By TOMMY REZAC
St. Joseph Post
Kansas City Royals television broadcaster and host of the Rounding the Bases podcast, Joel Goldberg, was the keynote speaker at the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce's Small Business Summit on the Missouri Western State University campus Wednesday.
Speaking to a large audience at the Fulkerson Center for just over an hour, Goldberg started his own motivational speaking business about four years ago. Last year, he took many of the elements from his speeches, combined them with his experiences as a baseball broadcaster, and used his down time during the COVID-19 pandemic to write a book called Small Ball Big Results.
"I had a lot of time sitting around during the pandemic," Goldberg told reporters Wednesday. "Sitting around for four months without baseball, and I was like, 'You know what? I've got all of the content. I know what I want to write about. Small ball is the theme, and it went from there. And it's been about a year."
Goldberg's speech Wednesday was entitled Never Underestimate the Power of a Dream. He talked about his journey through the broadcasting business, which started at a small TV station in Rhinelander, Wisconsin in the mid 1990s.
He joined the Royals broadcast team in 2007 after three years of covering the St. Louis Cardinals, Blues and Rams for FOX Sports Midwest. He also spent more than six years as a reporter and anchor at KTVI in St. Louis.
Through his personal and professional journey, and in his book and speeches, Goldberg shares how the little things, small ball, add up to big wins in baseball, business and in life, sharing stories of perseverance, patience and gratitude from soldiers, executives, entrepreneurs and athletes.
"I, for the first time in my life, really have experience beyond just all of the lessons learned from baseball," Goldberg said of his motivational speaking business. "But, also in terms of the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. So, when I found out this was going on (in St. Joseph) and they were inquiring, I thought, 'What a great opportunity to talk to a lot of people who may be in my shoes and are trying to build businesses or learn, or whoever it might be. Students, adults, whoever.'"
Goldberg's speech was attended by a wide variety of business professionals in the St. Joseph area Wednesday, along with numerous students and faculty at Missouri Western.
In a room full of mostly Kansas City sports fans, Goldberg says sharing stories of the Royals, who he's now covered on TV for 14 seasons, made it easier for him to connect with this particular audience.
Though, Goldberg's knowledge and experience span well beyond Kaufmann Stadium.
"Certainly can't ever go wrong with a Salvador Perez story or an Eric Hosmer story in the Kansas City area or St. Joe," he said. "If I go to another city, the good news is I've met baseball players and executives from all over the country. It kind of transfers to wherever I go."
That's why Goldberg's speeches have appealed to a wide variety of audiences. It's not just Royals. It's not just baseball. His podcast, Rounding the Bases, has a baseball-like name, but the episodes are in-depth conversations with successful entrepreneurs and leaders who compare the winning traits of sports to business and life in general.
"Stories are stories," Goldberg said. "You know, and a good story, whether it's a business story or a military story or a sports story or a life story, a good story is a good story. But, it's fun to get a little bit of a break from the same athletes over and over and start to meet people and tell other people's stories. There's some really, really cool stories out there, too."
Whether he's talking about baseball, or business, or just every day trials in life, Goldberg says his speeches and stories always circle back to one overlying theme - always find the positives.
A theme that's resonated especially well in the wake of a year-and-a-half long, worldwide pandemic.
"Everything comes in cycles," he said. So, whatever is bad today will eventually will get better. Whatever is great today will eventually come down. As Simon Sinek says, he talks about it in his most recent book The Infinite Game, so many of us are playing for today, but if you look big picture, you can survive anything."
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