Maartje van Krieken is committed to helping leaders get out of the chaos and into growth. Join us on her Business Emergency Room Podcast as we discuss:
- The dark side of business no one talks about.
- My journey into alcoholism as a business owner and leader.
- Recovering from my alcoholism with the help of an amazing coach.
- The clarity of having a #1 goal every day.
- Maartje’s experience being in industries where alcoholic drinking is normalized.
- Spotting the symptoms of addiction in a peer or leader.
- The role of boards in identifying and creating consequences for leaders struggling with alcohol use disorder.
- Reminding leaders of their bigger purpose.
- Create higher performance by focusing on a small number of core priorities in recovery and business.
Audio
Transcript
Maartje van Krieken (00:00):
Success is a dark sight. Most entrepreneurs never talk about when the pressure gets too intense. How do leaders really cope? I’m about to pull back the curtain on the conversation that could save your business and your life. Leadership today isn’t just about scaling, it’s about navigating constant uncertainty, market disruptions, and high pressure decisions. If you’re dealing with chaos, bottlenecks and relentless pressure, welcome to the Business Emergency Room. Welcome back to this episode of The Business Emergency Room. I’m really glad you’re here because we talk about an important topic. We talk about you, me, us, us as leaders, and how we deal with being the business at times and maybe at times go too far in that and find unhealthy coping mechanisms to sustain the continuity of our business. I have the perfect guest to talk about that with us today. His name is David Greer. He is now an entrepreneurial coach and he generously has a major gift for all of you listeners in this space that we will talk about at the end of the episode. Stay tuned. But this expertise is coming from a journey of building up a business called Robelle Solutions Technology from its student days to great success and then exiting out of that. He currently is also or made a journey through angel investing, executive positions, directorship, and is really trying to help entrepreneurs now with all the hard lessons he learned. He also is the author of the book Wind In Your Sails and with all my nautical references, you may understand why I think David is the perfect guest. Thank you for being here. David.
David Greer (01:55):
Thank you much for having me. I’m super excited to be here.
Maartje van Krieken (01:59):
Yeah, let’s actually really then dive straight into it. I alluded to the challenges that you’ve overcome in all your success and that let you to do what you do today. Can you talk a little bit more about your story and the challenge you overcame?
David Greer (02:16):
Yes, I’m happy to. As you mentioned, I joined a young software startup out of when I was still in fourth year, and I stayed 20 years and built it into a global powerhouse. And one of the ways I coped with building that and the stress I eventually became co-owner was I became an alcoholic. And I’ve both been a practicing alcoholic and running businesses and a sober alcoholic in senior leadership roles or helping others. But for 20 years I was in complete denial about what I was doing. I’m a very typical high performing alcoholic on the outside, even after a lot of drinking, I didn’t slur words, I didn’t stumble. From the outside, it’s not really obvious that I have this problem. And there are millions and millions and millions that look like me that are using alcohol as a coping mechanism to make the lows not low.
(03:25):
To make the highs higher. I definitely used it as rocket fuel to work really long hours. And at the end of the day, I used alcohol to cope with my feelings and to have not feel good enough to overcome my fears. I didn’t know this. I didn’t do this consciously, but this is what I did until I brought an amazing coach into my life, Kevin Lawrence and I brought him into my life because I was completely unfulfilled in angel investing. That was not something that worked well for me. I didn’t really know that until I met Kevin. He asked me a couple of questions and I had tears in the corner of my eyes, I hired him to advance my career. But after 18 months, we had cleared all the clutter off the table. We got me started a new executive gig and all that was left was the elephant in the room, and he was the first person I admitted I had a drinking problem to. And in his home life in the summers, he had a summer place and one of the people he interacted with a lot around the campfire was someone who had 20 years in 12 step recovery. And Kevin does [not] have a drinking problem, but he’s an infinitely curious coach. He talked a lot to this gentleman and his journey. And when I showed up with the drinking problem, Kevin knew what to do and he coached me to 12 step recovery. And that was a little more than 6,000 days ago.
(05:03):
As I like to tell people, it’s the single biggest achievement of my life. And every morning I have to get up and I need to achieve the biggest achievement of my life, which in some ways is a gift. When I start my day, I know what the number one priority needs to be, like everything else. If I pick up a drink, then I won’t have a life, I won’t have my business, I won’t have anything.
Maartje van Krieken (05:23):
And then we’ll get in a minute to how you use that gift to give to others and pay it forward. To speak a little, I want to first go back to Kevin, right? Because before we got onto the podcast, we talked about how you work more with entrepreneurs. I work typically with people who work in slightly larger organizations, but very much still with leaders who are their business, who are their company. And there’s a lot of pressure involved in that space. And you worked with your coach for 18 months on all sorts of stuff before you got to the elephant in the room. We typically maneuver in spaces of peers. How do we either find a Kevin even if we don’t know we need one, or how do we link people up who need a Kevin and maybe don’t see it themselves? And how do we shorten that timeline? Could it be shortened? Because 18 months is a long time before you got to the real subject.
David Greer (06:26):
Well, 20 years is a long time. It really took 20 years, just the last 18 months happened to be working with Kevin. Sadly, my experience in recovery is that people only get sober when they’re ready to get sober. And even consequences, losing their children, losing their spouse, losing their business, that’s actually not enough to motivate them to actually get sober. They need to want it for themselves. They have to reach a place. I still had all the, on the outside it looked fine. I had a house, I had two kids, I had a job, three kids, a couple of cars. 16 years later, I’ve got a house. I’ve got three kids, I have two grandkids. It looks the same, but on the inside I’m a completely different person. And I think that’s really the core of your question is what is the trigger that will let us actually go do the personal work to grow internally, and where do we fall over that ledge where we’ve had enough?
(07:35):
I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. That was the real consequence for me. And I can’t say what it will be for anyone else. And I would say in the peer group, I don’t think it’s pointing out about the drinking because I don’t think no one wants to hear that they’re drinking too much, but it’s more ask ’em about their purpose in life or why did you start your business? Or why as a leader in this organization, why did you take that role? What change are you trying to bring to the world? What’s your bigger purpose? Because I think if we can help people see the bigger picture, they might start to realize these things that are getting in the way of what it is that’s actually important to them. And we often need to be reminded of that bigger picture. We get down in the weeds and we get into the next fire and the next thing and we get consumed by it. That’s the nature of business, right?
Maartje van Krieken (08:33):
Yeah. Yeah. Your peers because we also have a lot of investors and board members listening. If I’m looking at the business that I’m associated with, and I see that the leadership in there is keeping things together and ticking over, but we suspect that it is actually potentially at the expense of themselves. And assuming we have the best intentions is a conversation about the business performance or even a more personal conversation. Do you feel that there is a place for people in those positions to intervene in some way, shape or form or ask the same questions?
David Greer (09:18):
I think ask the same questions, but also as a board member, if we’re talking about the Owner/CEO, at some points there has to be consequences. If you show up drunk on the job another time, we are firing you as CEO. There has to be actual real, or we’re cutting your compensation by 20%. Because as alcoholics, we don’t pay attention unless at least there’s some consequences. There might be consequences. We still don’t, but we’re definitely not going to pay attention if there aren’t any consequences. And you can try the easier softer approach, which is reminding them of why they’re there, the bigger purpose. But then at the other end, we might have to, as a board or chairman of the board, who usually the chairman of the board’s responsible for coaching the CEO and making the sheets. Sure. The CEO is performing well and delivering all the KPIs that there are some consequences around that.
Maartje van Krieken (10:22):
Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. I come from an industry in which high performing addiction is very normal. Frontier oil and gas projects,
(10:34):
The pressures the nature of the game. You don’t always also choose to work in some of these places or do the jobs that are there if there’s not other challenges. Not understandable. I dunno if that’s good English, that there is a higher rate there, but I think also a lot there is seen as high performing addicts. What are some of the symptoms that we can be on the lookout for to get a feel that it’s starting to get to the problematic space? What are some of the symptoms of somebody who has high functioning addiction? Could you say on the outside it looks the same, but we are also the people,
David Greer (11:22):
Right? Usually you get, yeah. I mean the classic things like absence from work or leaving early or committing to goals, not delivering them, especially if in the past that was an individual who did, and my experience of alcohol is that it’s a very progressive disease. It progresses over time and we need more and more, and there’s neurological reasons why that’s the case, but we often, we need more to get the same effect, and then eventually we do too much. And then it starts having all this consequence where we don’t show up and actually do our job. And that’s usually where it’s first starts showing up is you’re not showing up for meetings, you’re not showing up for work, or you’re not delivering on your goals. The obvious consequences will be there. When you get to a certain point before that, it can be very, very hard. I mean, you go out to dinner together and you watch someone have three drinks and drink a bottle and a half of wine. That’s alcoholic drinking, can’t say they’re an alcoholic, alcoholic drinking. The challenge is in a lot of business environments that’s normalized, like going out and having dinner, drinking a alcoholically is actually completely normalized. Who’s really got a problem here?
Maartje van Krieken (12:51):
Yeah, hard to say.
Maartje van Krieken (12:53):
I live in New Orleans, safe to say that the drinking is indeed a normal part of the day in many settings. Social events with professionals is intriguing. You see that. You see the reaction from people coming from the outside who look at it with fresh eyes and yeah, I think it’s a healthy question or comment to ask, right? Because I think if you ask with the right intention and the right tone and people get defensive, I think it just might be a little scratch on their back to start thinking with what am I doing or where am I at?
David Greer (13:31):
And I think the broader to bring in experts and talk about alcoholism and addiction, which there are …
(13:38):
I think there’s an opportunity for an education piece without any blame or judgment. But again, if you bring it in for broader talk about the organization, 10% of the population has alcohol use disorder. If you’re a hundred employee company, 10% of your people are alcoholics or substance use have substance use disorder, that that’s a lot of people. I think part of why I do podcasts like yours is to just try and reduce the stigma. It is a mental health disease, and I think it’s important we’re more aware of it and that there are solutions for it.
Maartje van Krieken (14:20):
And what I hear you say before we get to you the flip side and how you now work, the positive angle of things, I hear you say very clearly that yes, although this is an issue, we see very much in people in general, but also very much in leaders in this space, and there’s things we can do as their peers. We spend a lot of time at work with our colleagues, with our peers, and we are the right people to maybe see changes in behavior and at least say something you don’t want to step away from consequences. It’s not helpful to not give people consequences. It’s their choice if they do something with it and create transparency to talk about it. What I’m also kind of implicitly hearing is that it’s not necessarily your culture thing. Is this more indeed an individual coping mechanism and whether your business is actually healthy transparency and communication and talks about a lot of stuff that this is typically how individuals deal with their stress, their situations where their feelings, and it’s not necessarily a reflection of where your business stands or how it operates.
David Greer (15:33):
Well, let’s see, A couple different things. We’ll go back to your oil and gas example. I think certain industries, actually, it’s more than tolerated. It’s almost part of the culture, which in oil and gas, I don’t know how they deal with safety issues. When you have that going on, you clearly as an entrepreneur, as a senior leader are putting a business at risk because at some point you’ll take yourself out, and especially because I tend to work with entrepreneur founders. They are still the cornerstone of the business. And if you take them out, the business can go for a while, but it won’t survive in the longer term. Typically, they haven’t actually done any kind of succession plan, at least not until they’ve worked with me for a while. There’s both a cultural piece in that everybody, all your peer leaders go out for drinks every day. And then there’s the individual piece about you specifically and your role and how you show up.
Maartje van Krieken (16:45):
Yeah.
David Greer (16:45):
I don’t know if that’s where you were trying to go with your question.
Maartje van Krieken (16:47):
No, great qualifier actually. Not necessarily. But that’s helpful because, and let me say that if you are on an offshore installation or if you’re in an oil and gas facility, typically there are ring fence and there’s no alcohol at all, right? If you’re doing rotations or whatever, the scenarios I talk more about are people who work and live in difficult circumstances, and then once they’re outside that bubble, but also still working, that transition can be very black and white. And also, I don’t know, sometimes it feels like they want to live double in the time that they’re not at work or whatever the situation is. I think in general, industries that have high stress have all sorts of additional or increased levels of mental health situations that I think many of them are, yes,
David Greer (17:38):
We’re talking about alcoholism, addiction, but we could talk about workaholism, we could talk about gambling, we can talk about all of these unhealthy ways that we cope with stress. And the thing I want people to try and think about is are you trying to change your feelings with some activity or something you’re putting in your body because that’s an indicator that you’re using an unhealthy coping mechanism.
Maartje van Krieken (18:08):
What I was trying to get to is, as we talked about some industries or some organizations have a higher level above average people with unhealthy coping mechanisms. But we were talking about leaders specifically. And what I found in my experience, and I wanted to hear your view on that, is that whether there is somebody with an addiction issue in charge or not is not necessarily a reflection of how healthy the interpersonal culture in a business is. Because seen leaders who have great level of care for the people working for them and who can be and be to them and be there for them in a way that they can’t be for themselves who are good communicators or quite transparent or quite honest about almost everything else except about that, that is their coping mechanism and it’s something they hide from the world. Do you agree with that or do you see it bleeding over in culture all the time? Of course, examples of either side, right? But
David Greer (19:09):
Generalizing, there’s examples of either side, but I’ll just go back to my example. 20 years a daily drinker, 20 years in complete denial, and I would manipulate situations to have more drinks. I totally relate to these people who are in a situation where they can’t drink for a period of time. Then it’s like, oh, I got to make up for lost time, I’ve got to drink more. And again, I was still able to function in life and quite well. I wasn’t a hundred percent present to my kids and to my spouse and others, which is one of the things I regret. But the denial is powerful
(19:52):
Until you have a consequence till someone points it out enough that you really respect. Here’s the deal with Coach Kevin. I had worked with him enough that I knew once I admitted it to him, he was never going to let me off the hook. I didn’t know what that looked like, but once I opened the door to Kevin, it was like I knew I could not close that door. Once I was through it, I couldn’t go back out because I had too much respect and I knew that Kevin, he would just be a terrier bull on my case until something happened about it. Again, I didn’t know what that looked like. It was a leap of faith into the unknown, and thankfully it’s worked out very well, but I had to have that person who, and just again, I got to that point of being sick and tired and just beholden to the alcohol. I just didn’t want to do it anymore.
Maartje van Krieken (20:55):
Let’s talk about how you use what you learned, well you learned, and what Kevin helps you with, how you use that today to help leaders grow their business and entrepreneurs take their business to the next level and get that focus back.
David Greer (21:16):
I’m an entrepreneurial coach and I’m a facilitator, and I specialize in helping individuals for challenge by alcoholism or addiction, whether you’re still out there or whether you’re actually in recovery, like running a business where that was your coping mechanism and operating an environment. You might be in one of these environments where alcohol is very, very present with customers with, how do you cope? And I’ve been around enough and I just help them, give them a lot of strategies for how you can operate in that environment and still stay sober
(21:55):
And if you show up for this kind of thing. Sometimes coaching calls are, I’m going to go to this kind of event and it’s going to look like this. And it’s like we work out an exit strategy. We work out what they’re going to do and how they’re going to show up and how to make it through. And you can leave early, especially if a lot of people are drinking and you leave early. No one notices too drunk. Fabulous, right? Serious. And now that I’m sober after everyone’s had half a dozen drinks, the conversations are not very interesting. I’m quite happy to leave.
Maartje van Krieken (22:31):
And they’re not going to matter to the decisions tomorrow either. No.
David Greer (22:36):
Despite the cultural norm that deals are done over, that’s the lubricant. Again, it’s a social myth or a business myth.
Maartje van Krieken (22:46):
I doubt there is any alignment on whatever the decision was made after that sixth drink because
David Greer (22:51):
Exactly.
Maartje van Krieken (22:52):
And I talk about decision making all the time. That doesn’t sound like quality decision making,
David Greer (22:57):
Not in any way, shape or form.
Maartje van Krieken (22:58):
No. You started off saying that you now have this focus every day you have a task, and you can me finish off talking about how that translate to how you help people and also run their business, having that kind of same approach.
David Greer (23:20):
I think for entrepreneurs and for leaders in general, figuring out for at least the next quarter what the number one thing is that needs to happen, and then saying very focused on making the number one thing happen. That’s actually really hard because either you didn’t decide on what the number one thing is. That’s the first, and that’s one area that I help with strategic planning and as I say, working on the business rather than in the business. And I think any level of leadership needs to take a time out once a quarter with their team and figure out what are the top four or five things we need to achieve this work based on the company goals. Hopefully the company has some clarity. And then what are you doing? Are you spending an hour a day if you’re a senior leader or an entrepreneur, are you spending an hour a day at least, and one of the best hours of your day, whatever your rhythm is working on the number one thing and until it’s crushed, and then you can go figure out work on the number two thing because that’s between that and then making your people successful and making sure they have the resources to achieve these goals. I think that’s true leadership.
(24:39):
And of course, we all get totally consumed in the day-to-day, the next thing, some entrepreneurs come in an hour early and they do not look at email. They pull out the strategic plan, they focus on the number one thing that needs to happen. They do some things that move that forward, then they’ll start dealing with everything that accumulated overnight and the day before and far in the morning. But that’s one of the strategies to not be operationally focused and be more strategic and focused on the number one thing.
Maartje van Krieken (25:13):
Yeah, and that’s beautiful full circle because that’s also where you started at an individual level, right? You said, Hey,
(25:20):
It’s about asking people maybe some questions back to what are you doing this for and what is it that you want to achieve? And going back to what was it that you wanted to get back to both as a person and as a business. And prioritization is key because there’s too much and too many distractions, and it’s easier to weed through with more focus. And yeah, we all need maybe help at some point. You are there to help any listeners who feel this subject matter may be relevant to them. Tell us more. Where do people find you? Where do they go? And tell us about this fabulous offer you have for everybody on the podcast. We’re listening in today.
David Greer (26:04):
You find me at coachdjgreer.com. That’s coach D as in David, J as in James Greer Dot com and top left corner of every single webpage on my website has my phone number and my email address. And if you would just reach out, I offer free one hour coaching, no obligation to anyone that is stuck on something.
Page 8 of 8
Usually people come to me with business problems, but I’m willing to talk and it’s alcohol, it’s a life problem. It’s an open offer. One hour free coaching with me, visit my website, reach out.
Maartje van Krieken (26:43):
That is extremely generous because time is very precious. I love that you are putting this offer out there. I think that is, well, it’s like the MasterCard commercial, right? Almost invaluable. Thank you very much. We will also put all those details in the show notes, if it went a little fast or you missed some of it, that’s where you can find it. DJ Greer, G-R-E-E-R. Thank you much for joining me today on the podcast to talk about something that’s way more normal than we’re all willing to admit. And yeah, if you are not functioning in a way that you can continue without help of substances, then that’s a risk to your business continuity too, right? If you are that attached to your business, this is a topic that fits with business continuity planning and needs attention, and if you care about your peers, keep your eyes and ears open. Maybe this conversation will help you to have a conversation with somebody or with yourself. Thank you much for being here, David.
David Greer (27:51):
Oh, thank you for having me. Really appreciate it.
Maartje van Krieken (27:54):
That’s it for this episode of The Business Emergency Room. If you are currently dealing with chaos or disruption in your business, please reach out. You can email, text, or call, and I will find a way to connect with you within 24 hours. I’ve helped others steer out of the storm, and I know I can help you to talk soon. Please like, subscribe, and share.
