Ep. 18 Talking with Greg Rushin

[00:00:12] Speaker A: You're listening to selling the dream. This isn't an interview and we're not journalists. But each week we'll ask our guests to open up and share their secrets to business success. Let's have a conversation and have some fun. [00:00:24] Speaker B: You got a couple of rules, right? Don't take yourself too seriously. Be honest, be sincere and have a little fun. As always, I'm joined by my co host on another coast, Joe Iredell in Carlsbad. Joe, what's happening, man? [00:00:40] Speaker C: Not much, man. Excited. It's rainy out here today. [00:00:44] Speaker B: Rainy? [00:00:45] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a California snow day, bro. People head for the hills. When it rains. We might as well be getting 25ft of snow, dude. It's insane. [00:00:58] Speaker B: We had snow for the first time in two years. This week we ended up with four inches and six inches, which is crazy because my brother's daughter, she's never even seen snow. My son's had his license for a couple of years and he's never driven in snow. So it's like in our area, we're used to getting a decent amount of snow every year growing up. But this year, the last couple of years, it's been nothing. And now here we are. So it's been fun. A lot of sledding and snowball fights. [00:01:30] Speaker C: And all that, but there you go. Good stuff. [00:01:34] Speaker B: So let me ask you, I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on it, but we do always like to touch on the Eagles here in the beginning of the show when it's football season. And as we all know, the Eagles lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And if I recall, one of our very first episodes was right before the Eagles headed into the playoff game with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers against Tom Brady. And they lost. And it was painful to watch, man. It was painful to. [00:02:03] Speaker C: I mean, I don't. They're. These teams are a. You inherit what the previous coach did and that lasts you so long until. And it's a copycat league, too. So once people figure out how to beat that team, if you can't adjust, you're going to get smoked. And I think that's what happened. Our defense got figured out and then it was too late to make major changes to beat it. And then once you have one that causes resentment on the offense or like, why can't we get off the field? All this kind of stuff? So I don't know, man. [00:02:44] Speaker B: The good news is we should have a new offensive coordinator, new defensive coordinator next year and we'll see what happens. And it's only, I don't know, a couple of weeks till pitchers and catchers report and the Sixers are doing well and the flyers are doing well. So it's not like we have nothing to watch, right? [00:03:03] Speaker C: I don't watch that stuff anyway, man. I'm a active fan. [00:03:08] Speaker B: I'm getting fired up about cabo, dude. [00:03:10] Speaker C: Yeah, buddy. Let's go. We got some heavy hitters coming out, too, so I'll have to. [00:03:20] Speaker B: It'll be interesting, get our families together, all the kids, everybody on a big vacation. Something that we've been talking about for years. And finally this year we're going to make it happen. And it's cool, man. It's one of those bucket list items that we've talked about so many times that I'm just excited that this is the year, this is when we're going to do it. We're all booked up, places. Booked. [00:03:43] Speaker C: Yeah, man. I have a new wrinkle. I might be a different person at that point. I'm just saying, you know how I go, dude. I have a. Setting goals. This weekend I flew up to San Jose with AJ. He competed like IBJJF with a bunch of the coaches and guys that we trained with. And we got to talking and I set a goal this year that I'm going to compete at the world Masters in July. So starting right now, I am 100% going after it. I'm going to try and cut down to like 185, 190 and just be the nastiest dude on the planet. When I roll. It's in Las Vegas. I think it's like the end of July. So it's like a rank deal or whatever. So I should be good there. But I have one. I have to go compete in Los Angeles in March and then another one. But I should be good. So that's my goal right now, dude. And come July, I'm going to be the baddest dude on the planet. But I don't want to take a week to enjoy our families over with the July. [00:05:00] Speaker B: Well, I think that's cool, man. And I think it fits perfectly with our guests today. I want to introduce Gregory Russian from russian motivation. Greg is a personal development coach and just a pretty amazing human being. And we're very fortunate and excited to have him here today to talk all things motivation, all things personal growth, all things the stuff that we're not taught enough of growing up and in school. And I think that there's a huge boom in this space. And I think that we as a society are tapping into potential that we haven't seen in generations that have come before us, and in large part to gentlemen like Greg who take it upon themselves to get out there and start teaching the world about this kind of stuff. So Greg, thanks for joining us today. [00:05:57] Speaker A: Thank you. Thanks, Ken. Joe, thanks for having me on. Ken, I think you hit it just right on the head. It's something that we were never taught. I certainly wasn't. I didn't know anything about it. So yeah, I'm glad to be here, and I can't wait to hopefully bring something of value to this podcast. So thanks for having me. [00:06:15] Speaker B: So you and Joe have something in common, right, Joe? [00:06:19] Speaker C: You guys are both big into what, snowboard, right? [00:06:23] Speaker B: Snowboarding, right? [00:06:24] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. [00:06:26] Speaker B: So tell me a little bit about your journey in snowboarding as a hobby, and then I'll let you guys just go off and I'll sit back and listen. [00:06:40] Speaker A: It goes way back. I was actually on the lift two days ago telling a little kid I was a snowboard instructor with his dad, and his dad asked me, we met up on the hill, and he said, hey, can you take my son for a couple of runs? He wants to learn a few things. So I was talking to the kid and I was telling him the story about when I got started, because it was about his age, he was twelve. I think I might have been eleven. And I wanted a snowboard for Christmas in the worst kind of way. And instead of a snowboard, I got a trans World snowboard magazine. And I'm flipping through the magazine thinking, this is probably as good as it gets for Christmas, a magazine. And I got to about the center of the magazine, there was a postit note that said, greg, don't be a grouch. Look behind the couch, Santa. So I went behind the couch. Sure enough, there was a snowboard. So that's when it really got started. Like I said, I think I was eleven, and it's been a part of my life ever since I started instructing. I think at 15, I carried that through my early twenty s, and it's just taken me on some absolute wild adventures. It's been a rock in my life, and it really has been something that I've kind of strategically carried with me throughout my life. And the different aspects of snowboarding, I really apply every day to business and personal, and just trying to focus on the hobby itself has made me into a person that I'm really proud to be. And I can use all that adversity and pain and visioning and victory, and I try and just kind of overlay it onto business and life in general. It's been a great sport for me. [00:08:27] Speaker C: That's awesome. Yeah, I had a similar kind of situation right around the same age. I was probably like, I think 1312 13. And we would get a little bit of snow in the backyard and I would stand up on every sled. No, I would never sit down. This is so cool. I should snowboard. But family, six kids, Christmas wasn't, my parents killed it, but in terms of our family. But you got one gift on Christmas. So all I wanted was a snowboard. And God bless them, man, I got a snowboard. It could have been the very first Burton snowboard ever. This is in the mid 90s, so it was obviously an antique. And I was like, oh man, this isn't the kind that guys have in the magazines. Like, I don't know they're even going to let me on the slopes with this slopes being like spring mountain in the Poconos, which is know, a sheet of ice. So I took it the one time I didn't even have snowboard boots. I had like boots from value city and I went there and man, this thing did not work. But I didn't give up. I was, ah. So through high school, kind of hustled a little bit and was able to get a somewhat proper snowboard from one of those mail in magazines. The house or something like that, used to have these magazine, these deals. So that was my first deal. And then in college, I was able to scrape up enough money to buy a couple of lift tickets and go on some college snowboard trips. And so it's all been recreation for me. But then when I got out here to California, I ended up, I bought a house in Big Bear, like right on the mountain, because I like snowboarding. And then I started getting my kids into it because I wanted know, let's go on vacations. And then they'd be able to keep up. And it turns out that they are fearless. And at about six, one was six, one was four, and they just started killing it. And I was like, it went from being like, well, you can hit this jump to like, whoa, you guys need to slow down. And they took it to a next level. So I kind of went from recreational snowboarder to coach dad to full on just spectator, because I don't have any value add for what they're doing now. So it's cool though, that to your point, all the things apply to business. Same thing with getting better at snowboard. All the analogies are there. You fall down you stand up, repetition, all this stuff. But, yeah, that's been my journey with snowboard. [00:11:12] Speaker B: Very cool that you guys have that thing in common. Real quick, before we get too far along, I want to play our favorite game, as Greg already described to you what we do here. So we're going to ask you to give us two truths and a lie. And throughout the conversation, Joe is going to try and figure out which one of those is true and which one of them is not. So why don't you go ahead and give us your two truths in a lie, Greg? [00:11:36] Speaker A: All right, so I was 22 years old when I bought my first house with a decent chunk of equity in it. Another thing is, I taught a very experienced high end motorcycle racing school, road racing school, without any racing experience. And the last one is a non negotiable in life. Every day I have to get 10,000 steps in, regardless if it's run, walk, whatever. 10,000 is a minimum. [00:12:10] Speaker B: All right, so we got 22 years old, bought your first house, very high end racing school instructor without any racing experience, and 10,000 steps every single day. [00:12:23] Speaker A: You got it. [00:12:24] Speaker B: Awesome. All right, we'll see what clues we pick up along the way here. So, Greg, talk to us a little bit about personal development. What moved you into this space, at what point? You're like, you know what? This is something that I want to do. This is something I want to share with people. [00:12:44] Speaker A: It was kind of a long journey, Ken, of how I really got there and pretty much my entire life. I'm going to go way back and then kind of take you through the steps that brought me to current. But when I was 17, I lost my father to suicide. And that was a terrible, terrible experience. But I chose to grow through it rather than the alternative. And I learned a lot about myself, and I learned a lot about what hard work actually means. It's something that my dad taught me was how to work and how to work hard. That was one thing I did know when he left at 17. So that's what I did. I started out in sales, in power sport sales, motorcycles, atvs. I was kind of into that, so it was a natural fit for me. And I quickly grew to the salesman of the month, salesman of the year, for several consecutive months and several consecutive years. And I became a general manager of a sister company of that location that I started at. So then, through general management and all the leadership roles that I played there, I was kind of contacted by a major manufacturer of the industry and then went on to do that. So I was a district manager for major manufacturer. And that was about the turning point in my life where I really thought, I'm working so hard to achieve this so called success, but it's not really adding up to me. And I see some people in my life and just friends and colleagues that are doing things a little different. And what I was doing was going to create some wealth for myself at that 62, 65 year old, the typical status quo american. And I thought, that's not what I want in life. I want something more, something better, something now. So I started changing a little bit in my day, and I started reading and I started researching. I started audiobooks. And it was Jim Rohn, the late Jim Rohn, who really turned my life around. And I'm going to butcher this, but I'm going to give it to you in the context that it really has meaning to me. He has a quote in one of his many speeches on YouTube, and he said, success is not something you achieve. Success is looking for a nice place to stay. That right there turned my life around. And I thought, I have the story from my early adulthood of just struggling through the tragic times, making some success for myself in corporate USA, as well as general management and just in sales in general. But now this is a turning point. This is where I can really change my life. I kind of turned my car into a mobile classroom. I was traveling a lot for work. So just the audiobooks and the Jim Rohn's and the Earl Nightingales and all of. I thought, you know, if I can get my life in order as far as the way I structure my day, the way I structure my year, my months, perhaps I can get a hold on this and maybe I can change the trajectory of my life. And rather than waking up in the morning and just slugging away at work all day, every day, sometimes through the weekend, I started putting a lot of structure in my life. And then all of a sudden, everything, work wise, started following my progression. I started getting better as a person, and I focused a little less on work and more on myself and my day. And that's when it really started changing for me. Now, I didn't believe that in western Pennsylvania and Ohio that I had the opportunities in my district as some of the other district managers in bigger markets. I just thought the trips and the bonuses were reserved for those larger markets. And I was always going to be, at best, maybe average in the demographic that I lived in and was responsible for. And that was a complete limiting belief, which I learned later. And once I learned about limiting beliefs and personal development. Then all of a sudden, those trips were reserved for me and the bonuses did start happening. And then I was able to really get a handle on my career and move that right up the ladder and also create space and time in my personal life. And that's when I really started focus on building wealth through real estate. So my wife and I have a couple of different real estate avenues that we mess around with. They're basically two different companies that buy and hold real estate for residential. So we're essentially landlords, and we're always trying to grow that portfolio and shift. So with that, my personal development really led to that. And then the real estate kind of created this unique opportunity for me to maybe take a step away from corporate USA. What it did is it created a little bit of space. I don't think I really replaced my income with it, but I created some space. And then the pandemic hit, and that's when I thought I was going to lose my job. I just didn't think there was a whole lot of value in what we did from our offices. And there was some talk, and the world was just kind of upside down at that point in time. So I was sent home from a dealer of mine indefinitely for a period of time we didn't know. And I thought for sure I was getting let go. So I called my budy, one of my good snowboard buddies in Alaska, and, you know, I'm losing my job. He said, what are you going to do? I said, well, you know, Joe, the thing is, I don't really need to do anything right now because of the real estate. And I'm going to take my story and all the journey that I've been through, and I'm going to help other people really understand the value that they can have for the world and the value that they can have for themselves. And I wanted to help other people just understand what they're actually made of and how to structure that and what it looks like and how to go after it. And I said, by the end of the year, this was July 20, eigth, I believe, 2021. I said, by the end of the year, I'm going to have a business. I'm going to have some sort of a designation or a certificate, something to just put some legitimacy behind what I was doing. So I became a certified life coach in that period. But I said, between now and the end of the year, I'm going to have a legitimate business. And I really want a brand, a website, a logo, and I want to take my story of my personal development journey, and I want to take it out to the broader audience. I want to help as many people as I can. And he said, I think you're the right guy for that job. I think you'll kill it. And that started this whole journey. So, super long answer. I apologize, but there was a lot of details that helped me today to be hit perfect, Greg, because I have. [00:19:59] Speaker B: So many questions of that answer. But, Joe, why don't you go ahead? I'll let you go first. [00:20:09] Speaker C: No, your story is definitely, I feel like you get in a situation for guys like you and what you do, and it's almost like you have an epiphany. You're like, all right, why am I working my butt off to make somebody else help them, a big company or whatever, achieve their goal? You start to realize that your time is the most valuable thing in your own personal development and skill set. So once people realize that, when you put the internal focus in getting better at different compartments of your life, I like to think of as, like, become like a swiss army knife. Like, how can I do this and be able to do this and that and so forth? So the people that hear this and understand that everyone has that ability to be empowered to do that, but we still need worker bees. So these types of conversations, the people who talk to you, Greg, that work with you, I love that quote that says, we're not here to convince the sheep. We're here to wake up the lions. And so lions hear this and they're like, all right, I can do that, but we still need the sheep. Sheep will hear it, too. They won't do anything about it. So how do you get in front of the lions? How do you get these people to be like, all right, let's go. I'm empowered. [00:21:31] Speaker A: You know, a lot of times, Joe, the lions get in front of me, and that's the best relationship. That's when I know somebody's ready, is when they come after. You know, sometimes the sheep also need some work. Sometimes the sheep are just stuck in the everyday monotony of their day, of their job, of their relationships, and they want to get ahead a little. It doesn't necessarily mean they're going to turn into a lion, but there's some help there for those individuals as well. But getting in front of lions, that's just the ultimate. I'm working with a client right now that's an absolute lion in business and his personal development and everything. When I first was interviewing him to see if he was a good candidate to work with me. I asked him a couple of questions, and I said, okay, we're kind of done. Let's go. You know what I mean? And it's been a phenomenal relationship with him and many other lions that I've worked with. But the lions are definitely a breed that is so much fun to be a part of, whether I'm working with them on a client relationship, or whether I'm putting myself in front of them just to better myself and become somebody bigger and better and stronger than I am right now. [00:22:51] Speaker B: I think what's interesting, Joe, about what you just said, is that we talk about sheeps or lions as human beings. I think that those that have gone through the personal development journey or are predisposed to the mindsets and skill sets and habits that help you become successful in business. I think those things, almost by proximity, affect your personal life. And I think there's so many people out there, to Greg's point, that it's not about getting a promotion, know, starting a company, or even becoming a millionaire. For some people, it's, know, how do I work through some of my bullshit to be a better husband, to be a better be, to be better for my community? What are some of the bad habits that I have that are holding me back? And you don't have to want to start a company to need that kind of help, to get that kind of perspective from someone like Greg. And I think that that's a big part of the personal development space. It's not just know, working with the people that are trying to become millionaires. It's about just helping day to day people get out of their own way, which is preventing them ultimately, from what the one thing we all want in life is happiness. That's really what it boils down to, and it's a shame. I see it all the time. People are, in their own way of their own happiness, and it has nothing to do with money. What's going on up here? [00:24:21] Speaker C: No, I think that the main thing that drives. I think people want safety. I think people's main driver is safety. And they're afraid. It's if their fear of uncomfortable situations is what prevents them from growing, and if you do something difficult every day that puts you in an uncomfortable place and you can get through it, then you'll see whether that's personal development, whether it's going to the gym, whether it's getting up early, taking a nice plunge, like all those things. If you can get your mind to do this thing and know you have to do it and get through it. It's applicable to everything else that you do. So if you have to have a tough conversation in business, if you have to ask for a raise or confront your boss or talk to a client, that's a pain in the ass. And you know how your brain works. When you're in an uncomfortable situation and you become comfortable with that, you're unstoppable. It's the same process. Whether it's business, whether it's personal, whether it's interpersonal with the relationship you have with your spouse or whatever, it's being comfortable in uncomfortable situations and knowing how to handle it is the difference that I found with the people who succeed and the people who just want to be safe and avoid that conflict. [00:25:39] Speaker B: I agree. And a lot of times, familiarity, we equate to safety. So even though we're in an unproductive place, we're in a sometimes toxic relationship. When you're raised a certain way, these things become familiar to you, and they're not necessarily healthy, but familiarity equals safety. And people stay in that place because they think it's safe. But again, to my other point, that's not what people want. It's just what people think they want. What they really want is to be happy. And I think guys like Greg help people cut through all that noise because it is the getting up early. It is the disciplines that you do. That's the path to joy, and that's the path to happiness. [00:26:27] Speaker A: Yeah, you're exactly right. And a good way. And I try and coach all my clients on this, and it's eye opening to many of them, if not all of them. But a good way to find those disciplines and uncover them and to break through that is to focus on something you're good at. Now, Joe, for you, it might be jujitsu. For me, it's snowboarding. And if I can break that down, why am I good at it? How did I get good at it? There's a process there, right? I research the heck out of it. I practice. I'm passionate about it. There's that whole process. And that whole process takes a lot of discipline. It takes discipline to research it. It takes discipline to go out in the cold and snowboard sometimes when you don't want to. And when I get back in the car after snowboarding, even when I didn't want to, and I get back in the car, it's like, wow, I'm glad I did that. So that whole process, if there's something else in life that I want to improve on whether it's business, personal, relationship, whatever. I try and focus that with a client. Like, what are you good at? Why are you good at it? What does that process look like now? You want to improve this section of your life? Does that same process exist? And it's always no. And then it's simple. It's like, okay, what disciplines are you absolutely making sure that you hit in order to be good at that in life? Can we put in place some disciplines just like that? That could be completely different because it's a different topic. But let's do that. You research, you read about what you're good at. Do you research and read about this? And then you just break it down, you simplify it, and then a lot of times those disciplines kind of fall into place because people do want to improve, but they have no idea how well their improvement lies. A lot in how they do other things. Very well. [00:28:19] Speaker C: Totally. And for the record, I'm actually not good at jiu jitsu. I suck at it. That's the hard thing I do every day. For anybody that trains with me that might be listening, don't put it on me next time. I'm not saying I'm good at it. [00:28:36] Speaker B: I read a great thing about discipline and how it's the. It's the purest form of self love, right. It's sacrificing today for who you want to be, and it's who you want to be that's going to thank you later for doing the things today that are necessary, not necessarily what you want to do, but what you need to do in order to progress. And that was an eye opener for me. And it kind of reminded me, like, even no matter what the sacrifice that it is that you're making, you just remind yourself that you're making that sacrifice today for the future you. And you'll look back and be step. I want to go backwards a little bit, Greg, if it's okay with you. Everyone in life deals with adversity now. I think that at the very top of that list, there are some tragedies that are just unimaginable. I think you've experienced one of very few tragedies that most people would never know how to deal with or get through. And my question to you is, was there anyone in your life at the time that helped you say, okay, I'm going to convert this into a positive? Did that come from you? Did that come from your inside? I'd love to know how you bridged the gap, because it's an extremely important gap to bridge for anyone who faces any adversity, but someone who faces that level of tragedy. How did you bridge that gap? Was it quick? Did it take time? Was there someone there to help you with it? Tell me about, you know, Ken. [00:30:21] Speaker A: It really was within me, and I don't know how or why, but I'm thankful it was not to say I didn't have support. I had some amazing friends and relatives, and my grandfather and I were still best friends. He lost a son at the same day I lost a father, which made our bond just absolutely tremendous. My mother is the absolute strongest individual I know. So I definitely had support. I had people pulling for me. But when that happened, I was the man of the house. I have a younger sister and an older sister and then a mom at home. And I was unsure what I wanted to do in life. I didn't know if I was going to go to college or not. And if I was going to go to college, what would I go for? I had no idea. So when that happened, one decision was made quickly for me. I'm not going to college. I have too much responsibility here. It's just not going to happen. So then it was like, okay, so if I'm not going to go to college, what am I going to do? And that was a crossroads. I remember it vividly, and I was right on the fence of which way to go. Now, remember, I was a snowboarder, a skateboarder, motocross kid. The fun, rebellious path was right in front of me in so many different directions. I kind of wanted to take it because I, for once in my life, had an excuse. You know what I mean? I felt like I could get away with maybe doing something that was very unlike me. And then I remember thinking, no, I can't. It's not in me. It's not what my dad would want. It's not me at all. And it's really not going to get me anywhere in life. So, like I said earlier, I just took the path of hard work. It's what I knew. I knew how to work, and I knew how to work hard, so I just started grinding, and that's really pretty much how I got over it. I just kind of masked it with work and then trying to chase whatever that success part of life meant to me. But, yeah, it was just hard work. [00:32:31] Speaker B: It's pretty amazing. And for someone at 17 to have that wisdom, there are people that go through their entire lives and are never able to make that connection. And I'm going to read something. Now, all three of us know Jay Duran. And Jay introduced Greg and I, and he had a post the other day. It was a quote from someone named. I don't know if you saw this on social Joseph Campbell. And he was referencing Nietzsche, and he said, nietzsche was the one who did the job for me. At a certain moment in his life, the idea came to him, what he called the love of your fate. Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, this is what I need. It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment, not discouragement, you will find the strength. Is there any disaster you can survive is an improvement of your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege this is. When the spot negative, your own nature will have a chance to flow. Then when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures followed by wreckage were incidents that shaped your life and the life you have now. You'll see that this is really true. Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back. And when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes. That upsets a lot of people when you say stuff like they. I'm talking about people that endured tragedy nowhere near what you endured. I know Joe and I both. Joe lost his mom to cancer. I lost my mom to. You know, to say that to someone, especially someone who has endured some level of tragedy and can't get past it, man, that really upsets. Know, how can you say this thing that is so bad is good? But I think you're a walking example of that, Greg. And if you were dealing with someone, if you're talking to someone, what advice would you give them? Reaching back again to your own experience on how to get past it, on doing just what he said. [00:35:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, thanks, Ken. I appreciate you saying that. I'm walking example of I. To sum it up, I would say, believe wholeheartedly in yourself. Look yourself in the mirror every day. Be proud of what you see in the mirror. And if you're not proud of it, put together a couple of things that will make you proud of it. And just believe in yourself, because we can all do whatever it is we set out to do. And sometimes that is hard. Sometimes it takes discipline, sometimes it takes change. And ultimately, you just got to believe in yourself and go after it. [00:35:48] Speaker C: I agree. I think for me, and I'm blessed. We've had some tragedies and such, but the hard times, you got to get a little selfish, I guess. I look at it this way, and I've had some friends with some recent tragedies. And if you look at your life as almost like a book or a movie and say, like when they write the movie about my life, this is going to be one chapter and it's going to have a happy ending, but this chapter is where it sets it up for the next one. That's going to be the big success. You go back to how you got to that point and then, yeah, this was good. And then we dipped here, and. [00:36:39] Speaker A: It'S. [00:36:39] Speaker C: All part of a bigger picture and it's all part of a larger movie. And when you go through these tough times, if you just believe, like, this is the part of the movie that's sad or sucky or this is when the A Team gets to town and the town's shitty and they got to wreck everything and make it better, that's how you move forward. That's at least helped for me to think of it as this is just a dip and it's going to come back up. But I think everybody's journey is different. I think it's hard to really empathize or put yourself in someone else's shoes because there's so many different dynamics of what they're going through and so forth. But that's kind of what's helped me through some rough spots. [00:37:26] Speaker A: Yeah, Joe, I think you're so right with that. And throughout my life, I kind of wondered, I always believed that this happened to me. I always believed that I was going to make something of this tragic situation. But it was hard for me to stomach how am I going to turn this into good, and how am I going to help other people with this when it's kind of hard for me to take myself? And then as life happened and as I started kind of clicking different rungs of a ladder throughout my career and really in my early 30s, when I started my personal development journey and really started to change my life, then it all came into vision for me and it was like, okay, so now I think this is the universe telling me that this is why I have this story and I am here to share it, and I'm here to help other people. I don't want to say, oh, I'm cool with it, but at the same time, it's like I'm understanding now of why it's me and why I have it, and I want to help anybody that I can. And that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm only good for people that have a similar tragic. There's. And Kenny, you said it too. To your point, you might have somebody that has something very small, but for them, right then at that stage in their life, it's huge. That could be the loss of a job. It could be just a simple little shift in their life, but it might just be absolutely just as detrimental to them as losing my dad when I was 17 to suicide was for me and just working through it with them. A lot of people just need that. [00:39:10] Speaker B: To be clear. It's not like, I think, where a lot of people struggle when they have setbacks, let's call them setbacks, because obviously tragedy is on a spectrum of degrees where you can agree there's worse and there's not so bad, but at the end of the day, they all fall into that failure. Setback. This is not what I wanted to happen. Spectrum, right. Category. It's not that this had to happen in order for you to develop the path that you developed, because then it's almost like, let me put it to you this way, because it happened, you have an option. You have a choice now, right? You can take it and make it something good or you can not, right? I think the people's lives that you're going to touch because of the experience you had through that adversity and through that tragedy, I think there's a million blessings out there that spawned from that tragedy. And it's not to say that that had to happen in order for this to happen, but you certainly made the decision to bring as much good to the world that you can as a result of having gone through it. And it's a very unique experience for you, but you can still share it, and you do share it with others. And then, like I said, you just mentioned, sometimes it's a loss of a job, sometimes for a salesperson, it's not getting that sale or losing that customer. These seem like, depending on the day, seem like small things, but in the moment, right, you still have to find a way to turn that setback into a positive by saying, okay, what did the universe not want me to have right now? What am I not ready for? What did I do wrong? Where can I learn, right? I mean, that's a huge part of what separates the salespeople that succeed from the salespeople that don't are the ones who are the ability to kind of endure those setbacks and say, okay, I was obviously not ready for this. Right? [00:41:15] Speaker A: Right. [00:41:16] Speaker C: You know what? As we're kind of hashing this out, I have to go back to what I believe about uncomfortable situations and being. When tragedies happen, you're thrust into an uncomfortable situation that you couldn't even fathom. And it's fight or flight. You figure it out. And I feel like once, for me, when I've gotten through these really tough times, I come out empowered. I'm like, you know what? If I can get through that, then starting a business ain't shit, man. Whatever, dude. I just dealt with this over here. I'll go fight anybody or do whatever. You can't take my spirit. So I think that obviously you don't want tragedies to happen, but you can create many tragedies of. I got to jump in this cold ass tub. This is terrible. I hate this. This is uncomfortable. I don't want this or I'm going to get up early. These are the things that your mind can't necessarily. It's the same dopamine, it's the same stuff as that, like how your body physiologically works, but you're forced into it. Obviously, tragedies are on a different level, but it's the same concept, I think, that you will overcome. You're not going to shrivel up and die. And that's what the common thread of people that have gone through a tough situation. When you talk, it's like, I came out of it. This is what happened. I look back, I'm like, okay. And it's impossible not to apply that to everything else in your life. And that's why I feel like it's almost a blessing and a curse. But most successful people I know had something horrible that they overcame, and it's made them who they are for it because it's unlocked that little thing in their brain like, shit, I can handle anything. [00:43:20] Speaker A: Yeah, and Joe, a lot of what you just described are little disciplines to get over. Like, you have to jump in the cold tub once a week or once a day or whatever. And it's not that you have to, but you know that that little piece of suck in your life is going to make you grow and become better. [00:43:41] Speaker B: Well, listen, Greg, this is the first of what I hope is many conversations. A lot of these episodes were know people like yourself were really just scratching the surface. And we really hope to have you back and kind of continue to dig into your philosophy and your practices and things that you teach, the things that are important to what you believe to be important to the journey of professional and personal development. So I really appreciate you coming, but before we go here, we're going to go back. Joe, are you ready? [00:44:09] Speaker C: I'm ready. [00:44:10] Speaker B: All right. So I'll remind you what they were. Let's see what clues we picked up on it. 22 years old, bought his first house, very high end racing school instructor without ever having been. Without having raced. And 10,000 steps every single day. Which one is the lie? I think I know, but this is your gig. [00:44:33] Speaker C: So I'm going to go with racing school without any racing experience just because given the fact of where you grew up and I know the area, actually, my kids ride dirt bikes. It's impossible not to have had raced in some aspect prior to starting or being an instructor. So I'm going to go with b. [00:45:05] Speaker A: That, in fact, is a truth. [00:45:09] Speaker C: Wow. All right. [00:45:13] Speaker B: So I'm going to say it was 10,000 steps because I have a feeling it's 20,000. [00:45:19] Speaker A: I appreciate that. That actually is the lie. And I thought of that lie this morning when I was going for a walk before sunrise, and I was thinking, I was calculating how many steps this walk probably is. And I'm very in tune to my fitness, and fitness is a huge must for me. But one thing I don't do is track steps. I never have. I sometimes put a weekly hold on, let's be clear. [00:45:49] Speaker C: Then there's a chance. See, this is what threw me off because that may not be a lie then. Okay, you could potentially walk 10,000. I don't know how many steps I walk. [00:45:59] Speaker A: No, I do know for sure. I do know for sure that are not at 10,000. [00:46:05] Speaker C: Okay, I guess. I don't know. I don't know how many steps. If you told me you walk 50,000 steps, I'd be like, oh, that sucks. And then somebody else be like, I walk 5000. That's pretty good. So I don't really have a measure there, but all right. [00:46:18] Speaker B: I think 10,000 steps is a pretty. [00:46:22] Speaker C: I know. 10,000 hours makes you an expert. So I guess you're expert at walking if you take 10,000 steps a day. [00:46:28] Speaker A: There you go. [00:46:29] Speaker B: You check out your iPhone, it tracks your steps. [00:46:31] Speaker C: Joe, don't get me into what iPhone tracks, man. That's a podcast for a whole nother. [00:46:41] Speaker B: You did. What was it? You taught a very high end racing school. And you did race or tell me about that. [00:46:51] Speaker A: It was a road racing school. Just a buddy of mine, he's kind of a local guy in the community. He used to race professionally, road race professionally. And he was the head instructor at this race school, and I was always the punk that ripped wheel by his house because I knew he was an ex racer, so I'd rip wheelies by his house. And he told me, he said, hey, you got to come to the track with me. I said, I don't have any interest in that. You guys do your thing. And he goes, no, you seriously. Should I tell everybody this day? His name is Kurt. Kurt saved my life. He got me off the streets and put me on a racetrack, and I took to it really good. I went there for a whole summer and went through the B class and then the A class, and then they asked me to come back as an a class instructor the next year, so I did that. I think I might have done it two summers in a row, but it was a very high speed race school to put racers on the circuit. And I always joke with people, a pilot, before they get their commercial pilot gig, they become a flight school instructor because they're logging hours. And that's essentially what I felt I was doing. I was just logging seat time. But, yeah, it was a fun couple of summers, that's for sure. [00:48:03] Speaker C: That's pretty cool. [00:48:05] Speaker B: Well, thank you very much for hanging out with us today. I enjoyed this. I think this was a very powerful conversation, and we can't wait to have you back on. [00:48:13] Speaker A: Ken and Joe, thank you. I can't wait to be back on. I appreciate it. Thanks for listening to selling the dream. We know you don't want to miss a single episode, so go subscribe today wherever you get your podcasts, and then make sure to share the show with your friends and leave us a review. Bye.