Dive into an enriching conversation with Brian Bird on the canvas of storytelling as a gift from the Creator. Explore the miracles that arise from challenges, including Brian’s journey through the unfinished project that blossomed into a long-running series. This episode also features a sneak peek into Brian’s latest project, ‘The Story of Everything,’ advocating the intricate design of the universe backed by scientific insights. A must-listen for those seeking reassurance in their life’s purpose.
Welcome, everyone, to The Calling’s radio show to all the dreamers. I’m your radio host, Dr. Chrysandra Brunson, founder and CEO of The Calling, and it is such an honor to be with all of you today. You know, at The Calling, we have realized that so many people are afraid to go after the dreams that God has put inside each one of our hearts because they are afraid to fail. And that is just plain wrong because if God has given us a dream and we’re not living it out, we are wasting it. And we do not want you or anyone else to die with regret. That’s why at The Calling, we love to inspire, empower, and equip people to after God’s calling to reap the best kind of eternal legacy possible. We love to do this through so many different avenues, through custom tools, programs, workshops, seminars. but especially through this radio show where we bring on world renowned guests to share how they’re going after God’s dreams on their lives and how you can do the same. Today is no exception. We have the world renowned Brian Bird on with us. Brian, welcome to the show.
BRIAN BIRD :
Thank you, Chrysandra. So nice to be with you today. And I love the premise of your ministry and your show and your calling, your calling, to help other people with their calling. It’s right in the sweet spot of where I live as well. So I appreciate being with you.
CHRYSANDRA :
Well, thank you so much, Brian. And that means the world, especially coming from you, you being one of God’s biggest dreamers and seeing that come to be. Brian, will you share just a little bit about your background and some of the leadership positions that you have held so so far?
BRIAN BIRD :
I’d be happy to. I’ve been working in the film and TV industry for over 30 years, doing a lot of different shows, movies as a writer and a producer. I was a journalist first. I learned how to write as a journalist. So I was a newspaper and magazine reporter before I morphed into what I’m doing now. And this has really taken over my life in a big way. But some of the projects that some people in your audience may know, my big hit show right now that’s on season 13, has the season finale coming up this Sunday, When Calls the Heart. It’s on the Hallmark Channel, and it’s their highest-rated show. Michael Landon Jr. is my partner. We built that show way back in 2013, and it’s still going strong. Oh! I wrote and produced Touched by an Angel for many years. A lot of your audience would know about that show. And then my movie, The Case for Christ, came out several years ago, the Lee Strobel story. And I wrote and produced that movie as well. So, but all in, I’ve written probably 500 episodes of TV. and three, four dozen movies in my career. So God has been amazing to me, opening doors that I never imagined would exist for me, but He called me to what I do, and I just keep showing up and saying yes to the opportunities that He brings to me. You gotta be a yes person in this world. Not a no person, but a yes person. Now, you gotta say yes to the right things, for sure, But you can find a lot of reasons to say no to God’s calling, right? Because it’s too scary. It’s out of your comfort zone. I’m a big believer in being a yes person, even if you don’t know how to do what you’re being asked to do. Figure it out. Do the homework. Because if you say no, I don’t know how to do it, right? you’re cutting off an opportunity for you to grow in a big way and to bless the world with the gifts that God’s given you. So for me, what you’re all about is exactly like the heartbeat of what I’m all about. So I appreciate that.
CHRYSANDRA :
Brian, will you just share a little bit about your background? Tell us about what you were like and some of the ways that God was starting to shape and mold you.
BRIAN BIRD :
I love telling that story. I’m looking at it right now. It’s just above my computer here on my wall. It’s a drawing that I made. Our mothers all keep our boxes, like our bins, full of stuff from our childhood. It’s a drawing of some TV cameras. And it says, when I grow up, I want to make stories for movie and TV shows. I was seven. I was seven. And she kept it, and she pulled that out after I had already sort of launched into my career as sort of a confirmation that God does place on our hearts callings that we may not realize or even know. When I was a freshman in high school in Southern California, you know i was just a very average kid a wallflower you know nobody really knew me didn’t notice me i was an average student i was an average athlete didn’t really stand out in any way but my english teacher mrs stevens held me back after class and i thought i was in trouble like what did i do right and she showed me an essay that i had written And it had an A-plus on it, and it had a few markups and so forth. But she said, the most important thing that I want to say to you is not your grade on this essay. And she looked me right in the eye, and she said, you could do this for a living if you want to. And it was like, you know, I looked around to make sure she wasn’t talking to somebody else. And she said, she lit a match under me. as a 14-year-old kid. And I didn’t, you know, I didn’t, look, everything came hard, but the writing came a little less hard than everything else. And I had clearly had a faculty for it. And she dogged me all the way through high school, got me on the school newspaper. By the time I was, you know, a senior in high school, I was the managing editor of the school newspaper. I had my own column where I was trying to muckrake, you know, and stir up, you know controversies around the school with my opinions and so forth and then she said she chased me into journalism school she said you got to go to journalism school right so i just keep kept saying yes to that that teacher that champion that adult champion and i’ve had a couple of other adult champions in my life but mrs stevens was the first one and here’s my takeaway from that Every person needs an adult champion, at least one. And I say they need three, to be honest. Three adult champions in their lives to confirm your gifts, right? Yeah. And they, sadly, as much as our parents love us, You know, it can’t be your Aunt Connie from Albuquerque who says you’re destined for greatness. Right. They can’t because they’re biased. Right. Our parents, our family, the people who love us, they’re biased towards us. They’re not objective. You need three objective adult wounded warriors, champions, people who have been to the war.
BRIAN BIRD :
Right. Who’ve earned the right to their opinion.
BRIAN BIRD :
And you can have a sense of calling. You know, if God gives you a sense of calling on your life, that’s excellent. But you need three of those adult champion wounded warriors to look you in the eye and say, you could do this for a living if you want to. And I had that in my life. And when you have three people that will confirm it who have earned the right to their opinion, it’s not an option not to pursue it. It’s like you’re actually sinning if you don’t pursue it.
CHRYSANDRA :
Yes.
BRIAN BIRD :
But in the age of influencers and YouTube and TikTok and all of that, the the price of admission for somebody like me is a lot less right because you can just put content up there and see if it sticks right most of it is noise right um but the there are some that are true that are true gifts and true talents that are showing up and it’s those people who’ve had those gifts confirmed by by those champions that now must pursue it. It’s like a calling that is what God wants for you to do. I’m bold enough to say that. So I call that my rule of three. I made that up, but it’s true. And every kid needs an adult champion to look them in the eye and tell them what they’re good at. I really believe that.
BRIAN BIRD :
And again, mom and dad are proud of everything you do. They were they they were proud of the first little duty we took, you know, in the toilet. Right. So that’s a very low, low bar.
BRIAN BIRD :
Very low bar for for praise and pride. So that’s why I say, you know, seek out the people that have earned their right and have all their and been scarred up by their experiences. and gone deep and been in the trenches, they do know what they’re talking about. And if you can find three people like that to say, yes, you do it, you need to do it, then you have to do it. Like that’s my rule too. That’s my rule to anybody listening. You have to do it if somebody says that.
CHRYSANDRA :
And Brian, when people hear about calling and purpose and they think that maybe it’s just kind of this gray space, which it can, what would you say to that?
BRIAN BIRD :
Look, you know, God gives each of us gifts, right? And the gifts aren’t all the same for everybody. Right. We know about the spiritual gifts or there’s a wide range of spiritual gifts that people can have. But then there’s talents as well and other giftings. Right. In this age where everybody feels the need to get out and give their opinion or give their content out on social media or on these big platforms, it it’s very i use the word sexy to do that right it’s fun it’s fun to do that it it like it you feel like you’re gonna draw attention to yourself or you’re gonna get fame or maybe make money or or all of that it’s the wrong reason to do it yes if you have something that god is telling you to tell the world And you could get now that can be delusional, too, because we could all like think, oh, I’m special. I have something to say. That’s why I say get the three champions to confirm it in you.
CHRYSANDRA :
Right.
BRIAN BIRD :
Because now you’re not being now you’re not delusional. Now you’re not just on your own, like in your own echo chamber.
CHRYSANDRA :
Right.
BRIAN BIRD :
But when you when you have something that you’re called to do, and in my case, it was my writing first. Right.
CHRYSANDRA :
And Brian, I’m going to pause you right there. We need to take a short break, but we can’t wait to hear what calling means to you. You guys, we have the one and only Brian Bird on with us. You don’t want to miss a second. We’ll be right back. We’ll be right back. Twist and shout with Lee & Co. They are the premier oldies band delivering the rock and roll vibes you’ve been missing. Great songs, great memories. Book them at LeeAndCo.com. Liquid Acre is the world’s first crypto to land marketplace, allowing you to own fractional acreage through non-fungible acres. Don’t let the dream of owning a piece of the trillion dollar real estate market slip away. Visit liquidacre.com to invest in real survey land in seconds and start building your real estate legacy.
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CHRYSANDRA :
At Ignite Brilliance Coaching, you will get 34 years of science teaching, a decade of university-level instruction, and over 10 years of instructional coaching to empower educators with the tools, mindset, and confidence to thrive. Contact Ignite Brilliance Coaching on Facebook. We are back. Thank you for listening to all the dreamers radio show. I’m your host, Dr. Chrysandra Brunson, founder and CEO of The Calling. And we have the world renowned Brian Bird on with us. And Brian, we paused you right in the middle of sharing this description of calling and purpose and what it really means. And you were just sharing that God will confirm it. Through the three.
BRIAN BIRD :
Yeah, the rule of three. And then, you know, for me specifically, and again, everybody has a different, we’re all made in the image of God, right? We’re all made in the image of the author of everything, which means we all have a tiny strand of his DNA. Now, I’m not saying we are God or that we, you know, have God’s DNA, but the creative spark that’s in all of us, the spark, the God spark that’s in all of us because we’re made in his image. Everyone has a different spark. But you have to identify that. You have to get other people to help you identify that. And when you find that one strand of DNA, you’ve got to try to become Michelangelo of that.
BRIAN BIRD :
Now, I’m not saying we all will become Michelangelo. But if we don’t try, we’ll end up achieving a lot less with our gift than we would have if we said, look, I want to be in first chair in the orchestra. Right. Yeah, maybe I get to the orchestra, but I’m in fifth chair. I want to be in first chair. Right. We’re always pursuing that sense of excellence and pursuing the, you know, the Michelangelo manifesto in our lives.
BRIAN BIRD :
And so for me, it was writing. And I had an epiphany about this. I was working on a script for Touched by an Angel late at night one night. It was due the next day. I had run aground. I was lost. I had a case of writer’s block. And in television, there’s no such thing as writer’s block. Not allowed.
CHRYSANDRA :
You have a strict deadline, right?
BRIAN BIRD :
You have a deadline and you hit it or you or they don’t want you anymore. Right.
BRIAN BIRD :
So you have to perform. And so I was I was sweating it because I had written myself into a corner and I didn’t know how to write myself out of it. And I pled I just reached out to God and I said, God, please help me. What do I do here? And I didn’t hear an audible voice, but I felt a deep soul impression. They gave me chill bumps. And the impression was, I was a writer, now you be one. And it was like, wait, what? And then all these verses started flooding back to me. In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was not made of, written on stones, tablet stones, but on hearts of flesh. God is the author of the universe jesus the author and protector of our faith god spoke with his words everything into existence he communicated them into existence if you’re a writer you are you’re in legacy land with with the maker right because he’s writing this vast narrative through space and time and we’re all characters in it yeah he left his revelation to us how in a big fat novel yeah Right? Story, for me, is an essential service. Providing story to people, because story is food. And it’s been food since the beginning of man. Story is food. It’s soul food. We eat food. We eat story. We’re starved to death for story in our lives. And we all have violin strings running through us that are tuned to things like sacrifice and redemption and forgiveness and service, community, courage, nobility. All of us, every human has those strings, no matter where we live. And story plucks those strings. I believe we in the story business are doing an essential service for people. Anyway, so that’s how I opened up Pandora’s box on that idea of calling and your specific gift. For me, that’s how it bloomed in my life, that understanding.
CHRYSANDRA :
What’s one story that you could talk about about you didn’t know how you were going to be able to make it through, but you saw on the other side, especially with the weight of in the magnitude, Brian, of these different actors, writers, producers, directors, that pressure, but being able to see God do a Red Sea miracle.
BRIAN BIRD :
Well, I could take up a whole show with one story, probably. But in a nutshell, our show, When Calls the Heart, fell apart in 2009. We were making a movie called When Calls the Heart. It fell apart because of the economic meltdown in America, but also in the world. Literally, we’re in the middle of making the movie when the money melted down. And that’s the worst thing that can happen to you in our business. It’s like a widow maker in our business. The worst. Literally, but it will make a widow of your project because it just kills it. You can melt down, but you’re still owing a bunch of money. And we had to fold up our tents and go home with our tails between our legs. It took us three years of going through the wilderness with that broken, unfinished albatross of a movie that was worth nothing when it’s not finished before we finally found a champion to help us finish it. When we finished it, the Hallmark Channel loved it. They put it on the air. They said, hey, we’re interested in getting into the series, one-hour series business. Do you guys want to make six episodes of this? We just saluted. We just saluted. How high do you want us to jump? That six episodes, that broken movie that we finished going through the wilderness ended up… With six episodes, then 12 episodes, and now 13 years later, it’s still on the air. We’ve shot 150 hours of that show. So that’s not us. God took us through that wilderness experience because had we finished the movie in the first place, it would not have been a series. It would have been a one-off movie. Had we not… failed, it would have been a one-off movie. Three years later, they were thinking about going into the series business. That’s when the opportunity was on the other side of the promise of the desert experience was the Jordan River. We got there, right? And they wanted six episodes. So now it’s like our worst failure became our biggest win, our biggest success, right? So that’s my example of the giant that we were facing.
CHRYSANDRA :
We love it, Brian. And Brian, we’re coming up towards the end of our show. We don’t know where time goes. We have so much to cover. We want to hear your tips and wisdom, Brian, on someone who’s afraid to go after what God’s called them to and their lives and what you would tell them. And we also want to hear all about this new film coming out, the story of everything and how we can watch this incredible film, how we can get others involved
BRIAN BIRD :
Yes. So the tip is if you’re called to do something, there’s no such thing as giving up. You know, when the Israelites were wandering around the desert for 40 years, they came back to a well, a brook, that had given them water in the past. They came, circled back around to it again years later, and it was dried up. The brook was dried up. Now, what did they do? Did they sit on the ground and whine and said, where’s our water? Like, we deserve water. No, they had to get up and go find a new brook. So if any of your listeners, are at a dry well, but they’re called to be on that journey, there’s no such thing as sitting on the ground and whining and complaining. You have to get up and go find a new brook. That well is dry. But that doesn’t mean the calling is not still real or that the goal is not still real. You must walk past that giant and move on and continue your quest.
CHRYSANDRA :
Thank you, Brian.
BRIAN BIRD :
Yeah, my tips.
CHRYSANDRA :
So powerful. And that I believe that leads right into this incredible new movie that I was able to preview actually at NRB. And Brian, you’re the executive producer of. Tell us all about it and how you can watch it.
BRIAN BIRD :
Yes, I’m so excited about the story of everything. We’ve been working on this one for five years.
CHRYSANDRA :
Five years!
BRIAN BIRD :
Yes, so we didn’t give up. We went through COVID. We went through all of it, trying to figure out our way past all of that, raising money, getting it put together. It’s a gorgeous movie that basically answers the question, do we matter? And it uses science. to do it because modern science a lot of people will be afraid of this but modern science actually proves the existence of design in everything we have all been designed the universe has been designed the cosmos has been designed and it’s all scientifically proven by the 21 world-class scientists, PhDs in this movie, not all of whom are believers in God or Jesus. They are, at best, agnostic, some of them. Right. But they can’t deny what’s in front of their nose. And that is that there’s design in everything. And there’s design in us. We have a genetic code. We have the most amazing computer code that’s been programmed that runs us. It’s in our cells. And it is so… It is so beautiful how it’s been built and it makes and it works so beautifully and it’s so elegant the way our bodies work. Right. It could not work if it made itself. There’s no such thing as we made ourselves. No such thing as this all happened by accident that were that were the product of blind, pitiless indifference. in the universe we are not a mistake we are a wonderfully you know crafted beautiful uh creature of creation of god’s creation this scientific this science movie what i love so much about it is that it uses science to prove the creator so it comes out april 30th in theaters All over the country. We are so excited to have this finally launch. Already it’s getting a huge lift by people who are seeing it.
BRIAN BIRD :
And talking it up to their neighbors. But it’s called The Story of Everything. It’ll be in theaters all over the country starting April 30th. Please come. Bring your neighbors. Bring your friends who are doubting.
CHRYSANDRA :
and have questions about if they matter or not they absolutely do we are not an accident we are not here by random accident a big roll of the dice we’re here because god put us here well brian we’re so grateful thank you for producing such a film for such a time as this that we we need this as a community as a um as a planet we need to be reminded where we came from and that god has a unique purpose for each one of us and you yourself living out your calling wholeheartedly you guys go pull over follow brian bird right now uh brian what is your hashtags for social media and how well i find the story of everything i am
BRIAN BIRD :
I’m at brbird3, at brbird3 on all my social media. And I will say that you can pre-order tickets right now for The Story of Everything in your neighborhood at thestoryofeverything.film, thestoryofeverything.film. There’s a ticket order button right there in the front. So if you’d like to get your tickets now, you can do that.
CHRYSANDRA :
Yes, get your tickets now, tell your neighbor, tell an atheist friend that there’s a neat discussion to be had and watch the movie together and have a discussion afterwards. I was completely transformed by the movie and I know that every single person Wherever you’re at in your faith walk, it will exhort you. It will challenge you. And it will be able to bring the ultimate glory back to the creator himself. And God is, he is not finished with any of us. And he has such huge plans. As Paul has said in Ephesians 4, 1, as a prisoner of the Lord, then I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Till next time, dreamers, keep dreaming big.
