Join Michelle Nedelec and I on her Business Ownership Podcast as we dive deep on these topics:
- Learn how David made a major career change in becoming an entrepreneurial coach.
- If you think you have a problem with alcohol, other substances, or behaviors know that there is a solution for you. Learn from David’s example.
- To be high performing, play to your strengths.
- Work with a coach or mentor, to discover the beliefs that are limiting you and your business.
- David’s “Cinderella story” is of a client partnership that broke up after using David’s tools to show that one partner was not holding up his part of the business.
- Are you having fun in your business? Rediscover the joy of why you founded your business in the first place.
Audio
Simplecast: https://the-business-ownership-podcast.simplecast.com/episodes/90-day-business-acceleration-david-greer
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2ScjLB6QuIMwEn6mq2UH2J
Transcript
David Greer (00:00):
I want to make sure that you know that there is hope, and whether it’s workaholism, whether it’s sex edition, whether it’s overeating, I just want anyone who’s got compulsive behavior to know there is hope. And then the second piece, which really gets to the core of your question is how do we cope is we can’t do it alone.
Michelle Nedelec (00:22):
Welcome to the Business Ownership Podcast, brought to you by Awareness Strategies, helping you navigate the waters between entrepreneurship and ownership. Hey there, peeps, this is Michelle Nedelec and I’m super glad that you’re here with us today because I’m here with my most amazing guest, David. David, thank you so much for being here with us today.
David Greer (00:40):
Thank you so much. I’m super excited.
Michelle Nedelec (00:43):
Nice. So give everybody the highlight of who you are and what you do for business.
David Greer (00:47):
I’m Coach David J. Greer. I’m a 40 plus year entrepreneur, and now I am a professional business coach, and I facilitate strategic planning for entrepreneurs and their senior leadership teams.
Michelle Nedelec (01:02):
Nice. So let’s back up the bus a bit. How did you get into coaching and working with senior leadership as your thing?
David Greer (01:12):
I have a long career, which we can get into if we want, but the last executive gig I did was a VP of Marketing for a publicly traded 35 million a year company called WebTech Wireless in the telematics space. I was working with the CEO, who I knew well also on strategy. I came out of three years at WebTech and I was in my mid fifties and I realized that I did not have to prove to anyone anymore that I can work hard. I probably worked as hard in those three years as I had any time in my whole career.
(01:52):
And if we back it up a little bit, I came out of a company I was with 20 years and took a break and tried a few things and they weren’t working for me. And on my 50th birthday, I hired amazing coach Kevin Lawrence, and I worked with Kevin for nine years. And so when I came out of the gig with WebTech Wireless, I just decided that I wanted to give to entrepreneurs the kind of things that Kevin had given to me. That was kind of the catalyst to becoming a coach. And of course, the gifts that Kevin has given to me is much bigger than business. I’m an alcoholic who’s thankfully been in recovery for the last 15 years. And when Kevin came into my life, we worked on a lot of trying to reestablish my career and we cleared off a lot of clutter on the table. And 18 months after working together, finally he was the first person I admitted I had a drinking problem to. And he coached me to go to 12 step recovery. And that has been the linchpin of my getting sober. When I say I want to give the gifts that Kevin gave me, I feel one of the gifts Kevin gave me of the many, many gifts he’s given me is the gift of sobriety. And that’s also why I do specialize in entrepreneurs who are challenged with alcoholism or addiction.
Michelle Nedelec (03:17):
Well, let’s touch on that because I think it is post covid, it’s a more prominent issue than I think it’s ever been before. And because it is a socially acceptable coping mechanism, and when people undergoing a ton of stress, you need to cope. So how do you go and cope? And so talk to me
David Greer (03:39):
And there’s this convenient, socially acceptable way that you can,
Michelle Nedelec (03:42):
I think I’ll just say, and then it works until it doesn’t like everything else. What is it particularly about that that you got out of it? So not to kind of dwell on it so much as to realizing that there’s this thing that’s taking over my life and it’s not fun anymore. What was that transition point and what did you get out of that? Out of becoming sober?
David Greer (04:12):
It took 20 years of denial. I just was in complete denial about my alcoholism for a very, very long time. And let’s be clear, I’m a super high performing alcoholic. From the outside I can drink a lot. I don’t stumble, I don’t slur, and I do a lot of stuff including running businesses. From the outside I look like I have it together, but I reached a point kind of with Kevin’s help and reflection, he had no idea I was drinking. But just as we worked together as a coach and a client, I just reached that point where I was sick and tired of being sick and tired like that. That was my bottom. When I came into recovery, I had a house and three kids and a couple cars and 15 years on, I’ve got a house and a marriage and three kids and two grandkids and a couple cars. And you might say nothing looks different on the outside and you’d be right. It doesn’t look that much different on the outside, but on the inside I’m a hundred percent different human being.
Michelle Nedelec (05:17):
And I have to guess that your wife and kids appreciate that too.
David Greer (05:23):
Although my wife was very surprised when I came out as an alcoholic. So partly because when she grew up, alcoholics were truckers or loggers and they went to the bar on Friday night and they got really drunk and into really bad fights and I didn’t do that. If I didn’t do that, I must not be an alcoholic.
Michelle Nedelec (05:45):
Well, yeah, you ran companies, you possibly, that’s the pinnacle of what everybody wants. What are you talking about?
David Greer (05:52):
I didn’t meet her definition, and it’s actually been a struggle for her because one of the promises she made to herself is she’d never marry an alcoholic, of course. And then 30 years into our relationship, surprise. There we are. And here we are today where I’ve managed to put 15 years together one day at a time.
Michelle Nedelec (06:16):
Nice. And what would you say is the best part of sobriety for you?
David Greer (06:22):
Going to the swimming pool with my two grandchildren, my daughter and son-in-law and wife on Sunday for Father’s Day and being sober nice. And my grandchildren have never seen me drunk.
Michelle Nedelec (06:33):
Nice. And if you don’t mind, I pick a little bit more. Why not drunk?
David Greer (06:40):
Go for it.
Michelle Nedelec (06:41):
Why not drunk? Because some people go like, who cares? I’m just having a drink and I really want to, what was it about Father’s Day being able to spend it with them sober, that was the pinnacle of importance to you? Because I want people to see what that thing is that they might be missing out on.
David Greer (07:01):
It’s on my website. One of my core values is family values,
Michelle Nedelec (07:05):
Like
David Greer (07:06):
Being with and having family. And when I was a high performing alcoholic, but when I was drinking, I don’t know what exactly I took away from the relationship with my kids. I still was there. I still did a lot of things with them. I still went to sports games, but 20 or 30% of me was not there. It was either thinking about the next drink or I was already had a lot of drink in me. The commitment I’ve made to myself and to the people around me is that I’m going to be a hundred percent present. I’m not going to use any artificial substance to get between me and the experiences that I’m having in life.
Michelle Nedelec (07:46):
Nice. And so being there, that’s
David Greer (07:48):
Kind of, yeah, that’s the overreaching how I want to show up, how I want to be in the world. And with all that goes with that, because sometimes life is still painful, even though I’m very successful, I’m human and stuff happens and I can’t go back to my solution to choice, which is to pick up a drink. Fortunately, I have a lot of tools that I can use to cope with life on life’s terms.
Michelle Nedelec (08:17):
So let’s get into that. What are some of those tools? Because as I mentioned earlier, I see it as a coping mechanism and I think people need to understand that there are thousands of coping mechanisms and there any one of them can become problematic if it becomes a crutch.
David Greer (08:33):
Agreed.
(08:36):
There’s a message I have if you are suffering from alcoholism or use of drugs is one, I want to make sure that that there’s hope. And whether it’s workaholism, whether it’s sex addiction, whether it’s overeating, I just want anyone who’s got compulsive behavior to there is hope. And then the second piece, which really gets to the core of your question is how do we cope is we can’t do it alone. And alcoholism to me is a disease of isolation, certainly was my experience. I tended to isolate when I drank. And my experience with entrepreneurs, even if they don’t use alcohol as a coping mechanism, is we start our businesses and we’re pretty headstrong. And because we see an opportunity or because we hate working for other people, but on the whole. It’s really hard to ask for help.
(09:35):
I see a lot of entrepreneurs who need my help, but they’re not open to it. I can’t help you if you’re not open to it. I think the first coping mechanism is don’t try and do it all alone. Find a peer group, find some mentor. If you don’t have money for a coach, again, find someone more experienced with you that you can talk through issues with. That I think is one of the big coping mechanisms. I think some of the other coping mechanisms are the ones that we all talk about a nauseam because they are so important. Did you get enough sleep? Are you eating well? Do you exercise? I mean, exercise has always been a really big part of my life and how I coped even with alcohol, even if it was to get over my hangover, I still exercise first thing in the morning. It works. Yeah, it works. And everything from breath work, which I encourage people to do, it’s amazing when you take five breaths in a stressful situation, how a better answer shows up. The hardest part is remembering to take five breaths exactly in the moment when you’re fearful, agitated, angry. And what’s really strange is if you take five breaths, people just think you’re thinking about the issue. There’s no judgment. It’s not like, oh, you took so long to answer. They don’t need to know that’s what you’re doing. You’re actually trying not to think just to take the internal temperature down, especially when we’re being really reactive or we’re being triggered.
Michelle Nedelec (11:16):
Absolutely. One of my favorite was I had a client once who was totally stressed. He was like, I can’t breathe when I’m stressed. I said, okay, great. Then hold your breath, but count to five and then take the deep breath. It’s like you’re not allowed to rant, but you can hold your breath and just force it to count to five and then count to five,
David Greer (11:35):
Even if it’s through gritted teeth, just do the count to five.
Michelle Nedelec (11:38):
You’re going to lose your mind anyway, so why not just hold your breath for that five seconds? And then when you started doing that, it was like then he could stop in his brain
Michelle Nedelec (11:47):
Then, oh, right, I’m doing this thing. Okay, now I’m going to breathe five breaths. Oh, okay, now I can actually see some options. This is very cool. And it really is about being able to stop our primary go-to reactions and allow ourselves to use that functional part of our being, the creative part, the resourceful part, all of those things that to your point, are there when we’re clear and sober and in the moment that wouldn’t necessarily be there. All of our faculties aren’t necessarily working for us without them.
David Greer (12:24):
And the way I state it simply is learning how to give a response instead of a reaction.
Michelle Nedelec (12:32):
Nice. So let’s get into the techniques that you use and how you work with your clients, what kind of problems they’re facing. I’m going to ask you 28,000 questions. Feel free to answer this one the way you want to. What does it look like when you’re working with your clients? What’s your primary outcome?
David Greer (12:49):
The primary outcome is defined by the client.
Michelle Nedelec (12:51):
Nice.
David Greer (12:52):
So people usually approach me because they’ve got some sort of challenge or problem in the business or they’re in crisis. And obviously if they’re in crisis, then we just go attack the most immediate problem. If it’s more like a general, I’m not happy with the business, I don’t like how people work for me and they don’t do what I ask them to do or however that’s showing up for them in their business, what I do is I have an intake form that asks some questions. What do you want in six months? What do you want in 12 months? What do you want in 18 months? Because it’s a good chance they’ve never written down any goals for their business or for their life. And then I ask them, what are you looking for in a coach? And what are you not looking for in a coach?
(13:41):
And I just use that to inform me going forward to. And then usually we just start with your six month goals and where are you at? You wrote this down as a goal, why is it important to you? What are you stuck on? And then we just start working through that call by call. And I look for, my typical coaching setup is two one hour calls a month and a minimum three month commitment. You never get anywhere with a coach or a therapist, I don’t think in one call or one meeting. You gain insights, all my problems. But it’s a process.
(14:29):
And the other thing I do is I always get new clients to take strength finders. Strength Finders is a book and a process where you go answer a bunch of questions and the assertion of the book is there’s around 42 or 46 strengths, I forget the exact number. And when you take their questionnaire out pops like your five top strengths. I get clients to do that and then I review it so I know where their strengths are, where they’re coming from. And my coaching model is I coach to strengths, not weaknesses. I think you can work for a year and take a [weakness] from a three to a four, and you won’t move the needle in anything. Whereas you can take a strength that it’s 98.5 and we can work on it and get it to 99 and it’ll actually massively change your life or your business. The other thing is when we’re operating in our strengths, we’re usually doing so unconsciously and there’s usually a downside to being in that strength at all times. I would say a third of my client’s competitiveness is their number one strength. And I say, how’s that working out with your wife?
(15:39):
And for some it’s like their eyes just pop open because they just didn’t realize, and they probably married someone who’s pretty competitive too. There’s a match there. And just this realization that a lot of what they’re doing is actually competing. And that can be just life-changing in terms of, I mean, it still shows up. I had a client recently, being a client for three, four years sounded like you’re competing with so-and-so oh shit, you’re right.
Michelle Nedelec (16:18):
It’s a good coping mechanism until it doesn’t work anymore.
David Greer (16:21):
Yeah. So again, all of our strengths are beautiful until they’re not. Some awareness of when going too far might not work for you. And so again, it’s just really working towards goals, finding the blockages and the goals. And then a lot of, I believe coaching work is digging into belief systems like a lot of the deeper blockages or some deep belief system you have about yourself or the world or money that you need to go down in there and have a kind of deep look at that. I help people when they’re ready to go, have a deeper look at those aspects. And then is that belief serving you in the life you want to live and the business you want to create today?
Michelle Nedelec (17:06):
So let’s talk about that building the strengths and the dichotomy of building the competitiveness. So obviously competition in business is a fantastic motivator driver. It does phenomenal things until you’re using it unconsciously against the people that you don’t really want to compete with.
David Greer (17:28):
Or if your senior leadership team, they’re all competing against each other instead of collaborating with each other.
Michelle Nedelec (17:33):
So how do you hold up because you
David Greer (17:34):
Hire people like you, right? Right.
Michelle Nedelec (17:40):
That’s kind of silly. So how do you hone it in so that it becomes instead of a go-to reaction that it becomes a functional kind of a laser beam as opposed to just a echo everywhere?
David Greer (17:55):
I would say a lot of it still is just bringing awareness to the individual. And so oftentimes if they’re willing, I’ll go through the strengths with them. We’ll talk about the downsides if you’re acting too strongly in it and then the clock moves forward for six months, we’re in a different situation, we’re trying to deal with an issue, and I’ll bring it back to, well, do you think you’re working in this strength and do you think it’s working well for you in this moment on this issue? And it’s again, just constantly raising that awareness, which for all of us, the way I like to describe it in that react versus response, so in a lot of the personal growth work I’ve done, it’s like a day later I catch that response I didn’t want to have, and then a different situation, I catch it an hour after it happens, then I catch it a minute after it happens, and then there’s this incredible day where I catch it a quarter of a second before it’s about to happen and I actually don’t react.
(19:01):
Right? It’s a process it because these things are baked into us so deep, it takes a lot of self-awareness and personal growth and work to actually get to a point where we can actually be aware that this is what’s happening to us. And none of it is kind of an overnight kind of change. Most personal change. And I work with clients, again, it’s always, as a coach, I’m always trying them to really focus on where do you want to go? Where do you want to get to? What’s the outcome that you’re looking for? And then these things show up as blockages or stucks or things that are getting in the way of what they really want.
Michelle Nedelec (19:47):
I want to talk about what are some of the strengths that people have, but before we do that, why do you think people don’t recognize the strengths that they have? Why is it just kind of a,
David Greer (19:59):
Because I think most, it takes quite a bit of courage, in my opinion, to go do this kind of self-examination, not like the norm. I don’t think it’s really taught in school. Again, we tend to be driven by outside events and our parents, depending on the kind of parents you have, but for a lot of us it’s like you’re going to go to university and that’s how you be successful. And you respond to that by doing what your parents want, even though maybe in your heart that that’s not the right path for you because you’re really an artist or a creative or something else. So just always anyone who’s working on their personal growth and listening today, I want to applaud your courage. I think it’s a courageous step to do this work.
Michelle Nedelec (20:53):
Yeah, I was having,
David Greer (20:54):
And I know if I answered your question, forgotten what the exact question was.
Michelle Nedelec (20:57):
I think people, they get embarrassed that they have strengths or they’ve been shunned by them. Yes, I said everybody has strengths. You look at little kids, I love two year olds, they’re my favorite. The ones that everybody else gets frustrated, they’re my absolute favorites, but you can see them. It’s like, oh, you can dance. Wow, you’re hilarious. Wow, you can really do that. You’re really smart. And everybody’s told in school, you shut up, sit down, be quiet. And all of those strengths and characters are muted so that the parent can take care of their kids and get on with the day and go to the
David Greer (21:36):
Or teacher can teach a class of 20 individuals or 30 individuals, all who are different.
Michelle Nedelec (21:40):
It just becomes too much. As an adult, we’re like, just stop. Shut up, quiet and do your thing. I totally get that too. And so then when the dancer sees that they can dance and they’re embarrassed by it because somehow they feel like they really shouldn’t be all that in a bag of chips, then it becomes hard to kind of express that. And in business, I think it can kill a business if the CEO or senior doesn’t recognize that they’re good at what they’re doing
David Greer (22:11):
And that I have a certain number of clients, and my former coach, Kevin Lawrence or a ADHD going into business is often a really great coping mechanism for those that have a ADHD. You’re kind of setting yourself up for success in some ways because the constant demands for attention are always going to be there. And as my former coach, Kevin Lawrence used to say the insight for him was when he finally realized that was him. He’s a ADND, it explained a lot of things. Suddenly a lot of things made sense, but his wife is like, shh, don’t say that. Don’t tell people,
Michelle Nedelec (22:51):
Don’t encourage that behavior.
David Greer (22:53):
And Kevin’s like, ah, to the heavens, I finally figured it out. This is who
Michelle Nedelec (23:01):
I’m, I love a ADHD. I think it’s awesome to be able to deal with, and it’s just being able to hone in on as long as you can keep track of the tracks that you got going on, it’s fantastic.
David Greer (23:10):
Kevin has a great model. He says, I’m a triangle operating in a world of circles. And so the key for me is to make sure that I have other processes or people around me who if you draw a circle and then you have a triangle inside it. If the listeners can imagine that, then you think about those pieces of the circle that are not filled in, you find ways to fill that in with other people or processes. So you can be a whole circle in a circle world, but you are still the triangle.
Michelle Nedelec (23:40):
Well, and I wish so many people would realize that in business, I think in big business it makes sense. You have a marketing department, you have a legal department, you have a fulfillment department, and everybody kind of, well, of course you’re going to be creative in the creative department. That’s your job. Of course you’re going to be this in smaller companies, if they don’t have the resources or they don’t have the wherewithal to be able to make those departments yet, they oftentimes will say things like, I just need a mini me. I just need somebody that can do what I do to take over the thing. And they don’t realize that they are the renaissance people that can touch the three corners. Nobody else can. You need to have other people that have that specialty. The creatives can do the creative, the thinkers can think the doers can do and et cetera. But
David Greer (24:27):
Yeah, one thing I do coach around and see quite a bit is owner founders started a business basically like you say, they had to do everything because otherwise the business, it wouldn’t happen. And so then they grow a business and they get customers, and then it starts to grow, and then they start to hire people and eventually then the business has the tiger by the tail because they’re just responding to the next fire. And this aspect of letting go, or a lot of times it shows up as well. The people I hired, they don’t do as I say, and I’m like, well, what are you telling them? It’s the letting go of control. After you’ve had control of everything, that was the only way to make it work. And now you have people around you who are better marketers, and so you’ve got to go let ’em market.
(25:19):
And the way that they do it may look completely different than the way you did it. And it doesn’t make them bad or wrong. They don’t have to do it your way. That’s a lot of the letting go I find of an entrepreneur that’s growing, that business is growing is they also are scared to hire people that are better than themselves. “Well then what am I here for?” Which you’re there because you’re taking all the risk. You put in the money, you’re the leader, you have a vision of the market and what the strategy is and how to go attack it. And that’s by far and away the most valuable thing you can bring to the table. Again, you’re taking all the risk, so you deserve the majority of the rewards. And so you should try letting go some of these things. And these smart people that you’ve hired, you should let them do their stuff. Yeah, they will do it better than you, and you’ll have better outcomes and it’ll all be good, but you’ll have to let go. Let’s talk about some of the, and not micromanage them.
Michelle Nedelec (26:19):
So let’s talk about some of the strengths that people have that they don’t necessarily recognize when they’re taking their strength finder.
David Greer (26:27):
I’d have to almost get the book out and glance through it. Well, one of mine I probably was aware of, but one of my top strengths is I’m what’s called an activator so I can get other people to do things, which if you’re a coach, that’s a pretty helpful skill to have because I can help my clients to get stuff done. If you ask me what am I master at, one of the things I’m a master at is getting stuff done. I have an amazing taskmaster spirit who can do amazing things, and I can help my clients with that. And I also help them be accountable. That’s again, about that alone piece. If you’re doing it all alone as an entrepreneur, there’s no one really holding you accountable. That can be very challenging if that’s not one of your strengths is getting things done or holding yourself accountable.
(27:22):
Another strength, I forget what it’s called, but it’s basically like you get along with everybody and that can be really good unless you need to fire someone. And then that part of your strength, you like to people and get along with ’em and be part of, and it’s a good chance you might be a people pleaser too. Then it’s hard for you to let someone go. Maybe they won’t like you. Well, they probably won’t like you, but you still need to let ’em go. Exactly. And then another one that I see quite a bit is Woo. And that’s the ability literally to go in a room and just get anyone to listen to you and like you and people who with really strong Woo, they can work a whole network room and meet 50 people, but they’re usually almost useless at follow up. So again, this is where you need you an executive assistant.
(28:19):
So you take everyone’s business card, you do make sure you write down on the back of the card what you promised to that person. Oh, I’ll connect you with so-and-so or I’ll send you this paper, whatever it is, and then the next day you hand it to your EA and she or he looks after all the things that you said. It’s not that the strength is bad, it’s just that it tends to come with these other behaviors. People meet you, they like you, they think you’re a great person, and then like, oh, but you’re fluff because you never follow through. You don’t, because woos really like the next new relationship. They’re not as much about building deeper relationships.
Michelle Nedelec (29:02):
Them.
David Greer (29:03):
Yes. And again, there’s no judgment. It’s fun. That’s what you’re good at. And 99% of the people that entrepreneurs that I work with and know would love to have 5% of your woo.
Michelle Nedelec (29:19):
Exactly. Anybody who’s ever gone to a networking event and stood at the door and went, ah,
David Greer (29:23):
Maybe I should turn around and go home. Exactly.
Michelle Nedelec (29:27):
Just a little sparkle of that. Woo, I’d be fine.
David Greer (29:30):
Would go a long way. Yes, indeed.
Michelle Nedelec (29:32):
In a moment, I’m going to ask you about a Cinderella story of one of your clients. But before we do that, we’re going to take a quick break.
Announcer (29:40):
Are you running a business over seven figures but still struggling with technology? Headaches? Pay attention. You do not want to miss this offer. This podcast episode is brought to you by Awareness Strategies, who is offering a custom built digital adoption roadmap for anyone running a business over seven figures who’s wanting to grow their business in the next five years. And it’s not just a roadmap. They offer full implementation as well. If that scares the out of you, check out awareness strategies.com/roadmap for more details today. The links in the show’s note, don’t regret not doing this, do it now. That’s awareness strategies.com/roadmap.
Michelle Nedelec (30:15):
Awesome. I’m super excited to hear about a Cinderella story of one of your clients.
David Greer (30:20):
Sure. I want to share with you my first facilitation client who’s still a client today. In fact, I facilitated their quarterly plan yesterday, so three partners and one of the partners heard about me through my network and hired me to come in and facilitate a two day annual planning session. And we did that. We went off site and got the three of them together, and I worked my process and we came up with the plan. And of what I create is a plan that has the short list of goals for the year and for the quarter. And it’s actually written down, which a lot of entrepreneurs have goals, but they don’t write ’em down and they often have too many. So advance a quarter. And I follow up to find out what happens. And it turns out one of the other partners came to me and said, with your work and having everything written down, we had suspected for a year that this other partner wanted to go expand outside of Canada, wanted to do this.
(31:30):
And we had been clear from the start, that is in our partnership, that’s not where we were prepared to go in the first five years. And so they actually dissolved the partnership and two went over here, went off on their own, and the one went off to do his thing and he did open office in London six months later. I feel like I act as the, obviously they did all the work, they did the breakup, they figured out how to create two companies, but I feel like I was the catalyst that crystallized when it was so clear and written down in the goals. And this third partner just didn’t do anything that he said in the goals list, like nothing. And the other two went on, and they’re a private equity firm and I can’t share their financials. That’s confidential, but
Michelle Nedelec (32:27):
They’re happy doing well. Yeah.
David Greer (32:29):
Well, let’s just say the size of their fund. When I started with ’em, they are now eight times that size of assets management.
Michelle Nedelec (32:40):
Nice.
David Greer (32:42):
In eight and a half years.
Michelle Nedelec (32:43):
Nice.
David Greer (32:44):
That’s awesome.
Michelle Nedelec (32:45):
Well, and you can tell that the tension was there, and when partners aren’t going after the same goals and dreams and ambitions, you start dividing your resources and your resources start to go into, no, you have to see things this way.
Michelle Nedelec (33:01):
Those three words or five words, whatever that was, was a waste of time when they could have been spent moving the business forward. So oftentimes I find in coaching, it’s so much better to be able to just give people permission to do the thing that they fear doing. It’s like, oh, but we’re not going to live without this guy. Yeah, you are. And actually is going to do fabulous and wonderful too. And so be it. Go.
David Greer (33:24):
And they’ll all be better and everything will get better.
Michelle Nedelec (33:27):
Right. I loved that part. I know our listeners are going to want more from you, especially those with three-Way partnership. But sorry, you may have cursed yourself on that one. You’re going to get on.
David Greer (33:40):
I might,
Michelle Nedelec (33:40):
No, how did they start that journey with you?
David Greer (33:46):
If you want to learn more about me, you can just visit my website, coachdjgreer.com, which is coach D as in David, J as in James.com. And contacting me is easy. Every one of my webpages on the top has my email and my phone number. And I do want listeners to know I offer free one hour coaching. If you are stuck on an issue as an entrepreneur and would like some help to talk through it, to work on it, I’m happy to spend an hour with you on the phone or on Zoom. And my promise to you is if you spend one hour with me, you’ll have three ideas to accelerate your business in the next 90 days.
Michelle Nedelec (34:28):
Nice. I love that. And I also think it’s particularly funny that you DJ Greer to me now. I just hit my brain.
David Greer (34:37):
And then if that’s too much for you, I also wrote a book that took my entrepreneurial experiences and that I interviewed over 50 other people and I include 10 case studies. A third of the book is actually other people’s stories. And I break down business into what I call 10 strategic areas. And in my experience, owner founders of businesses are typically really good at four of them have some awareness and are doing okay, and four of them and two, they have no idea about. And I wrote the book to be a learning resource, but also if you’re stuck, you pull the book from the shelf, assuming that you go for old fashioned paper books. And I wrote an extensive index, you look in the index, you find the issue you’re troubled with, you go read 3, 5, 6 pages and you’ll have at least one idea to what to do next. That book is Wind In Your Sails: Vital Strategies that Accelerate Your Entrepreneurial Growth.. And that is also on my website.
Michelle Nedelec (35:45):
Nice. You can pull it off the digital bookshelf
David Greer (35:49):
And you can have an audible version too if whatever works for you.
Michelle Nedelec (35:53):
Love it. Of course, have all of David’s links in the show notes. So go ahead and scroll down, click on those links, open ’em up in a new browser. We’re not done yet. So David, I get to ask you, at what point in life did you know that you were kind of crazy enough to think that you could become an entrepreneur?
David Greer (36:09):
That’s actually a tricky question because I am in university, I’m in fourth year in computer science. I’ve worked with this consultant on a really big project for two years and decide when I graduate, I’m going to join his, well, in fact, before I graduated, I joined his young software company as the first hire after the founders. It was Robert and Annabelle, and they named their company Robelle, the concatenation of their two names. And I liked the place. And after 10 years, I bought out Annabelle, became partners with Bob, and then roll forward to the 20 year mark. And it was probably the 18 or 19 year mark. And I’m like still, when I traveled overseas and it has, what’s your occupation? I put computer programmer.
(36:56):
Finally I brought in some outside marketing people, some outside strategy people. And I kept looking at them and I’m saying, computer programmer. And they kept holding up the mirror and it said entrepreneur. And it turns out that I was probably an entrepreneur by, well, even after the first year I was at trade shows and I was giving demos. And I mean my former partner and I for 20 years, we wrote a paper every year and gave it to management and technical audiences. And anyways, I just didn’t think of, so I was an entrepreneur in my early twenties, but I just didn’t think of myself that way. I was having too much fun solving problems for people in this particular niche computer area. And I’d go to trade shows, I’d listen to their problem and then I’d say, would you pay me money if I could go home and do that and send it to you in the next month? And they’d say, yeah, I would. Okay. I’d go home and I’d program it up and I’d send it to ’em and say, now are you going to send me money? And half the time, of course they’d say, no, they didn’t really mean it, but I learned and so did Bob. And we built a really, really successful niche software company and that’s how I became an entrepreneur.
Michelle Nedelec (38:14):
Love that. I liked it so much about the company so that I could work there and not have a boss. Yeah.
David Greer (38:21):
Yeah. Actually that’s why. That is why I bought it at Annabelle and to make a lot more money too, which I did.
Michelle Nedelec (38:29):
I love it. You’ve been absolutely awesome. Any last words for our peeps?
David Greer (38:34):
No, just have fun on the journey. Michelle and I have had a lot of laughs today, and I really encourage that. One of the things when I was running Robelle is if I went past the boardroom, if I knew we were dealing with the really sticky issue and people were meeting in the boardroom and I went by and everybody was having a laugh, I a hundred percent knew it was going to work out okay. It’s not that there wouldn’t be a challenge and that it would be somewhat stressful, but it’s okay. We’re having a laugh, we’re going to figure it out. I hope you have a laugh today in your business because it should be fun. You should enjoy it, enjoy the journey. And if it’s not, then ask yourself why not? And one of the most important questions I often ask entrepreneurs who’ve been in business for a while is why’d you start your business? Because I think as a business grows, that’s the easiest thing to get lost is the original reason why you went down on this journey. And sometimes you have to rediscover it as your business grows and changes and revisit that. I always think it’s a good reminder.
Michelle Nedelec (39:46):
David, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it and I know a valuable it is.
David Greer (39:51):
Thank you so much for having me.
Michelle Nedelec (39:52):
Awesome Peeps. This is Michelle Nedelec. Thank you for being here with us today. Be sure to subscribe to the show and share it with your friends. We’d love helping entrepreneurs grow.
Announcer (40:01):
Are you running a business over seven figures but still struggling with technology? Headaches? Pay attention. You do not want to miss this offer. This podcast episode is brought to you by Awareness Strategies, who is offering a custom built digital adoption roadmap for anyone running a business over seven figures who’s wanting to grow their business in the next five years. And it’s not just a roadmap. They offer full implementation as well. If that scares the out of you, check out awareness strategies.com/roadmap for more details today. The links in the show’s note, don’t regret not doing this, do it now. That’s awareness strategies.com/roadmap.
