Summary
Get What You Want in Life
The single biggest achievement of my life is getting sober. The reason I got sober is that the universe put Kevin Lawrence of Lawrence&co in my path. He was the first person I admitted I had a drinking problem to. Here is how Kevin became my coach:
After Kevin and I worked together for 18 months, cleaning up my career and life, there was only one massive obstacle left in my life. I had been in denial about my drinking and my alcoholism for 20 years. Listen how I took the courageous step to admit my problem to Kevin:
Kevin coached me to go to 12-step recovery. Today, I still go to three 12-step meetings a week. Listen as I describe how for me it is a life and death decision whether I pick up a drink again:
Here is a summary of our conversation:
- Kevin and I met at a Vern Harnish strategic planning seminar where Kevin’s questions made me uncomfortable and revealed my unfulfillment with angel investing
- How we built Robelle Solutions Technology into a world-leading HP 3000 solutions company over 20 years
- The adventure I took after leaving Robelle to go sailing with my family in the Mediterranean for two years while homeschooling our three children
- I struggled as an angel investor for 3-4 years before starting coaching with Kevin on my 50th birthday
- I revealed my 20-year daily drinking problem to Kevin 18 months into our coaching relationship
- Kevin guided me to attend my first 12-step meeting, beginning my 16-year recovery journey
- I discovered my “Task Master Spirit” through recovery work and learned to manage internal voices and patterns
- I transformed from a micromanaging leader to a servant leader focused on helping others succeed
- I now offer entrepreneurial coaching specializing in recovery-informed work while maintaining strict work-life boundaries
- I share my experience to help others struggling with addiction know there is always a solution and to ask for help
Listen to our entire conversation:
Transcript
Kevin Lawrence (00:00):
Hey, Kevin Lawrence here. I am thrilled today and looking forward to this time with David Greer. David Greer’s, the CEO that I met, and he’ll tell you the story in a minute, but that I met a number of years ago and we started doing some work together and we went on one heck of a journey together. And David has continued on that journey ever since. So we’re going to talk about some of his journey as a CEO, as a human, as a father, and how it related to a few little bumps in the road that had him learn a lot about himself and find a whole new level of life that he hadn’t experienced before. So we’re going to dig right in. David, thank you for being here and taking the time for this today.
David Greer (00:42):
Hey, Kevin, it’s fantastic to be here with you today.
Kevin Lawrence (00:46):
Yes, it sure is. And what a fantastic story we have to tell about your path. So why don’t you start off where, how did we first get connected and you are the master of remembering the details of all these stories as we’ve talked about. So yeah, start us off, David.
David Greer (01:02):
Well, I was at a period in my career where I was doing a bunch of angel investing and being a director of young startups and all my technology entrepreneur friends kept telling me about this one page strategic plan.
(01:17):
And eventually I found out that came from a guy Vern Harnish, and through my network I found out that Vern was coming to town to give a one day seminar on the one page strategic plan. I signed up with one of my young CEOs that I was invested in and that I was on the board of to look at using this to develop the company. And we came and Vern started his stuff and telling us about it. And then I remember at the morning break, there were two coaches at the back of the room
(01:49):
Who specialized in the one page strategic plan, and one of them happened to be the guy across from me, Kevin Lawrence, and we’ll get into my story. I’d end up out of a business taking a break, and then I’d spent three, four years, angel investing. And you asked me a couple questions that made me so uncomfortable that I literally had tears at the corner of my eyes. And until that moment I had not realized how unfulfilled I was in the work that I was doing. And I took your business card and I thought about you a lot, and it sat next to my phone and every time I thought about calling you the phone probably weighed 10 or maybe 20,000 pounds. I didn’t call.
Kevin Lawrence (02:39):
Why? Why was that?
David Greer (02:42):
I think I was just afraid. I just think it’s, you’d made me very uncomfortable. I knew there was something there. And to reach out to you was the unknown, literally was the unknown.
Kevin Lawrence (02:56):
It’s kind of like when people are going to a counselor or something for the first time or everyone’s got their things, but there often is a lot of tension when people are reaching out to talk to someone to get some help.
David Greer (03:06):
And then you called me, but that’s my memory is you reached out and you said, “Hey, David, this is coach Kevin. Do you remember we met at the Verne Harnish event?” And I said, yeah, yeah, I remember you and I didn’t say, “I haven’t really thought about much more for the last three weeks.” And then we started down a path and you had an intake. I had intake forms, I had an interview I had to do with Janice, like you were super booked. The first opening we could have, our first coaching session was on August 9th, 2007, which coincidentally was my 50th birthday.
Kevin Lawrence (03:49):
What about to celebrate your birthday?
David Greer (03:50):
The universe came together. And the thing about you I always liked was our first coaching session was two eight hour days at that time. That’s how you got to know a new client. I like that. All in or all out.
Kevin Lawrence (04:07):
Yep.
David Greer (04:07):
And you’re the same and you’re all in.
Kevin Lawrence (04:10):
That’s true. Oh yeah.
David Greer (04:12):
Awesome. That’s how we met.
Kevin Lawrence (04:15):
Yeah. Awesome. So we got going and we did a whole bunch of coaching, which led to lots of things and lots of growth and things. Maybe just a bit about your professional journey and your career. Walk us through what you did at that point, what you were doing, what you had done, and yeah, the high level version of that.
David Greer (04:36):
Yeah, you and I are based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. I actually grew up in Edmonton in Canada’s prairies. And I got introduced to computers very young in the early mid seventies when computers were very unusual. I was fortunate, and an early math teacher taught me Octal arithmetic, which was base eight arithmetic. We count to 10 because we have 10 digits, which you can count to eight, you can count to 16, and computers we talk about binary, which is counted to two. By grade nine, I knew that I wanted to take computers and business and put them together. And I ended up moving out to Vancouver, going to the University of British Columbia, getting my computer science degree. I got a part-time job at the local Cablevision company, which at that time was one of the largest cable companies in North America working with a consultant to rewrite it because it would not scale from like 60,000 users from a small municipality to the 600,000 users that they had at that time. And had the computing system had less computing power than your phone.
Kevin Lawrence (05:49):
Wild, less storage too. That’s wild.
David Greer (05:50):
Way less storage, less memory, less power,
Kevin Lawrence (05:52):
Less everything.
David Greer (05:54):
And we were going to bill every month, 600,000 people. And I worked with this consultant for about 18 months and he had just started, in addition to his consulting work, he had created two software products and started a software company with his wife and they’d founded this company, Robelle, which is named for Robert and Annabelle, which is the names of the couple,
Kevin Lawrence (06:17):
Very creative, very creative,
David Greer (06:18):
Bob Green and Annabelle, and it’s a made up name. It still Google’s well today actually. And I joined them in November, 1979 as the first hire. I was their first employee.
(06:30):
And we specialized in a computing system from Hewlett Packard that was very popular. And we had, I don’t know, half a dozen different product lines, but two were hit it out of the park home runs, and I stayed 20 years and a couple different corporate organizations and 10 years in, I bought out Annabelle became partners with Bob, and I’m skipping over. I don’t want everyone to think A, that this was an overnight success or B, that there weren’t some very serious bumps in the road and challenges along the way. But I want to get to the main story that you and I want to tell today.
Kevin Lawrence (07:10):
It was the normal growth story in lots of different ways, good things, challenging times, all that stuff.
David Greer (07:15):
And then we came to, after 20 years, I never had a disagreement, really major disagreement with Bob until the end. And then we had such a major disagreement. We ended up in divorce and he ended up buying me out. And I very unexpectedly ended up on the street in 2001, which for those that have longer memories may recall, that was kind of the start of the dotcom meltdown. I’m busy chasing deals and looking for opportunities in a terrible market, and someone smarter than me sat me down and said, “David, your kids will never be 11 nine and five again.” And I had the proverbial literally the cartoon light bulb moment, and I realized, yeah, it just exploded. In sitting across, I can still sitting across from Margaret Livingston and her asking me that question and just knowing I had to do something completely different, which we did, my wife and I …
Kevin Lawrence (08:13):
And you did.
David Greer (08:14):
We commissioned a sailboat in the south of France and we took our three kids and we homeschooled them for two years while sailing more than 5,000 miles, about 10,000 kilometers in the Mediterranean Basin. Then we came back and I’d been 20 years with this company. I had grown it by the seat of my pants. I’d done almost every single role there is to do in a company I’d been,
Kevin Lawrence (08:37):
Which I’m sure lots of people watching this can relate to being part of that startup. You do it all. And it’s also all that for that 20 years.
David Greer (08:47):
And when I started working with other people, they’d say, well, I think we need to hire a product manager. And I’d like, okay, could you tell me what a product manager does? I’d never heard the term before.
Kevin Lawrence (08:58):
Sure,
David Greer (08:59):
Right.
Kevin Lawrence (09:00):
You didn’t grow up in a large software or a service company? No.
David Greer (09:04):
Or a large products company. Right.
(09:07):
And then they’d say, well, they figure out the market and what they need and what you could sell into it. And it’s, oh shit, I know how to do that. I can do that. Yeah, I can do that. I’ve done a lot of that actually. I’ve been really good at that. I just didn’t know that’s what it’s called. I went down this angel path to try and find a role and something to really sink my teeth in and work on. And I’ve been doing that for a good three or four years by the time I met you. And it just was hard to bring the young CEOs up one rung of the ladder. I had done it when I was 22 or 23 and probably did it in four months because that’s what we had to do. We had to figure it out. And I just found the pace and the mentorship and just my energy levels, and I just didn’t have people around me who I could torque against, I think is what I finally worked out. It’s your health.
Kevin Lawrence (10:06):
It’s very different dynamic from that board level investor level versus being in the thing driving the thing daily, hourly. By the minute, it’s a very different.
David Greer (10:15):
I even got involved and rolled up my sleeves and worked for options, but again, it’s like it just wasn’t working. And then you saw that, I think you asked me a simple question. There’s a hundred people, a hundred entrepreneurs in this room, and I bet 90% of them need your help. And I’d been looking for people to help and hadn’t been able to find it. And you and I had to do some work on how I showed up and how I went about things. That was part of our coaching journey. We worked together well, I mean you and I had a relationship, well, I still have a relationship, but we had a coaching client relationship for nine years, but in that first 18 months, we really started cleaning a lot of stuff off the table and we tidy things up and we got me torqued up into new adventure and it wasn’t a great one, but it got me, your idea was to get me just back into working up and doing things and then other stuff,
Kevin Lawrence (11:17):
Getting the reps going
David Greer (11:18):
Would show up. And that happened. And then about 18 months in, well again to the date January 26th, 2009, the way I worked with you was the day before, the night before we had a coaching call, I’d send you a short list of the successes and the topic for our call. And about 10:30 at night, I had my last beer. I’d carefully planned it, and I put it down, put the empty down, and I sent you an email and I said, the topic for our discussion tomorrow is my drinking. And on January 27th, 2009 in the afternoon, we had a coaching call and yeah, we talked about how much I drank, which was
Kevin Lawrence (12:13):
You were pretty good at it a lot.
David Greer (12:14):
Yeah, I had a lot of
Kevin Lawrence (12:16):
Practice. You were a professional.
David Greer (12:18):
I was a professional. I was a daily drinker for 20 years, and it was my biggest darkest secret. It was what I had been in denial about for 20 years, completely in denial. And you were the first person I opened up to about this. And one of the things I tell people is that I knew at that point I had enough of a trust relationship with you. And again, that all in, all out and knowing that you had my back, but I knew once I told you there was no going back. I knew that you would never let me off the hook. I didn’t know what it would look like. I was really scared. I didn’t know how I was going to live my life without alcohol. But once I let it out to you, I knew that was the end. I just didn’t know what it would look like or what would happen. And fortunately in your personal life, and you can share more of this as you think is appropriate, but you had interacted with people who are involved in 12 step recovery and you’d had long conversations with them around the summer campfire is my understanding.
Kevin Lawrence (13:31):
Yeah, exactly. And let’s talk about that before we do. When you say that you were a daily drinker, can you give a little more context to that? What did it look like in your world? You were putting a lot of energy into obviously hiding this because you didn’t want to share this, which is understandable, but what does that look like? You weren’t just having a beer every day.
David Greer (13:53):
No, my modus operandi, let’s talk about more towards the end. Alcoholism is a progressive disease.
Kevin Lawrence (14:02):
Yeah. You shared your story and over time it kind of built and built and built. It wasn’t like this when you were 18, right
David Greer (14:09):
When I was 25. And it didn’t take me nearly as much to get high. And actually I’ve read there’s neurobiology, why that’s the case, which I won’t get into, but there’s reasons our brains are designed to work that way. Though I was a high performing alcoholic, I still got a lot of stuff done. Part of why I drank would be to power up and give it rocket fuel to get more stuff done (14:39):
Or to skip past exhaustion or feelings of, but towards the end, I was probably starting drinking well, they kept getting a little earlier it was 4:00 and then it’s 3:30 and then it’s 3:00. And towards the end it’d be like a six pack just to get a little buzz going and maybe between kind of four and six or even less than that. And then we just had a pattern that we had wine with dinner every night, and then I’d find ways to drink after dinner and basically drink until I passed out in bed. And then I’d get up at 6:30 in the morning and go to the gym and work out with the hangover, and I’d work the hangover out by just having a really hard workout and then have a workday and then just repeat ad nauseum. Alcohol had me completely pinned to the ground completely.
Kevin Lawrence (15:35):
And when in that, did you say this could be a problem? It kind of was gradually building up. At what point did you go, yeah, this may be, I might need to do something about this.
David Greer (15:47):
It’s probably about 2004. I started reading a couple books, but I didn’t relate to what it said, and my life was still coping. It’s probably only in some ways the last, that January where, because my story is not, I didn’t lose the, I had the house.
Kevin Lawrence (16:10):
You didn’t end up destitute living on the street and
David Greer (16:12):
Had kids, had a couple cars. But what happened was I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. I got sick and tired of it being beholden to the booze. And I think you just kept shining light on other ways to live life and to be unconsciously, it’s just
Kevin Lawrence (16:35):
Coach. Yeah, we never talked about alcohol. From what I can remember up until that day, we were just getting clear on what you wanted in your life and what are the things in the way and talking about future and possibilities and what’s needed to get there. Yeah.
David Greer (16:50):
And the thing is today, now I’m 16 years in recovery. If you looked at me on the outside.
Kevin Lawrence (16:55):
Congratulations. Thank you. I got to be there where you got your most recent cake, which was an incredible honor to be sitting there and listening to you share your story in a real AA meeting where that was part of the celebration of your recovery and your sobriety. Huge, huge congratulations to you because I mean, we’ll talk more about how it’s changed your life, but it’s a huge accomplishment and a dramatically different version of yourself than when we first met.
David Greer (17:23):
Yeah. That was what I was going to share. If you look externally, I still have a house. I still have wife kids, I have grandkids now still have two cars. But what you don’t see is the person, the David Greer on the inside who admitted to you on January 27th, 2009, that I had a drinking problem that David and this David are two dramatically different people.
Kevin Lawrence (17:49):
Let’s give an example what your internal, what’s different about your internal experience today? Because you were high performing back then. You’re high performing now. You have all the people wouldn’t see any difference except for maybe the recycling guy. People wouldn’t notice it. What’s the difference with your internal experience and Yeah,
David Greer (18:10):
I’m much more at peace. I’m much more in touch of what I feel. I am still more than I like sometimes a human doing, but I’m a much more human being than I was.
Kevin Lawrence (18:28):
There’s some element of the being where that wasn’t really a lot of that before.
David Greer (18:32):
It wasn’t. I was quite present to my kids and very focused on them, but probably 20% of me was just never there. I was thinking about the next drink or I was also driven for work,
Kevin Lawrence (18:49):
Which is true for a lot of us. Yes,
David Greer (18:51):
Independent, which is independent of the alcohol.
Kevin Lawrence (18:53):
Yes.
David Greer (18:54):
I remember walking to the beach and holding my youngest son hand and walking down and brainstorming in my head the next version of the software we were going to be releasing for the trade show that was coming in a couple months. And I mean, I still remember it was a warm summer day and I still remember holding his hand, but was I present? I mean, eventually I did get present, we got to the beach.
Kevin Lawrence (19:17):
But a lot of executives, entrepreneurs, leaders that are highly driven, making big things happen, we can all relate to that. We’re consumed by what we’re doing. And even to myself at some point, I’m sure I had an addiction to the work and getting our kicks from the work like an addiction into itself, but it’s very, very common. That experience is very common for a lot of us.
David Greer (19:39):
The difference of all the work I’ve done in 12 step recovery and working the steps, plus doing some therapy work and just a lot of
Kevin Lawrence (19:47):
Doing all the stuff to kind of heal up from, yeah,
David Greer (19:50):
Is now I’m much more aware of when my mind is focused on work or focused over there. And I don’t catch it right away all the time. I’m not perfect. I am human, but I’m much faster to catch it and say. And also, I’m much better at making conscious choice. I want to be with my grandchildren this afternoon, and I want to be with them and I want to make sure I clear off anything that might mentally be getting in the way of my being present to them. And I bring a much more conscious intention to all of this. I
Kevin Lawrence (20:31):
Think that’s a great way to put it. Let’s go back to that call we had and the backstory I had, as you mentioned from down by the campfire, we had a recreational place. We went in Washington state and my neighbor, whose first name is Andy, great guy Andy, he’s just this, just a normal guy. And we’d be sitting there chatting and we got talking about alcohol. And he had been sober about 30 years at that point. And we had some great chats around the campfire. I’m curious by nature. And he’s talking to, yeah, he’s telling me about alcoholism and telling me about the AA program. And I’m like, well, what do you do if someone, and there was someone else down in the area where we’re camping who had an obvious alcohol maybe other thing, problem, a number. They were working multiple things I think.
(21:20):
And I’m like, well, what do you do? Everybody knows, and actually there’s a few down there or that were obvious. And he’s like at the end of the day, and he was kind of an ambassador for helping people. He’s like, I can plant a seed and let people know what’s available. And one day they’ll ask me for help or they will go to the program or they won’t, they might need to implode. And he told me the story about someone that was drinking much. They would go to the same bar every night and get loaded that they’d up sleeping in their car, in the parking lot of the bar and just do it again every day. And then he said at some point that wasn’t working. Then they started doing other substances on top of getting completely, and he explained that they were in a situation where they were just losing control of themselves and trying to bury whatever they were trying to bury.
(22:14):
And finally when they cracked whatever the version of was cracked and got help, they went and a program like aa, which he had found. And he told me his story as well, which is not my story to share, but he said that people went and found, and he said to me, this one very clear thing. There’s two types of people that go into aa. There’s the people who go and go to a couple sessions and think they’re cured and then they fall off the wagon, to say. Or their ego plays a trick on them and then they don’t do the work. And then there’s those like you, Mr. David Greer, who go there are committed, they do the work, they do the steps to do all the healing things with the group. They do the step groups, they help and mentor other people in the program or sponsor other people in the program. And it becomes a lifetime commitment.
David Greer (23:04):
Let’s go back to that day in that transition. I just want to finish that story a
Kevin Lawrence (23:07):
Little. Yeah, please do. I wanted to say, Andy, that’s why I knew what to say to you because Andy magically had been in my life beforehand and we had this conversation like, oh, I know what, anyway, continue.
David Greer (23:23):
You know what to do. You coached me to
Kevin Lawrence (23:23):
Go. I had an idea. Yeah,
David Greer (23:24):
Yeah. You coached me to go to a 12 step meeting and I was really adverse. And to this day, I don’t, don’t know,
Kevin Lawrence (23:31):
But you were trusting. The thing that David, the key in this is because we worked together for 18 months, we did have a very trusting relationship. One, you could share it and two, I could provide you some direction which you would act on. That’s why it didn’t come out in the first meeting. That’s a key piece to this.
David Greer (23:49):
It is. It was a Tuesday and you asked me to commit to go to a meeting by that Friday. And then being the overachiever that I am later that afternoon, I looked, I knew I was going downtown to a technology networking event that finished at eight. I looked online and there was a meeting directory. And lo and behold, there was going to be a meeting at 8:30 and that meeting was going to be located a quarter of a block off the road. I was going to be driving down to go home. Like the universe,
Kevin Lawrence (24:22):
A quarter of a block,
David Greer (24:23):
A quarter of a block.
Kevin Lawrence (24:26):
Hard to make an excuse for that one.
David Greer (24:29):
I walked into that meeting and it’s in a Legion, which a Legion have bars. I walk through the door, there’s a bar, the doors are open to the bar and there’s people drinking at these tables. And I stand there totally like a deer in the headlights. And a couple of people in the program walked by and they had this good sixth sense. And they said, oh, hey, you’re looking for the meeting? Yeah, okay, go down the hall and go up the stairs. Which I did. And I think it was probably years and years before I realized, well, one of the things that I masked with drinking was things I was afraid of.
(25:13):
It took me a long time to realize how scared I was when I went to that first meeting. I bet. And I was really scared. How would I have dinner without wine? It was unimaginable, literally unimaginable. I went to this meeting, it was a pretty big meeting. There was probably 75 or 80 people there. And I didn’t sit at the very back, most people do at their first meeting, but I sit kind of midway, but right on the edge of one of the rows I can leap up and escape if I need to. And at that time, at that meeting, they asked about three quarters of the way through, they said, is there anyone new to the program that wants to stand and introduce themselves? And I sat my hands and I sat on my hands and the chairperson was very patient. And then at the last possible second, I stood up and I said, I’m David and I’m an alcoholic. And at that time I don’t think I knew really what I was admitting to,
(26:15):
But it was the right thing to do. And it turned out it was very true. And you’re very encouraged in 12 step recovery to find a meeting called a home group meeting where you commit to going every week and you commit to being of service at that meeting. Probably within a month I had made that my home group. And Kevin, when you came to my 16 year cake last month, that was the same home group. I have gone back to that same home group. I go to three meetings a week even now because my belief is the alcoholic part of my brain wants me to forget that I’m in recovery. It wants to take back over. If I go to three meetings a week, which is every couple, two, three days, I’m reminding myself of my truth. And what I tell people is that getting sober is the single biggest achievement of my life. And every single day when I get up, I have to achieve the single biggest achievement of my life. Now I only have to achieve it for today.
(27:23):
I don’t have to worry about tomorrow. I don’t have to worry about yesterday. And a lot of the coaching that you and I do with entrepreneurs, a lot of the work is like what is the number one thing? What’s the number one thing that has to be achieved this year? Or what’s the number one thing that has to be achieved this quarter in the next 13 weeks? I don’t have a problem anymore. I know every day.
Kevin Lawrence (27:45):
You know what it is. Yeah, it’s clear. I know
David Greer (27:46):
What it is. My North star, because if I go back out, well, first of all, I just think I’ll have an early death. Drugs were not part of my story the first time. But now I’ve been to enough meetings. I’m pretty certain my alcoholic brain would want to go experiment there. And when I use and drink, I isolate. If I get a contaminated drug and as fentanyl and I stop drinking, I’m almost guaranteed to be isolated. End of story. And I do honestly, deeply in my heart of hearts, treat it as life and death decision every day.
Kevin Lawrence (28:26):
Can you help people to understand this? Because some people would think, and I’ve sat in a number of AA meetings with you as you’ve got your cakes over the years and listening to a lot of people’s stories, which is a great honor to be in the room, hearing people sharing authentically about their struggles and their recovery. The thing that surprised me the most, and I know lots of people struggle with alcohol and it owns them in different ways, but the fact that you could go and do all of the great work that you have done and doing the step program and the counseling and all these other things and get to be this great version of yourself, but most people would think that, okay, great, I’m all healed up. The wound is healed, good to go. Can you explain that? It was a surprise to me. I didn’t understand that part until I got to know this story with you.
David Greer (29:24):
If I ever pick up one drink, all bets are off.
Kevin Lawrence (29:30):
What does that mean?
David Greer (29:33):
I mean, you hear this all the time. When someone goes back out, they go back to the way they were drinking. Typically within three to 10 days they’re back to, I was towards the end drinking probably over 15 drinks a day. And then usually it gets worse within another one or two weeks.
Kevin Lawrence (29:53):
Got it. You would accelerate to 15 and next thing you know you’re at 20 conceptually is what is a likely outcome.
David Greer (29:59):
It’s a very, very likely outcome. And I still have drinking nightmares that are real, Kevin, that for the first one or two seconds when I wake up, I am a hundred percent convinced that I took a drink. And my sponsor says, because I work a pretty good program when I’m conscious, my alcoholic part of my brain tries to get me when I’m unconscious.
Kevin Lawrence (30:26):
Interesting.
David Greer (30:28):
But they’re totally covered in sweat. It’s
Kevin Lawrence (30:33):
Real. It’s real. Yeah.
David Greer (30:35):
And that’s why don’t call ’em dreams. They are really bad nightmares.
Kevin Lawrence (30:40):
Well, it’s fascinating in many way what kind of gets me and metaphorically, it’s almost like someone that needs to take some sort of a medication for some ailment. Sometimes there’s ones that’s a bridge just to get you to the other side. And sometimes it’s just required for life. And this is one of these things because of the way alcohol can own you, that for people that are alcoholics, that it’s a very, and I’ve heard this from other people now that I’ve learned more since, is that it’s just a requirement to continue to be a part of it, to keep that part kind of at bay in addition to the service that you do for others. But yeah, and
David Greer (31:19):
That’s the other piece when I step 12 of all 12 step programs is to be of service and share your experience, strength and hope with others. And I can’t keep anyone sober. All I can do is share my experience, strength and hope. And maybe they’ll relate to it in some way that’ll help ’em on their journey. But here’s what I know and here’s what I’ve been taught. If I share my experience, strength and hope and I be of that service, I get to stay sober.
Kevin Lawrence (31:50):
It’s a gift to them and a gift to yourself at the same time, it’s
David Greer (31:52):
A gift to myself. And if I have to go to three meetings a week for the rest of my life, it’s pretty good medicine.
Kevin Lawrence (32:00):
I’m pretty convinced you will.
David Greer (32:02):
Yeah. And also I built great friendships and it’s
Kevin Lawrence (32:08):
Met some of the great people that were there the first day you came in when you got your 16 cake, it’s part of your community and your tribe.
David Greer (32:17):
It’s my tribe. Yeah. That’s awesome. As you saw last month, there were at least two or three people in the room who were there the night that I walked in. Think about that. We’ve been walking this path of recovery together for 16 years. It’s pretty cool. How amazing is that, how
Kevin Lawrence (32:34):
The meetings are a very powerful environment. And even that we can see the people that are new and the people that have been there a long time. It’s a very powerful environment. It’s a self-sustaining group. It is actually a wonderful, wonderful organization and a very powerful environment.
David Greer (32:51):
And in my experience in most a meetings you can hear a pin drop. There’s very few experiences I’ve had in the business community and other parts of my life where people that are talking are listened to. I mean occasionally my mind wanders, but it’s very rare when I hear people share in a meeting. It’s something about the meeting and about how vulnerable we have to be and about the journey and how important this is in our lives. It’s life and death that you can hear this pin drop and you truly level three listening. You are listening
Kevin Lawrence (33:37):
With all. Yeah, just replaying that last meeting in my mind where you’re just fully, fully because people are sharing deeply and authentically.
David Greer (33:48):
Exactly.
Kevin Lawrence (33:50):
Yeah. That’s interesting.
David Greer (33:51):
And to me, it’s become like a sacred space because there are not many experiences I’ve had in my whole,
Kevin Lawrence (33:57):
It is a sacred, it is a sacred, you can feel it in the room.
David Greer (34:02):
And to me that’s part of the magic is that we’re able to create this space and hold this space for each other. It’s super, super powerful
Kevin Lawrence (34:15):
And it needs to be fight this powerful demon called alcoholism.
David Greer (34:19):
I like to remind people alcohol is the most powerful drug on the planet. It just happens in most jurisdictions to be legal and extremely socially acceptable.
Kevin Lawrence (34:31):
Yes, it’s one of the most socially acceptable addictions right up there with workaholism.
David Greer (34:37):
But for listeners, you can have predispositions whether you’re more likely to become an alcoholic or not. But if you drink enough alcohol over time you will become an alcoholic. It’s just brain chemistry and that’s what will happen.
Kevin Lawrence (34:55):
I believe it. If we can talk about your recovery that you’ve been through, everything looks the same, your environment’s similar and what your family and everything else. What have you learned about yourself through recovery? What’s the biggest now?
David Greer (35:16):
It seems like such a simple question. I know what I’ve learned. I’ve learned there’s a lot of different aspects of myself and I’ve learned to be in a lot greater touch with those. Some of this, I think people, for some listeners might sound very woo woo, but it actually really works for me. It’s very concrete. Through therapy work, and I belong to another 12 step program, which is called Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families. And I don’t believe my family of origin where alcoholics, but there was definitely some dysfunction.
(35:57):
And that dysfunction created certain behaviors in me, which have been incredibly powerful and got me very far in life. But they don’t always serve me. For example, I have an inner part of me that I call my Task Master Spirit, which is represented by an octopus. And when you have eight limbs, you can get a lot of shit done. It works really well for me. And the problem is it’s deeply embedded. Octopus is often moving all the arms and getting me an action and I don’t even realize that I’m doing it. How do I end up here out for a walk? That wasn’t my intention this afternoon, but here I am.
(36:40):
It can literally be that powerful. And one of the things that’s very different is I now have much more awareness and I decide whether I want to lean into my Task Master Spirit
Kevin Lawrence (36:56):
Versus it being autopilot
David Greer (36:58):
Instead of just being autopilot and it taking over and sometimes it takes over and then impacts all sorts of other people and things in my life, which I don’t really want to have.
Kevin Lawrence (37:08):
What would that Task Master Spirit end up doing? Why is that? I mean it’s great for productivity, but on the other side, what’s the challenge or problem? It causes
David Greer (37:17):
Burnout. You and I did a lot of work around that, around this selfless versus selflessness.
Kevin Lawrence (37:25):
Yes.
David Greer (37:25):
I’m getting a lot of stuff done. I’m getting stuff for other people, I’m moving businesses ahead. It’s great kind of,
Kevin Lawrence (37:34):
But depleting yourself
David Greer (37:36):
But selfish. I remember when, I don’t know, six or seven years in through some work with you, I decided to go up to Whistler for five days on my own without Karalee.
Kevin Lawrence (37:47):
I remember
David Greer (37:49):
That was a radical act. And then when I was up there, I actually, I didn’t realize it, but I was toning down the Task Master Spirit. I hadn’t named it at that point. In coaching and therapy, we say name it to tame it. And for me, that’s definitely been my experience about some of these internal, I have a bunch of others.
Kevin Lawrence (38:13):
Yeah, but that’s a great example. But you have awareness. You can see it get activated or potential to get activated and you’re able to pull back and go, wait a second here. That might not be what I want right now.
David Greer (38:26):
And I literally have internal conversations, Hey, TMS nice to see you and you can stand down. You don’t need to be guard right now. We’re okay. There’s no danger here. We’re doing just fine. And you can just chill. That’s what we’re going to do.
Kevin Lawrence (38:44):
There’s a great therapy methodology called internal family systems and basically it has you identify all the different voices in your head that are rising up for different reasons. They all come from different places
(39:04):
And they’re all there to help you or protect you from something that you learned along the way there a little. And they rise up. The challenges, they may be obsolete in your life today, but they still do their thing. And until you can, my partner Heidi, is a counselor. And in her counseling practice she has, when she works with kids, she has all these little characters like Marvel characters and she has a whole bunch of them. And when she works with kids, she gets them to name that part of themself kind of like you’re doing, assign it to a character and then they can figure out what is that person’s job? Do I need it to do that? What would I need it to do instead? It’s just, and they actually does it with figurines and for kids it’s easier to connect with and there’s all kinds of great stories.
(39:52):
But it’s that same thing. We have these things and the idea is the departs work is to separate. These are characters in my mind, it’s not me. These are characters trying to help me, although they might not be helping me. And when you can start to unpack this stuff, you can separate yourself from it and then you can choose it when it might be valuable, but it doesn’t run you by default. I mean there’s more to it than that. But this kind of unpacking the voices in your head and the impulses that happen to you.
David Greer (40:20):
In a ACA, we collectively call those voices the inner critic.
Kevin Lawrence (40:26):
Right?
David Greer (40:28):
And now I’m very aware the inner critic has shown up, David, you’re not getting enough stuff done, David, you’re this. And again, it’s an old story.
Kevin Lawrence (40:39):
It’s an old story for an old reason that you need to find a way to let go of or retire. Yeah,
David Greer (40:46):
Yeah. I found that for me, they don’t go away. It’s just all of this personal work. I smooth off the sharp edges and
Kevin Lawrence (40:59):
You are able to be conscious about them versus not even knowing that they’re running.
David Greer (41:03):
Yes. The inner critic shows up and I’m like,” Hey, hi. Hey, I don’t need your opinion right now.”
Kevin Lawrence (41:10):
I’m really good. Or maybe actually, could you help me with this? You can direct them if you’re aware of it. Yeah. I’s a great, great. What did you call it again? The octopus? You called it
David Greer (41:24):
My task master spirit.
Kevin Lawrence (41:26):
That’s what it was. I like that. I like that.
David Greer (41:27):
I tell you, I’ve told many people that identify my Task Master Spirit and their eyes light up because they’ve been looking, they realize that they have this issue, but they didn’t have a name for it.
Kevin Lawrence (41:38):
Oh yeah.
David Greer (41:39):
And I find a lot
Kevin Lawrence (41:39):
Of, I got that too. A lot
David Greer (41:42):
Of people have TMS. Yes,
Kevin Lawrence (41:44):
Yes. We have TMS trauma from. And again, it helped a certain points of our life. It’s very helpful to get stuff done when you have to.
David Greer (41:54):
With Task Master Spirit. I built incredibly complex software and built multimillion dollar companies. It’s very helpful. I went sailing for two years in
Kevin Lawrence (42:05):
The Mediterranean. It’s very helpful until it tries to destroy you.
David Greer (42:10):
Correct.
Kevin Lawrence (42:11):
Too much of anything. But when it runs too much on autopilot, it’s interesting that, yeah. Anyway, that’s a wonderful, wonderful example. And this is David, your story is powerful and it’s everyone in their growth journey as a leader. At some point we have to start reflecting. We get in our own way or the business will destroy us and we need these pieces of awareness, just help us to pop to the next level and to be able to be a better version and whatever that is. But it’s fascinating that, and yours came through the work that we did. There’s coaching, but also the alcoholism and AA was a huge catalyst for you growing through the huge catalyst. And everyone has different catalysts, but interestingly the path is similar. What are these things that are not necessarily helping me or causing me to be somewhat I don’t want or feel in a way I don’t want to feel? And sort of understanding them and being able to have awareness of them and let them go or change how they operate is a big difference.
David Greer (43:15):
It is. And some of the hardest work that I’ve done in my life. I bet it’s not for, we have a joke in aa, the steps are easy. It’s the work that’s hard.
Kevin Lawrence (43:33):
You just read the 12 steps,
David Greer (43:34):
You can read the 12 steps. They’re pretty [simple], they’re not that complicated.
Kevin Lawrence (43:39):
They’re not rocket science. Actually, I’ve read, I’ve bunch of the a I’ve been because of the work with you and I’ve read a bunch of the stuff. The program is great, but it’s to sit and actually do the work and yeah,
Kevin Lawrence (43:50):
Exactly.
Kevin Lawrence (43:51):
I want to just touch on the leadership side now. How do you show up different or think different as a leader now after going through this? And obviously you’re still learning and growing, all of us are, but what’s changed for you in terms of leadership perspective?
David Greer (44:08):
I think my belief around leadership, I see leadership as a much more a servant activity. My job as a leader is to show clear direction of where to go and what needs to get done. Hopefully collaborating with the people that are working with me. I’m not just, but I may be part of a team that’s dictating certain directions. And then my job is to make sure you have the resources in what you need to be successful. And I need to be able to step up when you’re not doing the things you’re doing and hold you accountable and have those difficult conversations. Well
Kevin Lawrence (44:45):
It sounds like great leadership. How is that different than the previous David or all this growth?
David Greer (44:53):
The previous David was much more micromanage. It’s my way or the highway.
Kevin Lawrence (44:57):
Okay.
David Greer (44:58):
Much less collaborative. Although building Robelle, I think we were decent at it, but still I’m very directive, not nearly focused on the success of the people working for me and really invested in their success. Rather it’s all about me and my success.
Kevin Lawrence (45:20):
Got it.
David Greer (45:22):
It it’s just flipping the coin over and looking,
Kevin Lawrence (45:28):
It’s almost like people were a way for you to achieve your goals where you flipped it, you’re there to help them achieve theirs almost. If we were to exaggerate, yeah,
David Greer (45:36):
If I do a really good job of setting the goals and helping them to achieve them, then I will be massively successful and keeping alignment between those two things.
Kevin Lawrence (45:47):
And that’s consistent with the level five leadership principle from Jim Collins. It’s a very different perspective or the multiplier concept from Liz Weissman. It’s all very,
David Greer (45:57):
Yeah, that is awesome. That’s where my current, and that comes out of step 12 and servant leadership. And the way I keep my sobriety is I go help someone else.
Kevin Lawrence (46:07):
Yeah, (46:08):
That’s awesome. For others that are struggling, we all struggle with different things. Look, stress continues to rise in our society. We all have triggers. And I have a belief, one of the CEOs I work with, they said, “I know all my executives are addicted to something. I would just like to know what it is I can work with it.” And you can see the alcohol addiction in boardrooms because when you go for dinners, it’s sometimes obvious and people are addicted to all kinds. I’ve been addicted to adrenaline and I’ve been addicted to work and to some degree I still am. We all have these. But what would you say to someone who’s struggling in a way where it’s really getting them, they know that it is creating darkness or a lot of pain in their world. What would you say to someone that’s in that kind of a situation where they know that this is becoming a problem?
David Greer (47:02):
I have two things to say. The first is no matter how dark it is, there is light, there is a solution to your darkness, even though you may easily feel like there is none. One is know there is some way out of the darkness. And the second is the mind that got us into that can’t get us out, ask for help. I could never have got sober for 20 years. I was a daily drinker. It’s only when I reached out my hand for help through 12 step recovery that I was able to overcome and achieve my biggest achievement of my life. Don’t do it alone. Those are my two things, the two messages that I really try and carry.
Kevin Lawrence (47:58):
Awesome. Let’s look ahead. You’ve had this amazing journey. What’s in your future that you’re looking forward to? And by the way, I know with aa, part of what you talk about is one step at a time, just what’s the right one next step, don’t get too caught up in the future. Sometimes that can create a lot of stress and anxiety and other types of things. We talk about that a lot. What’s the next right step? What’s the next right step? But what beyond that, what are you looking forward to? Yeah,
David Greer (48:30):
Yeah. I’m 67 and I’ve committed to working to at least 70. I do it in five-year chunks. I’m committed to working to 70 and I facilitate for clients like you do with strategic planning. I do one-on-one coaching. I have personal boundaries around that, which is I try and work no more than 20 hours a week in the weeks that I work and take 12 weeks off a year.
Kevin Lawrence (48:57):
Great.
David Greer (48:58):
It turns out that I’m a bit like you. Working hard is I started my coaching practice. You and I, you helped me start my coaching practice. I didn’t want to work as hard as I had worked in my last executive gig. It turns out for me not working hard is really hard work. No, it is.
Kevin Lawrence (49:18):
Me too. I think it relates that I’m like a thoroughbred race horse. I just want to run hard and I need things in place I don’t,
David Greer (49:26):
And I torque up a lot, do more sailing. I brought a sailboat back into my life four and a half years ago and that has been really, really healthy for me. Be involved. I’m a massive family values guy, being involved with my kids and now especially my grandkids. And then the bigger purpose I’m trying to live is to come on to venues like yours and podcasts and others and really share my message that no matter where you are in your struggle, mental struggle, alcoholism, addiction, that there is a solution. And please reach out for help. And I know you probably are for this too, but you go to my website and my phone number, my email are in the top left corner of every single page, email me or call me and I’ll do a free one hour coaching session with anyone that wants it.
Kevin Lawrence (50:25):
I think that’s very important because if someone’s resonating with you and it’s probably easier to talk to you than it is to me because you’re in the same club and you understand it. And yeah, obviously we’ll make sure that David, we put your contact information if people want to reach you and talk to you. And I’m the same way when it comes to mental health, when people are having a mental health issue. And it could be something like this from addiction or it could just be the stress is peaking. I’ll talk to any CEO or any human basically that’s struggling because I’ve been there with many different people over the years and I know how hard it is. And it’s usually easier to talk to someone that there is a threat of connection, whether you know them,
David Greer (51:07):
Whether you
Kevin Lawrence (51:07):
Don’t know them, but they’ve dealt with it. I mean, we deal with people getting maxed out on mental health and getting into all kinds of mental problems for lots of different reasons.
David Greer (51:17):
And it’s easier to talk to someone whose story you resonate with.
Kevin Lawrence (51:21):
It is. Reach out. David, I really appreciate it. I’ll share something and then we’ll wrap up something. I was just in India a couple of weeks ago and we had interesting this tour guide who was fascinating and she shared this philosophy that is in her family and part of the culture in India, although I don’t know officially where it comes from, but it’s very interesting. And she said, your life is broken up into 25 year chunks. The first 25 is learning all your education going to school. The next 25 is earning the next 25, which definitely coincides with your story is the seeking of truth, truly understanding, okay, what’s this thing really about? The kids are on their way, we made some money, we’re doing okay, next 25 years seeking of truth. And the next 25 for those that get there is being what they call a guru, which is a wise sage person who is able to give wisdom to others. If I just look at you and your story, it fits right into it. You’re at the top of the seeking truth phase and obviously there’s pieces of what you’re doing that are seeking wisdom, but then you’ve got this next phase that you’re moving towards, which is what you’re doing now, sharing the wisdom and the truth that you have learned and you worked really hard on while learning it, but sharing this truth about this game called life with lots of other people.
David Greer (52:53):
Yep, exactly. And maybe you don’t have to go through everything that I went through.
Kevin Lawrence (53:02):
That’s the hope.
David Greer (53:04):
And I share both on my business side, I share my experience, strength, and hope in business, and I share my experience, strength and hope in recovery.
Kevin Lawrence (53:12):
Yeah, that’s awesome David. First of all, I’ll say it’s great to know you. You’re an amazing human and we worked together for a long time and then I’m still a part of your life and you invite me to these events to be part of your celebrations and it’s very inspiring and I’m thrilled you’re willing to share the story. I know lots of other people are struggling just like you did and there’s a path and as you’ve kind of laid out, there’s a way and there’s always a way. And thank you much for taking the time
David Greer (53:41):
There is. And thanks Kevin, and thanks much for being part of my life. You’re a really special guy and I really appreciate that you take the time to come out and celebrate with me. It means a lot to me.
Kevin Lawrence (53:51):
Well, I’m honored to be a part of it, right? It’s a big deal. It’s very heartening to see what’s happening. And at the end of the day, David, we’re on this planet. Part of the truth of life is the greatest thing we can do is to be of service and help others, right?
David Greer (54:04):
Yep.
Kevin Lawrence (54:05):
I agree. And I’m of service and helping you. You’re of service and helping me because I’m getting connected to it like we’re both winning. And that is the ultimate in this game.
David Greer (54:13):
Indeed it is.
Kevin Lawrence (54:15):
Awesome. All the best. Thanks David.
David Greer (54:18):
Thanks a lot.
