Bill Grant, Storyteller, Podcaster, Videographer

00:00
This is like my therapy. I'm kind of going through PTSD therapy for weddings.

00:12
Welcome to another episode of Chewing the Fat. I'm your host, Big Robb. Thank you so much for tuning in, downloading the podcast. I certainly do appreciate that. Thanks for the folks that have bought me a coffee at ChewingtheFatBR.com. It's the podcast where we explore beautiful, messy human stories and help you find ways to keep the darkness at bay. I'm excited about my guest that we have on today. He's just down the road from over here in Columbia, South Carolina. Please welcome Bill Grant.

00:42
Thank you, man. It's good to be here.

00:46
I always wanted that crowd sound. I could just hit a button and have crowd sound. That would be fun. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I could probably find- Just the thing in my pocket that makes crowd sound. Just whenever you walk around, just walk in the door and the crowd just starts going, bow, bow, bow, bow. I'd do so much for my self-esteem if I had that. Kind of like having your personal soundtrack wherever you go around. Yeah, that's right. You know. That'd be awesome. Or they go, ooh, somebody says something you don't like, they go, ooh. You know, you just have like four or five different sounds as you get going.

01:16
Bill is a creator, a content creator, a creative mind. He has an agency in Columbia, South Carolina called As Told by Agency. He is a storyteller. I think I saw some of your stories on probably like LinkedIn or something like that. And I was like, wow, this is some pretty cool content and it's right down the road. I love, I mean, anybody that's putting content out there, especially like positive uplifting.

01:43
thought-provoking content. I am all about that. So I reached out to Bill and was like, hey, you ever want to be on a podcast? That'd be pretty cool. And he finally was like, fine, fine. I'll be on, I'll be on. You talked me into it. You're right. Twist my arm. But Bill, how did you like get into this? Tell us more about As Told by an Agency.

02:10
Man, it is, this is 19 years I've been making videos. And I started because my wife was a wedding photographer and she had a bride that wanted a video for her wedding. This would have been 2000.

02:32
Gosh, this would have been 2002, one or two, something like that. And so it wasn't, I had no dreams of being a video producer. I had never made videos. I wasn't like, I didn't dream of being a movie director when I was a kid or anything like that. I just, my wife said, Hey, do you think we could make a video for this bride? And I went to Best Buy and I bought a video camera and I walked around with her all day with it in my hand. And that was it. That was the whole video. I just walked around with whatever action was happening.

03:02
and the video camera and I dumped it all to a VHS tape and gave it to her and she loved it and I was like, this can't be good. This can't be what people do. So I basically got a job with a videography company. I lied to him and told him that I had been shooting weddings for a couple of years, which wasn't exactly true. A couple of weddings, couple of years, same thing.

03:30
He figured it out over the course of time that I didn't know what I was doing. But I was eager and I was enthusiastic about it and I saw it as a vision for me quitting a job I didn't like. And so I basically got trained up by him and started running his crews for him. And then in 2005, I started my own, I did my own first wedding by myself.

03:58
and there was like multiple cameras and real audio devices and all that stuff. And basically have just driven to improve since then. That's basically what I'm doing every day is I try to prove that I really know what I'm doing. And so we quit doing weddings. I guess we did weddings up through 2021. Let me think about that. No, we did it through 2022. So we

04:27
Didn't do anything in 2023 and nothing this year. So this is the first two years since 2005, we haven't done weddings. And so, yeah. And I learned so much from wedding videography about how to tell a story, about how to tell a story in a hostile environment. Wedding is a hostile environment. It's not that the brides or the families or any, everybody's...

04:53
wonderful. All the families were always, I mean we probably did 400 weddings over the course of that amount of time. All the families were just great, just great people. The problem is the church directors were sometimes a challenge, photographers were sometimes a challenge, organist, I had an organist at a Catholic church that was so angry that I had to be in the choir hit.

05:21
for the wedding that he would snip at me. At any chance he got, he would snip at me and he pushed me out of the way a couple times. Like that was the kind of stuff that we, but I learned how to tell a good story and understand that not only am I talking to the couple of the family that's hired us, but I'm talking to everybody else who might see this in the future, right? So I can tell you, if you think about Netflix, you watch stories about people you don't know all the time, right?

05:50
And it's because they're telling a relative, a universal story or they're telling a story that you can understand if you've never, uh, if you've never done an international art heist or you've never, uh, deprogrammed a nuclear weapon, you still understand tension and you understand trying to get a job done that looks impossible. And you know, all of those things that happen, uh, when you're, uh, when you're trying to kind of reach people. And so that's what I learned through wedding videography is just to say, look,

06:18
The DJ won't give me a sound output from his board because he doesn't trust that I'm not going to mess up his board because he doesn't know enough about his board to know I'm not going to mess it up. Right. He doesn't trust that I'm a professional and know what I'm doing. Yeah. So I have to get audio from everybody regardless of whether the DJ will give me a feed or not. The pastor at the church won't wear my mic because he's just being a, you know, he's just being obstinate. So I got to figure out how, how do I record what the pastor's saying?

06:49
even if he won't wear my mic. And so a lot of that, a lot of it is functional. Like I just, just nothing stops us from being able to do our job. But then also we figure out how to, how our clients during all that time, brides and grooms and families, never ever knew there was a problem. They never ever knew we had a challenge. They never ever knew that there was something, because what we wanted to do was the first interaction that they had with us was pleasant.

07:17
The second interaction was pleasant and it was a happy interaction all the way through. And so I learned a lot of those things and that's kind of the way we approach clients now is that, you know, I don't want you to have to do too much heavy lifting to get something beautiful and wonderful that you're going to be able to use for your organization or business to help to reach people. And that's what we really want to try to do is to help connect people and to reach people and really move people to action. That's what we're that's our kind of big.

07:48
Thing we work with a lot of nonprofits and stuff that we we helped raise money and you know, that's kind of stuff So I love that I love that Now you said you you didn't have like aspirations to be a director anything like that. Where are you from originally? I know you're in Columbia now From Windsboro Yep grew up in Windsboro I Moved to Aiken when I was 17 to go to college and

08:17
Lived in Aiken all through college and then moved to Columbia after college for a job. I had my degrees in computer science, so I moved to Columbia to work a computer job that I ended up not liking at all and quitting that job to do this. And so I've been doing this since then. So you found, I mean, you've been doing it for a while. And is in often in creative endeavors, it's not always for the money that you do this stuff. So I'm assuming you found some,

08:46
some real fulfillment in this as opposed to, you know, doing the computer job. Yeah, yeah. And honestly, I was always creative. So it was all, you know, I'm a musician. So I've been doing music my whole life. Okay. Went to college originally.

09:04
The idea of going to USC Aiken was that I would be able to get two years at USC Aiken and then transfer to the music program at USC. And USC Aiken allows you to perform as a freshman and sophomore. You can't really perform as a freshman and sophomore in Columbia. So I was like, I'll just go to USC Aiken. So the computer IT industry was a little bit stifling for me as a creative person because I just wasn't able to, you know, kind of.

09:33
get that satisfactory creative push like I got with music. And so when the video thing happened to me, it was so by accident. I mean, literally I'm telling you when I bought, I took out a Best Buy credit card to buy the camera and just ended up taking the camera with me everywhere. I started video and my kids doing stuff. I started video and family events and I'd go downtown to,

10:02
festival or something, I'd take the camera with me. I was like, it just, it became something I was obsessed with. And, and it was a lot of fun, you know, getting into a new creative field. You know, it's not, not very often that that happens to you. And I was 30, I was 32 years old when I started the business. That's awesome. So, you know, it, it was cool to, to pick up something new. What was your instrument of choice when you were in school? I'm primarily a singer.

10:32
I was primarily a singer. I'm, I have, um, taken piano playing a little bit more seriously over the last, um, couple of years. And so I've always played piano as well, but, um, have become kind of a half and half piano, uh, player and singer I'm, I'm playing with a, uh, a band on Friday, uh, in Columbia. And, uh, and I'm singing one song. Backup on one song and then keyboard on like four, four songs or five songs. So like.

11:01
You know, so it's a, it's, I've gotten back into it at, as, as my company has gotten to the point where I don't have to do everything. Yeah. Or at least do everything for 24 hours. That's right. I can, I can take some time to, uh, to go have fun and, uh, and do some music. And so, you know, that's, that's been cool to get back to, but what type of genre is it? If I may ask. Oh goodness. Well, this Friday, uh, is a kind of mixture between, uh, punk rock and heavy metal.

11:29
And I am the only certified punk rock and heavy metal keyboard player in the state of South Carolina. So So anytime they need a keyboard player, they call me and and so and I was just kidding that I'm just friends with them So like yes Bill's here. Let's do a keyboard thing, you know, and that's it so but what like I'm playing a Nine Inch Nails song and I'm playing a I'm playing a monster magnet song and I'm playing a

11:58
playing on a blues song that one of the guys is doing. And then I'm singing a Motley Crue song. So, you know, it's a, it'd be interesting. It'll be, it's late, man. I'm 50 years old, right? So it's, it's late. It starts at, it's just gonna start at like 11 o'clock. And so, you know, the kids like coming out at 11 o'clock. I do not love it, but I, but whatever it takes to get on stage, I'm good, you know, with it, but. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Yeah, my,

12:26
My oldest, I mean my youngest son, he went to USC Aiken and got a music degree. He was a piano player, but he's a jazz pianist. So he's played some over in Columbia, like with Mark Rapp and some of those folks over there. Yeah, I know Mark. Yeah, he's what I call a real piano player. I'm a kind of late night drunk bar piano player. You know, sometimes it takes that though.

12:51
Yeah. I mean, that's you want to, if you want to play to the audience song, I've got you, but, uh, but anything else, you know, I'm, I have to study for too long to make it work. So, you know, that's awesome. Yeah. It's a, it's a lot of fun. Get to get to play around. Uh, you know, the playing around in your fifties is, uh, is a, is an important thing. You're so serious for so long, you know, so it'll do something just for fun.

13:18
Exactly. And it's one of those things, I guess, will be 52 this year, I think. Yeah. It's those things that you, not to be morose, but you're like, there's more years behind me than there are ahead of me. Sure. Let me live them. Let me spend them well while I can still semi get out of the bed without having to crawl to the bathroom or whatever. Absolutely.

13:46
Absolutely. And, and you know, uh, the funny part about being a musician right now in 2024 is that it's such a, um, it's such a discipline for people my age, right? People in their twenties do come out to the bars occasionally to see us play, but mainly the audience is people that are my age who went to go see bands play when they were in college. And this is kind of our thing, right? This is sort of the

14:15
this will be the retirement home for our generation. You know, it's just going to be a bunch of us sitting around in black t-shirts playing heavy metal and, um, and it's, it's not, um, it's not the retirement plan of old, you know, so it's kind of cool. It is cool. We're looking forward to it. That's it's not at all what I thought it would be when I was in my twenties. I looked at guys in their fifties. I'm like, oh, that's so sad. I'm like, Nope, it's not sad. It's really fun. We were having a good time. I don't need, I don't need validation from anything outside of, uh, of just being able to do it, you know? So, yeah.

14:44
Yeah, and there's such, talking about creative process and creative endeavors, there's so much freedom in that. And like, you know what, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna throw this bucket of paint on the side of the wall, see what happens, you know what I mean? I'm gonna get some friends together and just rage out on the stage, you know? Yeah, and I don't need any money, I don't need any accolades, I don't need to sell anything. I just enjoy the practice, I enjoy doing it. It's the doing it for doing, yeah, exactly. It's the doing it for doing it's sakes. You know, I...

15:14
I tell folks all the time, even when I was in radio years ago, it's like you don't get into radio because you wanna make money. You get into it because you love it, and you stay in it because you love it, and you put up with a lot of shit and no money because you love it. But now there's something, again, so freeing to be like, you know what, I'm gonna do this because I love this. I don't care if anything else comes along with it. Just the act of doing is so fulfilling.

15:44
Yeah. And I think, I think what's got to happen too, is that, you know, my kids are, so my son is 20 and my daughter is 14. And so we're to a point with my daughter where we don't have to parent her every, every minute of every day, like we did when she was little. And so, you know, we get to, uh, we get to do things like, like, honey, we're going to a bar Friday night and we're going to be out until midnight. So just, you know, hope everything goes well, keep the door locked on, answer the door for anybody. Don't leave.

16:14
And so, and then my son is about to move out, so he's found his first apartment and is about to move out. And, you know, we had to be kind of so straight-laced and so serious for so long, right? And now we get to just sort of be a little bit more goofy. It's like exactly the opposite thing that I thought would happen. I thought I would get more serious as I got older, and that's not what happened. You get that kind of effort mentality, like, you know what?

16:44
I'm just gonna do it. We're just gonna do it. We're gonna get in the car and drive across country. We're gonna get the band back together, whatever. Just do those things that really. We're gonna do those things we never had time to do when we had to be so serious. Exactly, because you were trying to earn money to raise the kids, to make sure that they had the things that they wanted and all that other just, not that it was crap, but that other crap. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, and the thing is, you get to that point and you go, okay, well, I guess we did all right. They're both.

17:13
They're both alive still alive is the first. That's the first right. Yep. Got that one did. Second of all, they're, they're decent enough people, you know, they got their flaws, but they're decent enough people. Number three, uh, you know, my son's moving out on his own. He's supporting himself. He's buying all his own stuff. He bought his own car, all that, you know, all of those things. You just go, okay. You know, I like sort of, uh, uh, you know,

17:39
Option achieved, right? You get that done and you just move up to the next level of like, okay, what else can I do now? And younger people not understanding what I'm doing, I really thought would bother me and it doesn't bother me a bit. Like it doesn't bother me a bit. I'm like, yeah, y'all don't understand, it's fine. I don't understand half of what you're talking about most of the time. I don't care whether you understand what I'm doing. So yeah, it's been interesting. I love that.

18:05
I love that for you and that discovery that you've had and that ability to be able to just do something that just brings you so much light and just kind of sets you on fire inside. Yeah, that's cool. You mentioned earlier about working with nonprofits. Yeah. I know that is a noble cause, working with nonprofits, working for nonprofits.

18:31
Sure. Because a lot of those, it's again, it's because you believe in what they're doing, not necessarily in what the amount of the paycheck is that they can bring to the table, you know what I mean? Cause it's non-profit, every dollar has to go back in to kind of make more opportunities for whatever it is. Was that type of attitude and work something that you have had inside you?

18:59
For a while, were you the type of person that would volunteer at the soup kitchen or go do the roadside cleanup type stuff? You know, the interesting thing about nonprofits for us has been that nonprofits have really good stories. And so, you know, no matter how successful the company is, a company is almost always as much or more driven by profit and return on investment than anything else.

19:29
We found early on, and look, I got into work, and the answer is no, I never did do a lot of the, I'm not an altruistic person in general, and I hate to say it that way, but I love the fact that we're helping people, and that's awesome, and I love the fact that the folks we work with help people, and it's everything from, we do work with Camp Chemo, that's a summer camp for kids that are going through a battle with cancer.

19:55
We work with the United Way here locally. We work with Salvation Army here locally A lot of our work with nonprofits came from the fact that when I was trying to figure out Do I work outside of weddings? Who's who outside of weddings has good stories to tell right and so as I worked for a Break job company as I worked for a jeweler as I worked for a company that sold fireworks You know they had

20:25
They had stuff, they had things that they wanted to sell. But as I worked with nonprofits, what I found was I really got into really understanding their voice, really understanding kind of what they wanted to say, who they wanted to reach. We got to really dig into what's going to affect people. And so that was a big thing for us. And we found a niche with nonprofits where United Way has a decent budget for marketing.

20:54
Right? They, you know, we do a good bit of business with folks that have a good budget for marketing. And that's a huge thing for us that we can really take the time to understand who they are. I mean, we've been working with the United Way for 10 years. So we love their mission. We love what they do. We love the people and how passionate they are.

21:22
Um, they appreciate our ability to help them tell stories in the, in the community. Right now we're working on the, uh, campaign for them. So they're going to be doing the United Way campaign to Blue Cross and these different places. Um, it's so important for us to really understand, um, you know, the, the voice that they want to have, but we also really understand things like. The organization and, uh, you know,

21:48
treading those different roles and stuff. Because we work with them so much, we really understand the areas and elements and we just love working with nonprofits because of the stories. It's actually the opposite. I got into it because those are relatively low-hanging fruit clients. I just go, hey guys, let me come make a video for you and they would be like, awesome, come on. Then I got into it and it got me into being more of a charitable person.

22:16
thinking more about volunteerism and thinking more about giving my time and energy and effort, it sort of had the opposite effect on me. It sort of made me more into kind of helping than I would have otherwise, I guess. That's great. That's great. In all the storytelling you've been doing, do you have a story that kind of sticks out to you? Yeah. Well, I

22:46
I will tell you, with the nonprofits, one of the best things is that we get to really dig in. And we were doing a story, this would have been a long time ago, 2018, I think, 17, 18. We were trying to promote a program that United Way has for helping folks that are homeless. And

23:15
There is what is one of the representatives for United Way that his job for the United Way was to go out and check on the people that didn't come into the shelter. So there are a lot of, there are a couple of shelters in town and they understand the count and they understand who's there and who's not there. And so they have a guy that goes out and checks on people that don't come into the shelter, just a wellbeing, but then also just to make sure they've got food and all the things that they do to help out.

23:45
So I was talking with the communication director over there and I was like, man, it would be so cool if we could get into that conversation. Like if we could just kind of go with him to help check on these folks. Because I think that would put such a face on it, you know? And so he talked to one of the guys that he goes to check on and he said, sure. He said he'd love for us to come in because he was super proud of the camp that he had made, right? And so...

24:13
What was amazing was he said, like, the only stipulation is I don't want you to, I don't want you telling anyone where I am. I don't want you to tell him anybody where my camp is. But as long as you don't tell people where my camp is, you're, you're welcome to come in. And he was so proud of his camp. He showed us like the little, he had made a little cook stove, um, out of like, uh, pans that he had found. It stacked the pans up. Like he would cook the thing that takes the longest at the bottom and the thing that doesn't take as long at the bot, at the top.

24:40
He made a structure out of discarded billboard material. So he had made this whole like almost sort of roof and everything out of billboard material. He had constructed a little table in there that he could sit at and eat. And it was just such a humbling experience to be able to go into this guy's camp and say, okay, this is not our place, but we wanna just be in here for a little while and kind of talk to him.

25:10
you know, all of that stuff. And it was, he was so proud of everything. And I mean, that kind of stuff is just really amazing to be able to get in and just sort of really get to know the function of what an organization does and not just have it on the surface, not just see it from the top down, but like to actually get inside of it. It's really cool. Yeah. And then also I'm sure the, just being able to see that type of

25:38
will and perseverance in a person that's been, whether they were discarded, bad life choices or whatever, could be something that they did, something they didn't do that if caused them to be in the state, but then to still have pride as a human being and to be able to say, hey, I don't have much, but I'm proud of what I have, sure, come into my house.

26:06
And his whole thing was that he said he just doesn't like people. And this is his way of avoiding people. I was like, well, that's, that's a way to do it. He was way, he was out there in the woods. And, and so I think, you know, what I love about situations like that is that you get, you get such a perspective on people by having interactions like that, that you wouldn't have otherwise, you know, we're just two guys talking about.

26:35
how he's making his dinner, you know? And the United Way does a good job of, you know, keeping these guys at food, bringing food to them, but then also making sure he's got a bus pass if he needs one or, you know, whatever it ends up being. And so that was just extraordinarily cool just to see that. And, you know, that turned into one of the favorite videos that we've ever made was that year that we made that video about that situation. And, you know, we had a

27:05
We had a great script on that video and it was just kind of all the elements really hit. We end up doing those things and I'm going to Washington DC in a couple of weeks to cover a conference that a client of ours is doing. It's a protocol conference. And so they teach you if you're going to a foreign country, they teach you the protocols to do business in that foreign country. I never knew this was even a thing.

27:33
And so it turns out that they have offices all over the world and, you know, Dubai and China and Thailand and all that stuff. And, you know, if you're going to do business in Japan, you need to understand what the customs are and how to be perceived well and all that kind of stuff. And it's just kind of cool, you know, to get into that kind of stuff to really learn sort of what those folks do and, you know, just what people are capable of.

28:03
It's pretty interesting stuff. That's awesome. On the other side of the coin, as a video producer, videographer, oftentimes there are things that go awry on a shoot. Do you have a favorite WTF type moment that comes to mind that you remember and now you can laugh at it? Yeah, listen, I have so many of those from the wedding days, because weddings,

28:33
Weddings are, you know, guerrilla warfare. I mean, weddings are just, there's nothing, nothing can really be planned. It's just, it's a, the thrill of it is, can I roll in here with as much stuff as I can carry and get something that's gonna be meaningful to people, right? So, the biggest challenge on weddings was always audio. It was always audio and audio was, you know,

29:02
is less of nowadays, but it's always a fickle mistress. And so I would put a recorder on the pastor, I would put a recorder on the groom, I would put a recorder on the sound system itself, if they had a sound system, if there was a quartet or somebody playing music, I'd put a recorder on the quartet, I'd have four or five pieces of audio going on all at the same time. And a lot of it was that if one failed, I had the other one to pick it up, right? And then...

29:30
I would have the third one to pick up at the second one failed. So I had a wedding. I won't even say where it was because I don't even want anyone to know kind of what this was because I don't think they were ever aware that it was ever this bad. But the the groom's mic failed two minutes into the ceremony. I mean, literally you hear on the recording, he's talking to mom, he walks out and then it just goes black.

30:00
and I don't have any idea what happened. I don't know what happened. Doesn't really matter now, but it just went flat line. So now I've got the pastor's mic. It's pouring down rain. We're standing under a tent. So the bride and groom are four or five feet away from the pastor and it's pouring down rain, which is an impossible audio situation. The sound system failed. The sound system just didn't work.

30:27
So they just didn't end up using it. So I didn't get any recording through the sound system. And then I had a recorder on the quartet that was playing. And when the quartet got up after the ceremony, they kicked my recorder across the room and knocked the memory card out and the batteries out. And so nothing got recorded. Wow. And then I went to the reception and I had a relatively new person shooting with me.

30:54
I told her to go check the recorder, make sure it's rolling before the speeches start. And what she did was she took a recording recorder and she stopped it. Because she just hit the button. She just went over and hit the button. She didn't check it necessarily. She thought checking it meant go hit the button. She went and hit the button, which stopped it from recording. So we got no recording of the speeches. So this whole thing, we're supposed to make this four minute film, by the way.

31:22
one of our most popular films that year. And it ended up like, we got eight or 10 referrals from that couple alone. And that's our, that was always our indicator as to whether we did a good job. Do we get referrals from the, but we had one audio source out of the five audio sources that I had for that day, we had one audio source and that was the pastor's mic in the rain.

31:49
you know, five feet from the bride and groom. So like when it came down to vows, I mean, we just got next to nothing. But a lot of magical things happened on that wedding day. The groom was a six foot tall burly dude with a long beard and he broke down crying when she walked into the ceremony. I mean, just start weeping like a baby, red faced, he's wiping his cheeks.

32:19
You know, she walked in, her dad had an umbrella over her head. You know, the umbrella was kind of translucent and kind of, I mean, everything just like hit exactly right. And I'm telling you, if I had had good audio, oh, that would have been, but, but you don't sometimes, you know, and so we just had to make the best of it. So we got the things the pastor said, you know, welcome and it's good to have y'all here and do you do this and do you do this and, and, and that was it. And so, you know, we just kind of.

32:47
made the best out of it. But that's, you know, what we learned from weddings is like, okay, if things go wrong, you know, what do you do? If things go wrong, do you call them up the day after and go listen, you guys? Right. Audio, and that was the other thing. I could call a bride and groom all day long and say, listen, we had five sources of audio and four of them failed. So we.

33:13
So they go, oh no, you've got no audio from our wedding. And I'll go, no, no, that's it. No, we've got some. It's just not as good as we wanted it to be. Right. Right. It's there. You can hear everybody. It's just not as good as you want it to be. And they're like, why are you even calling me about this? Right. Because they don't know. They don't know. And so what we learned to do is we learned how to just make a beautiful story anyway.

33:39
Right. And then they're super happy with it. And, um, and as long as you can hear everybody, then you're in good shape, you know, but we, we always went way, way overboard on, uh, on recording stuff. And honestly, it's probably what we still do. We still go way overboard. We could probably get away with a third of what we do, but, um, you know, because of my sort of, uh, origins, uh, the, you know, coming up through, through the sort of battleground that I came up through, um, you know, we just try extra hard.

34:08
Yeah. And back up everything and all that stuff. But it's a lot easier nowadays. We've got a studio here in Columbia. So a lot of our interview pieces, a lot of stuff we do is in our studio. So obviously that's a controllable space, which makes it a lot easier. And then it's not quite as much adrenaline as there used to be. So that's part of it for me is like, used to be a lot of adrenaline. You get down to a wedding ceremony, guess what happens? It's live. There's no going back.

34:38
If something goes wrong, what am I going to do? Go, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, stop it. Let's roll the, roll the bride back, back to one. Right. Start again. Yeah. You know, it's, it's, you know, not something that you can do. And so, you know, we, we, my whole team now though, I will say I've got four employees here in Columbia and none of them have wedding experience. So what ends up happening is I end up telling them how

35:06
how I got my experience and where everything came from for me. And they're like, well, whatever, whatever, boss man, I have no idea what you're talking about. You know, just give me a specific command, you know, and then we go from there. But anyway. Well, it's gotta feel nice though, that now that, you know, make lemonade from lemons is plan C or D instead of plan B. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or A dash two, right? You don't wanna...

35:33
Yeah. And honestly, you know, so much of what we do is controlled now, right? It's written ahead of time. What we do is planned by us and the client is very forgiving of everything because it's all for us. And it's kind of, it's cool to have that. But, you know, there's a little bit of adrenaline that I miss a little bit, you know, from just being in a space where I can't control everything. And so, you know, it's a

36:01
It's definitely a big challenge. But one of the biggest things we do now with folks, and this is part of our offerings, is that we help to determine audiences for people and understand when we're creating stuff, where are we putting it and who are we putting it in front of, what platforms are we on, all that stuff. I spend a lot of my day doing strategy like that, just...

36:29
sort of overall strategies, just figuring out sort of what we need to say and who we need to say it to. And so that's been very cool. And that's a thing that I never did really get to do with weddings is that, you know, weddings I knew exactly who I was talking to. I was talking to these two people and then their families. Now I did have one time where I ended, I guess this is ended up turning all about weddings, Rob. I don't have any idea why. This is like my therapy. I'm kind of going through PTSD therapy for weddings.

36:57
I had a mother of the bride who told me that there wasn't enough of her in the video. She actually called me and she's like, look, the video you gave me is good for my daughter and her husband, but I'm not in this enough. And she was being serious. She was like, I paid for everything. And I think that I need to be in it more. And I was like, well, so I was like, okay, well.

37:25
Let me think about what to do. And what I did was I had my editor, I was working with an editor at the time. He never understood why I did this, but I said, I want you to recut this with mom in it more. And we gave that to mom. We let the bride and groom keep the original when we did. We gave mom a mom super cut. Yeah. And she was happy and she called me back. She's like, oh my God, I can't believe you did that. Thank you so much. And I was like, yep, no worries. And you know, but.

37:53
It's how you learn about customer services. You have to end up dealing with people who are, you go, okay, well, I've never had this request before. So let me see if I can figure out what to do, you know? And so I can still pass that on to my employees now, even though they haven't been through those situations. We can, you know, they very rarely understand how far above and beyond I go to make sure that things are done to people, you know, make people happy with things, but it all comes from that really.

38:23
just comes from understanding how to make people happy in the long run. So I'm trying to accomplish that. But I love the strategy stuff now, and that's kind of where I get a lot of my creativity is sort of understanding how to reach people and understanding how to connect people. I love that. So Bill, what's bringing you joy right now? Oh man.

38:52
Well, I will say there's a couple of things. One of the things is I love going and producing content to a point that I don't know how it's gonna turn out. And then I hand it to one of my editors and they were either there with us shooting or they weren't, but I'll give them a brief and then they turn it into something beautiful. And I go, whoa, like I did not expect it to be that good. That's very cool.

39:21
It's it's it's magic right when I can just hand this to them and I go I don't know how this is gonna turn out. We had this little thing We have that little thing but do your best and they turn into they turn it into something amazing and I go And that's so cool. I love that part the other thing is I I have a I have a person working for me now who Came to me as a graduate from the university she

39:51
had her media arts degree, but had no experience and hadn't really ever done anything like this. And she kind of came to me a little bit into her employee and she was like, listen, I wanted to be more helpful. I want to be able to do this stuff. And I was like, okay, well, let's put you on a course to do this stuff, right? And so I just worked with her, started giving her projects, started letting her do stuff, started letting her get her hands dirty. And...

40:20
you know, here we are, what is this 18 months later, and she's one of my most valuable people. She's awesome, she's solid as a rock. I love to see that transformation. I love to see that confidence come up in people where she's telling me what she wants to do now rather than the other way around. And, you know, I think that kind of thing can be really, really powerful, you know, especially from my position where, you know, I am...

40:48
trying to get to a point where I'm not handling the camera every time it goes on. I'm trying to make sure that my people are empowered to do cool stuff. And I love seeing that sort of growth with people. That's been a lot of fun to be able to kind of bring people up in that way.

41:10
All right, Bill, this is the second segment of the show. This is a segment where we talk more about your mental health journey. I definitely believe that as someone who personally suffers from anxiety and depression and things like that, that depression wants to tell you you're alone. And the more we talk about it, the more we take that power away from that. When you realize you're not alone, that there are a lot of people that go through the same type of things, whether it be a diagnosed depression or you just.

41:37
You know, want to stand in the hot water or the shower for a couple hours, you know? We all kind of have those days. So for you, how do you keep the darkness at bay?

41:48
Oh boy. Well, my darkness, uh, as what I consider to be a mature adult, my darkness is so much of anxiety, right? Not as much depression as it was in my twenties. I had that in my twenties, uh, a good bit. I don't deal with that as much now as just anxiety. And, and, um, you know, I

42:15
have had to in my life define anxiety. So anxiety is, so, you know, when you're in the woods and a bear attacks you, that's not anxiety, right? That's, that's fear, right? Yeah. But if you don't go in the woods, cause you're worried about a bear attacking you, that's anxiety. Right. And so what I have to understand is I have to understand is a bear attacking me right now, or am I afraid of a bear attacking me? Right. If, if a bear is attacking me,

42:45
then my stress is a accurate response to my situation. So if I have any kind of client emergency, if I have any kind of employee emergency, any of that stuff, the stress is a response to the situation. Anxiety is worried about what might happen and not doing something because I'm worried about what might happen.

43:12
And so I've had to, I had to work on that stuff. A lot of what I study right now is things like neuroscience and the idea that like, for instance, anxiety is a response to caring about things. The only way to get rid of anxiety in your life is to not care about anything. So if you have children, if you have a wife, if you have a house, if you have possessions, if you have a company or a job, you're gonna be, you're gonna be, you're gonna have anxiety around

43:41
whether those things go well. And anxiety is the interest in them going well. Now, the way I handle it, so to answer the question you asked me, sorry, answer the question you asked me, the way I handle it is activity. Number one, physical exercise makes a gigantic difference. I learned this during COVID, right? I had the tendency during COVID, during quarantine, to sit and do nothing for a couple of days. And then I realized how...

44:09
sad I felt and how anxiety ridden I felt. And as soon as I got out for a hike or went for a bike ride or any of that stuff, I, you know, my mental health improved. But I think as long as you're not taking care of yourself physically, you're putting yourself in a situation where mentally, you know, mental health wise, you're in a place to not do as well. Right? So activity is huge for me. Play music again has been a huge deal for me.

44:37
I started playing music again, like literally the week before COVID started, I was in my first band in 15 years. I played at a charity event with a band that I had played with before, a week before COVID. And then COVID shut everything down. And so what I found was that I had a bunch of musician friends who weren't busy. And so we started making videos online. We started making music online.

45:06
or I would play a piece or a friend of mine would play a piece and then I would add a piano part to it and then I would send it to a drummer and the drummer would play the drum part and then I would sing over it and then we'd put out the video. That's awesome. And it was really just for us to have some activity, right? Mm-hmm. But that's it, it's just activity, it's just understanding number one that so much of it is either stress response and not anxiety.

45:33
And number two, it's a anxiety is a response to caring about things. And number three is activity and physical, you know, physical health and physical activity removes a lot of that stuff. So I do still have anxiety. I do still have these these issues, but I feel like I'm dealing with it well, you know, now just because I'm

45:58
sort of keeping my eye on the fact that, you know, it's the old thing from movies. You know, you close your eyes and say, it's not real, it's not real. And that's what you have to do at some level is just to go, you know, there is nothing, there's no bear attacking right now. This is not a stress response. This is just anxiety, you know, and you have to go, nothing's actually happening. And if something's happening, then you're just dealing with stress of things happening, which is fine. You have to do that sometimes, so.

46:26
But I would say activity and physical activity is a big one. Having an outlet, you know. Yeah, and I totally agree with that. Especially something to kind of take your focus onto something else. Like I said, the creating music, it's using a different part of your brain to stimulate that, to write songs or play songs or sing or, you know, I'm a...

46:52
big fan of like Lego. I know that's you know I'll put together Lego just to to focus on something else or or read a book aloud or do something like you said just to to engage other parts other than the fear part like you said of your brain. I love that. I love that. In the you know in a lot of folks I think

47:21
discovered similar things with the lockdown, with the quarantine. It kind of went one way or the other. That was one reason why I created this podcast, because I was feeling that way. And I was like, there are other people that feel this way, so we can't get together and talk about it anymore. So let me talk to people. Do it virtually. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Sure. In an open forum type of way. Yeah, I love that. Is there any...

47:51
one thing that you do maybe during your day or your week to help just like as you're keeping an eye on that stuff and you say your activity, but to kind of share that with others as you're working through the week? You know, I tell you, I talk to my wife more than just about anybody. I talk to my employees here or there.

48:21
And I make outward content, right, for LinkedIn and things like that. But honestly, I don't talk about mental health with a lot of people. Honestly, my wife, I talk to a lot about it because she and I talk about this stuff a lot. I'm also kind of fascinated with neurochemistry and those things just as a, from a kind of intellectual pursuit or whatever. But

48:48
Yeah, I don't, I don't talk about it much. I mean, I think, I think, uh, it is, um, it's one of those things, I guess, maybe I should solve it before I talk about it. You know, and, uh, and so, you know, I, I guess talking about the fact that, um, that, that I struggle with anxiety, um, and I struggle with the differentiation between anxiety and stress. Um, and, uh, you know,

49:18
All of it, I mean I've made a couple videos about the idea that anxiety is a response to something that you love, right, and if you, the only way to get rid of anxiety is to get rid of everything you love. And so you don't wanna do that, so you have to just kinda, you know, you have to balance those things out. But, but yeah, I mean, it's funny, in my day to day life, I really just talk to the people I'm interacting with. As most people do, you know, you don't go out when just.

49:47
You know, like, hey everybody, hey everybody, I'm having an anxiety attack, just wanted to let you know. Yeah, I mean, it's, but I feel like now, you know, that we all kind of have that shared trauma of the quarantine and lockdown, that I feel like it's easier to have those conversations. And that's not, you know, completely outside the norm to maybe even.

50:14
you know, bring up that type of stuff with someone you may not have normally. Now you're not going to go to a restaurant and you know, when the waiter says, how are you doing tonight? Well, it's like, I had a panic attack and I'm sweating down my back right now. It's like, you know, could I get the cheese fries? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, and I think too that, uh, that, you know, it's, it's good to be open to talking about it. So, you know, it, it, it's not a, you know, what's kind of, I guess, one of the positives that come out of COVID.

50:43
if there is such a thing is that we as a society are a lot more open to talking about issues that we have, right? We're a lot more open to saying, you know, here I am in all of my flaws and I'm trying. And and that's okay. And I, you know, I don't, I think it's good for us to not shy away from talking about it because like you said, you know, it, it helps to heal a little bit.

51:12
uh, make you feel like you're a little bit more normal, uh, whatever, whatever normal means, uh, but you know, makes you feel a little bit more normal. If you can talk to people about your flaws and he, then they talk to you about theirs. And of course, um, you know, it builds that connection. It builds a commonality in that connection for sure. Yeah. And I think being in touch with it, right. And being, being, uh, you know, examining it to the point that you really understand what's going on with you.

51:40
You know, and I've done a lot of therapy in my life. And so therapy has been a big help. You know, just having a sort of therapist, my therapist turns into a business advisor a lot because my business creates a lot of my anxiety, right? But I don't know if you noticed, I signed up for this, right? I could go get a job. I'd be have less anxiety. There'd be less.

52:08
fluctuation, there'd be less of the unknown. I could go get a job and I would have less stress probably, but then I would be dealing with somebody else's expectations of me. I would be dealing with the boss, I'd still have stress. But as business owners, we sign up to be people with anxiety. That's what we sign up for, right? You're gonna have big highs, you're gonna have big lows. One of the things that

52:38
a friend of mine posted on Facebook the other day about the advantage of being an entrepreneur. And my answer was the variety, variety in my experiences. You know, when I had a job, I had a job for 11 years, I had the same day over and over again, right? It was the same day. I was dealing with the same people in the same situations over and over again. Today, this week is going to look radically different than next week. Right? Next week's going to look radically different from the week after. Right?

53:07
And so that's how we end up, that's how we end up kind of getting in the spot we're in as we sign up for it. And then we go, Oh, I have anxiety. Well, of course I have anxiety. I'm running a business. I've got four employees, one of, one of which has got a kid, you know, one is about to get engaged and, you know, I'm in charge of their lives. Why wouldn't I be anxious? Yeah. You know, so it's easy to, to justify if you, you know, it's easy to justify if you, if you look at it that way, I think.

53:37
Yeah, because you care about it. You care about it. As you said, if you're anxious, it's because you care about something and you care about this business that you've created, this life that you've created for yourself and this life you're creating as opportunity for your employees and stuff too. Yeah, I mean, it's important to me that they are successful. I don't want them to work for me forever. I just had a guy, his last day is today, he's going to a different job and, you know.

54:03
My answer is I don't want everybody to work for me forever. I don't want somebody to work for me for 30 years and get a gold watch. That's not how this is supposed to go, right? They're in their 20s. I want them to go experience stuff and live in different cities and take the big job. I just had one in 2021, she moved to Manhattan to take a job in Manhattan because she always wanted to live in Manhattan. Well, that's great. I love it. Sad for us, but I'm happy for her.

54:31
I think that kind of stuff is important to keep perspective on.

54:40
All right, Bill, this is the third segment of the show. It's time now for the fast five, the fast five. Love it. It's time now for the fast five, fast five. Sorry, I have to do the whole thing. I love that you have a theme song, that's great. I mean, I have to sing it live every time. I really should just record it. I don't know why I don't, but you know, it's the fast five. It's powered by- You should just find some musicians and let's make a like 80s- I wish I knew a punk rock, you know, musician.

55:07
or something like that. Unfortunately, I don't. So. Make an eighties adventure movie soundtrack version of that, you know, just so you can get it going. Yeah. Absolutely. I love it. Fast Five is powered by Poddex. It's an app created by my friend, Travis Brown. If you go to chewingthefatbr.com slash pod decks, it'll take you to the link where you can download the app. It's great for podcasters, great interview questions, lots of different categories and stuff like that.

55:32
So check it out. Or if you just need some random questions to ask people when you're at your next Lions Club meeting or something. Here you go. All right, so it's five random questions, no wrong answers. I don't care what people think, there are no wrong answers. This first thing comes off the top of your head. You ready? All right, go. All right, question number one.

55:51
what embarrasses you instantly.

55:56
Uh, my hair. Really? Yeah. You got good hair. It's weird. I, it seems like it until you try to brush it and take care of it for 50 years. It's, uh, it just does this. This is all it'll do. It's a helmet. Uh, it won't, it doesn't, it doesn't do anything else. So that's great. Question number two.

56:19
If someone made a movie about your life, who would play you? Oh, I would love to say Ewan McGregor. Cause I feel like I'm Scottish deep inside somewhere. I feel like that. And then I think he's got an Oscar in him. He just hadn't found the right role yet. He's just looking for the Bill Grant story. Yeah, there it is, Ewan McGregor. Awesome, awesome. Hey, question number three.

56:50
What did your 15 year old self imagine you'd be doing right now? My 15 year old self imagined that I would be retired from Broadway. I would have assumed that I would have gone to Broadway, given it a shot for three or four years, starved and waited tables, and then come back home to work at somebody's mechanic shop. Really? But that's, yep. That's what my.

57:16
That's what my 15 year old self would have thought. Now I was obsessed with musicals when I was 15. So I had been doing musicals my whole life, kept doing them through college and haven't done one since I graduated college. Really? So, but yeah. Really? But that's- Look, you're on stage now. You're one step away from doing a musical. You just need to get with some of the theater groups there. You can come over to Augusta. We have great ones here.

57:43
I know, I tell you what happens is the theater, you have to rehearse like once a week or every night or all that stuff, right? The bands that I'm in, what they do is they go, hey, here are the four songs we're playing, go learn them, we're gonna practice this one time and then go on stage. And so that's been the challenge. But my singing career, I never got paid for singing, but whatever, my singing career started as a theater.

58:11
And then my major for the first two years was music. And so I kind of studied opera as much as anything. And so that was gonna be, and so obviously opera translates really well to heavy metal. It does. I mean, it's funny you say it, but it is a lot of the same technique though. I mean, so that you can protect your voice when you're shredding it out or whatever. High and loud for a long time, right? All that stuff, so yeah. No, that's awesome. I love that.

58:41
Question number four.

58:45
What was the last book you read? The last book I read is called Never Lose a Client Again. I have to look up the author, Phil something or other. It was awesome. But it was about customer service and really kind of understanding that you lose clients because you don't take care of people. And currently I'm reading Jurassic Park. So what I ended up doing is I go to business books and then a novel. Okay. So

59:15
two business books on a novel. And then so I'll, I'm gonna probably get into Gary Vaynerchuk's day trading attention next. Okay. So, yeah. I love that, I love that. All right, question number five.

59:30
Oh, it's a classic toilet paper over or under. Okay. So my wife and I disagree about this, which is a tough thing to have in the house. And she has a little sign behind the toilet and it says that, um, uh, comb over bad mullets. Good. Um, I, I kind of disagree. I like the mullet. I saw, I like it. I like it under that's my, she likes it over. I like it under. Okay.

59:59
Okay. And sometimes I'll switch it. Sometimes she'll have it one way and I'll switch it. I don't, I don't care. That's right. I'm gonna have it the way I want it. It's my house. There you go. Yeah. Wild man. Wild man. I love that. The house divided on toilet paper though. Yep. It's important. Yeah, it is. That is important. That is important. All right. Well, Bill, that's, that's our fifth question. That's the Fast Five and that's the show as well. Thank you so much for being here. Yeah, of course, Robb. Thank you so much. I appreciate the invite, man. And I'll...

01:00:25
We'll talk soon. Absolutely. This has been great. If folks want to keep up with you, though, what's one of the best ways they can do that and everything you've got going on? Well, LinkedIn. So Bill Grant on LinkedIn, that's that's my primary outlet. And then As Told By Agency on all the socials, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. We're @AsToldByAgency. Awesome. Awesome. Well, I'll make sure to put the links to that in the show notes as well. Bill, I wish you nothing but success with everything that you've got going on. And again, I hope we'll talk to you again soon.

01:00:55
All right. Thanks, Robb. Awesome. And if you would like to support this podcast, I'd appreciate it if you bought me a coffee at chewingthefatbr.com. But until next time, I look forward to the chance we have to sit a spell and chew the fat.