore. People move between jobs disappear, and with the technology.
Our kids will have opportunities we never had. Right now you and I are in two different cities, in two different states. We’re having a talk and discussion. I can see you 10 years ago that was unheard of. But that’s the type of thing our kids are growing up with. So the technology is enabling them to have more and better choices for their career and have control of their life and their career with what they wanna.
Now that doesn’t mean somebody can’t become a financial advisor and go work and be happy and have a great job, doesn’t mean they can’t go and work construction or a truck driver. I have a friend that left his job at age 52 and became a truck driver, and he loves it. you know that none of what I say means that all those are bad choices or all those are going away.
It’s just we’re not preparing our kids right now for what the future will be. And the choices they do have, they carry their phones around, they have their laptops, their iPads, and they use ’em to watch things. They use ’em to watch other people on YouTube and TikTok but they don’t understand and.
that they have a tool in their hand that they could learn skills that will lead to a career before they’re even 18. The one I have a workshop I focus on for kids teenagers to teach them about storytelling in video games because our video game industry is bigger than our football game industry, and there are more people that need.
Find other people to work in video games, and one of the avenues is becoming a storyteller for video games, which is totally different than writing a. . And it’s also a position that the companies want people with experience, and they don’t care about degrees, they don’t care about college, they don’t care about the education because the experience is the education and there’s no good education out there.
So if we had a kid in fifth, sixth grade that started learning how to write stories, learning how to tell stories and video games, made a few little video. The chances are he could get a full-time job at age 18 paying more than he would after a college degree. These are the types of things I work on in my talks and workshops to educate.
So I, that’s what I loved when I listened to you. I’m like, oh my gosh. Me and Rob are two different paths, but very similar thinking. And I’m like we should figure out some way to work together to do some things together, workshops, talks get into a conference and play off each other with something.
I think that’d be. I think it would be too. What the look into that. I’d love to I did at the men event, we were at the Weem. I did a talk one day you did a talk the one day. Now that I know if I ever go again and you’re there, I’d love to just, Hey, go hear Rob. He’s got the similar type of thing yeah, definitely. The yeah, go ahead. No. You
Robb: finish. . No, I was saying that with the way that the workforces are going now, we have gotten so far away from hands on. I’m talking like the welders, the manufacturers and all this kind of stuff. We’ve gotten so far away from that.
Everybody wants to go in and get into these computers and all this kind of stuff. When the opportunity, the real opportu. Lies and us getting back to hands on, back to knowhow and all this kind of stuff because having all these technical people around isn’t gonna do anything when you need to change the tire.
All right. , you got all these technical people, but
Stephen: none of ’em know how to use a rent. And that’s actually something I do talk about, that those type of jobs are going to be the ones more in demand in the future. So if you aren’t controlling your own life and work career with your choices, books, speaking whatever happens to be or you’re not doing one of these face-to-face careers that has to be hands-on.
You’re going to be probably in trouble. We’re going to need less accountants in the future. We’re going to need less even doctors from what I keep hearing in the future, because they found out during C O V D, they’re like, Hey. We could do these remote things and one doctor, instead of seeing six patients a day can see 26 P patients in a day.
So we can get rid of five doctors . And they’re finding out the 90% of what they do in the office can be done with nurses. And now the computer telehealth robots. So we don’t need five doctors. We need one. And so even doctors are going away, but nurses are becoming more in demand. So it’s a totally, our world’s changing so much, but we’re.
Prepared for that. Our kids aren’t being prepared for that. They’re still being taught, go get a good job and work hard and you’ll have a successful life. And that’s not necessarily always the case with what we’re teaching them.
Robb: No. And like I was, I had mentioned earlier about the level of deception.
Okay? The powers that be do not want an educated people thinking on their own. They want to tell you everything they want to tell you. Everything from cradle to gray. This is this two plus two is five. Shut up is not four is five. Okay. This is what we’ve got to get away from a Agreed.
Okay. We have, and I think we’ve got to pick,
Stephen: I think the newer generation is starting to see that a bit, which is why we’re having some of the conflict we’re having that they’re not ex just. Completely accepting and they’re pointing spotlights on some of these problems. That’s my personal opinion on some of the upcoming kids and generation.
I think there’s a lot of change in our upcoming generations and old people like us. It’s gonna get harder to, to live in the world. I mean with a lot of the change that is coming about now, More along the lines of accepting the unacceptable. Okay. It’s being forced down our throats. Yep. And we have, we’ve got to, we got to stand up for what’s And that, that’s writers writing doesn’t wrong anybody. Okay. And that’s where we used to be. I remember when I was in school, we used to say the Pledge of Allegiance and everything was beautiful back. We had civics in school. We learned about our government, our country, and all this kind of stuff.
Robb: Now how do you go from schoolhouse rock to SpongeBob Square? ?
Stephen: If it’s aint consolation, my kids grew up on Schoolhouse Rock also. I got the disk. I had, I they know the Schoolhouse Rock .
Robb: That’s a beautiful thing. Cause what we’re not coming up. Is a bunch of
Stephen: sheep and. That’s what I think what I hear from your talk, hear from your book and the same things, messages.
I’m trying to the big bottom line message is we need to take control of our lives. We need to be the ones in charge of where our destiny is not just following along. And plotting and listening to what everyone else is telling us that I think that’s why I said, oh, I clicked with this guy. We’ve got the same basic message just in two different areas, and that shows that it’s not just one message that’ll cover your life.
There’s areas that same type of thinking applies. And that’s why I was like I love Rob’s talk. I gotta talk to this.
Robb: I do appreciate you. I do
Stephen: appreciate you and I like the fact that your first and last name both have double letters in it. I think that’s, I thought that was pretty fantastic.
It’s like a boggle word
Rob before we get going here I love chatting with you. I’d love to stay in touch and see what’s coming up with you in the future. What advice would you give to authors, not necessarily for book writing, but what to look at for their career as a thinking of how you’ve taken your career what advice would you give to authors?
Robb: For those that want to write a book, I would have them consider who your audience. Who are you directing this information to? Okay. Once you got that down, that, that’s 50% of the way, one, who is it directed to? You gotta figure out who your who is the who?
Who are you? Who is this message for you? Get that down. And that’s half you halfway. Okay. Once you figured out who, so that’s what I would say. Who is it that you wanna reach? That’s the first thing that I would give
Stephen: consideration to. Okay. Great. All right, Rob, thank you. We had a few little technical issues.
I think we’re good. I appreciate you taking some time. And like I said I’d love to stay in touch so we could See what’s going on with you and maybe sometime we can help each other out and get into the same talk or book thing or something. That’d be great. I look forward
Robb: to it. I do appreciate you inviting me on.
Stephen: No problem, man. Thank you. All right.