I AM BACK!

I AM BACK! marks Tombo Baldwin’s return to the YUP. I GOT YOU podcast after a long, difficult, and transformative absence.

In this episode, Tombo opens up about where he’s been—and why he stepped away. He shares candidly about the past two years filled with physical illness, exhaustion, crisis management, and personal struggle, alongside profound growth, healing, and expansion. From navigating his own health challenges, burnout, and mental strain, to walking through cancer with his wife and a serious diagnosis with his brother, this season tested every part of his life.

Rather than quitting, Tombo leaned into introspection, rest, intention, and listening to his body—learning hard but necessary lessons about healing, self-care, mindset, and resilience. He reflects on how ignoring pain, numbing discomfort, and pushing endlessly only deepened the struggle—and how slowing down, asking better questions, and responding with intention opened a path forward.

This episode isn’t polished or perfected—and that’s the point. It’s raw, real, and honest. Tombo explains why he’s embracing authenticity over production, choosing connection over perfection, and recommitting to sharing what he’s learned so others don’t have to walk the same painful road alone.

I AM BACK! sets the stage for what’s coming next: conversations about healing, food, mindset, intention, energy, and rebuilding a life with clarity and strength after everything falls apart.

This is a reset.
 This is a return.
 And this time, it’s real.

Yup. I got you.

Transcript

0:26

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Well, well, well, I know, I know, I know, where have I been? For those of you who have been faithful listeners or just downloaded a few podcasts here and there and just gave it a listen, I know I have been gone for so long. There is so much to tell you and there is so much that has changed. But first, we've got to have our intro music. Oh my gosh, I have missed it so much, here we go. Oh yeah, gosh, I like this. Feels like being back in the saddle again. All you yuppers out there, I cannot believe I haven't podcasted, put a new podcast out for so long and you all are still downloading podcasts. It's like every time I see the stats, I'm so blessed. Thank you for your faithful listening and I just hope, I know that you're getting value from it and information and I do my best. Sometimes I feel like I'm full of it, but I'm really not, I do my best to give valuable information and help improve lives and it is my goal, it is my passion. This time that I've been gone, oh man, has it been a time of transformation, pain, struggle, growth, the whole nine yards. All I can say is, I'm back. I don't know if you all recognize the reference from an old movie, but a favorite among my family, at least my wife and I, my kids, they're like, oh dad, that's so old. The graphics, the CG, the whatever is, oh my gosh, that's so, I don't even know. I think it's 1990s, maybe 2000. I'll have to go look, but it doesn't matter. Independence Day, classic movie, love that movie. And so this is just, yeah, if you remember, it was a crazy drunk guy that actually had been abducted by aliens and everybody was like, oh dude, you're crazy. And really, you know, we make our own choices and you've heard me say that here before, but the circumstances of the harassment that he got, you know, helped him, maybe help is a better word to make a life. I know it's just a movie. I get it. You know, the whole neuro programming and stuff like that. Anyway, we're not going to get sidetracked. We're not going to go down all these different rabbit holes today. We're going to try to stay focused. This is the I'm Back podcast, just to introduce where we're going to go in the next podcast. I really am going to make this a priority and get you guys some podcasts. Probably not going to release them as quickly because I'm still a busy, busy man. I am a fat, overweight, talented, talented carpenter. Well, maybe not carpenter, contractor. I put together great projects, beautiful projects. Maybe I'll link you guys to a place where you can see pictures. If you're into that things, we, when I say we, my boys work with, we put together some beautiful bathroom style work. We do all kinds of things, but we put together some beautiful projects. But much like the guy in Independence Day, gosh, I feel like a season of, wow, it was all true. I didn't, I'm not crazy. It was all true. And maybe some of you can relate in the current world situations, politics, dynamics that are going on to something like that. You're just like, oh, I thought I was crazy, but it's like all this stuff is true. Oh my gosh. But anyway, I'm back. It has been a journey. Just to let you know some of the things that have went on that I think probably the last time I did a podcast was a couple of years ago before we went down in the winter to Mexico. We go down to Mexico in the winter and my wife and I haul an old RV down there. We trek all the way from Bozeman or Belgrade, Montana, all the way down to San Carlos, New Mexico, which is about six hours past the border, right there in the Baja, right in the Baja. Cia Cortez is about a 10 minute walk from where we park our RV. It's just absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous country. We were down there a couple of years ago and yeah, I'll do a podcast on the journey down. It's like those of you out there that maybe aren't people that believe in faith or a higher power looking after you, I'll tell you just our journey down there was a testament that somebody's looking after us here. I want to tell you that that somebody would look after you too, but I'm not here to promote a religion. I'm actually, one of the podcasts I'll do is just about religion. Religion is just poison, but there is a real divinity and there is a real divine source and called by so many different names, but there is something out there and I'll talk more about that. That's part of the upcoming podcast. Part of the upcoming podcasts are going to be about just renewing your mind and opening up a new reality for you. If that sounds like something that you want, listen to the upcoming podcast because I got to tell you, it is for real. I've started to do it. I thought I did it in the past. No, I didn't. That's just a bunch of bullshit. No, I didn't actually, I don't know. The season that I've been through the last two years has just made me realize that I had learned a lot when I started podcasting and I think the information I gave you is great, but man has my mind been expanded, not necessarily by choice, but by circumstances into a whole another realm and yeah, was the journey painful? It was, it's kind of like weightlifting, you know, it, it is painful and it hurts and sometimes it takes a while for the muscles and the other things to show up. You know, the weight loss, um, the increased endurance, you know, you can walk upstairs without going and maybe some of you can't relate. I think a lot of you can, and if you can relate, Hey, I'm, I'm there with you. And so like in my mental development, my stress coping skills have been just wow. They have been conditioned and I'm nowhere near arrival, but I want to share with you yuppers out there just a part of the journey, but just to kind of update you, this is an update and let you know what's coming podcasts. I'm doing some different here. I usually in the past have a high, I think a lot of you guys can relate to this, but when I would listen to my recordings and stuff, I didn't necessarily like my voice and I know there's a lot of you out there like that, that you talk all day and you have friends and you talk to your friends and your friends like your voice and your friends think you're cool, but you, when you listen to your own voice, like me, when I listened to my own voice or I was like, ah, wow, that's, that's not how I sounded. So you know, I use what you don't know and you know, I'm trying to say, you know, not so much anymore, but it's been so long, I'm not podcasting that some bad habits have crept back in. And so you don't know, but I'm going to tell you that using the free app audacity, which is a great app for any of you out there that are wanting to jump into the podcasting realm, which it's, it's a great realm. And uh, I know that you guys have valuable and gals, you know, the guy thing is everybody, um, guys and gals, uh, have valuable stuff that you may want to share. Maybe you don't want to do it all the time. Maybe you just want to do it. Oh, it's not supposed to do that. Uh, that is my nicotine. I have fallen in love with nicotine and this is just a little side note. I don't get any money for this, but I love nicotine in the form of knickknacks. They're like, kind of like a tic tac that go in like the Zins do, but they don't have all the stuff that maybe some of the other nicotine supplements out there do pretty clean. You just get that straight shot of nicotine, nicotine, but nicotine just by itself can be a little strong and I just had one before I did this podcast and so yeah, that was just some residual like going down, not the right way, but it has definitely hit my brain. I'm feeling good. And I'm glad I got in here when I did cause I was about ready to get sidetracked and uh, go work on our fifth wheel, which there's a story about that too, which I'd love to share with you guys. But back to what I was talking about, yeah, I don't necessarily, I haven't in the past like my own voice and part of this journey that I've been on is realizing I am unique. I'm created in a very special way and I don't necessarily have to polish all this up. Now I want to bring you a good product and I'm going to go through and listen just to make sure there's not a lot of background noise and, and stuff like that. But I usually speed up my voice a little bit cause I think I talk a little slow. And so those of you that are longtime listeners may be like, Oh, this is weird from the other podcast. He's like, and I usually make it a little deeper. Although I think my voice is plenty deep, but, and I think these are just my perceptions that it sounds a little nasally and what, who cares? What if it does? There are, there are people that do podcast and it doesn't even matter if they're people. This is me. This is supposed to be redneck. This is me. And so you're getting the raw Tombo Baldwin, Tom Baldwin, Tomas Baldwin. If you're my mother and she's angry with me, then there's going to be Tomas Baldwin. Um, yeah, not to kind of do the arms anymore. I shouldn't, I can't be a heart of myself, but I have to point it out cause then that'll help me not go there again if I point it out. So, and so is another word that I, boy, these transition words, I'm out of practice. And you're like, dude, you, you did it all the time. What's the big deal? That may be true. I was trying to improve. Maybe there wasn't a lot of improvement. You'll have to, uh, shoot some comments or reviews if, if you do that kind of thing and say, Tom, yeah, it's better. Tom is not better. I want to know the truth, but you're just going to get a lightly mastered podcast for me. You're not going to get a highly polished one and you're just like, that was highly polished. And it's whoa, anyway, as Joe Biden would say, as he lost his train of thought, which I have not part of this process has been getting in touch with the genuine me and accepting the genuine me for who I am. Now, this is not necessarily where I want to stay. Okay. Please understand that is there's a reality and I can't necessarily change my voice. I'm not happy with being overweight and you've heard my journey and you've heard that. I try a lot of things and I'm still trying things. I've really pared things down, which that'll be another podcast where I am feeling a lot better. And there's been some key things that I have done that are helping me feel a lot better, but it has not necessarily translate it into my weight loss yet, but my energy is coming back. I still have some things to work out. The hormones are a little wacky. The thyroid is finally in a good place. It seems like it's been, it's been a few years of the thyroid, just not, uh, I'm not being able to find out what that, what my thyroid needs. And it's interesting. Part of this journey has been really, it's, it's the big journey. It is the journey inside the journey of, of taking some time and looking inside. And those of you that are woo woo, you're going to get this. Those of you that are, are not, it's going to sound really weird, but starting to talk to myself asking, what does it need? Where does it hurt? What's going on? And it's a journey that can be really scary. And I, there are days that I'm just not sure that I'm up for it, but I tried to do it. I try to take the headphones off, to put the audible aside or put the YouTube aside or put the tick tock aside or put the social media aside, put the radio aside, put the music aside and be quiet and listen and ask. And it is amazing to me. I have really been blown away when there's a genuine intention. I know that intention is incredibly important when I'm intentional about asking my body and really wanting to hear and say, what's, what do you need? Where are you hurting? It's like, bam, into your mind pops a memory, a thought, a phrase. It is not a coincidence, friends. Let me just tell you that is the divine helping you to heal, helping that hurt, that wound, maybe things that you didn't realize caused you damage to be revealed. And when things are revealed, an old pastor that first helped Adrian and I, when we were first married and, uh, you know, we got done with all the horny business and the humping and the bumping and all that great stuff when you're first fall in love, right? That is awesome. It is amazing and you got to do it and you got to do it as much as you possibly can. But there's a reality when you go back to work and you start settling into real life and hopefully you're still humping and bumping and, and doing all that, all that, because gosh, that is healthy, especially in a marriage. It's like, wow, that is healthy. But then you realize there's some things that annoy you a little bit. There's some parts of the past that are coming up and, oh, I don't, we don't do it this way or how can you do this? So, uh, Pastor Castor, our old pastor, uh, would always say, and he used, you know, he would call the divine God, what God reveals, he's ready to heal. And we have those quiet conversations, gosh, your body, your mind, your spirit, that part of you where there is a hurt and all those places take hits, right? We live in a world, it can be toxic in words, it can be toxic actually in chemicals and in the environment that impact our body, it can be toxic in what we watch. I watched, we were just recently in Tampa, which is another, I got to do, I'm going to wrap it up here and just kind of give you an update of all the things that have happened because these are things I'm going to talk about. But on the way back from Tampa, we were there for about a week visiting my brother and, uh, I watched this movie and maybe you've seen it, Megan 2.0, but a little disturbing for me. And I feel like I took hits in my, in my mental, my psyche and, uh, kind of manifested through some dreams and, uh, I had last night and just woke up really just not feeling great. And so we do, we, we take those hits and, uh, it's just, it's the world we live in. So there needs to be a constant process of like healing and restoration that happens on an ongoing basis because we're taking those hits and they're affecting our performance. They're actually affecting our outlook on life. They affect us in gosh, so many ways. That's been part of my journey here is just realizing how they affect our lives and, uh, how we think, how we feel, how we relate to others, how we interact with others, the, the ones we love. Why do we hurt the ones we love? Why do we act out against the ones we love? And so, yeah, it's been a journey and the healing, I gotta tell you, it is real. The healing is real and it is so simple. I'm, I'm gonna, I've got all these, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, and I actually need to write them down. So I do, I do, I do, and I go through these things and we talk about them and just, uh, I want to share with you what worked for me and, uh, chances are what I did isn't going to work exactly for you, but there'll be a variant, you know, I've talked in the past that when you begin to walk down a path, when you walk down with intention, the answers come and I have found that to be true. We don't necessarily copy a person's process, but we can copy or we can utilize, utilize is a better word, utilize, um, another person's strategy that worked for them. And it can be really effective as our own body, our own person, the wholeness of us, the mind, body, soul, that all that, that incorporates us seeks an answer and provides answers. It's really powerful. It's been, like I say, it's been a hard two years and let me just kind of maybe backtrack and I'm not sure I'll hit everything cause I just decided, dude, you gotta get in there. You gotta do this. You gotta get it out there and, uh, you gotta start this process again. So if you're procrastinating something and I'm not necessarily a huge Nike fan, but yeah, just do it. It's, it is a good thing to just get the process started. Doesn't matter if it's perfect, just get the process going. But why were we in Tampa? Well, my brother who's a listener and, uh, he's just really struggling. He was diagnosed with a pretty severe disease and I'm not going to get into the details of it cause he's a private person and, uh, those are for him to share. And, uh, I, when he recovers, cause he's doing great, he's fighting. He is a fighter. He is strong. Just talked to him today. He's so strong. And when I was there, he's so strong. What an incredible man. So, so proud of him. He is absolutely amazing and he has handled this really hard diagnosis just with incredible strength and incredible determination to get better and to do the things he needs to get better. Um, so we were down there, Adrian was able to go with me and we spent a week down there and what, what a, what a great time. And, uh, so many lessons, even from that trip that I look forward to sharing with you. And when he is better, I look forward to probably get him on the phone. We'll, we'll do a little phone podcast and just talking about his journey and, uh, the things that helped him and the things that really made a difference for him. It, it is a journey. But, uh, before that, earlier this year, my lovely bride was, had a diagnosis of breast cancer and, uh, we, we moved through that together. She has beat it. She has transformed her life. She like my brother is amazing. The strength of the human spirit, like exemplified in both of them is amazing to fight, to press through, to win and, uh, uh, a ton of lessons her and I through that season grew so much. It, it, it is a season that, uh, even though it was incredibly hard, we learned so much. I feel like we just made leaps and bounds ahead, like phenomenal leaps and bounds ahead. And before that it was, we, we had done our trip to Mexico and when we were in Mexico, we thoroughly enjoyed Mexico. But for myself, one of the things that happened is, uh, boy, the food down there that, that we consumed was just not good for my body. And I came back really sick, really tired, really worn out, really full of inflammation, really full of pain, had had gained weight and was just in the mental part, not in a good place. And that is probably one of the main reasons that the, the podcast really stopped is that I just felt like crap. I had no energy when we got back. We are not independently wealthy yet, although it's coming very, very soon. If it's not already here, we are so close. But in that season, had to come back to work and just really begin to engage in my body. I have to say I was, I was 20% of, of what I operated at and I had to operate at a hundred. So at the end of the day, it was done, done. And as you might imagine, didn't bode well for family relationships, didn't bode well for any kind of relationships. Human beings need relationships. Human beings just can't work all the time. And that's what I did because I had limited resources. And so I had to expend everything that I had at work. And so everything else just kind of really didn't happen. And it was crisis management, which I talked to a lot of people. I feel like there's a lot of you out there that can probably relate to that. And so one of the reasons I'm coming back, because if I've experienced pain and found a way out of it, I want to share my story to help you find those keys for yourself to get back on your feet, to get back going again. And there, there were some key things that helped me little by little. And it was, it was painful. One of the hardest things for me to do when I know that their work needs to be done, I have work that needs to be done, is to rest and care for myself. And it was a season of beginning, because I'm still learning some new habits, some new ways of dealing with things, realizing that there are things out there, supplements that we can take. Thank God supplements that we can take to help us. But so much of the help and healing is around your mental state, your intention, your feelings towards yourself, how you treat yourself, how you respond to your body crying out. Do you just ignore it? Do you like drink more alcohol? Do you do drugs? And what do you do? You know, do you entertain? Is it do you like satisfy yourself in inappropriate ways that are not healthy for your body, for your mind, your spirit, consuming physically and mentally things that are appear to be satisfying, but really perpetuate the problem? And yes, for me to all those things. So these coming podcasts, I'm just going to begin to dive into that. And some other things that I noticed, tasty podcasts that I did that that is probably one of the more popular ones that I did. And if you're concerned about your food, you should be. So am I and share with you what I've learned, what we in the Baldwin household, the household of the bold and courageous. That's what our last name means, exemplified by my brother, my wife and my children who are amazing, bold and courageous people. And yeah, to share with the things that I've found, the footholds that have helped pull myself back up. And I'm still pulling myself up. I'm still doing things and finding new things. But those things that are really give me those footholds to give me more energy to help move forward. And so I just got to say, I have missed the audience out there. I thank you for your continued support. And yeah, we're going to talk soon. And like always, I got you. I do. I got you.