Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / From Trailer Park to $50 Million: More Than Just Luck with Greg Wier

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From Trailer Park to $50 Million: More Than Just Luck with Greg Wier · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:04
  I think I'm an example.
• 0:05
  Just hard work and dedication.
• 0:08
  And I think it's also just doing what you're saying to do.
• 0:11
  Be honest with people.
• 0:12
  What does it take to build multiple multimillion dollar companies from nothing?
• 0:18
  No degree, no connections.
• 0:21
  No Roadmap.
• 0:22
  Today's guest, Greg Weir started his entrepreneurial journey at 19 with little more than survival instinct and and sheer determination.
• 0:31
  From lawsuits and dangerous business partnerships to armed standoffs, the music industry in a brutal real estate crash, Greg has seen it all, lost it all at times and kept building anyway.
• 0:44
  In this conversation, you'll get raw, unfiltered wisdom on resilience, leadership, knowing when to pivot, and why.
• 0:52
  Developing the people around you is the ultimate measure of success.
• 0:56
  Greg also shares the inside story behind his new memoir, More Than Just Luck, a blueprint for Entrepreneurs who Refuse to Quit.
• 1:05
  If you've ever wondered whether your background could hold you back from extraordinary success, this episode is your answer.
• 1:12
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:16
  All right, Greg Ware, welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
• 1:19
  Thank you and thanks for having me.
• 1:22
  Absolutely.
• 1:22
  We appreciate you taking the time to be here.
• 1:25
  So, Greg, you've got quite a fascinating story.
• 1:29
  You're a lifelong entrepreneur, starting when you're 19 years old, owned multiple businesses, multiple exits, a whole lot of crazy drama throughout your story.
• 1:41
  And then you've got your your memoir slash Roadmap for Other Entrepreneurs, which is a new book that's being released on March 17 called More Than Just Luck.
• 1:52
  So we're certainly going to talk talk about that as well.
• 1:55
  But can you just to set the stage for our listeners, can you talk about your backstory and how you became an entrepreneur?
• 2:02
  Sure, I made some dumb decisions.
• 2:05
  Being young ended up being great decisions.
• 2:08
  But My wife was 16 when we met and we married at 16.
• 2:13
  I was 18 years old a few months later.
• 2:17
  Typical ghetto story.
• 2:19
  Had a kid, we lived in the trailer park.
• 2:22
  And I just kind of had this feeling as an adult, as a man, I should do something with my life to make a living for the kid and the wife.
• 2:32
  So both of us being uneducated, we barely made it through high school, but did.
• 2:38
  And so I started a small business, a little janitorial company with the help of family.
• 2:44
  But it collapsed.
• 2:45
  I had one customer who got upset with small issues.
• 2:49
  Then I decided I got a job.
• 2:51
  I got a job as a security guard and it was four bucks an hour.
• 2:58
  The only way to make money was work overtime.
• 3:00
  I was fortunate enough to meet a man by the name of Sam King who Gave me the opportunity to work various posts.
• 3:06
  So anywhere from Tiger Stadium to, you know, country clubs to an apartment complex.
• 3:14
  So when Sam called, I went.
• 3:17
  And within a few short months, Sam realized I was one of the good guys.
• 3:21
  I'd work all the time.
• 3:23
  So I spent about 11 years working for corporate America.
• 3:26
  And then one night, my wife and I went out for dinner.
• 3:29
  I'd gotten this raise.
• 3:30
  It was 3% of my salary.
• 3:33
  And so we went to a place called Golden Mushroom.
• 3:35
  We had dinner and the dinner was like $600.
• 3:39
  And on the way home we laughed because what I just earned as a raise for the year, we just spent on dinner.
• 3:46
  So that kind of stuck with me.
• 3:47
  And I thought I got to do something different.
• 3:49
  This working for corporate America isn't paying the bills.
• 3:52
  I just spent one night on dinner.
• 3:54
  What my raise was for the month or working 80 to 100 hours a week.
• 3:57
  So I made the decision to start my own security guard company.
• 4:01
  I did it being young, I use as an excuse at the time I'm going to go out and take the customers that I'm servicing.
• 4:09
  So I did and I went out and teamed up with a couple people and ended up about 5,000 hours, what we call weekly guard hours.
• 4:22
  We're about 110 employees off the rip.
• 4:25
  And started this security guard business and it did well.
• 4:32
  Unfortunately, along the way I got sued for that.
• 4:34
  I had a thing called a non compete and they enforced it.
• 4:38
  And I got in trouble and had to pay some money and some other things.
• 4:42
  And it kind of followed my life.
• 4:44
  I did that a couple times where I finally thought I secured my future.
• 4:48
  Opened up our second company with a couple partners and they ended up being bad apples.
• 4:56
  So from 1996 to about 2002, I teamed up with a couple guys that I thought they had my best interest and they didn't and they decided to.
• 5:07
  I was kind of like the leader, the one the clients liked, the one that the client went with.
• 5:13
  But I was in the way of their success because I was kind of a ball hog.
• 5:17
  It was kind of my show.
• 5:18
  And so there's a couple of incidents we can get into that.
• 5:22
  They attempted to take me out of this world.
• 5:25
  And then finally in 2002, I split up, went off on my own.
• 5:30
  So from 2002 to 2005, I stayed in the security guard business, built up about a $30 million a year operation.
• 5:37
  I just sold to a national company and then that was my first sale of a major sale.
• 5:45
  And then 2010 I got back into the business and I built another company with a partner from 2010 to 2022 doing about 50 million a year.
• 5:55
  We sold that off.
• 5:57
  Okay, wow.
• 5:59
  So quite, quite a lot to unpack there.
• 6:01
  So starting off, grow up in the ghetto, not much education, teenage pregnancy, married young, you being a man and wanting to be a provider, you, you realize I got to do something.
• 6:15
  So you start a company, right?
• 6:17
  And not really having any know how, you just have this desire to really provide and, and build a better life.
• 6:24
  You start a company.
• 6:25
  Absolute failure.
• 6:27
  Okay, so not uncommon, right?
• 6:29
  Most entrepreneurs fail their first time, right?
• 6:32
  So when that happens, you realize, okay, gotta get a job.
• 6:36
  Still have to, you know, feed the family, pay the bills and fortunately, right, you, you meet someone that sees your work ethic and sees your, your willingness to work and gives you an opportunity and you move up through
• 6:48
  the ranks with that security guard company and you end up staying there 11 years, right?
• 6:53
  And then like so many people, you're kind of dissatisfied with the corporate life.
• 6:58
  You realize this raise you just got, you spend it in one night on dinner and that kind of starts the wheels turning again and you, you want to go out and start your company and then you decide to,
• 7:08
  you start a competing company and you basically take all your employers business and that was the, the beginning of the company.
• 7:17
  So, so I mean, when, and did you have partners in that company, that, that original company or is that just you?
• 7:24
  Okay, I mean, like was there and ultimately you got sued and got, got in some trouble.
• 7:29
  But I mean, when you're formulating this plan, I mean, right?
• 7:32
  So often people make moves and it's like the ready, fire, aim approach and they, they say I'm going to do this and they just take action quickly.
• 7:41
  When you're formulating this plan, was there any thought like maybe this isn't a good idea or maybe there could be some ramifications.
• 7:48
  What if he sues us?
• 7:49
  Like was, was that come up in the conversation at all?
• 7:52
  It did, but it's, it's called survival.
• 7:55
  The benefit outweighs the cost.
• 7:57
  And so we decided to proceed forward with it.
• 7:59
  We knew that, you know, they're the 800 pound gorilla or just a small guy and they took and they, and they won.
• 8:06
  I mean there was a big judgment against us and it was ultimately paid off, but it was, it was a fight to get there.
• 8:13
  But, but again, the benefit, I weighed the cost.
• 8:15
  That was the choice.
• 8:17
  Okay, and was there ever.
• 8:18
  I mean, because the way I know you kind of went through the story quickly, but this guy Sam had really given you an opportunity.
• 8:24
  As you started out and you're kind of young and having a hard time, he saw something in you and he employed you for over a decade.
• 8:31
  Was there any like, like, like regret about kind of, you know, someone that had basically employed you and given you opportunity about taking their customers?
• 8:42
  Was, was that ever like an issue for you before you did that?
• 8:46
  Not really because Sam had been about a 40 year employee with this company and they had sent Sam what they called to the pasture.
• 8:55
  So he went from like being a, like a regional type manager, managing all these big accounts to go into one account.
• 9:01
  So he was kind of out of the picture and the corporate world took over.
• 9:06
  So everything that we had done in that company as a team, there was probably like 15 of us.
• 9:11
  When the new sheriff in town came in, it was kind of like a mass exit.
• 9:15
  So I was just one of the people at the time, mass exiting the place.
• 9:19
  Okay, okay.
• 9:20
  All right.
• 9:20
  And then the company you formed, did it ultimately survive and stay in business after you had to pay this judgment?
• 9:27
  It did not.
• 9:28
  What had happened was this gentleman that was like the head of the company, he'd worked at this major company, I'll use the name, it was a company called Burns, it's now called Securitas.
• 9:39
  And he had been terminated for.
• 9:41
  He had been promoted to another job in New York.
• 9:44
  He was terminated for unethical practices there.
• 9:48
  Came back to Michigan, got a job with a small company and he came back and hired a couple of us to work and form a company called Commission Security, which ultimately he ran.
• 9:59
  We were his kind of figureheads.
• 10:01
  He gave us a job and shares in this as a partner.
• 10:05
  And we later learned that he was also stealing from that company.
• 10:09
  So we let him go.
• 10:11
  At the same time a couple of us formed another company, was kind of like taking the business from commissioned and then just put it into a company called Strategic.
• 10:21
  And at the same time we got rid of him.
• 10:23
  So.
• 10:24
  Okay, that's kind of how that went.
• 10:26
  Okay, so ultimately you're able to stay in the industry, use your knowledge, you take the existing customers and move them to a different company.
• 10:34
  But that, that actual entity went under.
• 10:36
  Ok, that's correct.
• 10:38
  And then that next phase, that was the, the partnership with the bad apples, is that right?
• 10:44
  That's correct.
• 10:45
  Okay, so let's, let's talk about this.
• 10:48
  So.
• 10:48
  Yeah, all right.
• 10:48
  You have this experience and you're, you know, you, you violate the non compete, that company gets shut down.
• 10:56
  But you're able to transition into another company.
• 10:58
  Now you have these other partners, you Clearly, I'm sure you're excited and wanting to grow this new company and talk about how the scaling process with that.
• 11:06
  With that business went.
• 11:09
  It was a.
• 11:09
  It was a great company.
• 11:10
  We.
• 11:11
  We capped at about 25 to 30 million dollars a year in revenue.
• 11:15
  We were based in Michigan or headquartered, and we had an affiliate office in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
• 11:21
  So within, you know, really a year or two, we went from 150 employees to about 450 employees.
• 11:27
  We were doing quite well.
• 11:30
  Well, go ahead.
• 11:32
  Okay.
• 11:32
  And so this is security guard.
• 11:34
  So just basically having companies.
• 11:37
  Other companies hire you.
• 11:40
  Right.
• 11:40
  So you have to go out and make the sales, have.
• 11:42
  Fill the contract, and they hire the labor, fill the shifts and kind of manage them, make sure the customer's happy.
• 11:48
  Right.
• 11:48
  All that type of thing.
• 11:49
  Is that right?
• 11:50
  That is correct.
• 11:51
  Okay.
• 11:52
  Okay.
• 11:52
  Typically, a lot of people in business get greedy.
• 11:55
  And year 2000, that was our.
• 11:58
  We did this, and our peak was probably 2000.
• 12:01
  Together, from 2000 and 2002, we were doing roughly, like I said, $30 million a year in revenue.
• 12:07
  We're making a ton of money.
• 12:09
  We're driving Lamborghinis, we're driving Ferraris.
• 12:11
  Life.
• 12:11
  Life couldn't get any better financially.
• 12:13
  But greed got in the way.
• 12:15
  One of the guys decided to befriend a drug dealer that had connections to sell weed in Canada.
• 12:27
  So in those days, we sold our invoices, which is known as factoring.
• 12:31
  And so he decided that on the off weeks, he would give this gentleman some money and he'd go make his dope deals over in Canada and bring back cash and there'd be profit.
• 12:43
  So in his mind, he thought that I would be okay with this and that we could share in his profits.
• 12:47
  Well, I wasn't.
• 12:48
  And that led to a separation.
• 12:51
  Prior to the separation, though, at the same time, we had a theft going down in Florida.
• 12:57
  So my future partner at another company, I went down to Florida, and he always put us up at this hotel.
• 13:05
  It's called Ocean by the Seaside.
• 13:08
  It's a Holiday Inn.
• 13:09
  But something my gut said, don't stay there.
• 13:11
  So we didn't.
• 13:12
  We were feuding.
• 13:13
  Before I left, we'd been arguing about the way he was doing business and using money for buying drugs and making money off that.
• 13:21
  And so I decided to reserve a room somewhere else.
• 13:25
  And the next day, I go back to this Holiday Inn on the ocean side, and lo and behold, the absolute rooms ransacked.
• 13:32
  I had left a computer in there and some other stuff, and everything was thrown, beat up.
• 13:39
  Somebody enter the room to look for probably, I assume me.
• 13:43
  And then right after that happened, we had a big falling out here in Michigan when I got back, and we split up, went our separate ways.
• 13:50
  Okay.
• 13:51
  All right.
• 13:52
  So, so often, right, we hear the stories of just trying to make it and trying to break through and all the challenges with growing and scaling.
• 13:59
  So you kind of have the opposite to where you've made it.
• 14:03
  Life is good.
• 14:05
  Company's very profitable.
• 14:07
  You're rolling in money.
• 14:08
  Like you said, you're driving Lamborghinis.
• 14:10
  There's multiple partners.
• 14:12
  And then you said, you know, greed.
• 14:14
  Greed kicks in to where, like, mo.
• 14:17
  So many people coming from their journey and not making it or not breaking through would have been happy with that type of success.
• 14:23
  But then here, one of your partners is taking the profits in the off weeks and basically using it to fund drug deals and make.
• 14:32
  Make illicit profits off that.
• 14:33
  And so you find that out, and there's a fight, there's a rift, and then ultimately there's an attempt on your life shortly thereafter.
• 14:41
  That's correct.
• 14:42
  Okay.
• 14:43
  I mean, when that happens, right, like, what's.
• 14:46
  What's going through your mind?
• 14:50
  You know, it's.
• 14:51
  It's happened then.
• 14:52
  And right after that, too, there was actually two.
• 14:55
  What goes through your mind is there's so much money coming from nothing and then seeing, you know, $30 million a year, I'm guessing profit, that's probably five or six million dollars a year or gross profit.
• 15:07
  So you look at that, and you can.
• 15:09
  It's kind of almost like a TV show.
• 15:11
  You look at it like this is like a real attempt on your life.
• 15:14
  There's a couple more backstories where the guy ended up being my partner.
• 15:19
  Leading up to that, there was several missing guns.
• 15:23
  Officer mysteriously broken into.
• 15:24
  So my.
• 15:25
  My suspicion was that he was to use these guns that were allegedly stolen days before we went to Florida would have been used in my assassination probably that evening at the hotel.
• 15:37
  And then my partner, my future partner, would have been blamed for it because he was also blamed for the guns missing.
• 15:41
  He was the keeper of those guns, and they came up missing.
• 15:44
  So what goes through your mind is you're like, you know, you already know that.
• 15:49
  You know, he's a guy's tied to a dope dealer.
• 15:51
  He's got a ton of money.
• 15:53
  It's cheaper to put my lights out is than to keep me.
• 15:55
  So you just.
• 15:55
  You.
• 15:56
  You kind of surround yourself with, you know, I hate to use the word thugs.
• 16:00
  You just kind of watch your back and watch where you're at.
• 16:02
  Where you're going because you flip out, because it's, you know, somebody wants you gone.
• 16:07
  You're in their way of success.
• 16:08
  And that's kind of how that's what ultimately led to the breakup, which, you know, leads to, like, another story where we meet at a restaurant.
• 16:16
  He's got, like, six guys with him.
• 16:17
  I got, like, six guys with me.
• 16:18
  It's like a movie scene.
• 16:20
  Everyone's got guns.
• 16:21
  And to make a long story short, we agreed to take the business that was there and split up.
• 16:27
  50% of it would go to me, and 50% would go to him, and we split ways.
• 16:31
  That's kind of how it ended.
• 16:32
  But it ended with kind of like a standoff.
• 16:35
  But, yeah, it blows your mind.
• 16:37
  It's like, it's not the way it should be.
• 16:39
  Remember, we grew up together.
• 16:40
  I hired that guy back 10 years before as a security guard at a.
• 16:45
  What they called at that time, Michigan Bell.
• 16:47
  And I took him for being a security guard.
• 16:49
  He was fresh from Poland, and I took and gave him a job, turn him into a sales guy, made him who he was.
• 16:56
  And he thought he became bigger than that.
• 16:58
  And he.
• 16:58
  And I was in his way, and that was his way of thinking.
• 17:01
  So it was kind of sick.
• 17:04
  Yeah.
• 17:04
  Wow.
• 17:05
  So incredible.
• 17:07
  So you.
• 17:09
  You have this standoff.
• 17:10
  There's guns involved.
• 17:12
  There's a lot of money on the table.
• 17:14
  You're obviously married in business, right?
• 17:17
  With this partnership and whatnot.
• 17:18
  And you make the.
• 17:19
  You make the agreement to separate, and.
• 17:21
  And you do that, I guess, amicably, under the circumstances, and you go your separate ways.
• 17:27
  So what happens next?
• 17:29
  We split the business off to a company I formed, and it was called Progressive.
• 17:36
  And for the next three years, we also split the talent.
• 17:41
  So half the staff stayed with him, the other half stayed with me.
• 17:45
  Most people who stayed with me had been with me since my corporate days.
• 17:49
  So for the next three years, we hit the road running.
• 17:50
  We grew our offices in Florida and Michigan.
• 17:55
  The first thing I did was I sold Florida off about a year and a half later.
• 17:59
  And then in 2005, I sold the entire company to a corporate America.
• 18:05
  Okay.
• 18:06
  We're doing about 30 million a year, and I sold it off.
• 18:10
  Okay, so a couple years later.
• 18:13
  Right, so you split off this time.
• 18:15
  You decide, no partners.
• 18:16
  You're just doing it yourself.
• 18:17
  You continue to scale that business and.
• 18:21
  And is doing very well.
• 18:22
  And ultimately, you sell it in 2005.
• 18:24
  I assume it sounds like a very handsome exit.
• 18:26
  At the time, it was very.
• 18:29
  Okay, all right.
• 18:30
  And so now what.
• 18:32
  What do you do next.
• 18:34
  I had gotten into the music business about a year before, and hip hop, believe it or not.
• 18:40
  And I was just curious how to get a record on the radio.
• 18:45
  The radio was big back then and CDs were selling like crazy.
• 18:48
  So I went to the market and I found a couple artists to.
• 18:54
  They had the shot that I thought could make it big time.
• 18:57
  So I invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into this artist.
• 19:02
  His name was Hush.
• 19:03
  And we toured every bar from, you know, five people to venues with 5,000 people, which ultimately got us a record deal in 2000, late 2004, we secured a record deal with Geffen Records, which was a division of Universal.
• 19:22
  And they gave us a full, what they call 360 deal.
• 19:25
  They paid for the record being made, the videos, large advancement, and so far as I knew, selling the guard company, I thought, this is.
• 19:34
  This was.
• 19:34
  This wasn't bad.
• 19:35
  This was fun.
• 19:36
  I'm going to go into music business.
• 19:37
  I'm going to do artist.
• 19:38
  So I opened up a label and went on the road of doing music.
• 19:43
  And then the world changed.
• 19:45
  The world changed completely in front of my eyes.
• 19:48
  In 2005, when his record was released, they shipped 250,000.
• 19:54
  And by 2006, late CDs are a thing of the past.
• 19:58
  Digital music's coming.
• 20:00
  No one knows what to do.
• 20:01
  The labels cut back.
• 20:03
  I had two or three more artists in the background to be next on the list.
• 20:08
  Just nobody was signing an artist.
• 20:09
  So that business was hot.
• 20:11
  We did really well in it, but there was nothing there for us.
• 20:16
  And to this day, music's changed the way what it did back in 2004 and five and before, how they do it today.
• 20:24
  Okay, so I exited that pretty quick.
• 20:26
  I mean, within three or four years, I'm in and out of the business, did well with it, and again got a guy at the top.
• 20:31
  But just there was no plan.
• 20:33
  The labels didn't have a.
• 20:35
  A plan to get big stars.
• 20:37
  If you notice, there's not that many to this day.
• 20:39
  They're very few and far between.
• 20:41
  Okay, wow.
• 20:42
  So interesting because you have so much success within the security business, you finally have a large exit there.
• 20:48
  And then out of curiosity, really, and maybe just like you said, fun.
• 20:52
  You get into the music business, kind of bad timing, right?
• 20:56
  Where you.
• 20:57
  The advent of digital music and streaming and kind of CDs going, you know, becoming obsolete over a number of years.
• 21:05
  And at that point you decide to just cut your losses and move on to something else.
• 21:12
  Yeah, about the same time I get into commercial real estate.
• 21:15
  So I Decided I should get in, I should buy commercial office buildings and residential for that matter.
• 21:22
  But I didn't realize 2006, late, maybe the early 2007, it was the beginning of the end.
• 21:28
  So I'm buying buildings anywhere from, you know, 10,000 square foot to 200,000 square foot, and I'm buying these buildings for 60, 70 cents on a dollar compared they sold for, you know, two, three, four, 10 years earlier.
• 21:42
  So I thought I was like the real estate guru.
• 21:43
  I had money, I was paying cash, I could close deals quick.
• 21:47
  And then 2008 comes and it was an absolute disaster.
• 21:51
  Companies went out of business, people were moving left and right, we couldn't rent anything.
• 21:56
  So my, I had like seven office buildings and I think I was occupied like 35% of my total square foot of space, just so I get my ass kicked.
• 22:05
  Good news is I had the money.
• 22:06
  So I paid cash for all my deals.
• 22:08
  So I had no bank financing.
• 22:09
  A lot of my friends fell and collapsed and went bankrupt.
• 22:14
  I sold my properties, what I could get out of them because I couldn't withstand the storm, and moved on and got back into the security guard business business.
• 22:22
  Okay, interesting.
• 22:23
  So another, another instance of bad timing where, you know, get into real estate and you start doing well.
• 22:30
  And all of a sudden the 2008 crash happens.
• 22:32
  And fortunately, like you said, because you could pay cash, you know, you're able to just liquidate and, and get out and not have to, you know, deal with the bank financing and, and all of that.
• 22:45
  So then you go back into what, you know, and what made you so successful, which is the, the security business.
• 22:51
  And so what was different this time around this time I was, when I left the first time, I had given for the cost of a, a dollar, basically a company called Prudential Protective Services to a friend of mine
• 23:05
  and, and an employee, she had done okay with it.
• 23:10
  She had turned into maybe, you know, 30 or 40 employees.
• 23:14
  And she had employed my future partner in the long term business and I teamed up with her.
• 23:21
  So from 2010 to 2012, we kind of all worked together.
• 23:27
  Her name's Trish and there was Matthew.
• 23:30
  And then in 2012, we now had about 200 employees, but it was a single member LLC.
• 23:36
  So I said, well, listen guys, we have to make this thing a corporation, so we all three equally own it.
• 23:41
  So we split it up and I became a third shareholder and so did she and of course Matthew.
• 23:49
  And so we ran until 2017, 18.
• 23:53
  And Trish decided that she wanted to go in a different direction.
• 23:57
  She had since divorced and met a person that actually worked for the company and they wanted to form their own company.
• 24:04
  So we split off a third of that business and gave it to her.
• 24:07
  So it left Matthew and I standing.
• 24:09
  So him and I worked together for, from those from 18, just him and I, to 2022.
• 24:16
  And then we peaked out at roughly $50 million year in revenue.
• 24:21
  And then we decided that it was time to sell.
• 24:23
  And that's what we did.
• 24:25
  In August of 2022, we got out of the business, sold it to a big corporate America account, and he both living life large, I guess you'd call it.
• 24:35
  Okay, all right.
• 24:36
  So incredible story.
• 24:39
  And I mean, let me just ask you because talking about how you began, right, Grew up in the ghetto, no education, teenage pregnancy, just wanting to start a business out of survival.
• 24:52
  And when you look at your career trajectory and the success you've had, multiple times, scaling a company to tens of million, 10 tens of millions of dollars in revenue and having these big successful exits selling to major corporations,
• 25:06
  like, where does that business acumen come from?
• 25:11
  I always call it survival.
• 25:13
  One of the reasons I wrote the book was I don't think, in my opinion, making money's hard.
• 25:20
  It's just you have to be committed to it.
• 25:23
  You have to be able to accept your failures and your successes.
• 25:26
  And we all build stories.
• 25:28
  We all have stories.
• 25:28
  No matter how good or bad or how rich or poor we are, there are stories.
• 25:32
  If you don't make excuses, then you become something and someone.
• 25:36
  And yeah, there's a lot of bad days.
• 25:38
  There's a lot of days you felt like you were gonna call it quits, but you have to overcome that because you have to survive.
• 25:43
  You have to work somewhere, you gotta put food on the table.
• 25:46
  Then you just gotta decide, you know, where does it come from?
• 25:48
  I think it's just your heart.
• 25:50
  What do you envision?
• 25:51
  I mean, I, you know, I.
• 25:53
  I was in New York a couple days ago doing a podcast and I booked a bad reservation at a Double Tree.
• 26:01
  This room's really small.
• 26:02
  And next morning I'm taking a shower.
• 26:04
  And this morning at my house.
• 26:06
  I live about a 10,000 square foot house.
• 26:08
  And I'm looking at my shower, I'm thinking to myself, you know what I realized at the end of our life?
• 26:12
  It doesn't matter what we have or what we did or whatever, but at least while we're here, we have a good time.
• 26:17
  So it was nice being in a big shower in a big house.
• 26:19
  It's worth it.
• 26:21
  So it's really what you dream.
• 26:22
  Walt Disney always said, if you dream it, you can do it.
• 26:25
  And I believe that if you dream it, you can do it.
• 26:27
  So if you aspire to become something in someone, you can do it.
• 26:31
  I mean, I'm an example of that.
• 26:33
  I don't have a master's or a bachelor's or a socialist degree.
• 26:36
  I barely made it through high school.
• 26:37
  A lot of poor decisions being young.
• 26:40
  And I could have sat on the couch and ate potato chips or get off the couch and do something about it.
• 26:44
  I think I'm average.
• 26:45
  My parents didn't have any education.
• 26:47
  My dad was an auto worker, my mom was a waitress.
• 26:50
  There was never any wealth in our family.
• 26:52
  So, you know, I think I'm an example.
• 26:55
  Just hard work and dedication.
• 26:57
  And I think it's also just doing what you're saying to do.
• 27:00
  Be honest with people.
• 27:03
  They love calling.
• 27:03
  They love.
• 27:05
  I call it scarred.
• 27:08
  Yeah.
• 27:10
  If you go around bullshitting, lying or conniving or stealing or doing whatever or you're just doing it on the shortfall.
• 27:15
  We're in a marathon, not a sprint.
• 27:17
  A lot of people in life, they get to a point and they stop.
• 27:21
  As the old saying goes, it's easy to get on top of the mountain.
• 27:24
  It's harder to stay there.
• 27:25
  And that's kind of how life is.
• 27:27
  I mean, I know a lot of friends of mine that are past and current friends that made it, and all of a sudden today they're broke.
• 27:33
  Why?
• 27:34
  Poor decisions.
• 27:35
  Whether it be because they got lazy, they married the wrong woman, they drank drugs, whatever got in their way.
• 27:41
  But if you just enjoy life and just continue working as hard today as you did yesterday, and don't forget where you came from.
• 27:48
  I think a lot of people forget that.
• 27:50
  And I always try to keep it simple.
• 27:52
  I don't complicate nothing.
• 27:53
  I.
• 27:54
  My staff, I've always looked.
• 27:56
  I like people are long shots.
• 27:58
  I love long shots.
• 27:59
  If I hire somebody tomorrow with a master's degree, they expect a couple hundred thousand dollars a year.
• 28:03
  They're going to dictate when they're going to work.
• 28:05
  They have choices.
• 28:06
  But if I hire from the ghetto still, and I still do, I hire, manage, I'll train them.
• 28:10
  I can train you to become anything and anyone if you want to.
• 28:13
  And once you're here, you get paid a lot of money.
• 28:15
  You're not going anywhere.
• 28:16
  I enjoyed that Prudential.
• 28:18
  Before I sold, I had my staff together for 20 plus years, zero turnover.
• 28:22
  Why?
• 28:23
  I paid people a lot of money.
• 28:24
  I took care of them.
• 28:25
  And people like a Good environment.
• 28:27
  And that's what you have to provide.
• 28:29
  And you can't do it alone.
• 28:30
  You need people.
• 28:31
  And if you go through people or screw over people or don't pay them well, or you take away their benefits or their vacations, they'll look somewhere else.
• 28:39
  And I think that's the key.
• 28:41
  Together, we're strong.
• 28:42
  Separate, who are we?
• 28:43
  Nobody.
• 28:45
  Okay.
• 28:45
  And another thing you mentioned too, where you had a lot of bad days and it felt like you wanted to call it quits, Right?
• 28:51
  And, you know, I asked this to a lot of entrepreneurs as far as.
• 28:54
  Was there ever a time you felt like quitting?
• 28:56
  It sounds like you, you had some of those moments.
• 28:59
  So what, what kept you going when it, when you did feel like quitting?
• 29:04
  I mean, go back to the very first judgment in court.
• 29:09
  You know, we got a judgment against us for $365,000.
• 29:13
  We don't have $365.
• 29:16
  There's no way to pay it.
• 29:19
  The only choice you can do is go bankrupt.
• 29:21
  That's all you can do.
• 29:22
  So I literally went down to the courthouse and I remember contacting a law firm to file personal bankruptcy.
• 29:30
  And we show up in court.
• 29:32
  I look at the walls, I'm like, how did I get here?
• 29:35
  Like, how did I get here?
• 29:37
  Like, this is crazy.
• 29:40
  So I literally walked out of the courtroom that day and went to the law firm that sued me and went seeing the attorney and said, you know, what can we do to fix this?
• 29:50
  He gave me a payment plan and I paid every single quarter myself.
• 29:55
  And I did not file bankruptcy.
• 29:57
  I walked out of that court that day.
• 29:59
  That was the choice I could took the easy road, quit, or again, man up and go see who I violated and that trusted me.
• 30:09
  And I broke the non compete and pay the piper, and I paid the piper.
• 30:13
  That's just one of a good instance of quitting.
• 30:16
  You got to get back up.
• 30:17
  You can't feel sorry for yourself.
• 30:18
  A lot of people feel sorry for themselves and they'll tell you, I had an addiction or I had this problem or that problem.
• 30:25
  Well, we all got problems.
• 30:27
  I mean, get over yourself and get over your problems and quit making excuses and get up.
• 30:31
  I don't think there's a person in the world that has been successful that can't have bad stories.
• 30:37
  We all have bad stories.
• 30:39
  Just try to get more good than bad.
• 30:41
  All right, just last question before we wrap here.
• 30:44
  Greg, you've had an incredible entrepreneurial journey.
• 30:50
  Looking back on it, what's been the best part?
• 30:55
  Developing people.
• 30:56
  When you have people that you met that had nothing and you build them into something that's gratifying.
• 31:03
  So it's not just doing it for yourself or you have money or cars or houses or whatever.
• 31:08
  So do they.
• 31:09
  So you see people that had nothing turned into something.
• 31:11
  You're proud of that.
• 31:14
  Okay.
• 31:15
  All right.
• 31:15
  So Greg, if people want to learn more about this book and go get it again, it's coming out March 17th called more than Just Luck.
• 31:22
  Where can they get the book?
• 31:25
  Right.
• 31:25
  My website, GregWeird.com it's on Amazon March 17th.
• 31:29
  It's both an audio and book format.
• 31:33
  Okay.
• 31:33
  All right.
• 31:34
  We will link all that in the show notes for everyone.
• 31:36
  All right.
• 31:36
  Well, Greg, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and sharing all this valuable wisdom from your journey with our listeners.
• 31:42
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 31:44
  I appreciate you having me.
• 31:45
  Thank you, Sam.