To be a true warrior, you must be vulnerable. Anika Jackson and I do just that on her Your Brand Amplified Podcast. There is so much more we covered:
- My early career with cutting edge computers and software.
- Which led to my joining Robelle as the first employee when I was 22.
- It takes years to build a great business. I helped build Robelle for 20 years.
- Exiting from Robelle, Karalee and I embarked a 2-year sailing adventure, home schooling our three children while sailing 5,000 miles in the Mediterranean.
- My struggle with alcoholism and how I got sober with the help of Coach Kevin Lawrence.
- Plan using three buckets: Business, Life, and Self.
- Build your resiliency by being selfish and doing those things that energize just you.
- Use the Verne Harnish one-page plan to accelerate your business growth.
- The importance of vulnerability in business, sharing authentic stories, and the prevalence of addiction among high-performing entrepreneurs.
Audio
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2EHYqYZyleQSyZy58kyo4S
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/your-brand-amplified/id1543221243?i=1000716206594
Transcript
Austin James (00:00):
Hey, it’s Austin James. Yes, I’m living with diabetes, but it doesn’t have to define me. Thanks to the Freestyle Libre three plus sensor, I get real-time glucose readings throughout the day. The Freestyle Libre three plus sensor is small and easy to wear, giving me the freedom to focus on my life as a parent and a musician. Now this is progress. You can get a free sensor at Freestyle Libre
Narrator (00:19):
US offer available for people who qualify. Visit myle.us to see all terms and conditions, certain exclusions, apply data on file, Abbot Diabetes Care or prescription only. Safety info found at FreestyleLibre.us.
David Greer (00:30):
No matter how dark it is and how bad it seems, there is hope there is light at the end of the tunnel. You might not be able to see it right now, but always know there is a solution to your challenge or problem.
Anika Jackson (00:44):
Step into the world of success with Your Brand Amplified the ultimate podcast designed to unravel the intricacies of thriving businesses. I’m your host, Annika Jackson, and I’m on a mission to uncover the stories, strategies and secrets that have propelled entrepreneurs and business leaders to success. I am thrilled to have David Greer on the show today. David, I, say, my apologies before we jumped on because we’ve had to reschedule several times, but it is always the right time, and so I am really excited that you’re here going to share your wisdom and your business acumen with us today.
David Greer (01:26):
Thanks much. I’m really looking forward to this. And I had a long listen to one of your podcasts just before I came on, I kind of feel like I’m connected a little bit to you and I am really looking forward to it.
Anika Jackson (01:37):
Yeah, well now we have some new connections. My daughter wants to go to your alma mater. I’m maybe also applying there for a PhD program and we’d love Vancouver. What a beautiful place to be in. You’ve had a really industrious journey in many organizations. You’ve been an entrepreneur for 40 years, and I love the start of your story, I don’t want to share it for you. I’d love for you to talk about what were you doing in your early twenties, how did you get into that field, and then all of the amazing things that you did not just in the pursuit of business but also in life.
David Greer (02:10):
Sure. I’ll give you the full summary from 22 to present day in a quick form, but yeah, well, I knew around grade nine that I wanted to take business and computers and put it together, and I just had this very early and I was a technical geek even in high school. I was getting my computer science degree and I’d found a part-time job for the cable company in Vancouver, which at that time was the largest cable company in North America and was using a brand new minicomputer system from Hewlett Packard, which was groundbreaking. A lot of my early career I was using brand new stuff and the most advanced things in the world and I had no idea I was just falling into it. And I met a consultant who then in fourth year hired me as the first employee in his new software startup, which is named Robelle for the two founders, Robert and Annabelle.
(03:05):
And it still Googles well today because it’s a made up name and a condition of my employment was I had to write an abstract and submit a paper submission to the Hewlett Packard International user group meeting. And that abstract was accepted. Then I had to write the paper, and in the winter term of my fourth year, I went on my profs and said, “I’m not going to be here for the next week” because I flew to San Jose and made my first technical paper. I remember standing on the edge of the stage being introduced and how fricking scared I was to do, and there’s probably 60 or 70 people in the audience, and I’m 22 years old and I’m standing up on the San Jose convention floor telling a bunch of other computer geeks about this cool software and what it can do for them. And it was literally decades later before I found out that’s the essence of marketing and sales. I was just doing my stuff.
Anika Jackson (04:02):
Stuff that you were really passionate about. You had,
David Greer (04:07):
Yeah, and my former partner, Bob Green and I, we became like global gurus in this particular computer system and we wrote a paper every year, each either technical or management focused. Then we learned a lot about software development. At the end of my tenure, I was managing about a million lines of production code like releases. I had some ideas about how to manage software process and software engineering. It turns out I knew a lot about product marketing, although it was years later until I found out that’s what it’s called. I just did it right. And 10 years in, over 20 years, Bob and I built it into a global powerhouse and created belief in this obscure Vancouver based software company you were going to trust your whole business too. And as just saying, we created that belief by going out and giving these presentations and knowing our stuff.
(04:58):
We actually really, really knew our stuff, but we came to the end of that. 10 years in, I bought out Annabelle and I became partners with Bob. And 20 years in the h HP 3000 that we specialized in had been out for 25, 27 years, one of the longest tenure run of any minicomputer platform. We knew the end was sooner or later, maybe sooner, and Bob wanted to downsize the business drastically and milk the customers until the last one was gone and turn out the lights. And I’m like, we built this incredible team. We have a lot of outside evidence that they could do things that other companies couldn’t want to take more risk and a little more money and move it in new directions. And they’re both viable strategies. They weren’t complimentary strategies.
(05:48):
And we had a very, very tough emotional, very ugly six months. I only had one disagreement with Bob 20 years, but it was a doozy and it ended in divorce. He bought me out and there I am on the street at 2001. I haven’t noticed this thing called the dotcom meltdown. I’m busy trying to chase deals with technology. Friends of mine until someone smarter than me sat me down, looked me in the eye and said, “David, do you need to work again right away?” And I’m like, “No, I’ve got a pretty good check on my jeans. I’m not done, but I don’t need to work right away.” And she said this simple statement, “your kids will never be 11 nine and five again.” And literally I can still as I talk to you today, see myself in that chair and feel that aha moment of like, I’m missing the boat here, to speak, especially with I tell you the next thing we did. We commissioned a sailboat in the south of France and we took our, I didn’t mean for that pun, but it came out and we homeschooled our three children for two years while sailing more than 5,000 miles, about 10,000 kilometers in the Mediterranean basin.
Anika Jackson (07:02):
What a special memory and special time together
David Greer (07:06):
It is. And was an amazing legacy we have as a family. And I’ve been commenting lately on some LinkedIn posts talking about post entrepreneur, post exit experiences. And I think that’s something that I’m as very little talked about and is something that’s really important. And for me, having such a massive project to go to on for two years, that’s what got me through the emotional because a lot of the people I’d worked with for 10, 15 or more years all got fired, but I was halfway around the world. I only heard about it anecdotally and I had something bigger I was way focused on. That really helped my exit transition.
Anika Jackson (07:51):
I can imagine. Then,
David Greer (07:53):
Yeah, I don’t think you can build a business and be a business owner without some of your meaning and your ego and who you are as a human being is wrapped in that and when you sell it and then you’re out of it. What replaces that and what does it mean to you? And I think it’s better if we think about these things before we exit rather than trying to catch up afterwards. It’s like some of my clients are like, I want to exit. And I’m like, why do you want to exit? Well, I don’t like this part of the business and I don’t like this. Well, why don’t we re-engineer the business? We take out the parts you don’t like because you’re going to come out of the business, you’re still going to have all the energy, you’re going to need to torque against something.
Anika Jackson (08:34):
Exactly.
David Greer (08:35):
And you might have a really hard time figuring out what to go torque against. And in my experience, what I found when I came back from the Med was I had too much energy and not enough stuff I was working against, which tell you about in a second, and it would come out with my children or my spouse. The energy had to go somewhere.
(08:54):
I come back, I become an angel investor, I look at a hundred deals a year. I invest in kind of one a year, one and a half a year. I’m working as a director, I’m working for options. After about three or four years of that, I hadn’t realized how completely unfulfilling that was until an event happened, I took one of my young startup CEOs to an event with Verne Harnish. Verne Harnish is famous for his one-page strategic plan and the book Scaling Up and the Rockefeller Habits. And Verne actually taught the course that day, and I didn’t know much about him. I just knew many of my entrepreneurial friends in Vancouver swore about this one-page plan. I went to help this company. I was trying to help build as an angel investor and a director, and I did have a breakthrough moment listening to Verne.
(09:46):
But what really happened was the back of the room, 10:30 in the morning coffee break, there’s two coaches and I go talk to two of them. I go talk to both of them and one of them makes me more uncomfortable than I’ve been in four or five years. I literally have tears at the corner of my eyes in a room with a hundred peers. And I think Kevin just sensed, that coach was an amazing guy, Kevin Lawrence, and I think he asked me a simple question, which is there’s a hundred entrepreneurs in this room and I know almost all of them could use your help. And I spent three years trying to figure out how to help someone and get involved. And it turns out there was a bunch of things that were in the way of that which Kevin helped me with. I took Kevin’s card and I put it beside my desk, and about once a week I’d look at that card next to my phone and I’d think about calling Kevin and the phone would weigh easily 10,000 pounds. I didn’t know what it would mean to hire him. Anyways, that happened for about three weeks in a row, and then Kevin called me,
Anika Jackson (10:52):
There you go.
David Greer (10:53):
And he said,
Anika Jackson (10:53):
Hey,
David Greer (10:54):
Do you remember me from the Verne Harnish event? And I said, yeah, I did. I do. I didn’t say I haven’t thought about much else the last three weeks.
David Greer (11:02):
Thanks for calling. And I hired him. And on my 50th birthday, August 9th, 2007, we had our first coaching session and Kevin is my kind of guy, which is all in or all out. The first coaching session at that time with Kevin when you became a one-on-one client with him was two eight-hour days.
Narrator (11:21):
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Austin James (12:03):
Hey, it’s Austin James. If you’re like me trying to live your best life while living with diabetes, you can relate to worrying if you’re doing a good job managing your diabetes. I use the Freestyle Libre three plus sensor to get real-time glucose readings and see the impact of every meal and activity to make better decisions. The Freestyle Libre three plus sensor can help me live life with diabetes on my own terms, and it gives me more time for the things I love, like being a dad and a musician. Now this is progress. Learn more at freestylelibre.us
Narrator (12:28):
For prescription only. Safety info found at FreestyleLibre.us
Anika Jackson (12:34):
By commitment and quite
David Greer (12:35):
All
Anika Jackson (12:35):
In
Anika Jackson (12:37):
Very vulnerable state I can imagine as well.
David Greer (12:40):
Yeah, I worked with Kevin for nine years, but after about 18 months we had reestablished my career. We just kind of got me working up with, I got involved in another kind of restart of a startup with two other ex CEOs. We had three ex CEOs trying to work together. It was interesting time,
Anika Jackson (13:00):
To say the least.
David Greer (13:02):
And we had cleared all the clutter off the desk and off the table until the elephant in the room was the only thing left. And on January 26th, 2009, about 10:30 at night, I put down my last beer. And the way I worked with Kevin was the day before I’d write him an email with some successes and the topic for our coaching call, and I pressed send on an email that said the topic for our coaching call is my drinking. And the next afternoon we had a coaching call and I admitted to Kevin I had a drinking problem and I’d been a daily drinker for at least 20 years, probably more than that. And I’d been an alcoholic for at least 20 years. And I had been in denial for pretty much all of that time. And I spilled out my biggest secret. And I also knew I’d worked with Kevin enough and I had enough of a trust relationship with Kevin that I knew he’d never let me off the hook.
(14:02):
I didn’t know what it would look like, but I knew once I went through the door, it was one way because no matter what, Kevin was always going to bring me back to that issue. Anyways, in his personal life in summers around campfires, he had met someone in 12 step recovery with 20 years of sobriety. Kevin doesn’t have a drinking problem, but he’s infinitely curious guy. He had spent a lot of time talking to this individual about the program, how it works, how he got in. He had the tools to help me, and he asked me to commit to go to a 12 step meeting by, this was a Tuesday January 27th, 2009. He asked me to commit to go to a meeting by that Friday, which I did commit to that. And then later that afternoon I knew I had a networking technology event downtown that ended at eight o’clock.
(14:52):
Before I left, I went online and I looked for all 12 step meetings and lo and behold, at 8:30 a quarter of a block off the road, I’d be driving down to go home, there would be a meeting. I went to the event and then I drove to the meeting and I walked in and walked upstairs. And I think it was probably years and years before I ever admitted how scared I was that day. I mean, you have to understand as an alcoholic, I literally could not imagine what the next day was going to look like without having wine with dinner or not picking up a drink. And by the time I got to the meeting, I wasn’t even 24 hours sober. I’d put down the last beer like 10:30 the night before, and now it’s like quarter past eight. And I kind of sat in the middle of the edge of a row I could escape if I need to.
(15:43):
And at that time, in that meeting, about three quarters of the way through the chairperson asked, is there anyone new to our program? They’d like to stand and introduce themselves. And I sat on my hands, I sat on my hands, I don’t know, 20 seconds, 25 seconds. And then I stood up and I said, “I’m David. I’m an alcoholic.” And I don’t think, honestly, I don’t think in that moment I really knew what I was. I was admitting my truth. I don’t think I really knew that at the time. I didn’t really know exactly what that meant, but I mean everyone else in the whole meeting be standing up and introducing themselves that way. It’d be modeled. And about a month later, I made that my home group. And a few months ago I took my 16 year cake at that same group.
Anika Jackson (16:22):
Congratulations.
David Greer (16:23):
Thank you very much, and when I took my cake, I think there were three people in the room who were there the night that I walked in. I remember me being at my first meeting, which is really something incredibly special to have individuals who’ve witnessed my whole sobriety. Coach Kevin came this year as well. I mean I invite him every year, but oftentimes he is too busy and he can’t make it. But he was there this year, which also made it very special. That’s part of my journey and part of why now I am an entrepreneurial coach, but I specialize in working with entrepreneurs that are challenged with alcoholism and addiction. I’ve been a practicing alcoholic and building a business and I’ve been in recovery. And my work continued with Kevin. I did a couple of more senior executive gigs, kind of VP of marketing and sales, always working with the CEO slash entrepreneur that was a friend of mine and behind the scenes working on strategy as well.
(17:26):
And then my last gig, I had worked for three years as VP of marketing of a telematics company here in Vancouver. Telematics or devices, you bolt to car or truck and track them in real time. And I came out of that gig and I realized in my mid fifties, I’ve worked as hard as I’d ever worked in my entire career. And I decided I did not need to prove to anyone that I can work hard. And I also decided that I wanted to give to other entrepreneurs the gifts that Kevin had given to me. And I wrote my book, Wind In Your Sails, and I launched my coaching and facilitation practice, which was 10 years ago now. And that’s what I’ve been doing up to the present.
Anika Jackson (18:07):
Many inflection points there. And having gone through all of the success that you did, it has to be number one, really vulnerable to admit that you are still flawed human and that there is still something holding you back from being the very best you that you could be for your family, for people you worked with, for your friends, for your community. I have been alcoholic or substance abuser adjacent in almost all of my relationships. And it was a repeating pattern that I didn’t realize from the time I was a teenager even until my early forties. And then I finally met with somebody and was like, oh, this is my pattern because I want to care for people and I want to give them everything. And that just enables people. And I’ve had, I’m really teary over here your story, and I am very thank you for sharing that. You shared it.
David Greer (19:09):
And thank you for sharing your experience as tough for the person on the other side, I believe as it is for those of us that are practicing or out there,
Anika Jackson (19:20):
Yeah, it is what led to my divorce. That’s a whole other topic from their time. But I think you going through this experience and having to rebuild and admit this to people and really look at who you are on the inside, not just your external business success is something that changed and sparked you to now give back in many rich ways because I do think this is an issue a lot of high performers have. You have to have an outlet. You have to have somewhere to release all the energy, the disappointments, the successes, everything else that goes on in your daily lives.
David Greer (20:01):
I mean, medically, we know that 10% of the people are alcoholic. That’s from the National Institute of Health in the United States. That’s from the equivalent organization in Canada. Those are just the numbers of people who have alcohol use disorder. I mean, sadly, the vast majority won’t get help. I’ve tried to find out whether entrepreneurs are more susceptible or not, and there’s no data on that. But even if we say it’s 10%, that’s the heck of a lot of people.
Austin James (20:28):
It is.
David Greer (20:30):
Part of why I come on a podcast like yours. And part of what I still experience. One is to reduce the stigmatism around alcoholism, because even my spouse, it’s like I’m not a truck driver. I’m not a logger. I don’t get in fights in the bar, she can’t believe I’m an alcoholic or you’re not on the wrong side of the tracks and wearing a trench coat and drinking out of a brown paper bag. Well, that’s maybe 0.1 of 1% of people who are alcoholics, alcoholics look like they look like me. They look like your listeners. There is unbelievable number of high performing alcoholics is part of how we high perform, right? It was rocket fuel. It was to clobber over any feelings I might have of inadequacy or tiredness, like, okay, let’s just pour the booze on and to make the lows not low and the highs higher. But on the outside, I didn’t get drunk that I was stumbling or I was slurring my words
Anika Jackson (21:28):
Or high performing.
David Greer (21:29):
In fact, I would’ve thought that was a loss of control that would actually work against me. And actually, if that happened to me, and maybe I would’ve realized I was an alcoholic sooner, but it didn’t, and I did when I did, the universe meant for me to meet Kevin and the universe meant for me to get sober on January 27th, 2009.
Anika Jackson (21:50):
Yeah, absolutely. And to then realize that this was another area you can help in. It wasn’t just by being an angel investor, picking a company or two every year starting companies with other CEOs and trying to balance all the egos in the room. And it was that you could find something that you were truly passionate about, where you are working with high performing people, you understand what it takes every day to operate in their businesses, but also how you can help them be better humans at the same time.
David Greer (22:24):
And Coach Kevin in his book, your Oxygen Mask, first, I use his model a lot in my coaching. He talks about taking your life in three buckets, which is your business and then your life simply your relationships and your family. And then in the middle is this thing called self. And my experience as high performers are super passionate about their business, they’re super passionate about their life, and they’re very good at squeezing themselves out in that middle. And Kevin’s assertion is we need to proactively put in our, as we plan a quarter for our business and maybe plan a quarter for our life, we need to be as good about planning a quarter for ourself. Like whatever that ritual or thing is that builds our resiliency to make sure we carve out time for that. And I like it to a pendulum, if we are completely selfless, we’re at one end of the pendulum. And if we only looked after ourself, we’d be selfish and we’d be at the other end. And the truth is, we swing back and forth, but high performers tend to swing more to the selfless
(23:42):
And also as high performers, when we do look after ourselves, it’s not uncommon, including having happened to me, where those close to us around us will say, well, you’re being selfish. Well, yeah, when I first started doing this, that would stop me from actually doing the thing that it wasn’t being selfish, but I wasn’t. And I’m now like, you’re right. I’m being a hundred percent selfish and I’m going to do this because I’m worth it. And if I don’t do it, I won’t be here for you dear or and-so. Or the truth is, if we don’t build our own resiliency, then we can’t be there for these other parts of our life. Just like should I pick up a drink, heaven forbid, and go back to drinking? Then there’ll be nothing of me to give to any other aspect of my life.
Anika Jackson (24:30):
Exactly.
David Greer (24:31):
Which is why I still, in some ways, it’s a real gift. I really work with entrepreneurs to figure out what’s the number one thing you need to work on? Well, every day when I get up, the number one thing I need to do today is stay sober today. And it’s that simple and that hard, but it’s the single biggest achievement of my life. But every day I have to achieve it again. I don’t get to rest on my laurels for what I did yesterday. Today’s a new day, and my belief is if I pick up a drink, I will die a very early death very soon. And I do treat it as the life and death decision. I know I have another drunken in me. I have no idea if I have another recovery in me,
Anika Jackson (25:14):
And
David Greer (25:15):
I don’t want to test that. That’s why I treat it as a serious mental health disease that it is.
Anika Jackson (25:23):
How did you approach being vulnerable enough to share your brand, your true essence, to get clients into your business? Because it’s a profound shift from people just being able to look up to you and think of you as the person who’s going to invest in their company perhaps to, Hey, this is really what my mission is. This is really where I need to be living, and this is how I can help you.
David Greer (25:50):
After nine years, Kevin stopped doing one-on-one coaching and he segued me to his coach Nan O’Connor from Atlanta, master certified coach and a wonderful human being just like Kevin. And I’ve worked with Nan now for seven and a half years. We actually had a double coaching call yesterday, which was pretty good. And what happened was, when I started working with Nan, I was already sober and had been sober actually for a while. And then over a period of quite a few years, even Nan just kept reflecting back to me that when we got onto the conversation about my recovery, like my energy, there was a purity in how I showed up on the call with her. And any question she asked me, I almost always had an answer, any question she asked me around drinking sobriety is what I mean. And Nan just kept, like a good coach, nudging me and holding up the mirror and reflecting it back until about maybe four years, three years, four years ago.
(26:59):
I just decided, okay, it’s time. And I recorded a video that really talked about my journey, which is still on my YouTube channel, and I did a series of videos about being a sober business person and some of the challenges that is, I think for any person that’s sober, but I think we see it more when we’re entrepreneurs or business owners. And I just started putting it out there. I put it out kind of tentatively. It probably took me another year and a half, two years to put it on the homepage of my website. Being this venerable is still hard. Then about three years ago, I just started to start coming on podcasts like yours. It was really, well, I have a few goals, but my mission is to share my experience, strength, and hope in business and in recovery. That’s my primary mission and why I come on podcasts like you. And I’m very grateful and for the kindness of having people who are willing to have me on and have my story be shared. And then as I’ve done more and more podcasts and shared it more and more and being more public about it, well then now I’m very comfortable. I mean, I’m still very vulnerable, but it is who and it is my story. Being an alcoholic is just, I’m six foot two, I have size 12 feet. I’m an alcoholic
(28:22):
Just who I am.
Austin James (28:24):
Hey, it’s Austin James. Yes, I’m living with diabetes, but it doesn’t have to define me. Thanks to the Freestyle Libre three plus sensor, I get real time glucose ratings throughout the day. The Freestyle Libre three plus sensor is small and easy to wear, giving me the freedom to focus on my life as a parent and a musician. Now, this is progress. You can get a free sensor at freestylelibre.us.
Narrator (28:44):
Offer available for people who qualify, visit my freestyle, do us to see all terms and conditions, certain exclusions, apply data on file appetite, diabetes care or prescription only safety info found at FreestyleLibre.us.
Anika Jackson (28:54):
But these are the things we don’t always talk about, right? Absolutely
David Greer (28:58):
Not.
Anika Jackson (28:58):
People would expect you to come on a podcast and talk about business success and how you grew your company and ladi da and how you choose to invest in as an angel investor. But this is really, these are the stories that are the most important to me because yes, people who listen to the podcast have a lot of business success. Some of them have been in business for 10, 20 years, have a great brick and mortar, maybe are looking at expansion. Some have sold and exit companies for hundreds of millions of dollars and helped build those businesses up to a billion dollars. And it’s only by sharing our real stories and vulnerabilities that we find these connections and can really figure out what we have to offer to other people and how we can, somebody listening to this conversation right now is completely relating. I mean, not just one person, but multiple someones are relating to one side or other of the story and seeing themselves in it and figuring out, okay, do I need to get help or oh, am in a position to help other people? Do I need to reach out to David?
David Greer (30:03):
And here’s the deal. In all those stories you just shared, and even I gave the 50,000 foot view as the development of Robelle, there were a lot of zigs and zags. I really want listeners to know too, that any successful business there is, you see the surface part and you see the end thing that happened like, oh, they built it and they were really successful. That’s not how it goes. It’s a big series of up and downs and lows and highs and challenges. And I think that gets missed often. Just the pleasant, happy parts of the story get told. And there’s much more behind the scenes. If you’re challenged by your business, even not with alcoholism or addiction, but just like you’re really, really challenged in your business today, well welcome. You’re being an entrepreneur that goes with the territory.
Anika Jackson (31:03):
And I’ve been having a lot of conversations with people who work as AI founders, but they’re very interested in making sure that we’re staying very human. And that’s something I think we need these connections. We see it in the marketplace with our consumers. They want to know what our values are, who’s the person behind the brand. They don’t just want to buy things, especially when you think about, I don’t want to bring politics into it, but when you think about different viewpoints and what companies align with my values and what do I want to support versus what companies do I not want to support anymore with my dollars, no matter what side or spectrum you’re on. And I think that has to bring true with us as well as entrepreneurs and sharing and being able to be vulnerable like you have and say, yeah, I’ve had a lot of success, but I also have these points and I’m here to help you.
David Greer (31:52):
And the stories around where they didn’t compromise their values, even though it felt at the time that was the short circuit to solve their current business challenge or get to the next customer. But it’s like they have certain principles they weren’t willing to violate. And I have a lot of respect for people who hold true to their values while they’re building their business.
Anika Jackson (32:17):
You also mentioned writing a book. You wrote this book before you admitted that you were an alcoholic and started, or in
David Greer (32:26):
The process 2009, I wrote the book 2015. No, I was about five or six years sober, but I wasn’t yet ready to talk publicly about my sobriety.
(32:38):
I interviewed over 45 entrepreneurs and sales and marketing leaders for the book. And it had at that time, my 25, 30 years of experience in business. Plus I finished every chapter with a case study of one of the entrepreneurs I interviewed. Third of the content of the book is other people’s stories, and then it’s kind of a quarter how you think about your business and three quarters practical ways you apply it. And the goal of the entrepreneurs I interviewed in me was like, we fell into a lot of potholes and you are welcome to fall into the same potholes if you like, but maybe you could read the book or just read the parts that apply to your business right now and avoid some of the potholes that we fell into. There’s lots more, you’ll fall into your own, but maybe you don’t have to fall into all the ones that we did. That’s kind of the philosophy. And it really targeted owner founders who’ve just had one business. And in my experience, I have 10 I call strategies or 10 functional areas of the business. And my experience is most owner founders are really, really awesome at three or four,
(33:55):
They’re pretty good at another three or four, and there’s probably two they’ve never heard of. It’s like trying to expand their mind around those ones. Maybe they’re not quite as good at which I’m not. And I believe my coaching philosophy is we play to our strengths, but sometimes the hard part is we need to actually know what we’re weak in, to know what we need to go backfill and hire people or build process we can still play with our strengths. But if that part of the business is weak, then it’ll hold a spot.
Anika Jackson (34:28):
Hundred percent. What does life look like for you today with coaching, with advising? You’re still investing?
David Greer (34:37):
Yeah, I’m not doing as much investing, although I’m still heavily invested in the sidecar Angel fund that’s been very successful here in Vancouver. Focused much more just on my coaching facilitation work. It turns out the not working hard piece. Yeah, it turns out that’s really hard. I have this amazing task master spirit, which has let me get a lot of stuff done in life, and it still likes to be, well, it likes to sneak up on me, and I now have way more awareness around it and still sneaks up on me. It’s really deeply, deeply embedded in me. I try and I work no more than 20 hours a week in the weeks that I’m working and take 12 weeks off a year. That’s kind of the personal, that boundary. I can tell you May and June this year, actually I did okay in May.
(35:28):
I got away three weeks on the boat and I only worked Tuesdays, the three weeks that I was away, but June and into July is being crazy and almost all of my own making is just instead of putting off a bunch of podcast interviews, I put them into my calendar. But that makes more podcasts come out, and I do do a lot of work to promote them. I do have some help on that, but a lot of it still is up to me. But to me, it’s equally important that I promote and get the message out of your podcast because that’s how it gets shared and that’s how my message gets shared, which is how I live my mission. It is really important work. And then I’ve got two grandkids this weekend. We’ve got two grandkids and two grand dogs. Oh, beautiful. It’ll be a busy weekend. And last weekend we were out sailing with our middle son and daughter-in-law and their dog, and they want to learn how to sail our sailboat meal, take it on their own. I did a whole bunch of teaching around that with them, which is also really fulfilling.
(36:32):
And I do these things like going sailing or doing traveling with Karalee that builds my resiliency and refills my bucket. I have a facilitation Monday and then a couple more coming up the end of the quarter, my coaching clients and between grandkids and other things that we do as a couple, we still lead a pretty busy full life, which I’m very fortunate about. And I’m super excited because, I mean, this will come out probably afterwards, but every five years, the biggest false step recovery group for alcoholics posts a convention and only once every five years and it’s in Vancouver.
Anika Jackson (37:13):
Nice.
David Greer (37:14):
And I’m doing a bunch of volunteering and I am going to be attending a lot of stuff, and I’m actually going to live on my sailboat downtown in the marina during the whole thing I can walk everything.
Anika Jackson (37:26):
Fantastic. It sounds like you have been able, even though you’ve kept your life very full, you’ve been able to figure out how to have a little more balance between personal, professional and spending that valuable time with family, which I think is the most important thing.
David Greer (37:43):
Yes.
Anika Jackson (37:44):
What does it look like when you do work with clients these days? Have you ever had to say, oh, you’re not going to be a really good fit for me?
David Greer (37:52):
My process, I want your listeners to know, I offer a free one-hour coaching call to anyone that’s challenged in business or with alcoholism or addiction. You just visit my website, which is easy to find. Top left corner is my phone number and my email address. Just reach out. I had a referral from one of my existing clients, talked to a woman in Toronto this week, and it was a coaching call, and I helped her move ahead. And as I told her, I want her to go talk to other coaches and if she feels like I’m the best fit for her, great. And if one of these other people feels like the best fit her great, I only want to work with people who want to work with me and vice versa. Sometimes I do that hour introductory call and I don’t tell you about my rates and I don’t tell you anything that would move the conversation forward to hiring me as your coach because I just am like, there’s not the connection.
(38:56):
I don’t think the two of us are going to get along too well here. Oh no. I’ve definitely had that happen more than once. And then I do a lot of facilitation work around strategic planning using this Verne Harnish stuff, the one-page plan. And that’s a different kind of engagement because it means the entrepreneur has to agree that he or she and their senior leadership team meet with me for two days for an annual planning and then one day a quarter. That’s five days investment and they need to commit to a year. It’s both an investment, a big investment in both money and time, but if you don’t commit to the process, it doesn’t work to just do it once. I mean, you get clarity, things will improve, you’ll have better alignment, but it’s the process of doing it over time that really creates the results. And Monday, I’m working with my longest term facilitation client. We’ve worked for nine years and they’re a PE group. And when I started, they had $20 million under management, and today they have $200 million. And I’m not claiming that as my success. It’s their success, it’s their business. They had to do all the work. But I’ve been involved in five days of planning a year for the last nine years.
Anika Jackson (40:08):
But that also tells everybody who’s listening and myself as well, that even those five days a year have that much impact. As long as you do the work in between and you just try to improve.
David Greer (40:20):
Exactly.
Anika Jackson (40:21):
You try to improve a little bit at a time. But again, yeah, you have to be highly motivated to spend the money to get your expertise, but then also to make sure that you’re investing in your teams and in your businesses and in yourselves
David Greer (40:36):
And doing some of the things that someone like me suggests, which again, all comes from Verne Harnish. There’s this whole thing about meeting rhythm and outside of the quarterly planning, then there’s a weekly rhythm, a daily rhythm, and they’re highly proven techniques for getting you to be a high growth, high performing business, but you’re still going to be willing to try ’em out, naturally do ’em,
Anika Jackson (40:58):
And not get distracted by the other shiny objects that are out there or the other things that everybody else is doing.
David Greer (41:04):
I do much work around shiny red ball. Oh, but there’s a shiny red ball. Well, the start of your year, you told me this was the five things you wanted to do in your business, and this is why you wanted to go here, and this is why you’re focusing on this. Okay. If you want to go chase that shiny red ball, what are you going to give up in the plan that you told me for your business? Exactly. And usually they go, oh no, that is the right plan. It is a shiny red ball. I should put it aside and go stick with what it was, what I really want to get. Right. Exactly. That’s why we’re entrepreneurs. If shiny red balls didn’t attract us, we wouldn’t become entrepreneurs in the first place.
Anika Jackson (41:46):
True. That and maybe also realizing that we’re not very employable,
David Greer (41:50):
We’re not good. Yeah. My last executive gig was the first time I’d been an employee in, I don’t know, 20 years or more. And it was okay, but I don’t want to go back again.
Anika Jackson (42:04):
And I do, I mean, I teach grad school as an employee. I work with a nonprofit online school and foundation as an employee, but I also get to do a lot of entrepreneurial things. I get to bring ideas to the forefront and help craft what’s happening in each of those roles. Not, it’s very different than just being pigeonholed. It’s lovely.
David Greer (42:32):
And it sounds like it’s very creative.
Anika Jackson (42:34):
Yes, very creative,
David Greer (42:34):
Which I suspect is very important for you.
Anika Jackson (42:37):
Yes, David, this has been a really profound conversation for me, and I really appreciate you coming on and sharing. And like I said, everything happens when it’s supposed to happen. Even though we had all of those times we had to reschedule and different things going on, I’m very appreciative that you’re here today, right now, offering us your wisdom, your story, and I would love to have more conversations with you.
David Greer (43:03):
Can I finish with two things that I like to leave, if that would be okay?
Anika Jackson (43:06):
Oh, well, that’s what I was going to ask.
David Greer (43:09):
Sorry.
Anika Jackson (43:10):
No, no, no, that’s perfect. No.
David Greer (43:12):
What I like to share with people, no matter how dark it is and how bad it seems, there is hope. There is light at the end of the tunnel. You might not be able to see it right now, but always know there is a solution to your challenge or problem. There always is hope. And the second piece I want, especially entrepreneurs that self-driven, do it on our own people that we are, is we can’t do it alone. And especially when it comes to alcoholism and addiction, the mind that got me to be an alcoholic is not the mind that could get me out of that. I had to work with other people who could change, reframe my thinking, point out new things or point out things that were obvious, but which I wasn’t willing to admit. And whether you find a peer group, if you’re an entrepreneur, whether you find a peer group, whether you find a mentor, whether you hire a coach like me, sign someone that can help. That’s really what I want to leave with your listeners.
Anika Jackson (44:17):
Thank you. And of course, we’ll have your website in the show notes, which has your services, your book, your blog, your videos, your phone number. I’m looking at website, my screen, your phone number, and your email are right there for everybody. I hope that everybody who’s listening or watching this episode is as moved as I am and that you do take advantage of David’s offer for that free consulting coaching session. And that if you really recognize yourself in his story or in my story, reach out to us, even if it’s not about getting coaching or consulting, but just we’re here for you. Thank you much and thank you to everybody again for watching this episode or listening to it. I’ll be back again with another amazing person to share their story, their journey, and some things that can help you on yours. Thanks for listening or watching to this episode of your brand amplified. Don’t forget to leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast listening platform. And if you want to learn more, check us out atyourbrandamplified.com.
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