In this episode of “The Best of the Best,” host Terese Brittingham interviews David Greer, who shares his journey from running a software company to embarking on a transformative sailing adventure with his family. After a significant business dispute led to his departure from the company he co-founded, David used this unexpected opportunity to realize a long-held dream of sailing around the Mediterranean with his children, while homeschooling them. This experience brought his family closer together and left a legacy for the whole family.
David also discusses his business origins, which began with an early fascination with computers and a family background in entrepreneurship. He emphasizes the importance of cultivating a strong company culture and hiring for cultural fit rather than just skillset. David highlights that successful companies focus on culture, which shapes behaviors and defines organizational success.
Furthermore, David offers advice for entrepreneurs on effective planning, suggesting they focus on long-term goals and limit short-term objectives to avoid distraction. He also stresses the importance of self-care and celebrating achievements. David concludes by offering a free one-hour coaching session to entrepreneurs seeking guidance and shares his contact information for further assistance.
Audio
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0UxYCvd7xNiTi6Py6EtJbH
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-best-of-the-best/id1704472129?i=1000669038667
Listen Notes: https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/the-best-of-the-best/navigating-lifes-storms-MH3Lrm2hnz7/
Transcript
Announcer:
Here we are. Another episode of the Best of the Best. Therese, who do you have here today?
Terese:
Well, we are in for a special treat today. We have David Greer and David has an amazing story to tell, I’m really excited. David, welcome aboard The best of the best podcast.
David:
Thanks so much. I am thrilled to be here today.
Terese:
Yes. I was looking over your background and one of the things that just kind of jumped out at me right away was your trip sailing and homeschooling the kids. What a dream that is. Tell me a little bit about how you got there, what took you to that direction?
David:
What took me to that direction is after 20 years building a software company, I suddenly unexpectedly ended up on the street. My former partner and I had a major disagreement in 20 plus years, but it was a doozy and it ended in divorce.
So he ended up, the way we settled the differences in strategic direction was he bought me out 2001 and someone way smarter than me sat me down and said, David, your kids will never be 11, nine, and five again. Do you need to work right away? And I go, “no, I got a pretty good check in my jeans. I’m not done, but I don’t need to work right away.” And we hatched this plan to commission a sailboat in the south of France and homeschool our three kids while sailing more than 5,000 miles in the Mediterranean. And I’d been a sailor from when I was young, had boats on the west coast here. I’m based in Vancouver, Canada for at that point 20 years. And I’d read many books about families who’d cruise long-term, and I didn’t realize how much it was actually a dream until we started. We talked about three ideas. One was to get a barge and kind of barge through Holland, Belgium, France. The other was to rent a series of houses kind of a month each per year. And then we decided on the sailing. And once we did, I suddenly realized just how much this had been a latent dream. I think if I’d continue with the business, I probably never would’ve realized it.
Terese:
Right. I think that happens to a lot of people. You get so caught up in the day to day and going on with what’s happening. And then family life does suffer. Kids suffer. Not that they suffer. I mean obviously we take great care of the kids, but they don’t get your time. And at the end of the day, that’s the thing that they need the most, especially in this world we’re living in today. And I just read that and I was like, wow, that is just so awesome. I’m so happy you had that experience with your kids. Is everybody really close now? Do you feel like that brought you guys closer together?
David:
As a friend of ours who did live in a barge the year before we left for a year, she likes to say it’s like being in a pressure cooker. One of two things happens. Either the lid blows off or the parts become greater than the hole becomes greater than the parts as you kind of mill together. I mean, your children see you in ways that most children never see their parents. Also, many people have pointed out to me that we’ve spent more time with our children than most parents will spend with their children in their entire life.
Terese:
Just the values and the core values that you can teach them and they’re your core values instead of someone else’s is just awesome. Well,
David:
And just operating, we were 18 months without being in an English speaking country and just buying food, just practical things become, and I’ve got three growing and a couple of ’em turned into teenagers while we were out there and just feeding everybody.
Plus you got to be an engineer, you got to be a route planner. There’s so many things you do and your children just take part in this. It’s not conscious, but they just learn so much. And yeah, it’s a legacy we’ve created as a family together and it’s a core bedrock that we still draw from. And yeah, we’re still close. In fact, our whole family, my wife’s brother and his son just came out and we went up for a fishing four days up on an island just north of Vancouver with my daughter, son-in-Law, two grandchildren, my middle son and his wife and their new puppy. And we just had a fabulous four days and caught a lot of salmon.
Terese:
That’s awesome. That’s fun. It is. Well, very nice. Well, I think everybody’s gotten a chance to know you just a little bit better there. I want to go back to some questions I have for you. What started you off in business originally? How did you get started?
David:
When I was in grade eight or grade nine, I got taken of a tour of the Alberta legislature government buildings. I grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and that’s the provincial capital. And we went and walked by a computer room and I remember seeing all of these computers and all of these spinning tape drives, and at the same time I got taught octal arithmetic. We count 10 because 10 digits, you actually count in any base, eight two. In fact, computers are binary, so they actually count in zeros and ones. And at that point I just had this vision. I wanted to combine business and computers. I don’t know exactly where it came from.
I come from an entrepreneurial family. My grandfather started a hardware store in downtown Edmonton in 1923, so that was my norm, but I didn’t, and my dad put a lot of pressure for me to take over the sanitary supply business, but I knew that wasn’t going to have many computers. Then I eventually went to university to get my computer science degree, took all of my electives in the business school in management information systems. And I got a summer job where I was working with these really advanced computers. And then I met this consultant who was rewriting this application for the cable company in Vancouver. And he started a software company and before I graduated, I joined him as the first employee after the founders.
Terese:
Oh wow.
David:
We were just having fun and we were in a new market and really growing in a very innovative computer from Hewlett Packard. And a condition of my employment was I had to write a technical paper and apply to the 1980 International Hewlett Packard user group conference to speak. And that was accepted. And in fourth year, I took a week off school and flew to San Jose and I gave my first technical paper and with my former partner, Bob Green, we were standing on the San Jose convention floor telling everyone about this cool software and what it could do for them. And later I learned that’s kind of the essence of selling.
Announcer:
Yes, yes.
David:
We had no idea we’re just these geeks with a bunch of other geeks, but we’re doing really cool stuff and we did have some products that were very impactful in that marketplace.
Terese:
Okay. Well, one of the things that you said that I love, and it kind of goes to what you believe in and what you teach is culture and helping organizations with their culture. You said that you were having lots of fun.
Terese:
I talk to people and I have fun every day. I love what I do, and sometimes I tell people that and they look at me like I have two heads. And they’re like, what do you mean you have fun at work? I’m like, well, you should have fun at work. If you don’t have fun at work, it stinks. Right. You’re going is too, the morning
David:
Something. Life is way too short.
Terese:
Interesting. Yes. And real estate obviously is one of those careers where it is one of those things you put in and you get a lot out if you have passion for it. But that’s just like any business. Talk a little bit about what you help companies with and the culture and what that all means to you.
David:
So my belief is that really high performing companies focus on culture. And so first of all, I help entrepreneurs, and their senior leadership team, discover their culture. It’s not so much defining it, it’s usually there. And this come from Jim Collins in his book, Good to Great, this is not new stuff, and asking questions, who is an employee would hire again in a heartbeat? Tell me about them. Tell me about their characteristics. And then becoming conscious about what your culture is and what you stand for. Having fun might be one of your core values. It’s like everybody, we want everyone in the company to have at least one time every day where they have some fun. And then as you really develop the culture, really culture defines behaviors. It’s really about how people behave. And most of our behaviors come from our family of origin, our early teachers, our early coaches. Stuff is baked into us really deep. And what I remind entrepreneurs is, and high performing people and leaders is that it’s almost impossible to change people’s behaviors. It’s possible, but it’s really hard.
David:
It is way easier to teach them a skill.
David:
Once you figure out what your culture is, then as you’re bringing new people on board, make sure you filter first for cultural fit and it actually makes the company go faster, quicker, because everyone has these similar behaviors. You don’t need as big an HR manual if everyone has a similar belief system about what’s important. And really high performing cultures, if you make a mistake, usually they eject that person like a virus.
Terese:
And sometimes people that aren’t exactly the perfect fit in the beginning, it’s contagious culture. They learn to grasp one or like you said, they just don’t last really, really long.
David:
Yes, exactly.
This idea, people are always looking for the skillset first. And I’m like, no, look for your cultural fit first. And if they need to have a computer science degree, you don’t have time to teach ’em a four year degree. They still need to have and maybe a lot of skills, but if they don’t fit into your culture, if your culture is a high communication connecting with people. Believe me, I’ve been a computer scientist. I’ve worked with a lot of tech geeks in my time. There’s a lot of them who are incredibly skilled, but that is not one of their behaviors. And it’s okay if they fit in a culture where it’s okay to kind of feed them pizzas under the door and let them work 24 hours a day, but I want you to make conscious choice about that. Is that really fitting into your culture?
Terese:
I love that you talk about the culture, getting that right. The organization needs to know what it is and what the expectations are going to be and how they’re going to run and what they’re going to accept and not accept. But then you also talk about how do you find your ideal customer?
David:
So my experience of entrepreneurs, especially I work a lot with owner, founders started their business, grew it, and when you’re first out in business, you kind of take any customer you can get. You need cashflow, right? Yes. Been there, done that. You’re figuring it out and that’s good and it’s great. But as you get success, not all customers are created equal. And there are some customers who are either way easier to deal with or who value your goods and services way more so they’ll pay you more. They’re easier to work with. I say as you grow it, really start looking at your customers. Who do you love calling you to ask for things and who do you try not to answer the phone?
Terese:
Yes.
David:
Right?
Terese:
Yes.
David:
And we all have probably had that.
Terese:
We have, I’m sure.
David:
And that you seriously consider firing some of your customers. And I say, if your perfect customer walks through the door right now, what is everything you could tell me about them?
Terese:
Ah, that’s a great question,
David:
Right?
Terese:
Yeah.
David:
Is it a man? Is it woman? Are they tall? They short? I mean, some of those don’t matter, right? But it’s what are the characteristics of that person that would lead to say, this is going to be a fantastic customer.
Terese:
Yes. We call that the missing person report here.
David:
Yes. I like that.
Terese:
It’s like who’s missing from the organization and what do they ideally look like? And then everybody start looking for that person. It gives you some direction and guidance.
David:
Then as you grow your business and you become clearer about these things, like an ideal customer, then you start working on your messaging and your marketing to attract those people who are going to be ideal and hopefully self-select out some of the people who are not going to be ideal.
Terese:
Yeah, absolutely. I want to go onto then another question I have for you, because obviously I work with a lot of entrepreneurs, and one of the things I wanted to ask you is in what ways can entrepreneurs plan their week for maximum impact? Because as an entrepreneurial mind, high DI personality, most times we are always onto that new shiny toy or it’s, and off we go, I’d like to hear a little bit about how could you plan for a maximum impact and maybe avoid some of those distractions.
David:
So here’s a longer answer, a little bit longer answer, because I work with scaling up this process by a guy called Verne Harnish who, and I specialize in facilitating for planning. I remember when I first went to Verne Harnish’s training and he let me back up for Robelle for 20 years, we did what we did last year and do it a little better.
Announcer:
Okay.
David:
When I first went to a training session with Verne, he said, where do you want to be in three to five years? Start there. What are the key thrust or capabilities you need to build? And if you’re a solo entrepreneur, that could be your own skill and capability so that you can, or maybe it’s like, I want to spend more time with my family. Well then you probably need a PA who has to be really, really skilled and really good. That’s the capability you need to build. So where do you want to be in three to five years? Then what do you want to achieve this year so that you can get to where you want to go in three to five? And then what do you need to achieve this quarter? And I’m talking four or five goals, like small number of goals for the year for three to five years, four, maybe five key thrust capabilities. Where are you going to end up? Same for the year and same for the quarter. Most people write down too many goals and then they’re spinning their wheels trying to slice, do a little here, a little here, a little here. And nothing really moves ahead substantially.
Terese:
Their focus is too divided.
David:
And then when you’re planning your week, you need to dust off your goals and you need to say, am I spending at least a quarter of the best time each working day working towards those goals? Because if I’m not, then you’re probably not going to achieve them.
Terese:
Right?
David:
That’s why I say the prioritization actually has to be in the context of a bigger plan where you’re really trying to go. Then it gets a lot easier. This planning process actually makes it easier because it limits your choices, and then you have to build discipline to avoid the shiny red ball syndrome, which we all have, believe me too. Oh, look, that new business, oh, maybe I should get involved with that. Oh, that might be cool.
Terese:
I know you’re right.
David:
You’re right. Oh gee, I don’t have any time in my calendar. Oh, I wanted to spend time with my grandchild. Oh, right.
Terese:
That wasn’t a priority. I think
David:
That yeah, where’s it going to come from?
Terese:
Exactly. I think that’s really smart advice, future casting, looking out and deciding everybody. A lot of people plan for one year, but really planning for that 1, 3, 5, and even beyond is very interesting. I had a coach ask me one time, what does my legacy look like in a hundred years? And I’m like,
David:
Great question.
Terese:
A hundred years, it really makes you stop and think, holy smoke, what am I doing now that’s going to actually be remembered then? Because I’m not going to be here unless things change a lot in the world. I’m definitely not going to be here at 150.
David:
Yeah, it’s a great question. So what legacy are you leaving? And it’s also okay not to want to leave in 150 years. I’m gone.
Terese:
That’s it. I did what I did.
David:
Okay. Again, it’s just more, I’m all about conscious choice. That’s the number one thing I ask of my clients. Do whatever you want, but do it with intention rather than just reacting to the current event. The other thing, my former coach, Kevin Lawrence, in his book, your Oxygen Masks First, which I highly recommend.
Terese:
Great book.
David:
I worked with Kevin for years and helped him build a lot of these templates, but he breaks your life down into career, finances, life, like the relationships and that connection with people. And as high performers, we almost always squeeze ourselves out in the middle. We squish ourselves out, so we sacrifice our resiliency. We sacrifice our physical and mental health. And so his third category for planning in any given year, so he’s about setting goals. So we talked about one year goals and three year goals. His template does it in three areas, the career, kind of finances life, but self, what do you do that’s just resilient is just for you. I had a client I was coaching yesterday, and he’s bought this sports car and he’s going to take it to a racetrack for the first time this weekend.
Terese:
Fun.
David:
And that’s just for him, and he’s so excited about it and just thrilled. What is it for you that is fun, that renews you, gives you energy back? Sometimes it’s doing things with other people, so there can be kind of a combination with that. Life relationships. But again, it’s something that really, because again, I for years squeezed myself out one, especially, I’m a recovering alcoholic. So for a couple decades I was the daily drinker and was hurting myself every day until I finally, that coach Kevin Lawrence was the first person human being. I admitted I had a drinking problem too, and he coached me to go to 12 step recovery, and now I’ve been sober for 15 years.
Terese:
Amazing. Congratulations. That’s awesome.
David:
Thank you very much.
Terese:
That’s awesome. I think one of the things that, especially the world’s changed so much, and it’s so fast. Everything’s so much demand on people and kids. And I love when you give yourself a really good solid goal plan and you meet benchmarks, you reward yourself. I really think a lot of people forget to do that. And I’m glad you talked about that, because you’ve got to have, we’re all human.
Terese:
We need to celebrate that we’ve achieved something. And sometimes that achievement for yourself, and it feels weird sometimes to celebrate yourself, but what your friend is doing, I mean, that’s awesome. It’s something that’s going to be exciting and fun, and he earned it, so now he’s doing it for himself. I think that’s really …
David:
I will say, I am terrible. I’m really guilty of achieving the next big thing. And it’s like literally 30 seconds later, I’m into the next challenge. Into the next big thing. This idea of a pause of soaking it in like, gee, you worked for this for three years. Maybe you should, could you take maybe a minute? Enjoy it for a minute, two minutes.
Terese:
Yes. And nobody does. I mean, I don’t want to say nobody does that. People don’t do that enough. They definitely, don’t do that enough.
David:
For me, it’s still a very ongoing part of my personal growth is to get better at just acknowledging some of these great things that are going on. I mean, I do and I write gratitude lists, but it’s really pausing enough to really let it come into my
Terese:
Heart,
David:
Not just be in my head.
Terese:
Yeah. I must say you’re very easy to talk to. I just met you and I feel like I’ve known you forever. Can you tell everyone a little bit about how they could connect with you, how you could help them in their business, what it is that you do, like that elevator?
David:
Sure. My website is coachdjgreer.com. That’s coach D as in David, J as in James greer.com. Every webpage at the top, it has my email address, it has my phone number.
Terese:
Awesome.
David:
If you’re stuck on something, reach out to me. I offer a free one hour coaching to any entrepreneur that’s stuck, and I am happy, no obligation. We’ll just spend an hour on the phone. And my promise to you, if you spend one hour with me, you’ll have three ideas that accelerate your business in the next 90 days.
Terese:
Love that. That’s worth the hour right there.
David:
Yeah.
Terese:
Right.
David:
Yeah.
Terese:
All right. I’ll be calling.
David:
You said you already had a coach?
Terese:
I do. I do. But you know what? I’ve had so many coaches in my life, but I have my physical coach for my training, and then I have a mindset coach, but I am not working with a business coach at the moment in the search for that right now. And I’m at a point where I think a lot of people get, I’ve been in this business for 30 years and I’ve built my empire. We’re the largest real estate company in the area. We have 250 agents, and you get to a point where it gets a little tiring and you need that new stretch goal or whatever it is. I’ve been talking to people and a lot of people are where I am, and they’ve kind of succeeded to where they always wanted to go, but then they get there and it’s like, now what? What’s next? That’s what I want to talk to you about is what’s next for Therese?
David:
Great. And I would love to do that and as to remind people I don’t know what I’m going to grow up to become.
Announcer:
Right. Isn’t that awesome though?
David:
I’m still working on it, and sometimes it’s really frustrating, and then I remind myself, think of all the opportunities you have, just how rich a life
Terese:
And all the things you’ve done.
David:
I’ve done all these things, and yet I still have an amazing set of opportunities in front of me. It’s more about choosing the “right”, but choosing them because there still are so many opportunities in front of me.
Terese:
Yeah, I think that just starting off your day, realizing how lucky we all are to have the life that we have and still have the opportunity to grow it to something more and bigger. But again, like I said, I think it does take having someone else to talk to and having a coach who can direct you, because we get so caught in it at certain days.
David:
It’s really hard. Yeah, it’s very hard to have that. And it’s also hard to see. Sometimes I point out things to people that to me are like, they’re so obvious. And to them it’s like, poof. No, no, I’m not really, well, you told me A and B and C and D and E, so aren’t you like this?
Terese:
Yes.
David:
Oh shit. I am.
Terese:
Yes. Absolutely. Well, David, it has been an absolute pleasure speaking with you. We’ll get this out and we’ll have all your contact information for everybody to reach out. Thank you so much. And any last words?
David:
Thank you so much for having me. No, just thanks so much and thanks to your listeners for being there.
Terese:
Thank you. Have a great day.
