Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / From Addiction to Success: David J. Greer's Journey of Growth & Sobriety

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From Addiction to Success: David J. Greer's Journey of Growth & Sobriety · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:00
  Have you ever found yourself pouring everything into your entrepreneurial dream, but still feeling a gnawing emptiness or battling the creeping shadows of addiction?
• 0:10
  It's a struggle far too many face, and often in silence.
• 0:14
  But what if I told you finding true fulfillment isn't just a pipe dream, but an achievable goal?
• 0:21
  This episode is for every entrepreneur who has felt overwhelmed by the responsibilities of leadership, crushed under the weight of business pressures, or faced inner demons that seem to take the joy out of their achievements.
• 0:35
  Today we sit down with David J.
• 0:37
  Greer, a seasoned entrepreneur, coach and Author with over 45 years of experience who has walked this path himself.
• 0:46
  David's journey is one of triumph and transformation, guiding us through his early fascination with computers and business, his rise and fall with the global software company, and his battle with alcoholism.
• 0:59
  Through it all, David has emerged as a beacon for entrepreneurs, focusing on helping them not just succeed, but thrive both in business and in life.
• 1:10
  In this episode, you'll discover actionable strategies to align your business with a compelling future vision and navigate complex challenges that come with entrepreneurship, especially those related to addiction and mental health.
• 1:25
  David will share his powerful insights on why enjoyment in your entrepreneurial journey is non negotiable and how having a clear vision can help overcome fears and challenges.
• 1:37
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:42
  Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Beyond Fulfillment podcast.
• 1:47
  I'm your host Dave Gulas and this week my guest is is 45 year plus entrepreneur coach and author, David J.
• 1:57
  Greer.
• 1:57
  Welcome David.
• 1:59
  Thanks for having me.
• 2:00
  It's great to be here today.
• 2:02
  Yeah, I appreciate you taking the time.
• 2:05
  You know, as I mentioned, you've had a long history as an entrepreneur.
• 2:09
  Could you, for the audience, just, just give us your, your backstory and how you got into becoming an entrepreneur.
• 2:16
  Yes.
• 2:17
  So when I was in grade eight or nine, I had some experiences where I just had this vision where I knew I wanted to take business and computers and put them together.
• 2:28
  And this is way back, like in the mid-70s when computers weren't as common as they are today.
• 2:34
  And I went to university to get my computer science degree.
• 2:38
  And when I was in second year, a friend of mine referred me to an MIS management information systems manager for the largest cable company in the Vancouver area.
• 2:49
  And I got hired as a summer student and while there I got to work with a brilliant consultant programmer entrepreneur who was rewriting this system for the cable company that, that wasn't scaling, it wasn't working.
• 3:04
  And I worked with him for, I don't know, 18 months or so.
• 3:07
  And about the time I got hired by the cable company, this consultant, Bob Green, with his wife Annabelle, founded a software company, Robel, named for the concatenation of their two first names, Robert and Annabelle.
• 3:23
  And in fourth year, I joined their company as the first employee after the two founders.
• 3:30
  And as part of my employment, I had to agree to submit an abstract to the Hewlett Packard User Group, International User Group meeting.
• 3:37
  That was happening.
• 3:40
  And that abstract was accepted and I had to write the paper.
• 3:43
  And I took a week off of university to fly to San Jose where I gave my first presentation.
• 3:48
  And I was 22 years old, standing up on the San Jose convention floor telling a bunch of computer geeks about this cool software and what it could do for them.
• 3:58
  And decade or two later, I found that that's kind of the essence of sales.
• 4:04
  But I was just a computer geek, like helping other computer geeks.
• 4:08
  And I like the place.
• 4:10
  I stayed 20 years and built it into a global powerhouse.
• 4:15
  And we had various corporate kind of structures.
• 4:19
  You know, kind of four or five years in, we started an R D company that I owned half of and became president of.
• 4:24
  And then Annabelle wanted to retire.
• 4:27
  I bought her out.
• 4:28
  We folded the R D company back into the parent company and I became partners with Bob for 10 more years.
• 4:36
  And then 20 years in, we had specialized in a very particular computing platform from Hewlett Packard, and we knew kind of the end of that market was coming, but not exactly when.
• 4:49
  And Bob and I had a huge disagreement about the future strategy of the company.
• 4:54
  He wanted to just let go half the employees and just milk the market until the last customer left and closed the door.
• 5:01
  And I wanted to, like, take a little more risk, a little more money and move.
• 5:05
  Like.
• 5:05
  We built an incredible team and I wanted to move it into new areas.
• 5:10
  I think both strategies were viable, but they weren't complementary.
• 5:14
  So we had a really.
• 5:16
  I only had one disagreement with, really big disagreement with Bob in 20 years, but it was a doozy and he ended up buying me up.
• 5:24
  And I ended up on the street in early 2001, not noticing there's a dot com meltdown.
• 5:32
  And, you know, I'm busy, like chasing deals.
• 5:34
  And finally someone smarter than me sat me down and said, david, your kids will never be 11, 9 and 5 again.
• 5:41
  Like, do you need to work right away?
• 5:43
  And I'm like, no, I got a pretty good check in my jeans, you know, and I'm not done for life.
• 5:50
  And, you know, with that, I, I literally, if your listeners can imagine a Big, huge light bulb in the most cartoonish way going over my head.
• 5:58
  That was my aha moment.
• 6:00
  And my wife and I decided to commission a sailboat in the south of France.
• 6:05
  And we took our three kids and homeschooled them for two years while sailing 5,000 miles in the Mediterranean.
• 6:14
  So you know, I didn't even realize what a dream it was until we.
• 6:18
  I mean, I've been reading books about long term cruising for a long time and being a sailor since I'd been 12 and we'd already owned a couple sailboats.
• 6:26
  But I had no idea how big that dream was until someone pointed out there was an opportunity to do something different.
• 6:37
  So after that I came back, I did three years of angel investing.
• 6:40
  I ended up that was like completely unfulfilling.
• 6:45
  I just found working with young enroll entrepreneurs, they weren't necessarily young in age, although many of them were.
• 6:53
  You know, again like Bob and I, we grew this company by the seat of our pets.
• 6:57
  And like, you know, I'm 25 years old, I've probably already gone to 15 trade shows.
• 7:01
  I have given, you know, multiple, multiple technical presentations to, you know, relatively big audiences, 75 to 100 people.
• 7:11
  And you know, being on the trade show floor, you know, selling software, I've been listening to people's requests for enhancements and asking them if I did that, would they buy the product?
• 7:23
  You know, and it turns out that's, you know, the essence of product management.
• 7:28
  So I had all these skills and it was just hard to bring these young CEOs up the ladder.
• 7:33
  And eventually I hired a brilliant coach, Kevin Lawrence, on my 50th birthday.
• 7:40
  And we started working together and we got kind of things rolling in my career and we cleared the table of kind of all the other clutter.
• 7:51
  And the only thing left was my biggest challenge, which was on January 27, 2009, I admitted to coach Kevin I had a drinking problem.
• 8:03
  And he had.
• 8:04
  Kevin doesn't have a problem with alcohol, but he has friends who were in 12 step recovery.
• 8:11
  And so he coached me to go to a 12 step recovery meeting and that that date is actually a Tuesday.
• 8:18
  And I committed to him to go to a meeting by that Friday.
• 8:23
  And being the overachieving individual that I am, I was going downtown that evening for a technology networking event presentation and it finished at 8.
• 8:35
  And I looked online and lo and behold, there was going to be a 12 step meeting a quarter of a block off the road.
• 8:41
  I was going to drive by on my way home.
• 8:44
  And it started at 8:30.
• 8:47
  And I went to that meeting and that was the, the day before was the last day I took a drink.
• 8:54
  And now I've been over about 15 years, 10 months and six days sober.
• 9:00
  And I made that home, that group, my home group.
• 9:03
  And it's still my home group today.
• 9:04
  In fact, tonight is a Tuesday and I'm going to be there at 8:30 and there'll be at least two or three people there tonight who were there the night that I walked in for the first time.
• 9:15
  So.
• 9:15
  And with Kevin's help, I, I did a bunch of senior executive gigs, usually in senior marketing and sales positions, but it was always working with entrepreneurial friends of mine and kind of behind the scenes I was helping work
• 9:27
  with strategy.
• 9:29
  The last of those was VP of Marketing for a 35 million a year publicly traded company in the telematics space.
• 9:36
  That's devices like you bolt to your truck or your car and you track in real time for fleet management and for a whole bunch of ways to improve efficiency.
• 9:47
  And I came out of that gig and I realized I'd worked as hard in my mid-50s as I'd worked in my entire career.
• 9:54
  And I committed to myself that I wasn't going to work that hard again.
• 10:00
  So that was kind of a big, huge, pivotal turning point.
• 10:03
  And I also decided that, you know, I'd had this gift of sobriety and so many other gifts from Coach Kevin that I decided, like him, to become an entrepreneurial coach.
• 10:15
  And so that was, I guess about nine years ago now.
• 10:19
  And I started my coaching practice and sharing my experience, strength and hope, both in business to entrepreneurs and also in recovery.
• 10:31
  And I specialize in helping entrepreneurs who may be challenged with alcoholism and, or addiction.
• 10:37
  So there's 45 years compressed into, I don't know, 10 minutes or so.
• 10:44
  Yeah, well, I appreciate, I appreciate the long history and yeah, quite a journey.
• 10:48
  There's a lot I want to get to within that.
• 10:51
  Let's, let's start kind of, you know, for.
• 10:54
  In the early stages.
• 10:56
  So you're in the software space.
• 10:59
  Right.
• 11:00
  Early on.
• 11:01
  I mean, this is late seventies.
• 11:04
  Yeah.
• 11:04
  Early eighties.
• 11:05
  Early eighties.
• 11:05
  Early eightties.
• 11:06
  Okay.
• 11:07
  So thinking about where computers were at this point, I mean, not nothing like today.
• 11:12
  Right.
• 11:12
  Like, correct.
• 11:14
  To, to start a company in that space.
• 11:17
  Right.
• 11:17
  Being so young, out of school and, and having, you know, having some partners.
• 11:21
  I mean, what was it like at that time in terms of, was there a vision about what, what this technology could be and, and what it would evolve into in terms of like.
• 11:31
  Yeah, I don't know if we, I mean, there was just a fundamental shift going on in the marketplace where IBM had had these really massive big mainframe computers that cost many, many millions of dollars.
• 11:43
  And Hewlett Packard along with the other group, many other companies invented these mid sized computers which only cost like half a million dollars, which by comparison was like a deal.
• 11:57
  However, they were risky because like if you bet on IBM, you never lost your job if you like bet on IBM if you're an IT manager.
• 12:05
  But like when I first joined Roel, Tila Packard was like the 49th largest computer manufacturer in the US.
• 12:13
  I mean when they shut down the HP 3000, they were probably top three or four.
• 12:19
  So this mini computer was what they were called market was just growing by great leaps and bounds.
• 12:26
  And we tied our success to HP's growth in that area because we specialized in the computer that they made, which turned out to be a great bet.
• 12:37
  And we became very, very specialized in that area.
• 12:40
  Like we were global thought leaders on that computing platform.
• 12:45
  Like, and we were known as the go to guys who knew the answers or if we didn't know the answers, we knew who had the answers and we could refer you on.
• 12:53
  And we, we built that thought leadership through writing papers and traveling and presenting.
• 13:00
  And fortunately HP was very successful with that computer.
• 13:03
  Sold it to a lot of businesses.
• 13:05
  Kind of 100 million to 500 million a year revenue kind of companies is used to track really boring things like customers orders, shipping, like just the core parts of businesses.
• 13:19
  And then we, I mean we had, I don't know, probably six or seven product lines when all was said and done.
• 13:26
  But two of them were hit it out of the park, home runs.
• 13:30
  Okay.
• 13:31
  And, but for us, I think we were just, we were having so much fun.
• 13:34
  Like, like we weren't, you know, I'd like to say because now I do a lot of work with entrepreneurs around strategy, you know, and strategic planning.
• 13:44
  Um, I mean we did have a strategy like specialize in the HP computer system, write some of the best software for that platform and solve real problems for real people.
• 13:57
  And, and they'll pay us money for that.
• 14:01
  Yeah, and that's such a great point.
• 14:03
  And like, so when you're on that in the middle of that and you're growing this company, it's an emerging industry.
• 14:11
  You're, you're aligned with hp, which is a growing company, kind of a disruptor in the market at that time.
• 14:17
  Absolutely.
• 14:17
  Yep.
• 14:18
  And like you said, right.
• 14:19
  You weren't, you were just having so much fun.
• 14:22
  Right?
• 14:23
  Like how important do you think it is for an Entrepreneur how important it is to really have fun and enjoy what you're doing to.
• 14:31
  To be successful.
• 14:35
  Yeah.
• 14:35
  So my, my pushback to that is why bother if you're not, like, life is too short.
• 14:43
  I'm not saying it's going to be fun all the time, but most of the time you gotta enjoy it.
• 14:49
  Like, and, and sometimes, like, it's in.
• 14:52
  You have to see it in hindsight, like, you're torquing up against really tough business challenges or technical challenges.
• 14:58
  And like, it feels like, you know, you're climbing a mountain of slippery mud and every step forward is like two steps back.
• 15:07
  But, you know, when you get to the top of the mountain and then you get some time away from it, like, you really realize that you were really were actually enjoying the journey of something so hard and being
• 15:17
  able to overcome it.
• 15:20
  I encourage entrepreneurs that I coach to take some more pleasure in the moment.
• 15:25
  Like, to be able to pull back and, like, see it for more than just slipping in the mud.
• 15:32
  And like, you know, I, I'm coming up to a busy time of facilitating two day annual planning sessions with my clients who I facilitate for.
• 15:41
  And, you know, the number one expectation I set down every time that I start a facilitation session is let's have fun.
• 15:50
  Like, you know, building a business should be fun.
• 15:53
  We should be able to share a few laughs.
• 15:56
  You know, if you're not in medical or health, like, no one's going to die because you, you made a wrong decision.
• 16:03
  Like, sometimes it's almost like people are so serious, it's like, lighten up.
• 16:09
  Like, you know, it's, yeah, it is the future of your business, but, like, no one will die today by the decision that you made.
• 16:18
  So.
• 16:19
  And you know, when I was running Robel, if we had a really tough client problem and I walked by the boardroom and, you know, staff members were meeting to, like, try and figure out what our response should be,
• 16:30
  which didn't happen very rarely, but if it did, you know, if I heard laughter coming out of the boardroom, it's like, yeah, we're on the right track.
• 16:38
  Like, we're gonna figure this out because we can still take a really serious issue and something that, you know, is really important, but we can still sit back and, like, see the bigger picture or have a laugh about,
• 16:52
  you know, how we're behaving in this moment.
• 16:56
  And so I really encourage that.
• 17:00
  Yeah, I mean, agreed.
• 17:01
  Right?
• 17:01
  Business should be fun.
• 17:02
  Especially you're building a company with other people.
• 17:04
  You want to be able to have laughs and you know, clearly.
• 17:08
  Right.
• 17:09
  You know, take care of the job at hand, but enjoy what you're doing for sure.
• 17:13
  And, you know, one of the things I coach around.
• 17:14
  If I'll just interrupt for one sec.
• 17:16
  So I have this policy of anytime I start a meeting, I start with a win.
• 17:21
  Like, just go around the room and just say, tell me one thing that's going well today or it's been good in the last 24 hours.
• 17:28
  Like, even professionally or personally, it doesn't matter.
• 17:31
  And it changes the whole tone of the meeting when you do that.
• 17:35
  Like, when you start with the wins, it's like it reframes.
• 17:39
  The challenges never seem quite as big when you've acknowledged something good or something you've achieved recently.
• 17:49
  So I really encourage people to consider that for their meetings.
• 17:53
  Start with the win.
• 17:54
  Start with the win.
• 17:55
  Okay.
• 17:57
  All right.
• 17:57
  And when you sold, right, so your partner bought you out and like, you said, you were looking for something to do next, and someone sat you down and said, listen, your kids are never going to be this age
• 18:10
  again.
• 18:12
  Like, is it strange.
• 18:13
  Do you look back at that?
• 18:15
  It almost seems strange that it took someone to point that out because is it maybe you were working so hard for so long building this company, and then you get this, this windfall of money and because you're so.
• 18:27
  You.
• 18:28
  Like, it didn't even occur, like, I should just take some years off and enjoy my family.
• 18:32
  Because you was looking for work to do.
• 18:34
  And I think it's.
• 18:35
  Again, you're just so.
• 18:37
  Like, I.
• 18:38
  I mentioned earlier that, you know, I.
• 18:41
  I started my coaching practice because I want to work less hard.
• 18:43
  It turns out for me, not working hard is really, really hard.
• 18:47
  Like, I'm super, super hardwired this way.
• 18:52
  So, yeah, I think it's like, you know, I'd spent 20 years now, we were pretty good.
• 18:58
  I mean, probably in the last five years of running Robel, I took six weeks off a year and, like, went sailing or went traveling with my wife.
• 19:06
  So I think I had a decent work life balance.
• 19:09
  But when I was working, like, I was really working and, you know, being torqued up against a business challenge is like my norm.
• 19:18
  And it's like, yeah, it took someone else to point that out.
• 19:22
  Like, you can actually get away from that for a while.
• 19:25
  It's okay.
• 19:27
  And I.
• 19:28
  Because I think it's just to be my default behavior for so long.
• 19:31
  It just doesn't, like, occur to you.
• 19:33
  And especially to take such a long break.
• 19:36
  And of course, it was, you know, the plan was only go for a year and then in true entrepreneurial fashion, it took twice as long as I expected.
• 19:44
  So what else is new?
• 19:47
  Right?
• 19:47
  Right.
• 19:50
  But yeah, I think just twerking up against business.
• 19:53
  You know, I, I mean, remember, I've been doing this since I was 22.
• 19:56
  I'm still now I'm only like 42, but, you know, I've been doing it nonstop for 20 years.
• 20:05
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• 20:08
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• 20:14
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• 20:16
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• 20:26
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• 20:30
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• 20:36
  It's a long time.
• 20:37
  Yeah.
• 20:39
  All right, so you come back from the sailing trip and then you start angel investing.
• 20:44
  And you said that was completely unfulfilling.
• 20:47
  Yeah.
• 20:48
  And it brings me to another question, like so many times, right?
• 20:54
  Entrepreneurs, they may think that they're going to enjoy something or think this is the way to go, and then they get there and they realize that's this is not it.
• 21:02
  Like, what, what about that was, you know, because the angel investing, of course, you know, appeals to a lot of people and.
• 21:10
  Of course, right, Helping others build their business and sharing your value.
• 21:13
  But what about it was not fulfilling to you?
• 21:17
  I think first of all, the startup part, which is when you're in as an angel investor, the startup part is not what juices me.
• 21:26
  It's not what really makes me go, okay, and even remember when I joined Robel, it was already a successful software business, like two years in, and now it's like, like it's figured out, it's marketing, it's got a product,
• 21:38
  it's selling, and like, we're now like starting to on the growth path.
• 21:44
  And that's, you know, like for coaching.
• 21:47
  I try and only work with entrepreneurs like owner founders who've reached at least a million a year in revenue and have at least 10 to 250 employees.
• 21:57
  Like, that's much more my sweet spot.
• 21:59
  I didn't know that back then.
• 22:01
  And it's just that early stage and working with people so early in role where they're still figuring it out and they're just very, they're not that open to outside suggestions.
• 22:13
  They're very slow to learn.
• 22:17
  Like, I just didn't have the patience for It.
• 22:19
  And.
• 22:20
  And then, you know, the renumeration was like, options, and I already am high risk because I put my money in, and now, you know, the compensation is all in options, more high risk.
• 22:33
  And.
• 22:34
  Yeah.
• 22:34
  So, I mean, I was doing a lot of stuff.
• 22:36
  I probably looked at at least 100 deals a year and typically invested in about one.
• 22:43
  So I learned a lot about business and business models and presentations and how to do good angel presentations.
• 22:49
  But, you know, I met Coach Kevin at a training event with a guy called Vern Harnish, which I'd taken one of my young CEOs to, and he was a coach at the back of the room.
• 22:59
  And I went and talked to him, and he made me more uncomfortable in, like, two and a half minutes than I'd been in four or five years.
• 23:06
  And I had, like, a tear in the corner of my eye just from a couple questions he asked me.
• 23:11
  And I didn't realize how unfulfilled I was.
• 23:15
  So I didn't know I wanted to go sail for two years till, you know, this person suggested it to me.
• 23:23
  And I didn't really know how unfilled, fulfilled I was angel investing until Kevin asked me some questions.
• 23:28
  And then, like, I just realized that this.
• 23:33
  This is not working.
• 23:35
  Okay.
• 23:36
  So, you know, some.
• 23:37
  I.
• 23:38
  You know, one of the things I really coach and talk about is as entrepreneurs and as.
• 23:44
  So as alcoholics, it's really, really hard for us to ask for help.
• 23:47
  And as entrepreneurs, is really, really hard for us to ask for help.
• 23:51
  Like, we got there usually by the seat of our pants and, like, twerking away.
• 23:57
  And, like, I meet lots of entrepreneurs, I could help, but they're not open to being helped.
• 24:02
  Like, I can only help people who want to be helped.
• 24:05
  Right.
• 24:06
  Or willing to go down a growth path and consider different ideas and options.
• 24:12
  So, you know, again, Coach Kevin, another kind of transformation point in my life where it was another person who actually was able to illuminate that for me, because sometimes it's just impossible to see it for ourselves.
• 24:25
  Were too close to it.
• 24:28
  Yeah, Yeah.
• 24:29
  I mean, reminds me of that quote.
• 24:30
  You can't see the picture if you're in the frame, right?
• 24:33
  Yep.
• 24:34
  You got it.
• 24:35
  All right.
• 24:36
  So you.
• 24:36
  You make this transition to coaching, and then a big piece of that is the addiction recovery.
• 24:44
  So let's get into that.
• 24:45
  How?
• 24:45
  When.
• 24:46
  When you made the decision to get sober?
• 24:48
  I mean, how big of a problem was it for you at that time?
• 24:53
  Getting sober is the single biggest achievement of my entire life.
• 24:58
  And every single morning, I have to get up and I have to repeat the single biggest achievement of my life.
• 25:05
  Like, I never get to rest on my laurels, right?
• 25:08
  It's, it's a one day at a time thing.
• 25:11
  And, and that's really just the power of the drug.
• 25:14
  Like that's alcoholism, powerful drug on the planet.
• 25:18
  It's just socially acceptable.
• 25:20
  And it's not talked about as the most powerful drug on the planet.
• 25:23
  If you drink enough alcohol over time, you will get addicted, period.
• 25:28
  Whatever your family background is, it's an addictive drug.
• 25:33
  So again, like, it is the biggest achievement of my life.
• 25:37
  And I have to repeat that achievement every single day, which, that's what I sign up for.
• 25:42
  That's what I sign up for one day at a time.
• 25:45
  And I know how hard it is, and I know how hard it is, you know, kind of times, whatever it is, times 5 or times 10 to be an entrepreneur.
• 25:56
  And especially if alcohol is involved in your business in any way, in your networking and your sales, like a lot of high end sales, you know, complicated sales process.
• 26:07
  You know, it's common for the CEO to have to fly down, you know, and have a big dinner, you know, as you're getting close to closing, you know, with the VP of finance or with, you know, just a
• 26:21
  big team.
• 26:22
  And it's.
• 26:22
  And you know, I had one of my clients a couple years ago who was not an alcoholic, but he, he went to one of these things to close a deal and he said, you know, everybody had two, three
• 26:33
  dinks before dinner and then everybody.
• 26:34
  And we had a bottle of wine each at dinner.
• 26:38
  And you know, he said, is, is that alcoholic?
• 26:41
  And I said, I.
• 26:42
  I don't know if anyone there was alcoholic.
• 26:44
  It's definitely alcoholic drinking.
• 26:46
  I mean, it would qualify under alcohol use disorder from the NIH A, which is the American National Institute of Health.
• 26:55
  Addiction, alcoholism and addiction.
• 26:59
  I forget what the final A stands for.
• 27:02
  Like that, that's actually the definition.
• 27:05
  It is more than five drinks in a single sitting more than once a month.
• 27:12
  And I'm pretty certain all those people at that dinner did it more than once a month.
• 27:17
  And so like for him, like he felt uncomfortable, he didn't want to drink that much.
• 27:23
  But imagine if you're an alcoholic and now you've got sober, now you still have to go close those deals.
• 27:28
  And now you're like surrounded by these senior people who have full expectation that you're going to partake in the drinking.
• 27:36
  Like it just brings a lot of challenge.
• 27:39
  So I help coach people with strategies for how to cope with situations like that.
• 27:44
  Okay.
• 27:45
  Or how to go to networking events, like local networking events that, you know, like, entrepreneurs are often wooed by all sorts of organizations who want to get access to them and oftentimes with a lot of free boots.
• 28:00
  Yeah, yeah.
• 28:01
  And listen, every trade show I've ever been to.
• 28:04
  Right.
• 28:04
  There's a cocktail hour and things.
• 28:07
  Exactly.
• 28:08
  Right.
• 28:08
  It's.
• 28:08
  It's just like you said, it's just part of the deal.
• 28:11
  Right.
• 28:11
  It's socially acceptable and it's.
• 28:15
  Right.
• 28:15
  It's just what people do.
• 28:17
  And so how, like you, you obviously coach entrepreneurs and you help people with this.
• 28:24
  How.
• 28:24
  How big of a problem, I guess, is that out there in terms of people that are building their business and struggling with this addiction?
• 28:36
  I've tried to do, I've done a lot of research to try and find.
• 28:40
  Is there data.
• 28:41
  Are entrepreneurs more likely to have alcohol use disorder than the rest of the population?
• 28:46
  As far as I can tell, there is no data to tell us that one way or another.
• 28:49
  What I can tell you is that roughly 10% of the population have alcohol use disorder.
• 28:55
  So even if we take 10% of all entrepreneurs in the United States, that is a heck of a lot of people.
• 29:03
  Right.
• 29:03
  And in my, you know, felt sense, running your own business generally is pretty stressful.
• 29:09
  And so it wouldn't surprise me if entrepreneurs had a higher percentage because they use that as a cope.
• 29:15
  Their coping mechanism for all of that stress.
• 29:19
  Yeah, I.
• 29:20
  I wouldn't.
• 29:21
  I wouldn't be surprised at that at all.
• 29:24
  Okay.
• 29:25
  And so with your practice, your coaching practice, I mean, do you typically have entrepreneurs.
• 29:33
  Is it mainly entrepreneurs that struggle with addiction that you're helping?
• 29:37
  No.
• 29:37
  I mean, people come to me because they have a business problem.
• 29:40
  Like, that's usually how the conversation starts, is they've got some sort of business challenge or they're stuck or they can't grow their business, or there's some aspect of the business is keeping them awake at night.
• 29:52
  And, you know, in.
• 29:55
  In some cases people have, like, heard me on recovery podcasts and they like the fact that I'm in recovery and that they can.
• 30:04
  That's not why they're coming to me, but they know that that's something that if it comes up, we can talk about and they can talk about it safely.
• 30:13
  Right.
• 30:15
  Some people are still, you know, and then some, in some cases, I just attracted people who have this challenge, and it comes up sometimes in coaching calls and sometimes not.
• 30:26
  I mean, I'm first and foremost a business coach.
• 30:30
  I'm not a recovery coach.
• 30:31
  And in fact, if A client, like, were to ask me to sponsor them in my 12 step program of recovery, which has happened, I've said quite clearly, like, either I sponsor you, in which case I'm not your coach,
• 30:43
  or you get someone else as a sponsor from your 12 step recovery and we continue our relationship as a business coach.
• 30:51
  And then, you know, most recovery questions go to your sponsor.
• 30:54
  We still, you know, I still, you know, sometimes with someone who's spend a few years in recovery, when we come to a business problem, I can say, well, which of the 12 steps do you think would apply in
• 31:05
  this case?
• 31:06
  Like, they.
• 31:07
  The 12 steps are a toolkit for living life.
• 31:10
  People think 12 step recovery is about not drinking.
• 31:13
  Putting the plug in the bottle is in some ways the easiest part.
• 31:17
  The hard part is how do I live life with all of its challenges and ups and downs and curves and zigs and zags without going to my solution of choice, which is alcohol.
• 31:28
  And so in 12 step recovery, the 12 steps are a method for you to solve life problems without having to reach for a drink.
• 31:38
  Okay.
• 31:39
  So they applied.
• 31:40
  They apply to every aspect of your life, including your business.
• 31:43
  So, so that just gives us a shared.
• 31:49
  Because, you know, as someone who's worked the steps and is active in their 12 step recovery, I can refer back to that toolkit and it's like the, like, there's a deep connection right away.
• 32:00
  Like, ah, oh, yeah.
• 32:02
  I never thought of applying that in this business case, but it makes perfect sense.
• 32:08
  Okay, that's interesting.
• 32:09
  So you find too that what you learned in the Stealth, the 12 step program has practical application to.
• 32:17
  To business completely unrelated to addiction recovery.
• 32:19
  That same methodology.
• 32:21
  Right, Right.
• 32:22
  Okay.
• 32:23
  Like, you know, one of the deepest learnings from my 12 step recovery is I have no control over people, places and things.
• 32:29
  And what do we have in our business?
• 32:31
  A lot of people and a lot of outside things.
• 32:35
  Right.
• 32:36
  And it's actually really powerful to come to the realization over what you can control and what you cannot control, like a person's personality and how they, you know, react to certain things, you probably.
• 32:49
  You might not ever be able to change that.
• 32:51
  So.
• 32:52
  So you might have to make a decision about whether you want to keep that person or not.
• 32:55
  But it's like, okay, if they're going to be like that, what, what is my response?
• 32:59
  Like, I don't have control over how they react, but how do I.
• 33:03
  But I do have control over how I respond.
• 33:06
  So how do I want to show up for that person in situations like this?
• 33:12
  Yeah, yeah.
• 33:13
  So powerful.
• 33:14
  Right?
• 33:14
  You always have control of your response.
• 33:16
  Correct.
• 33:16
  And you don't have control of most of the rest of it.
• 33:19
  So what do you need to let control of?
• 33:21
  And most entrepreneurs were successful in their business because they were control freaks.
• 33:27
  Like, that's how they got successful.
• 33:31
  And, and that's one of the big challenges, whether you have addiction or alcoholism involved.
• 33:37
  You know, as you grow a business, you need to let go of certain things if it's going to keep growing because at some point, like you can't have your finger in every pie and the business still grow.
• 33:46
  It just, it won't work.
• 33:47
  You, you don't.
• 33:48
  No human being has enough capacity to do that.
• 33:52
  And you know, where, where I, you know, find entrepreneurs get in trouble is they, you know, they say, oh, you know, I hired this great, you know, general manager, but you know, they don't do what I want.
• 34:03
  So like I then explore and it's like, well, how do you instruct them?
• 34:09
  How do you interact with them?
• 34:10
  And it turns out they're trying to micromanage them.
• 34:13
  And the GM might have brilliant ideas for how to go solve a particular business problem, but it's completely different than the entrepr how the entrepreneur does it or thinks about it.
• 34:21
  And, and so as soon as they go down that path, the entrepreneur jumps back in, grabs the controls, does it themselves.
• 34:27
  And now they wonder, well, why is this person not like helping you and working out well?
• 34:33
  Well, because you keep ignoring what they're doing and taking back control.
• 34:39
  But they probably, but they, most cases can't see that.
• 34:44
  And so the coaching becomes.
• 34:46
  Your job is to be clear on what needs to happen and to let go of how it comes about.
• 34:54
  That's why you hire people that are smarter than you because they're actually better at the how than you are.
• 35:02
  But you still have the strategic vision, where you're going and what needs to happen in order to get you to where you want to go.
• 35:11
  So that's like another evolution of entrepreneurship too, right?
• 35:15
  Where in terms of totally okay, that.
• 35:18
  That'S, that's how you grow.
• 35:20
  You know, that's every entrepreneur has to go through that growth path if the business is going to continue growing.
• 35:27
  I, I think, I think you wouldn't be human if you didn't have to go through that at some point around some aspect of your business.
• 35:36
  Yeah.
• 35:37
  And I, I can only imagine it's, it's very counterintuitive for someone that's, you know, maybe been in it 10 years or so versus right.
• 35:46
  Because often with the startup.
• 35:48
  Right.
• 35:48
  And, or a growing Business early on, you have to be involved in everything.
• 35:52
  You have to know how everything works.
• 35:54
  You have to watch everybody.
• 35:56
  You have to, like you said, control freak.
• 35:59
  But then, you know, in terms of growing it past a certain point, you're saying it's this, you know, knowing how and when to let go of certain things, to basically let other people who are better than you or
• 36:14
  do things, certain aspects better than you do what they do best.
• 36:18
  And it's hard because you're afraid the business is going to fail because, hey, I got 10 years, I did all this stuff.
• 36:24
  Look at how successful we are.
• 36:25
  I know this works.
• 36:27
  So there's always some fear, like, because it's going to get done differently, because it needs to get done differently so you can grow into the next level, right?
• 36:36
  And so it's.
• 36:37
  It's about trust.
• 36:38
  It's about hiring people that you actually do trust.
• 36:41
  And.
• 36:42
  But you need to let go of.
• 36:43
  And they might.
• 36:44
  They don't work and they don't operate exactly the way you do because they're different people.
• 36:49
  And if you were really good about your hiring, they're actually better, smarter, quicker, faster than you in the area that you hired them for.
• 36:57
  So let them do their stuff.
• 37:00
  But that, that's like.
• 37:02
  And you know, it's classic.
• 37:03
  It's.
• 37:04
  It's like, okay, I'll let them do their stuff.
• 37:06
  And then, you know, I.
• 37:07
  Two weeks later, I have another coaching call.
• 37:09
  Oh, I grabbed, I grabbed the rope, pulled it all back in, you know, and I'll check in with them.
• 37:15
  And then, you know, you gotta, like, no, you gotta let that go.
• 37:20
  Just remember why you hired them.
• 37:22
  Remember where you're gonna get to if you let them do their stuff.
• 37:25
  Like, again, a lot of coaching is painting a future vision for where you and your business are going to be.
• 37:31
  And then keep reminding you that's your vision.
• 37:34
  And if you want to get there, then you can't keep doing things the way you used to do them or you won't get to where you want to go.
• 37:41
  So what do you want?
• 37:42
  Do you want to get to where you want to go or not?
• 37:45
  Because if you do, then you're gonna have to change some things that you currently do.
• 37:51
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 37:52
  And overcoming that fear and making those changes is easier.
• 37:55
  The more crystal clear.
• 37:56
  I help them make that vision of where they're going, you know, and what that island in the distance looks like and what it's gonna be like when they get there, then the easier it is for them to get
• 38:07
  past fears, to get past some of these Issues because it's like they can almost taste where they're heading for and where they're going to arrive.
• 38:19
  Okay.
• 38:19
  And that's what I think good coaches do.
• 38:21
  Good coaches help individuals and businesses paint crystal clear, you know, visions of where they're heading towards.
• 38:32
  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 38:33
  The vision is so, so important.
• 38:37
  All right, last thing before we wrap up, let's just talk about your book.
• 38:41
  It's called Wind in your sails.
• 38:43
  Wind in your vital strategies that accelerate your entrepreneurial growth.
• 38:49
  And what made you decide to write a book?
• 38:53
  Well, when I came out of my gig with WebTech Wireless, that's where the publicly traded VP of marketing role, I really sensed that, you know, there was this fundamental shift, you know, to how people were buying, how they
• 39:07
  were getting information, which was well on its way.
• 39:11
  So I interviewed more than 40 entrepreneurs, sales and marketing leaders, and I had also been writing blog posts about business, about my ideas in business for probably 10 years.
• 39:26
  So I had more than 100 blog posts and you know, I wanted to share my experience so maybe some other entrepreneurs didn't have to drive into the really big potholes that I'd driven into.
• 39:41
  So I collect it all into, you know, it's kind of a quarter, a theory book of how to think about business.
• 39:47
  Like it's, it's 10 chapters I call strategies, but they're really just fundamental parts of a business, like the entrepreneur themselves.
• 39:56
  Corporate, marketing, sales, product.
• 40:00
  And then, you know, I took those interviews and I took 10 of them and I made them case studies.
• 40:06
  So every chapter ends with a case study of an entrepreneur friend of mine.
• 40:11
  So a third of the content of the book is actually other people's stories.
• 40:14
  So you're not, you don't benefit just from my business experience.
• 40:19
  You're benefiting from, from all these other entrepreneurs experience.
• 40:23
  And then if you are old fashioned like me and you buy the print copy, I did a really good index because my idea is that when you're stuck, you just pull the book down from a shelf, you look
• 40:33
  in the index, you find the appropriate place, you read maybe three, maybe six pages and you'll be unstuck.
• 40:39
  Like you'll have a few ideas of what to do next.
• 40:43
  So like there's a little theory about how you can think about this and then a whole bunch of practical steps you could take to go solve, you know, in each area of the business.
• 40:55
  Okay, all right.
• 40:57
  And we will link, we'll link that too in the, in the show notes if people want to, want to grab a copy or learn more about the book.
• 41:06
  And David, if people want to get in touch with you, find out about your coaching services or, or just reach out to you for, for any other reason, what's the best way people can do that?
• 41:16
  Easiest way is visit my website, which is Coach DJ greer dot com.
• 41:22
  That's Coach D as in David, J as in James Greer dot com.
• 41:27
  The top of every page on my website has my phone number and has my email address.
• 41:33
  So send me an email, send me a text, give me a call.
• 41:37
  And I want your listeners to know that I offer a free one hour coaching call, no obligation.
• 41:44
  If you are stuck on something in your business, reach out to me and let's make time to get together.
• 41:52
  And my commitment is if you spend that hour with me, you'll have three ideas to accelerate your business in the next 90 days.
• 42:01
  All right, we'll link all that in the show notes for everyone as well so they have that info.
• 42:06
  All right, perfect.
• 42:08
  David, thank you so much for, for taking time today and sharing your journey and all this valuable wisdom.
• 42:13
  We certainly appreciate it.
• 42:15
  Thanks so much, Dave.
• 42:16
  It's been fantastic being here with you today.
• 42:19
  All right, and that is all the time we have for now.
• 42:21
  We will see you next time.