Welcome back to Inside personal growth. Joining us from Vancouver is David Greer. And I met David A while back, but it's called wind in your sales is the book we're going to put a link, and the subtitle is vital strategies that accelerate your entrepreneurial growth. David, Good day to you. Thanks for being on inside personal growth.

Thanks, Greg. I'm really excited to be here with you today. Well,

I'm excited to have you and for all our listeners, they can see from behind there, he's a sailor. Obviously, there should have been it, put it and here as well. And so there's a lot that you learn from sailing. I'm going to tell the little listeners a little bit about you, but there's a actually a deeper story too, that I'd like for you to get to with the listeners. But while he was still turning attending University of British Columbia, David joined Robel Solutions Technology. He was at the first employees after the founders. After joining Robel, he got permission from his fourth year professors to take a week off so he could fly to an international conference to give his first ever technical presentation. During David's tenure as a co owner and president of Rodel, he traveled the world giving a new presentation every year, creating multi million dollar product lines while building Robel into one of the world's leading providers of HP, 3000 solutions. David, I'm gonna let him tell the rest of the story, because he's got more to his story. And when he's not writing books and he's not coaching and he's not speaking, you'll find him hiking, he says, The Himalayans mountains in Nepal and or sailing across the oceans, which you can see via go to his website, which is Coach DJ Greer Greer er.com that's where you can learn more about him, his videos, his book and so on. So you I want you to tell the listeners, because there is more to your story than what I just said. So kind of fill in the gaps for us, if you would, because you're now teaching or you're now coaching entrepreneurs, you're coaching people who run into roadblocks that get stuck. And in your own personal life, you got stuck and ran into roadblocks. What were the some of the similarities that you think you kind of ran into, that you think people who are entrepreneurs run into, that you might be able to help people navigate through. Well,

let's just carry the story. So we you know, I spent 20 years with row belt, I have an opportunity to something completely different. So my wife and I commissioned a sailboat in the south of France, and we homeschool our three children for two years while sailing 5000 miles to the Mediterranean, and I come back and then, now is the challenge. What's next? And, you know, I spent three years angel investing and being a board of director and working for options, and I didn't realize how completely unfulfilling that was. And, you know, eventually I was at an event where I met a coach who made me more uncomfortable than I had been in four or five years, who just, you know, and I think I had tears in the corner of my eyes. I think he just said, you know, there's 100 entrepreneurs in this room, and they all need your help. And I hadn't. I've been trying to find people who wanted my help and was not succeeding. And, you know, Kevin helped me to get back into the game, but also to start working with people that are my level, like that's one of the things I've come to realize is I have to, not necessarily at the learning level, like I have some really young clients in their like, 20s, but their energy, their enthusiasm, their ability to be challenged by me and not be overwhelmed. Like, that's we torque together and play together, you know, as coaching client, and then you know, Kevin, amazing, amazing coach, and the I believe the universe put Kevin in my path, so that I worked with Kevin for nine years, but after 18 months, we'd kind of cleared all the clutter off the table. We got me back. So I hired him professionally, like to get me back in my career, because I was unfulfilled. But on january 26 2009 I sent an email to Kevin on a Sunday, on a Monday night, which was I, we always did this, I sent an email with the successes and what the topic was, and my topic was my drinking. And the next afternoon, Tuesday, January 27 2009 i i had a coaching call with Kevin, and I talked to him about my drinking, which is, I'm an alcoholic. I drink alcoholically. I had for 20 years being a daily drinker, and he coached me to 12 step recovery. And you know, typical fashion as an overachiever, I committed to go to a meeting by that Friday. And later in the afternoon, I looked online, and lo and behold, I had a networking event downtown that finished at eight, and there was going to be a meeting a quarter of a block off the road I was going to drive home on. And I went to that meeting, and eventually, months later, I made up my home group, and 16 years on, it's still my home group. In fact, I'm going to be there tonight. So, you know, that's the single biggest achievement of my life. And what I

Is that an AA group? Yes, it is. Yeah, well, congratulations for that. I mean, I just think when somebody who has an addiction, and whether you want to label yourself that way or not, I mean, look, a lot of people are addicted to different things. Some people are addicted to work, they're addicted to drinking, they're addicted to exercise, they're addicted anything that you look at from an addiction is the over indulgence in whatever it is, right? And I even think that some people think they're social drinkers, but they're more than social drinkers. And you know what I love about your book is you frame sailing as a metaphor for entrepreneurship, and you obviously coach entrepreneurs. And there's a lot of things that pop up for entrepreneurs, like, how do I finance this, and how do I market this, and how do I get it to market? And, you know, on top of all the other things they have to do, I gotta hire employees. I gotta manage employees. I've got all this. What are some of the basic biggest storms that you've seen founders face, and what makes some sink while others can sail through? I mean, this is a big question.

You know what? It's a big question, and it's not, and it's one of my work in coaching. I think 50% of the challenge is to face the brutal facts. So we want to put our head in the sand, or our team around us is telling us about the elephant in the room. My elephant room happened to be my alcoholism. But whatever the elephant in the room, whether you know we're when we're recording this, there's a lot of things happening in politics and trade that are creating grief for a lot of entrepreneurs, big elephants, big elephants. And my experience is that if you I've almost never met an entrepreneur who, if they squarely face the brutal facts, and then especially if they face them, not alone, but with help from others that they haven't overcome it. But half, I would say my facilitation work with clients, half the battle is getting the brutal fact on the table so that that's so if you don't admit that storm clouds are on the horizon and you get whacked with the storm, you tend to have a lot bigger problem. Yeah,

well, that you emphasize self awareness. Okay, so self awareness is the really understanding about how I'm feeling about these things. What is my awareness of them? There are people that sometimes aren't so aware about how they communicate, and then when they communicate to an employee or a spouse or a child, they hurt the feelings of those people because they're just so rough at it. I mean, look at Elon Musk, a perfect example. Oh, my God, he's probably one of the worst communicators there is. Right? They even

the worst at having any feeling or empathy for anyone else as far right, right, looking from the outside, looking in.

Now, regardless of the fact that he is, people say autistic, and I believe that he probably is a little bit, what do you see as the biggest blind spot most entrepreneurs have about and I'm going to underline themselves.

I think it's the notion that they have to do it all. You know, I work a lot with owner founders, who built the business themselves, and they've grown it themselves. So the truth is, in order to succeed, they had to do it all, but the business grows to a certain point where the business is now bigger than them. And in fact, in my experience, the most limiting factor from almost all business growth is the entrepreneur herself or himself. Like their limit get out of the way. They need to get out of the way, yeah, and, and letting go when you're an owner, founder, and, you know, you've run a business successfully for five or 10 years, this, this is really tough stuff, you

know? Well, you know, I remember David a long time ago. Michael Gerber has been on the show several times. He's now in his late 80s, and we still Converse. But you know, if you can't set up the systems in a business to and then trust that the systems are going to run. And as a good coach, you're somebody who's helping people say, hey, look, release this, and trust in the people, in the systems, in the way that it operates. And I mean, you can't, like, do a franchise unless there's system right? If you were gonna put out a burger like McDonald's, you want it to be the same every time, right? That's kind of what it is. And

if you're gonna hire someone who's better than you in a particular role, you need to let go that you know your way of doing it is the right way. Like you hired someone better than you you've got to give them space and room to do it their way, which is probably way better than your way, but you don't trust that, so you snatch back the controls and insist and micromanaging it and doing it the way that you know work to grow your business. And it's well, it may be true that worked in the past, but that's not what's going to get you to get you to where you want to go in the future.

And I remember just this from the other day, you know, Vern Harnish was on here, scalable, right? And, and we were talking about a visionary versus a manager. Well, as a CEO, if you are the CEO and you're the visionary, get out of the way and let the managers do what they're supposed to do, because you really aren't equipped. Most visionary, a lot of them, are not equipped to be coaches. Hopefully the owners you're coaching are getting you to coach the middle line managers as well in the company, because they're really probably not good coaches, right?

Well, or I do a lot of coaching about helping them to become better coaches. Oh,

that's good. That's awesome. So yeah, for all of you, think

about having the conversation this way. Or are you having these conversations? Are you even having Well, a lot of times like, you know, they just think that the person, the other people, could operate in a vacuum, and you know? So, yeah, so that that forms part of my work. Well,

I love the fact you talk about getting uncomfortable is for growth, okay? And what was a recent uncomfortable decision that you, David made, and what did it teach you, or maybe one of your coaching clients, was uncomfortable. I think, you know, you know, we talked a little bit about this political environment right now, and I know Trump has said so many times, well, it's going to get a little bit uncomfortable. You know, it's like, really this uncomfortable. We didn't really think that and uncomfortable comes in so many different ways, whether it's financial or it's loss of employees. How do you help these entrepreneurs deal with, as Trump said, it's gonna get uncomfortable, because right now a lot of them are dealing with a lot of discomfort.

Uh, well, let me, let me start your opening question was like, what's been a recent uncomfortable thing for me? Yeah, I'm gonna make it very personal, which is my wife and I have known for a while we need to rent our kitchen okay? And like, we avoided the conversation for a long time because we had very different visions for what that looks like. Now, next week, we're going to be married for 43 years. Now, in 43 years of marriage, have we always figured it out in a way that worked for both of us. The answer is yes. But here we are back to, oh, well, you know, afraid of what the other is going to think and and we're not going to work it out, and we're going to be at loggerheads. And, you know, it's and now we're like, put pasting tape on the floor in the kitchen. And we're well, what if we did this, and what if we did that? And I reminded her last night, I said, Well, if we go with this approach, like you really wanted this pantry that's in another room to be in the kitchen, I'm letting you know I don't think there'll be enough storage to do that. Are you okay with that? So you know, she that's one of her stated goals for the project. And it turns out that's not the most important goal. These other ones are. So she's okay with the design we've been working on. And a month ago, I probably couldn't have had that conversation, because I was like, I hate change. So this is challenging for me. And some of it is, you just have to live with the discomfort. Some of it is, you know, people work things out. Like, if you have good team and good people and good help, you have people like me that are helping on the sidelines and coaching, you will figure it out. It goes back to my earlier statement that if you can identify the brutal fact, in my experience, everyone figures out a solution. How to solve it. It may be very painful. You may have to lay off half your staff, like in COVID. People had to do, you know, really tough things, but they just had to do what they had to do, even though it was very, very uncomfortable. And some of it is learning to live with the discomfort like it's just discomfort, right? And this too shall pass. I think that's the other thing,

yeah. But the discomfort, even the discomfort, David, even in your case, you said you hated change it. Let's face it, every uncomfortable situation that we come up against when we grow through it versus go through it when we grow through it, versus go through it. Always when we get to the other side, we're going, well, that really wasn't that bad, you know, because there, there is the resistance I get. There's a resistance to it. Because I don't think there is a person out there that probably doesn't resist some kind of, if it's a major change, they're like, Wow, I don't know if I want to approach that. Some people thrive on it, but it's not a very niche

and for me as a coach, like usually, what's underlying that is a fear. So I often, you know, if a client is open to it, well, I'll often ask them, and then, you know, I'll now open there about how what their response is, but like, what are you most afraid of? Right now? Right? What are you most afraid of if this goes wrong, and by naming the fears, we tend to right size them a little bit. And sometimes I actually walk down the path of the worst case scenario. Like, you know, plan for the worst and hope for the best. So like, even if you went down this worst case scenario, is the business going to survive, right and right? And what would you need to do if in order to survive? Oh, I'd have to lay off all these people. I have to do this. I'd have to that. Okay, well, that's your worst case. Like you have a worst case plan. It's not what you want to do, it's not what you hope is you're going to have to do, but you have a something in your back pocket that will let you survive right now, let's talk about right and then that reduces the fear so that makes it easier to think of other solutions that aren't totally around that worst case scenario. Knowing and again, once you release some of that fear, you actually make better decisions.

Well, I love the fact that you take your clients through scenario planning. Obviously your years, originally with the company or with you did a lot of that kind of, that kind of thing, I'm sure, with the HP 3000 and all the products and services you had to develop. And you know, not all of those have a long life, either, right? Some shorter lives, some longer lives. But you know, many of the leaders are, have set metrics. They're, they're chasing metrics and an external validation, right? It's like, okay, we set this metrics, or we have this KPM, this key performance indicator, right? How can they reconnect with internal purpose without losing momentum in their business, because they think, Okay, it's good to have a goal, okay, but it's also better to be curious and have a purpose and a vision. Goals don't always come together, meaning our end goal the way sometimes we think they're going to happen. You know that, right? So you have to be flexible. But how do you help a leader, a founder, find this internal purpose again, versus just chasing the goal?

In my work with entrepreneurs, they've often lost sight of, like, they're overwhelmed with the next email, the next fire, the next thing, right? And so the question I ask them oftentimes first is, like, why did you start the business? Like, what was the reason? What you know, and reconnecting them with that opening, you know, why they started the business is, is often a path to that bigger purpose. Like, you know, even externally, like you started the business because there was a pain in the marketplace, and you solved it, and you created a lot of customers. I mean, I still think that external validation can be very important. That's you living your purpose, which is to help people get out of their pain with a product or service that they're willing to pay you for.

That's normally why they start the business. That's Yes,

yeah. And you also talked about the like, the visionary versus the operator, as the business grows and it requires more and more operation, you get snowed under and buried under that operational piece, and you lose the vision piece, right? But the vision piece is the biggest value you bring to the table. Like, where are the markets going?

Like, but isn't that? Isn't that, David, caused by the fact that they're not trusting the people they hired, you just said it a minute ago. It's like, Hey, I got to do everything. So the reality is, if you can't let go, it's hard to hold on to the vision.

So yeah, so what I remind them, though, is to get, you know, to get back in vision mode, you're going to have to let go. So what do you want to do? Like I always, you know, at the end of the end of the day, it's the client's life, it's the client's business, it's the client's choice. I just try and lay out options for them that are much clearer. So they're like, you can continue down this path of operating the business and feeling burnt out all the time and not having any fun, or you could pursue a path which is back to why you started the business and what brings you joy? And let's go find more things that bring you joy in your business, or maybe joy in your life, like maybe the business is okay, but you need to do other things outside of the business to build your resiliency, or reintroduce things that were very joyous that have been cut out because the business has overwhelmed you.

So in this book, you have a really powerful chapter, David on particularly powerful around values. Okay, and how do you coach a leader or an entrepreneur to know when they're compromising the values for either a sharp, short term gain or even a long term gain, because I think what happens is they start to bend or shift, or how do you want to go not recognize the values which they were originally, uh, founded on, yeah, right. And look, we've seen this happen time and time again in certain companies. Now, an example of a company that fortunately hasn't meant those values was Yvonne Chouinard with Patagonia. So when you look at a company like that, you're like saying, Hey, I'm setting an example. Here's a company that lives what they talk about and breathe, and you know, all the way down to the employees. So how do you help somebody see that kind of same Patagonia, values driven organization?

Well, first of all, working with entrepreneurs like, Have they written their values down? So some of it, it's just in their head or so, and some of the coaching I do, or I might do, facilitation, with the senior leadership team and the entrepreneur on a voyage of discovery. So again, Good to Great. You know, talks about, it's, it's about discovering your values, not like setting your values. And the values are typically driven in an owner, founder business by the things that the entrepreneur valued, or maybe them, and then one or two most key first hires. So first of all, like, can you articulate your values, and then what do you do to live your values and and then what are the consequences if you or one of your team members are not living up to those values and having conversations around that? You know, Vern Harnish would say in his one page strategic plan, it's like the values. It's the actions you take to live your core values and your purpose so totally, what are what are those actions? And are you holding each other accountable to it like there's employees know right away, if an entrepreneur says or leader CEO says, you know, these are our values, and then they watch as that person violates those values, they know those values don't mean anything, like they're they're meaningless. So it's knowing what your values are. And then you know, are you willing to be accountable to it? And then are you willing to hold other people accountable to it? Are you really willing to hire to fire toxic A players when they continually violate your values, it's really hard to do. They're usually super high performers, and they're just they're a virus in the organization, or

eliminated C players too. So yeah. So you look you this wholesaling analogy is really quite interesting, because I'm sure you can lead workshops just around the whole thing. What are the signs that a company culture, that in the culture usually is a reflection of the CEO of the company, is dragging down performance rather than lifting it up? And what can that leader your coaching due to course correct, without mutiny. I know the first one is to be self aware of what the hell is that I'm doing. I think I've seen entrepreneurs in small, medium sized businesses get very angry, and actually, at this particular time with the economy and supply chains and them not know what's going on, I think you're going to exacerbate these feelings from an individual. It's just natural. What could you stress? Yeah, what can you do to help coach somebody off that ledge? Because I'm sure there's some people out there right now that would rather just jump off the precipice.

Number one is you got to step back from the ledge like you're not going to make good choices when you're in super high stress, and again, you're live you're triggered in your fear, right? Right? So we're still back to self awareness about what your fears are, and you know, being able to do things that at least moderate that fear, or at least get you out of being totally activated in it, so that you can make more rational choices. And again, you go back to first principles. Why did I start the business? What's my purpose for being here? What are the values we have in the business? Because I think this is what drives high performance. And if you stick to those values, you can make many different decisions about what your path is and what you're going to do going forward. But the guiding, the guidelines, like the, you know, the the bumper car. You know that the edges of the bumper car is those values and that purpose, like so over that. It's like, you're, you're everybody's just crashing out.

Can you give us an example or story of a company or an entrepreneur that you guided through particularly rough times, was able to help through the other side, and then what the outcome was, I think our listeners always kind of like to hear success stories too.

You're putting me on the spot. Of course, I'm drawing a blank in this particular

if you don't have one, that's okay, but if you do, that'd be great.

You know, I think the end of my tenure at Robel, one of the things like you talked about things changing in marketplaces. Like, we were a technology company based on a technology, you know, based on a very successful technology platform from Hewlett Packard, which was the one of the longest running mini computers in the history of computing, right? And towards the end, like we knew the 3000 was going to stop at some point, we just didn't know when, and we were really slow to, like, take the right decisions to operate on that knowledge. And, you know, the reason I ended up, you know, out of the company, is that the original founder wanted to take the market and milk it till it was all gone and, like, drastically downsize the business. And I'm like, we have a demonstrated team that can do a lot of things that most software tech companies cannot do, and I wanted to take a little more money and risk and move it in new directions. So that was a lot of very uncomfortable conversations,

right? And, well, it's also compromising your values too well. And

it turns out like my what was important to me, I didn't know it at the time, was to continue growing as an entrepreneur and growing into new areas and learning more. And my partner was 10 years older, and he never had kids, and this was his baby, and you know, like just having it keep ticking along was perfectly fine for him, and he was finding fulfillment and doing things outside of the business, right? So, so we had this very fundamental, like disagreement, which, like we knew from early on, we had to go out once a month and have lunch, and then he moved to Anguilla, this little Caribbean island, and we weren't even having like conversations, just the two of us once a month, like we fell out of like, relationship with each other and out of sync. You know, if we continued once a month, lunches might have turned out different. Yeah, I think it would have, but, and, I mean, we settled it by him buying me out, and he did drastically down, like, really drastically, drastically downsize the company, which was very personal, because we had a lot of people with 10 years with the company, some with 20. But I mean, to pursue his plan, that's what needed to be done. Well. But see,

that's a good story. I mean, it's like you guys finally came to a solution, and sometimes it is succession, yes. And in this case, you know, he bought you out, and then you went on and did your own thing. So I think it's there now. One of the things we've talked about during this interview has been a players, B players, and I even said to make sure to get rid of the C players. Let's, let's talk about surrounding yourself with smarter people. Okay, what is one? What are one of the best lawyers lessons you've learned from somebody that you hired that was smarter than David?

Well, you know, before our call, you send me the questions that I knew that one of this is one of the ones that was coming. But I would say, like the most impactful in the last 15 plus years have been my two coaches. I've hired coaches, and let me tell you that having a coach for me is, like, maybe the most selfish thing that I do. This is something that is strictly for me. It's not for my spouse, it's not for my kids, not for my business, really, it's just for me. And I look at what I've learned from those coaches and their perspective that they have been able to bring to me. You know, I was on a call last week with my coach, and my son and future daughter in law are going to get married this summer, and we've had some real friction around this, and I'd shared some of the conversations with my my coach and and I, and she said, Do you want to talk about this issue? And I was like, No, I think we've resolved it mostly, and she didn't let me off the hook, and it's like I was trying to avoid it. And and then she, you know, she had some really important observations about where my wife and I were and where she thinks our son and future daughter in law are that made me very uncomfortable. She wasn't judging it. She just said, I think, you know, you guys are in your head. They're in their hearts, and their hearts need this support right now, and there's no possible way I could have got there. I don't think on my own too close to it too emotional. And so to have this third party that is just such a fantastic listener, and here's between the words, here's between the lines, and just be able to ask me, yeah, gently, but gently, but still some very challenging questions and observations. I'm really fortunate. It's and again, very I was very uncomfortable after that call, and it took me, I was uncomfortable for a day or two. Well,

when it comes to personal, family, frequently, that whole opportunity to let go is there. But she put it in a way that they're coming from your hearts and you're coming from your head, and I understand that, because you're trying to do what's good for them, you what you think is good for them, right? And And this happens in business as well. It's like, I totally this is the way to do it, because I think this is good for you, but when you step back, it's not like you're giving up or anything like that. What you're doing is you're allowing and you know this, it's not a rudderless boat. It's like, literally, it's a guide. It's a small little change that changes the course correction. Now it may take you to a different island, and you may be really surprised by what you see over at the other island, but the point there is, is that wow, this was beautiful. This letting them be in their heart is the best thing that I ever did, and this marriage is going to turn out wonderfully. So what is the biggest myth around success that you think holds entrepreneurs back?

It is the societal myth that you'll be happy when you get there.

No, no, I am laughing with you. I like that, because there is no there, there, correct, right? And

for us over achievers, like, when you get there, then, like, I, for a long time, had a really hard time celebrating, or I really had a hard time for people really complimenting me, right? It's just like, oh, I have to, like, go be even better, like, because when there's there, then there's there squared. When we get to there squared, there's there cubed, right? And

you're reminding me of an interview that I had with Marshall gold. Now Marshall says, you know, I've got these people that have 16 degrees, they have three mansions, they own five companies, and they got a billion dollars in the bank, and they'll still say, that's not enough. And then he'll say to them, when is enough enough?

Totally, when are you going to take joy in today? Yeah, like, what are you going to do today that brings you joy, right? Because, why not live every day with joy? Well, this

interview is bringing me joy because you're bringing up in me, what I know is is a cog in my own wheel, because I was brought up with a little Jewish mother that ever said that. I always said, there was, what did you do for me today? It was never enough, right, right? What did you do today? And I know that tape has been really hard to unprogram, and I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, the reason they're entrepreneurs is because they are driven. And they're driven because something happened in their childhood around not enough. Maybe the parents weren't wealthy, but they strived, they worked hard. I see this happen all the time. They go into burnout, so easy, and that brings me to this next question. Let's talk about burn on how have you personally managed energy and and especially when you're running like on a full tilt? Now I know Doctor Laura is going to be on this show again, and he wrote the power of full engagement, right? And so when we look at this, it's like, okay, how do I manage my energy? And it's really all about managing our energy. Everything's about managing our energy.

It is. And because I'm a coach, and I love frameworks, my former coach, Kevin Lawrence, like the framework he taught me. So how I think about it? I think about life in three buckets. I think about career business like finance, and think about life and relationships, okay, and Most High, driven entrepreneurs that I know are very passionate about both of those, and often like are way over 100% when you take the two together and they miss out the middle piece, which is my is self. So I bring much more conscious intention to self and what I need to do to replenish myself when I'm over extending myself, and in our society like again, there's this metaphor, there's this myth that being selfish is bad, of course, yeah, right. And so when we do things that are just to look after ourselves, it's very possible that people around us or our own story will be, I'm being selfish. But the truth is, if you are the other end of the spectrum, selfless, I'm giving everything to my business. I'm giving everything to my spouse, my kids, my friends, there's nothing left. There's nothing left. Like you have to get go to burnout if you are completely selfless. And the pendulum never sits perfectly in the middle, because it just never sits perfectly. In the middle, it swings right. And so some of what I do for my own life and with my clients is bring conscious intention like for the next quarter. What's your what's your passion ratio going to look like in business, in life and for yourself? And it can't be 0% for yourself, right? You need at least, even if it's going to be like, you know, it's going to be crazy business quarter, it's like, well, then you really, absolutely need to schedule some events and some things that are going to be just for you, whether that's jumping on an airplane, racing a car, going skiing like hanging out with entrepreneurial friends. Like, it doesn't, like you don't have to do it solo. It's knowing. You know, for me, you're probably going to ask me this in a minute, is going sailing?

Well, it's self nurturing and care, right? I mean,

yeah, it's what does that look like for you? And

it's self love. You know, in other words, we can give love out to other people and however it's perceived. But do we love ourselves? And a lot of times we beat up on ourselves, we don't love ourselves enough. And I just had a guy on here talking about the the the legend leaders, and it was Brian brayo. And Brian was personal friends with Coach Wooden, right? And so certain coaches styles, and he learned from the best. You know, he talks about this same thing is that, you know, when you look at how wooden coached, John Wooden coached. He never beat up on anybody. He always had him look inside, right? And you know, when you have a good coach, and I remember my kids during football, right? A lot of those coaches were pretty tough on those little guys, right? And they get angry, and it's not the best way to coach. So this goes down to this question you said I was going to ask, which is, if you would go back and give your younger entrepreneur herself one page from wind in your sails, which page would it be and why

it would be the page that talks about planning your business by looking three to five years out, first and and like, where do you want to end up? Where's your market going to end up? Where do you want to end up? Like, in not next quarter this year, but in three to five years, and then figure that direction and four or five key initiatives or capabilities or whatever is going to be needed to get you there. Then work out what you need to do this year. Then work out what you need to do this quarter. I think when I went to the first Vern Harnish event, which is where I met coach Kevin, who so Vern is the creator of scaling up in the one page strategic plan. Like I literally had a light bulb moment sitting in that downtown hotel here in Vancouver, and Vern sharing that aspect of the one page plan, like, poof. Like, wow. I you know, what would it look like if we had planned that way? And, you know, I have no regrets. We ran a hugely successful business. We made an absolute ton of money. And I wonder what it would it look like if we had just taken more of that approach to our planning.

Well, I love the fact that you're starting with that one page plan. For those listeners that don't know, they can get the book scaling up, then go to Vern harnesses website. They go to your website. That one page business plan is probably the most clever document ever created, and it really gets you focused on what it is that you need to do to get to your aspiration, your goal in life. And it's not this big, long document, and it doesn't have all these pages and pages, use it well, right? Yeah, I love it. So look, it's people go through ups and downs and businesses in personal life. And you know, look, you had your bout with alcoholism, and you're still with AA. That's the first thing we started with, going to your meeting tonight. Finally, when your sales start to feel deflated, like they probably did during the times when you were heavily doing more and more alcohol because you're drowning yourself. So your your sales have to feel the place it deflated. What's your go to ritual or practice to help you get back on course? And what would you tell people out there feeling like stuck, deflated, you know, right now, it's probably a really good time. Probably got a lot of people out there that are going, Holy, F, U, C, K, what am I going to do

make sure you are carving out time to build your resiliency, to get the win back in your sales. And you know, if that's only four hours on a weekend, then just make sure you honor and take those four hours.

And what would you tell them to do? Are you going to say, hey, go take a walk on the beach, go ride your bike, go do meditation. Do you have some things you tell them to do?

It's well, you know, what brings you joy, what builds your resiliency? Is it like going and playing with your grandkids, or is it just being present? Or, if you're a younger entrepreneur and you have young kids, is it just going to the playground with them and being present to them, and not your busy brain sitting there in the playground the whole time thinking about your business? If you're open to meditation, yeah, for sure. I believe walks on the beach. I think, you know, if you want to solve a business problem, go for a hike. I agree. Like, don't sit in your office and stare at your screen. Like, get out of the office. Or maybe take a couple of your senior team members and like, go for a walk.

Great advice. And if you have a sailboat, damn it, get on it. Because, yeah, every time I've gotten on a sailboat with a friend, I don't own one. Never have but I've been on many, and you get out and the breeze is blowing and the sails are up and you're just cruising along, and all you hear is the of the water, right, which you, you, you per you probably could create a audio tape of that. Maybe that would be a good audio tape. Next time you got sailing, you should get that water sound creative audio tape and start selling it for meditation, because it is probably one of the best meditations out there. And the similarities to guiding and navigating a boat are so similar to a business, you know, making sure you have enough fuel, making sure that you got the right maps and that you got your your compasses and everything, and, you know, doing the checklist just like an airplane, same thing with an airplane, right? You don't want it to go down. So I commend.

And for me, the other piece that's really important is the waves, the wind, like, that's way out of my control, right? And one of the things about sailing is it forces it remind. It forces me to be reminded. I have very little I can control, which is also true in our business. We have way less control than we think we do, but we do know. So get very focused on what you can control. I can control where we're going to go. I can choose a different destination so I don't have to beat against the wind. I can go with the wind. I get to adjust my sales. I get to reduce them. If there's too much wind, and you know, if I have too much sale up, I'll get overpowered, and the boat will round up and like the universe is saying, Hey, David, you're not paying attention, like I'm in charge here, you might want to adjust your sales. And that is part of the experience for me is it helps really, right size me and my place?

Well, I've, I've seen so many stories about sailing, and then it's interesting, you know, but to be able to have a radio and be in contact with somebody that can provide you with Intel, right? So the kind of way I look at it is your coach is that person on the other end of the radio that's giving you the intel about the weather that you can't actually always see, and tells you to course correct, because if you want to see around corners, you do need to have a coach to actually guide you, because they can see the the the front coming on, you're going to hit it head on, and you're going to sink the boat, but he, he or she is going to navigate you around. So all you got to do is get on Zoom, get on your phone and talk to that coach, and David Greer would be one of them you would want to talk to, because he's been on both sides of the boat. So I want to just thank you for being on the podcast today, sharing your personal story about your alcoholism and AA and how it's gotten you on you've gotten on the right path, about the people you've talked about that you've coached a bit about the things, the values and purpose that a leader needs to have. And I'm going to encourage my listeners to go out and get a copy of this book. Wind in your sales, go to David's website, and I am we will be putting a link to that website up at the or right underneath this podcast so you can see it. But it's coach. Give it to me again. Give it to the listeners. It's

Coach D J greer.com Coach D as in, David J as In, James greer.com Okay, and I want your listeners to know so every top left corner of every web page on my website has my phone number and my email address. Yep, 60472137325757325732

sorry, 604721 604-721-5732, and it's David at Coach D, J, greer.com Correct,

yes. And I offer a free one hour coaching call to anyone. Oh, that wants it. Oh, yeah, make sure reach out to me.

Reach out via the phone or reach out via email. Go to his website. You can fill out a form there as well a contact form if you prefer doing it that way, that's how you can reach him. David pleasure, having you on the show. Pleasure speaking with you today, looking forward to seeing how many of my listeners actually take you up on your free one hour coaching session.

Thanks, Greg. It's been fabulous to be here with you today. I

enjoyed the laughs we had together. Take care. Namaste.