2629: Bridges, Seeds, or Garbage

LifeBlood: Not every contribution has to change the world. Some people build bridges that future generations will cross. Others plant seeds they'll never see grow. And sometimes the greatest act of responsibility is simply picking up the garbage everyone else walks past. This episode explores stewardship, legacy, personal responsibility, and the simple question that can transform how you engage with your community: Does this situation require a bridge, a seed, or just someone willing to pick up the garbage? If we each took ownership of the small corner of the world in front of us, we'd all benefit from the compounded effects of millions of ordinary acts of responsibility. Want to say “Thanks!” You can buy us a cup of coffee. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/lifeblood George’s newest book is available! Get your copy of You’re Money Isn’t the Problem- You Are here: https://amzn.to/4uDYFRz Feeling busy but unfulfilled? The Meaningful Few helps you identify what truly matters, eliminate distractions, and live with intention and clarity. Learn more here: https://www.mymeaningfulfew.com/ Thanks, as always for listening! If you got some value and enjoyed the show, please leave us a review here: ​​https://ratethispodcast.com/lifebloodpodcast You can learn more about us at LifeBlood. Live http://lifeblood.live/, Twitter https://twitter.com/ourlifeblood, LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/lifebloodlive, Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lifeblood.live/, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNQ9Gc4mMwCHZKUHjbt0-qA and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lifebloodlive or you’d like to be a guest on the show, contact us at contact@LifeBlood. Live. Stay up to date by getting our monthly updates https://george-grombacher.aweb.page. Copyright LifeBlood 2026.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 0:45Speaker 01

  There are a few poems that I love more than the bridge builder. Sure you've heard it, something along the lines of an old man having safely crossed a dangerous river turns around and builds a bridge, not for himself, but for the young traveler who will come after him. Somebody says, "Hey, old man, why are you spending your precious time building something that you'll never use again?" Pretty obvious to me, says, "I am building this bridge for him or her, the young man or young woman who's going to come after him." Love it. It's awesome. It's because it captures something that, I know we haven't totally forgotten it, but we seem to have totally forgotten it, that not everything is worthwhile, not everything

• 1:28Speaker 01

  worthwhile is done for ourselves or for us. Most things that are worthwhile are done for people, other people, people will never even meet. There's another great quote, sums up the idea that I want to talk about, hammer home, is that "A society grows great when old men and women plant trees who shade they know they will never enjoy and sit in." So again, the point is not immediate benefit, it's not immediate gratification or happiness or whatever. The whole point is stewardship, giving, being valuable, leaving something better than you found it. And here's what struck me just this past week.

• 2:12Speaker 01

  I had the opportunity to enjoy some time at the beach in California and was walking there. It's just, it's beautiful, it's beautiful coastline, obviously, beautiful weather, obviously, beautiful ocean. But then unfortunately, there's lots of people that enjoy that as well, and with people come garbage. There's plastic bottles and caps of plastic bottles and wrappers and broken toys and cigarette butts and just, you know, obviously, just random trash everywhere. And I, I just thought myself, what everybody else thinks, you know, why isn't this cleaned up? Somebody should really be cleaning this up. And then it occurred to me, another thought crossed my mind.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Well, I should just do it then. Why isn't that somebody? Me. I thought, be the change that you wish to see in the world. So I did. So every morning, after that, I brought a pair of gloves and a garbage bag to the beach. And on our morning walk, we'd get coffee and then for 10 minutes, I'd spend picking up garbage. That's it, just 10 minutes. And in 10 minutes, unfortunately, you can pick up a substantial amount of garbage. And it doesn't make me a hero, shouldn't have a news story written about me. It's not because I wanted recognition or I wanted content for a podcast, it's because I thought I'd solve a problem. It's because I recognized that for some reason, whatever reason, responsibility had been

• 3:40Speaker 01

  abdicated or abandoned, and somebody was there capable of doing something about it, and that person was me, and so I did it.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  And it's got me thinking, not every problem requires the same response. Sometimes you need to build a physical bridge. Really hard, extremely hard. Projects like that can take years and years, if not decades. They take immense resources of time and energy, attention and money, takes leadership, it takes vision and architecture.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  Then think about parents, think about teachers, think about entrepreneurs, people who create businesses, who provide jobs, people who go above and beyond, who will build institutions that last for a really long time. There are people out there who create systems that continue long after they are gone, systems that provide clean water and resources, education, whatever it might be, incredible scale. Those people are the bridge builders, and thank God for them, truly. But then sometimes, all that, all that can, must be done is the planting of a seed.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  And maybe you mentor a young person, maybe you have an idea and you write a book that people are going to read. Maybe you teach your kid how to save money and to delay gratification, to preference the future over the present. Maybe you encourage somebody who you know is having a hard time, you help your neighbor.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  And you may never see that harvest, they may not ever come to you and say, "Gosh, thanks for doing that." That's okay. Seeds are not planted for today, they are planted for tomorrow, they're planted for the future, a future that you may never see or enjoy, and sometimes you don't need to build anything at all. You don't need a grand strategy, you don't need to get funding, you don't need venture capital money or seed money or whatever. You certainly don't need permission to help, you don't need permission to take small actions. Sometimes you just need to pick up some garbage, literal garbage, or of course metaphorical

• 6:04Speaker 01

  garbage. You need to help your elderly neighbor carry some groceries. Instead of just leaving your shopping cart or letting some shopping cart roll around the parking lot, you bring it back to where it belongs. You pick up litter, you smile at the cashier, you volunteer, so many different opportunities. You finally pick up the phone, you call your mom, she's been waiting to hear from you.

• 6:30Speaker 00

  Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 7:00Speaker 02

  Football Sundays are at my house this year, so I've been making a Total Wine & More run before every kickoff. Cold beer for the group is a given, but this time of year, I like to bring in some fall flavors, a bottle of maple whiskey and a salted caramel whiskey that even my friends who don't drink whiskey end up trying. I get everything I need at the lowest prices at Total Wine. Discover your new favorite fall flavors at Total Wine & More. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly, must be 21.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  She's been wanting to hear from you, you need to call your mom. You help the new guy or gal at work, you fix the thing that everybody else keeps walking by, because you can do it, you know how. Those are not grand gestures, those are tiny acts of stewardship. And here's the absolutely beautiful thing, they compound, because one clean beach encourages another person help. I guarantee somebody saw me walking around the garbage bag, picking up garbage, and they said, "Oh, I should do that too." I hope that that's what happened. And of course, one kind word can change somebody's afternoon, one mentor can absolutely change

• 8:07Speaker 01

  a career, one parent can change generations of kids, everything, everything, everything, everything compounds. So I'd like to leave you with a question. As you look around your life, your situation, is there a missing bridge? Is there something that needs a bridge? What needs a seed planted? And what simply needs somebody willing to pick up some frickin' garbage? We spend far too much time complaining about the world that we'd like to live in and less time building it. This is that idea that I talked about a couple of weeks ago, imby, in my backyard.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  It's not not my backyard, it's in my backyard. So instead of asking, "Who's going to fix this?" Or "Why doesn't somebody clean this up?", ask, "What can I do? Why can't I clean this up?" I bet you can.

• 9:08Speaker 01

  Maybe the answer is build.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  Maybe the answer is to plant and let nature and time do the work. And maybe it's simply clean up what's right in front of you, your local park, you don't have to go to a beach in California to clean up, whatever it is.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  Do your part by doing your best, because the world becomes better, one bridge, it becomes better, one seed, and it becomes a lot better, one piece of garbage at a time.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  So it's obvious, but some of the key takeaways here is that not every problem requires the same response. Bridges create infrastructure for future generations, seeds create future possibilities that we may never see. Garbage, well, that requires immediate personal responsibility. Small acts of stewardship compound over time, as everything does, it compounds. Imby, in my backyard means taking ownership of the part of the world directly in front of you.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  Tend to the parts of the garden you can reach, stop waiting for someone, become someone.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  It's such a trite cheesy thing to say, but you realize that if everybody just picked up five little pieces of garbage at the beach every day, then there wouldn't be any garbage at the beach, it would be clean.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Or the next time you go to your park, pick up a couple of pieces of garbage. Bring gloves, bring some tool, I don't want you to hurt yourself or to, whatever, get sick, obviously.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  But that's how, that's how it goes. You don't need to build a bridge, you don't even need to plant a tree, you can just do the little things, little things that are well within your control, well within your realm of know-how and expertise and all of those things. What we are talking about, of course, as we're always talking about it, is do your part by doing your best.

• 11:29Speaker 02

  Football Sundays are at my house this year, so I've been making a Total Wine & More run before every kickoff. Cold beer for the group is a given, but this time of year, I like to bring in some fall flavors, a bottle of maple whiskey and a salted caramel whiskey that even my friends who don't drink whiskey end up trying. I get everything I need at the lowest prices at Total Wine. Discover your new favorite fall flavors at Total Wine & More. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly, must be 21.

• 11:54Speaker 03

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet, like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone, and including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage, HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.