Greg Furer on Why Mistakes Are a Good Thing

Episode Transcript
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Doug Smith (00:00):
Hey, leader, and welcome to another episode of
the L three Leadership Podcast,where we are obsessed with
helping you grow to yourmaximum potential and to
maximize the impact of yourleadership. My name is Doug
Smith, and I'm your host. Andwe recorded today's episode in
the Bare Tongue AdvisorStudios. And this week's
episode, you're gonna hear myinterview with my longtime
friend Greg Fear . He is theCEO and founder of Bare Tongue
Advisors. And as I mentioned,he's been one of my closest

(00:21):
friends over the last decade.
He originally came to an eventthat Laura and I hosted through
L three Leadership andimmediately scheduled lunch
with me. And I'll never forgetit, I sat down to lunch with
him and the first thing he saidto me, he said, listen, I have
listened to all 94 episodes ofyour podcast and the last 72
hours. And that was thebeginning of an incredible
friendship. And Greg is one ofthe most interesting people

(00:42):
I've ever met in the entireworld. He is filled with wisdom
and knowledge, and I thinkyou're gonna love this episode.
We talk about everything youcan possibly imagine, and I
think you're gonna fall in lovewith Greg. So enjoy the
conversation and I'll be backat the end with a few
announcements. Well , here wego, Greg. Fear , this has been
long, long overdue. I'm over400 episodes in , I don't know

(01:04):
how I haven't interviewed youyet, , but I think we
were waiting for the studio.
Man. This is a studio. Uh, weare live from the bare tongue ,
uh, studio. Is that what youcall it? Or is it , I'm sure
you have some fancy name forit.

Greg Furer (01:15):
Oh , bar Tongue Studios.

Doug Smith (01:16):
So , uh, but welcome. It's an honor to to
have a conversation with youand with our wealth and and
depth of our friendship, wecould go a billion different
directions, and you have somuch inside of you that I wanna
draw out. And , uh, you're thepresident and CEO of Bar Tongue
Advisors, which we'll talk moreabout later. But I wanna start
really where our friendshipstarted and we met actually at
an L three event, maybebriefly, and you reached out to

(01:38):
me and said, Hey, let's grablunch. I had no idea who you
were. I thought , great, I'llmeet this guy. And I'll never
forget, we sat down at Legendson the North side . And
the first, I don't even know ifyou said hi, you're just like,
I, I followed your podcast andI listened to 79 episodes in
the last three days. I waslike, is that possible
? And uh , and at that momentI'm like, man, there's
something special about thisguy. Talk to us about that
moment. And, and I want to diveinto personal growth, but yeah.

(02:01):
Yeah.

Greg Furer (02:01):
And I'll actually correct that story a little
bit. You're gonna remember thisas soon as I say it . It was
actually the first time youinteracted with , was it email?
And the email that I justlisted all 79 episodes in three
days, was that email , okay ,can we have lunch? And you were
like, is this guy for real?
Right, right. And then we satdown lunch. As soon as we sat
down lunch, it was lunch NorthShore. So I hadn't even gone to
an L three event that point intime. And , and

Doug Smith (02:22):
Oh man , I just blew all of that . No,

Greg Furer (02:24):
No, no , no .
That's , but the reason why wasbecause my, my brother-in-law
had been doing an L three eventand told me to listen to your
podcast to hear a particularspeaker. And then I listened to
one speaker, and then I waslike, well, there's 79 episodes
at that point in time, why notOver the next 72 hours? Um , I
was also, and I think you knowthis, I was in a really bad
place in my life at that pointin time. And so when I need a ,

(02:46):
a little bit of a , a , asomething to jerk behind that
space , uh, it's usuallyleadership podcast. So it came,
you know, God had a , a purposeat that time. But , I
remember, you know, I showed upin my notebook and I
immediately started asking youquestions. And , and I remember
you saying like, a while after,tell somebody else, there was
no small talk. Yes. It wasjust, let's get right down to
it. Right.

Doug Smith (03:06):
Which I love, man.
I mean, I, I felt as soon as wewe met, man , it was like, we
are kindred spirits. And man,you could see the passion and
personal growth for you. Let'sjust get down to business. And
that's actually one I wannatalk about first is, man, I've
been on a personal growthjourney and it's probably my
number one passion in life is Iwanna help other people grow.
Talk to us about your growthjourney, man. What are some
things that you've done andwhat kind of started that
journey in you?

Greg Furer (03:26):
Yeah. You know, one of my , uh, mentors is
actually, funny enough, thisactually happened L three one
day , uh, a mentor of mine andI were talking and he said,
Greg, and I'm speaking in thirdperson, 'cause this is him
talking to me. He said, Greg, Iboiled it down that successful
people, there's one difference.
They just simply make moremistakes than unsuccessful

(03:46):
people. And it's just like youever have , like somebody just
tell you one thing and like alltimes stopped and I can like
close my eyes and go back tothat moment. I know exactly
where I was at L threeone day . Like remember the
temperature of the room. I canremember the conversation I had
right before that, and I waslike, wow, that's the truth.
And so my journey's been ajourney of mistakes. And I

(04:08):
always like to say like, I'vemade more mistakes than anyone
I know. I'm sure there'ssomebody out there that's made
more mistakes, but it's justbeen constant. But I look at
every mistake as a gift fromGod. And so I made mistakes
that led me up to that momentthat you and I met. But had I
not made those mistakes, wewould've never have met. Yeah .
So those battle scars are giftsfrom God that we can learn

(04:29):
from. And then what's awesomeis once we make those mistakes,
it's like touching a hot stove.
You could tell me all you wantnot to touch a hot stove, but
sometimes, and maybe you'rewired differently and you just
listen to rules. I gotta touchthe hot stove for myself to see
if it's actually hot. Yeah. Butonce I touch a hot stove, I
realize , holy crap, that bird,I don't wanna do that again. Or

(04:51):
maybe I would do it differentlynext time. And , and so that's
really been my journey and mygrowth has been , uh, let's go
and try it and see if it works.
So one of the things we say inour team is MVP minimum viable
product, but we talked about80%. If it's 80%, it's ready to
go. And a lot of times welaunch before 80%. So we're

(05:12):
constantly trying to figurethings out by doing, and we'll
get a better lesson than if wesit around and try to
understand at,

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Greg Furer (06:22):
Back at another point in my life, I was really
involved in politics, right? I, I used to love politics. Uh ,
my passion for everything wasaround politics. It's not
anymore. And so I would runcampaigns and I remember as
young staffers on some largercampaigns and running some of
the smaller campaigns, we wouldsit around and try to
understand what the electoratethought. And I couldn't wrap my

(06:42):
head around that. Somebodywouldn't know who their state
representative or state senatoris. . Like, I just
literally, I thought that waslike, people are making it up.
They wouldn't know who theSupreme Court is. Like, come
on, everyone knows that thejustice on the Supreme Court.
So we were sitting in a roomtrying to understand how
somebody that has four kidsthat doesn't care about
politics, what their psychologyis to go into the booth. So the

(07:05):
only way you can figure it outis by testing it. Mm . And I've
tried to bring that in thatjourney into there , uh,
throughout everything I've donewith my leadership. Yeah ,

Doug Smith (07:12):
It's interesting.
Someone recently asked me whenthey were interviewing me for a
podcast, they said, you know ,Doug, what's been the greatest
source of growth in your life?
And again, passionate aboutpersonal growth, you know ,
I've listened to a gazillionpodcasts, audio books , read a
thousand books. But when Ireally reflected on it, man ,
it was the suffering I've gonethrough. It was the failures.
It's just what you're saying.
And , and I know you have asimilar passion for all of
those things, but would youagree, like, would you say the

(07:34):
greatest source in growth inyour life really has been those
failures in those hard times?

Greg Furer (07:38):
I , I couldn't agree more. And Doug, even just
to you, I , you and I havetalked about surround a
campfire the one time, youknow, I, I said like, you gotta
tell your story. Mm . And Iactually told you there was a
leader one time, I told me theywere jealous of the pain you
had in your life. They weredead seriously, because they
were , I don't have that story.
Yeah . But I think what theywere trying to say, and what
they didn't understand is, andthe pain is where there's
growth. The , the , the worstthings that ever happened to me

(08:01):
in my life have always brought,so, like one of the worst
things that ever happened inour lives, we had two failed
adoptions. Mm-hmm . You know ,that painted suffering,
learning to pray over theperson was trying to take my
child away. That changedeverything. Hmm . And it
brought my marriage closer.
Mm-hmm . And maybe a betterleader and maybe a better

(08:23):
husband. And do I wanna gothrough that again? No, but
when I look at mistakes and Ilook at things I would do
differently, there are very fewregrets I have in life because
the mistakes I made made me theperson I am today. Yeah . And
I've been reading leadershipbooks, you know, this ,
uh, I actually can't tell youbecause before my memory I was
leading to , and my daughter'sthe same way , went home from

(08:43):
the hospital. She was listeningto a leadership book. I don't
know when her memory's gonnabe, but there's gonna be a
memory of leadership books. Youknow, she actually came to an L
three event when she was stillonly six months old. We just
had her at Bare TongueUniversity listening to
speakers. Right. I from theyoung age am doing that, but
that's not what led to thesuccess. It's just a tool. Yes.
It's just a tool. What it is,is applying that tool. Doug,

(09:06):
you and I have talked aboutthis. You had a mentor call you
out that you used to read thebooks, but not do the workbooks

Doug Smith (09:11):
. Yep . Yep .

Greg Furer (09:13):
And you know, one of my personal disciplines is I
do a book report at every book.
I I'm not gonna spend four tofive hours of my life on
something and not get ROI outof it. So if I'm gonna read a
book, I'm gonna apply theprinciples to it. And I'm
really big on that. And Ifigured out how to use four
senses. I still haven't figuredout how to do a scratch and
sniff leadership book. Ifanyone's listening to this and
you go and create scratch andsniff leadership books because

(09:34):
the power of smell isimportant, I will buy them. But
figure out how to do anaudible, 'cause I'm an audible
based learner, but like, when Ilisten to a book, I'm listening
to my ears, and then when Iwrite notes, I got touch and I
got sight , and then I talk toothers about the book I've
read. So I'm now evoking all mysenses as I write a book
report. I'm continuing toinvoke my senses so that I can

(09:56):
have that knowledge of thatbook to where I go in the
future. But at the end of theday, you only learn from that
book by applying.

Doug Smith (10:03):
Hmm . Yeah.

Greg Furer (10:04):
Because I, you know, it's the same thing in
the church world. Like, you goand listen to scripture from a
, a pastor talking about achurch, but if you don't go
apply that in your life, it'snever gonna invoke what that
scripture means.

Doug Smith (10:15):
No, that's so good, man. I, I , I was interviewing
this guy named Chad Willerson,and I asked him something like,
Hey, what separates you fromall the other entrepreneurs?
And he just said, I think myability to take action quicker
on the principles that Ilearned , and I'm not afraid to
undo something that I've doneforever. If there's a better
way of doing something, I'mgonna instantly implement that.
And that's just been in my headthat speed of like, Hey, I may

(10:36):
have been, you know, readingbooks and not doing the
workbooks forever, but hey, I'mgonna change that right now.
I'm gonna start doing bookreports like that. That ability
to take action immediately issuch a separator.

Greg Furer (10:45):
Yeah . I have to say this. So a lot of people
when they first meet me, theyhave a different reaction,
right? , there'sactually a mentor who said to ,
to meet Greg Fers , to hate him, know Greg Furs to love him .
But I was like, what does thatmean? Now I kind of get it
right . I have a bad firstbrush , doesn't matter. But one
of the things that people thinkabout me is that I will not
change. Right? Mm . And so wejust slaughter two sacred cows.

(11:05):
That's an EOS term for thethings in your company that you
won't change, right? So weactually created our core
values before our company everstarted, and we just recently
changed one of our core values.
And we have a process we usefor our clients that we just
recently changed. And so, bythe way, I follow him on
LinkedIn, he's a great follow.
Yeah . But that really speaksto me because you have to be
willing to change and trythings. And I think that what

(11:29):
that mentor was saying to meis, they make more mistakes.
It's because they take moreswings. There's a famous Wayne
Gretzky saying, right? You onlymake the shots you take, right?
Yep . You're gonna miss ahundred percent of the shots.
You don't take it . What I seeis people are so afraid to
fail, And we have grace. Graceis not about being safe. Grace

(11:52):
is about taking risks. And Ithink that that is what I, you
know, there's that what I puton a billboard, what my answer
is never gonna be this one, butit , it could be something like
that. Like make mistakes. Yeah.
It just wouldn't settle well .
Right? So that's not my answer,but it's like, man, if we could
just make mistakes, if everyperson could get comfortable

(12:13):
with making mistakes, that'sthe beauty of capitalism. Yeah.

Doug Smith (12:16):
Well that , but why don't people, 'cause they're
afraid, right? They're afraidof what's on the other side.
What if I fail? And theyalways, by the way, think
they're gonna fail. They neverreally think that they'll
succeed you. And we're gonnatalk about mastermind groups in
the power of those. But, youknow, one thing that we
immediately did after we met iswe jumped into a mastermind
group together. We'd beentogether for almost a decade,
which is crazy. Uh, but Iremember you were in the
corporate world, you wereworking a comfortable job. I'm

(12:37):
sure it was comfortable. And ,uh, but you had this dream in
your heart of creating your ownadvisory firm, and we're
actually sitting in the fruitof that. But that was a huge
risk. I mean, that's, no, just,Hey, I'm just gonna leave my
corporate job and , you know,do this. Walk us through that.
Now, you may be prone to, totaking risks mm-hmm
. But I , I feelthere's so many people
listening and watching to this,that they have that dream, but
they're in a comfortable job,their comfortable lifestyle.

(12:59):
And you know, before they knowit, 20 or 30 years are gonna go
by. And , and their biggestregret is gonna be that they
didn't jump. What was that likefor you? And what did you
learn?

Greg Furer (13:07):
Yeah. So I think there's, I am a natural risk
taker, but I'm not a risktaker. I'm a calculated risk
taker. And every entrepreneurI've ever met that's successful
is a calculated risk taker. Sothere's always this, like, you
get this advice a lot of times,leadership books . It's like,
if you think you're ready tolaunch, you're already too
late. And like I, a lot oftimes give that advice to

(13:28):
somebody, but I actually haveto get the advice from mentors
like the opposite. Like, Greg,wait a little bit longer till
you take action. So, I mean,there's always that balance.
You gotta understand. But Ithink the reason why a lot of
people don't take risks, it'ssay they're not prone to taking
risk , is they've never donethe calculation of the risk.
And so there's a famous storyyou love to tell that John

(13:50):
Maxwell tells about a gentlemanwho walked up to John Maxwell
after speaking with that ,said, I wanna do what you do
for a living. Yep . He says , Iunderstand you wanna do what I
do for a living, but do youwanna do what I did to get
here? Right. And I'm probablybutchering that up a little
bit. No,

Doug Smith (14:03):
That's it.

Greg Furer (14:03):
But the , but the , the key here is the price you
want to pay. And so we talk alot about this in our
mastermind group. What's theprice you're willing to pay,
right? What's the price, thecost of discipleship to follow
Christ ? What's that? What'sthe price you're willing to
pay? Here's the problem. When Isay calculate it, there would
be more entrepreneurs in thisworld if you could tell them

(14:24):
exactly what that calculationis. Hmm . I remember sitting in
a room with my wife saying ,we're gonna take our entire
life savings. We're gonna dumpit in this business based upon
this dream. Right. And, and ,and I told her all the reasons
why I felt led to do it. And Iwent through her. Dad was an
entrepreneur that left a bignice job and, and started his

(14:46):
own business. And so was mydad. We lived that life. We
lived where, you know, therewas times where we had to pull
back and some of the spendingin our family and , and things
we couldn't get because of theentrepreneurial life, but she
still didn't fully understandit till six or seven years
later. Mm . Because you can'tultimately calculate the price.
So calculated risk doesn't meanI know what the price is. It

(15:10):
means I have an expectation ofwhat the price is. So I think
that a lot of people when they, they start doing this
calculated risk, they wannaknow by definition, it's not
risk if you know what it is. Soyou could be all the
probabilities in the world , itdoesn't matter. Like if I know
that that plane's gonna godown, I'm not gonna get in a
plane, but there's a chanceevery time I get a plane, even

(15:32):
though it's the safest form oftravel, by definition, it's
risk. Risk is what you do notknow. Hmm . So when I say it's
calculated risk, you just havean expectation of what could
happen. So I think what, what Iwant leaders to hear out there
is when you're afraid of takingrisks, it's because you haven't
looked at what thepossibilities , what does

(15:52):
paying a price, what could itpossibly look like? Yeah. But
you'll never know until you paythe price. That question mark
of what price. And so what youhave to ask yourself, it's not
a number what price I'm gonnapay. It's what pain, what is my
threshold of pain that I'mwilling to endure? So I just

(16:14):
talked to a leader last weekthat was talking about
launching your own business.
And I said, how passionate areyou about that? And I said,
well, I really like this. Isaid , ask how knowledgeable
you are . Ask what skill setsyou're, how passionate are you
about this? If you literallyget to the point where like,
you are frustrated every dayand you hate what you're doing,

(16:34):
are you so passionate aboutthat purpose that you're gonna
go through it? That's whatpaying the price is. It's how
much pain you're wor willing toendure. And that's what that
entrepreneurial leap of faithfelt like to me. You know, I I
could never completely quantifyit, but my wife and I burned

(16:55):
the boats. Yeah . And we said,we are going to do this no
matter what the price we haveto pay. That's what making that
leap of faith feels like. Andhas it been easy? No, it has
not. There's been many times Iwanna quit many times along the
way. And , and , and I think alot of times you look at people

(17:15):
that made the , the leap andyou see them successful. I was
just talking to a verysuccessful business owner that
has a business that a lot ofpeople envy and telling me that
times are so tough that he'snot taking a pay from his
business. That he's taken allthese cuts. But from the
outside, this person's had abusiness for 15 years. That is

(17:37):
from all purposes anunbelievable business. Gino
Wickman always talks about the10 year business cycle. You
ever heard of that? Mm-hmm . SoGino Wickman talks about a 10
year business cycle. There'sgonna be two terrific years.
Like it's gonna beunbelievable. I can't believe
we blew our numbers outta thewater. We don't know how we did
it. Right. There's gonna be sixgood years or average years,

(17:57):
and there's gonna be twohorrific years. Like you're
actually on the verge ofbankruptcy. You are on the
verge of collapsing. And it'salmost like you can set your
watch that over 10 years. Youjust don't know when they're
gonna come. Maybe those twocome right in away for a lot of
businesses. It was covid in thelast 10 years. Right. The covid
shutdown . Yeah . You're gonnahave those. So how do you
handle those two terribleyears? That's the price you're

(18:20):
gonna pay.

Doug Smith (18:21):
Yeah. And Greg, I know you're what, six or seven
years into this journeyyourself? So it's not like
you've been doing this fordecades, but you've mentioned
there's many times that you'vewanted to give up. And man , I
see so many leaders give up waytoo early. In fact, I , I close
every episode by saying thesame thing. I said, leader,
don't quit. Keep leading theworld. Desperately needs your
leadership. And I absolutelybelieve that the world needs
more leaders who are tenaciousand won't quit and will go to

(18:41):
their finish line. What advicedo you have for people or what,
or maybe some practices youhave in your life that have
enabled you in those toughtimes where you do wanna quit
and throwing in the towel?
What's enabled you to pushthrough those and get through?

Greg Furer (18:52):
Yeah. I mean, Doug, you know this, but , um, was it
two years ago roughly? It wasround ash Wednesday. Uh , it's
just how I remember when itwas. Um , I actually was
physically curled up on a ballon my couch. Hmm . Could not
physically move. Not somethingI ever thought would happen to
me. I I had a panic attack. Theweight of the vision of what I
was trying to , uh, achieve inmy, my business. I saw no way

(19:16):
forward. Hmm . And at thatpoint in time, I, I was ready
to throw in a towel. I wasready to give up running my own
business. I was ready to goback to work for somebody else.
The only way I got through thatis first and foremost, by the
grace of God. So, turning toGod in those moments, my yoke
may be heavy, but my burden islight when I give that yoke to

(19:38):
God. Yeah. So that is first andforemost. And if you're not a
person of faith, I would notwanna be an entrepreneur. Hmm .
I always look at, at , at likefunerals and people aren't our
faith. And I just feel like badfor them. Yeah. Because how do
you deal with that without God?
So that's the first andforemost. But God gives us
other gift. And it is people.

(19:59):
Yeah. You know, I think that ,um, I , I had this point where
I , I questioned my faith. Andso during college, after
college, there was a lot ofpain in the church world for
me. I'd seen a lot of badthings happen. And I said ,
organize religious stuff forme. I'm just gonna be , have a
personal relationship with Godand study and study and study.
And I'm glad I went throughthat, by the way. 'cause I
think one, if you don'tquestion your faith, you don't

(20:19):
have strong faith. But two, itled me to study. Like, what do
I believe? Is it 'cause what Iwas taught? Or do I actually
believe this? And , and Istarted studying all these
different faiths, all thesedifferent traditions within my
faith. And I realized one thingall my faith told me was, was I
have to be around otherbelievers. , I gotta be
around a community of people.
Yes . I need a strongcommunity. We weren't meant to

(20:40):
do life alone. That's thisquote that you say all the
time. Yep . That I always loveto say is we were not meant to
do life alone. That's actuallythe core value. We just
changed. Our team was together'cause we're meant to do life
together. Mm-hmm . We do life together. We
celebrate the wins together. Wecelebrate everything in life
together. We also share ourpains together. Right . So the
second thing that , so I gotthe grace of God. The second

(21:01):
thing is people around me. Andso when I was curled up on that
couch, my wife immediatelycalled one of my mentors. She
didn't hesitate. She said, yougotta call Greg. So it was
another business leader Callingme to say, you know what, Greg,
I've been in your shoes. Hmm .

Doug Smith (21:21):
Wow.

Greg Furer (21:22):
And that's what it's been able, I have been
able to build a community ofother leaders that have been
through the leadership pain.
Other entrepreneurs that havegone before me. I stand on the
shoulder of giants is one whatmy , my mentors always say. I
totally agree with that. Like,I've been able to build myself
around with people. And then itdoesn't have to be somebody

(21:45):
that created a Fortune 500company. It doesn't even have
to be somebody that createdsomething. It could be a one
person business. Just somebodythat understands the pain is
willing to listen, believe inyou, be your cheerleader. They
have unconditional love foryou. One of the big things we
say on our team all the time,and , and this comes from a ,

(22:06):
the one of the I we , my wife ,I just did our top 50 most
impactful meals. .

Doug Smith (22:10):
Right . I love that man. I love

Greg Furer (22:12):
It . Uh , the weird just to relive them, right?
Yeah. Oh, it's important. Icould go on and on about the
importance, like a theme of ,of meal. Yeah . Whether you
believe in sacraments or not,but there's a reason why the
sacrament is a meal , right?
Yeah . And just the power ofbeing around other leaders. But
you and I were blessed Yep .
With a meal with Matt Keller.
And you know exactly where itgoes. I do it is my ,

Doug Smith (22:33):
Where did this make it? Yeah. Yeah. Where's this in
the top 50

Greg Furer (22:35):
So much to my wife Sugar. This was number one.
Yeah.

Doug Smith (22:38):
Yeah. It was .
Sorry . Sorry, Amanda. Yeah .

Greg Furer (22:40):
I mean there was other things that like, and I
talked to her . It wasn't likewe had meals where we talked
about our life goals and stuff,but there's just these certain
sense of just like thevibrations happen . And so Matt
Keller shares the comment fullyknown , fully loved, and fully
challenged. And that changedeverything. And , and our wall
here we have, it's a big partof our mantra, it's part of our
4 1 2 vision for our company,is you want want everyone to be

(23:01):
fully known, fully loved, andfully challenged. And what
happens is, we go on about thisin detail, but usually get two
of the three. Right? Yeah . Andso what I want is mentors that
fully love me, that no matterwhat they love me for who I am,
not because of the mistakes,not because of my identity, not
'cause of anything else. Thatthey fully love me. They fully
know the pros of my life andthe cons of my life. They know

(23:24):
where I sin. They know myfailures. And they fully
challenged me. And after thatmentor did, he loved me in that
moment. He knew me in thatmoment, but he also challenged
me in that moment. And that'sthe only way I would survive.
'cause I'll tell you right now,if I didn't have that, I'd be
six feet under the ground rightnow as we speak. Wow. And so

(23:45):
having God one, two, but I'd beremiss when we talk about those
people, the most importantdecision you make in your life.
'cause I don't believe wedecide to follow Christ, but we
could have that conversation.
That's a ,

Doug Smith (23:58):
That's another podcast. That's for another day
.

Greg Furer (24:00):
So I think the most important decision, the most
important decision in your lifeis who you marry.

Doug Smith (24:05):
Yeah, absolutely.

Greg Furer (24:06):
Who , who God is to . And so ultimately that
mentor's only on the phone.
'cause my wife was there. Yes.
That's how I got through that.
And so building this company,my wife has given up at
sacrifice so much. I would makethe argument she's actually
sacrificed more because thefulfillment I get, the passion
that I'm following in mycompany gets me through those

(24:28):
tough times. And I keep tryingto , uh, put this in my wife's
heart that I want her to starta mastermind for the spouses of
entrepreneurs.

Doug Smith (24:38):
Yes .

Greg Furer (24:38):
Yes . Because it is just one of the toughest things
in life to understand. And thenif you work with your spouse as
an entrepreneur, she talksabout all the time, like she
knows things about the companythat she shouldn't because
she's my spouse. .
Right. And then like, she hasto go to these environments
and, and , and what she issacrificed to follow our dreams

(24:59):
to make the life that we wanttogether. It's, it is, it's one
of those things I always tellyounger people, yes. Like,
whatever you do, pick a spousethat is your team member.
Because once God yolks youtogether, that's everything.
It's more important in yourchildren. It's more important
in your business. It's moreimportant than anything. Yeah.

Doug Smith (25:19):
I mean, mentor told me once, you know, marriage is
the closest thing to heaven orhell you'll ever experience on
this earth. And he couldn't bemore. Right. And,

Greg Furer (25:25):
And , but sometimes it's both. Right. ,
,

Doug Smith (25:27):
Uh , speak for yourself, . I'm just
joking. But , uh, I mean, evento think and grow rich with
Napoleon Hill, like that is oneof the key attributes. Like you
have to have the right spouse,but even bigger than that,
broader, like you said, it's ,it's all about community. It's
one of our values here at Lthree community. No leader
should do life alone, but incommunity. And I remember
reading a stat that really,again, part of me driving to

(25:48):
build L three leadership washearing Henry Cloud say that
he, he meets with executivesall over the country. He
believes he's 80% of leadersdon't have one single, not not
a couple. One single personthat they can confide in and
and that fully knows them,loves them, and challenges
them. And I just wanna saythank you personally. You've
been a friend like that in mylife. I don't always love the

(26:09):
challenge part with you , because you're a challenge
sometimes a capital

Greg Furer (26:12):
C challenge , right?

Doug Smith (26:12):
Yeah. Yeah . Greg's a challenger by nature. But you
always speak the truth andlove. And I know I could go to
a hundred other people and theymay pat me on the back and say,
great job, but you're actuallygonna give it to me straight.
Which I so appreciate. Um, butbeyond your spouse, can you
just talk more about the powerof being in a mastermind group?
You've been in several , uh,kind of different groups. Why,
you know, I tell leaders, Ibelieve every leader on the
planet and their spouse, toyour point, should be in a

(26:34):
mastermind group. Uh, I've beenone for 10 years. It's been so
helpful. Why are theyimportant? And what's been the
impact on your life?

Greg Furer (26:40):
Yeah. I'm just gonna start this with whatever
leaders . Listen to this . Findyour tribe. Yes. Find your
tribe and find it yesterday. II just, man, I , I think the
best explanation of mastermindsever goes back to Napoleon
Hill. Mm-hmm . Uh, in his landmark work. We call
it the gospel according to UhonHill here. Uh, and thinking
grow rich. But there's, hetalks about this vibrations and

(27:01):
we just had this moment. Thisis not a recency bias. The , it
, I had multiple people talkedabout this. So we do our annual
Barton University, and you've ,uh, been here almost every year
except for this year with ,with travel and everything. But
, um, we sat around, there wasthis moment, and I, I very
distinctively remember themoment and I heard God's voice
like, this is our tribe. Wow .
And multiple leaders, thevibrations of your mind when

(27:26):
you're around other leaders hasa multiplication impact that is
not easily able to beexplained. Hmm . But what we
just talked about that beingcooled up on the couch and the
other down moments in my life,it's my mastermind. It's that
tribe that helped me do this.
So as I'm making these leaps offaith and I'm trying to

(27:48):
calculate the risk, how do youcalculate the risk without
other people around you?
Perception is reality. We judgeevery other person by their
actions, but we judge ourselvesby our intent. The only way to
be judged by your actions is tosurround you with a group of
people that will fully knowyou, fully love you, and fully

(28:10):
challenge you. Yes. It is oneof the most important things we
can do in our lives is tosurround us. I don't care what
you do for a living. I don'tcare if you're retired. I don't
care if you don't view what youdo as a vocation and you hate
what you do. You have to havepeople around you . And I think
this's as important to mention,so my wife joined a mastermind

(28:31):
group. Right. It was a thingwhere I asked her to do it and
I said, look dude , for sixmonths, if it doesn't work,
I'll do this other thing foryou. Right. We had a partner ,
right ? Yes . And the reasonwhy she didn't wanna join,
she's like, Greg, I have greatfriends that fully know and
fully love me and fullychallenge me. I don't want more
friends. And I said, there's adifference to your friends
getting together versus abusiness meeting that you are

(28:55):
around with the tent of fullyknowing, fully loving and fully
challenge . It is justdifferent You could do with
your friends. I actuallystrongly believe you should not
do with your friends. Right.
You're that maybe those peoplereplace your friends that
that's not here and or there.
But you have to be around asetting where we are there for
the implicit reason of fullyknow each other. Fully loving ,

(29:20):
fully challenging. We could dosmall talk some other time,
right? Yeah. We could go andhave fun some other time. You
know, with our mastermind, wego and do retreats with our
mastermind. We go and do thingsthat are fun together. Right.
Go on the boat. Right. Go topirates games. Great stuff.
There's time for that. But you, it's a business meeting. It's
Doug Smith Incorporated . It'sGreg Fear Incorporated . It is
your board of directors Yeah .

(29:40):
Of Doug Smith Incorporated .
It's your board directors. AndI believe it so strongly. And
you are the same way. I'm notjust in one type of group like
that. Yep . I'm in five groupslike that. . 'cause I
kick it enough, right? Yeah.
And then I have my own advisoryboard on top of that and other
things I do. And I'm alwayslooking for that because with
wise counsel , right? You , youhave a bunch of wise counselors
around you, your plan succeed,right? Yeah. And that's a , uh,

(30:04):
a play on the proverb rightthere. But it's the truth. And
, and you can't make wisedecisions. And so yes, you
wanna launch an 80%, yes, youwanna launch an MVP, but how do
you get the MVP in 80%? Yeah.
And yes, mistakes are a gift.
But if I could limit some ofthe mistakes and if I could
learn from others' mistakes.
But the last part we're gonnaleave with this is you will

(30:26):
never, ever know yourself aswell as people outside of you.
And that's why you need amastermind. Because nobody can
do it alone. We were designedin our DNA to do life together.

Doug Smith (30:40):
Yeah, absolutely.
And , and John Kotter oncesaid, most people don't lead
their lives. They accept them.
And similar to your point, mostpeople don't even realize
they're drifting through life.
And, you know, once you get ahold that you can live
intentionally, that you can bemore tomorrow than you were
today, that, that you canactually have a life plan and
think about what you want yourlife to look like at the end of
your life. And every day candrive towards that. Like the

(31:00):
excitement that brings in joythat that brings into your
life. And not just into yourlife, into your marriage. I I ,
you know, someone once said thegrowth equals happiness. Like
if you really want your life tobe exciting, grow every day ,
grow in every area of yourlife. And once you start doing
that, I guess this goes backto, you know, our first
meeting. You don't wanna likejust sit around and talk about
nothing. It's like, man, wellhow could we grow? How could we

(31:20):
get better? Like how can wemake a bigger difference? And
like, that's what makes truefriendships so exciting and
this back and forth. 'cause Iknow if I spend an hour with
you at lunch, I'm gonna bebetter as a result of it. And
that is awesome.

Greg Furer (31:31):
Sometimes that's the fun. Yeah. Right . Don't
get wrong . I enjoy fun things.
Right? Yeah. I love going on aboat. You've been on a boat,
but guess what, we're on aboat. What do we end up talking
about? Growth and development,right ? Yeah . Yeah . Because
that's the thing. That's thatvibration. When you get
yourself around other peoplethat think the same way, you
can't help yourself. Uh , oneof my mentors, we call it solve

(31:51):
the world's problems. We gettogether once a month and we
solve the world's problems. Andit's kind of famous. Like my
wife knows about it, his wifeknows about it, our teams know
about it, and we literallycan't help ourselves. It's like
my , one of my favorite dateson the calendars where we get
to go solve the world'sproblems. And we just can't. We
, we literally don't talk aboutour personal lives much at all.
Yeah . He's a lot of peopleclosest to like, we don't know
much about our personal 'causeWe don't care. 'cause it's that

(32:13):
vibrations together and we justwanna whiteboard. Hmm . And we
wanna solve the world'sproblems and we wanna look at
our businesses. How can wegrow? Because ultimately we
wanna build stuff to have abetter impact to change the
world. Wow . And that's like,that to me is something that
you can't get unless you designthat intentionally. That's

Doug Smith (32:31):
Such a fascinating subject for our conversation,
man. I, I might need to addthat to date night for Laura
and I with other couples.
That's awesome. Uh, I want toto dive more into intentional
living. We've been talkingabout personal growth , uh, you
know, in our mastermind groupsyou mentioned we do retreats
and things like that. Andthings that we try to introduce
to leaders in mastermind group.
A few , a few things. One isjournaling. I want to hear your
journaling journey and I'll endup asking five questions. So

(32:53):
let's just stop here. Like, Iencourage everyone to journal.
My mentor encouraged me tojournal in 2004, Larry
Bettencourt . I thought it wasa dumb idea, but I said, Hey,
I'll try. It changed my life.
And I I know you had a similarreaction. So talk to me about
your journaling journey, man.
Yeah.

Greg Furer (33:06):
So I've journaled since I was young. Um , there
was a show called Doogie Hauser, MD .

Doug Smith (33:12):
Yep .

Greg Furer (33:12):
And I, we had a Tandy , if anyone listens ,
remembers a Tandy computer.
Nope . That was very similar towhat he did. We were like, my
dad for some reason put moneyinto technology to better
ourselves. And like we had acomputer before, like other,
but it was like this Tandything and it was like, it was
called Word perfect. And it hadthis cursor, it looked like
Doogie Hower md. And that's howI started journaling because I

(33:33):
wanted to be Doogie Hauser, md.
Okay . Um, and then thatjournaling practice continued
throughout my life.
Sporadically. Like mygrandfather died that time. It
was the toughest thing I'd everdealt with. I journaled through
that. Right. Or sometimes I'dfeel like God was wrestling
something inside of me. I wouldjournal through, but it was
never consistent. Hmm . Andevery once in a while I'd read
a leadership book like , oh ,I'm gonna start journaling. I
wouldn't do it. I triedjournaling by hand. It didn't

(33:56):
really work. And most of thisbecause of Doogie , Hower MD
was on the computer. So Doug,at the point in time where we
met, when we started talkingabout journaling, I was like,
Doug, I journal, I journal whenI need to work through stuff
and it's all on Evernote.
Right. And , uh, you were like,what ? You had your notebook.
Right. And I'm a big notebookguy. My dad was actually buried
in his coffin with a yellowtablet. Huh . Uh , because he

(34:18):
was f so famous for his yellowtablet. I didn't know that. Wow
. Yeah . That's cool. So like,that was like a big thing.
Like, wow . When you ask peopleMom and dad, they would always
talk about the yellow tablet healways had. So it wasn't great
to me. Right. And I've justswitched the remarkable like
two years ago. Yeah . Which isprobably, my wife refers to it
as my my emotionalsupport dog. I don't go
anywhere without it. I'm withyou . It's , it's so important
in my life. It's the same thingas yellow tablet . Right. It

(34:41):
the same part. But youencouraged me to start doing it
consistently and to start doinga notepad. And I remember being
so like, I'm gonna do this justto prove Doug is wrong. Of
course he would . Right . I'mgonna classic . I I literally
wanted to do it to Spitey .
Right. And so it , it ,it transformation transformed
everything in my life. And Iknow distinctively when it

(35:03):
started catching on wasactually spiritual retreat that
we had had together. And , uh,one of our, our mentors talked
about different ways to hearGod's voice. And , um, that
journaling I did in thatretreat changed it to a habit.
But regardless of whether youjournal every day, and I think
this is the thing, and we talkabout , so there's a , a
leader, I don't wanna say theirname, that a lot of people we

(35:24):
know follow that I can't stand.
And the reason go figure thereason why is he's so
formulaic. Yeah. So I, I alwaysteach people, here's the way I
journal, but be a first rateversion yourself, not a second
rate version of me. Yeah.
There's all different types ofways to journal. Yes. There's
these five minute journal appspeople use, whatever it is. The
whole point of journaling isone thing and one thing only.

(35:45):
It's to self-reflect. So Idon't care if you do it on
paper, I don't care if youvoice record yourself. Yeah.
But take it a moment to bestill and look back at what
you've done. Because what youremember without journaling is
different than when youjournal. So that's the reason

(36:06):
why I think it's one of thebest things you can do to grow
as a leader because it makesyou sit down, reflect on your
goals , reflect on what you'vedone, reflect on who you are.
Am I the person that God'scalled me to be? Am I the
person I want to be? And whatdo I wanna change? Because
those mistakes we talked about,those mistakes that God gives
us to empower us in our growthand development are useless if

(36:27):
we don't journal through them.
Yes. So I don't care if you doit where it's like I take five
minutes at the end of the day,begin of the day notepad. I do
believe in the power ofhandwritten. I mean, study
after study keeps showing thatit is much, much better to hand
write something than it is totype. Um, and you can just
Google that. I mean , there's ,there's so many studies on it.
There's just the power of whatit is, but it doesn't matter.

(36:50):
It's that pause and reflect andlooking back on things. So I ,
I have a , a blog on my websiteif you want to see how I
journal. It's in great detail.
Um , I've learned it over yearsand I tweak it almost every
year. And I have one thing toit because I'm journaling
through does this work, doesthis not work? Um , but that
journaling is so vitallyimportant and I encourage

(37:11):
everyone, there's like twothings. I encourage everyone to
try affirmations and journalingand try for 30 days. And if you
come back and it doesn't work,you can punch me in the face.
. Right. And so it does,it just works. Uh , it is so
vitally important and thatjournaling has led to one of
the most life changing thingsI've ever done. Just gonna jump
in . Go, go thing alike. Take it . So , so that

(37:32):
journaling led me to the thingI did next. And I actually just
, uh, ran a group of leadersthrough this yesterday. And
that's the annual report. Andwe know companies, right? I
love us entrepreneurs all thetime that do all these things
for their business and theydon't do for their personal
life. Mm . Wow. Come on . Andit's like, oh , if you're doing
that for maritime , what areyou doing for Greg? Fear in
incorporate , if you're doingthat for L three or Light of
Life, what are you doing forDoug Smith Incorporated ? So

(37:55):
they make these annual reportsfor their business, but they
don't make an annual report forthemselves. Yeah. Now my annual
report, which my processing cango read my blog about it, it
takes three days. I'm actuallyabout to extend to four days to
do It didn't start that way.
Right. And I always encouragethese leaders, I said, just ask
yourself five questions andtake 10 minutes on a piece of
paper. That's all it requires.

(38:16):
Right. So I think it's soimportant. And I know you have
your process that you use. I'vetaken a lot from your process
and then adapted it. You know,my top five favorite
restaurants is one of myfavorite ones. My inner circle,
you know, I look at my mentorsand who's impacted my life that
most. And then I write them athank you card. I have this
whole process I go through. Butthe key is, is you're sitting
there at least once a yearlooking back, one of my

(38:39):
favorite things to do is I ,uh, I use my personal
Instagram. I post the things Iwanna remember from that year.
Mm . That's the only things Ipost on my Instagram so that I
can look at those littlesquares when I'm looking at my
end of year report and I'mlike, oh , that's when Abby
first started skiing. Oh , thisis when she did this. And this
is when, when she did this. Andhaving those memories to look
back on. But it changes your,this is the , this is a recent

(39:01):
not a recency bias, but my lastyear in report was when I
became pa from passionate aboutyear in reviews to extremely
passionate. 2023 was the worstyear of my life. Hmm . I didn't
have anything crazy. Go on.
I've had bigger pain points,but all in all, it was the
first year. And, you know, I'vebeen set goals since I was five
years old. That's what my dadforced us to do. My daughter's

(39:22):
five, she set goals this year.

Doug Smith (39:23):
Come on. Yeah .

Greg Furer (39:25):
Got it. Right.
We'll

Doug Smith (39:26):
Go there after this. I want to hit that.

Greg Furer (39:27):
But I , I think that's so important to, to
reflect. So I was in a bad way.
I was like, this year sucked .
'cause I did not make a singleone of my goals that I set out
for. But looking back on it, itgave me such gratitude because
I looked at how God had builtthings for 2024. I looked at,
we actually, I achieved morethan I ever cheated in one

(39:49):
year, just once in while I ,not to Chief and I'm an
intentional person, so thatbothers me. Right. But man, and
I'm like, it took that peak.
There should be that valley of2023 to get to the peak of
2024. It set me up. And I'venever been more excited to
enter a year than I was. And Iwould've not been that way.
Hadn't I knocked on my annualreview? The last part, I think

(40:10):
about annual reviews. I thinkwe think about a lot of leaders
talking about legacy. Hmm . Andwe just had this , uh, a leader
speak at Barton Universityabout , uh, leaving a legacy
for your kids or your memorieslocked in your device and have
you created a video for yourchild to talk about the lessons
you've learned and have youbeen intentional about that?
And one of the things that ,uh, another person always says
is, you're not dead until thelast personal alive stops

(40:32):
whispering your name. Wow.
That's tough . And so thatlegacy you wanna leave is not
the money. We work with a lotof our clients that like, it's
not about the money you wannaleave. Right? Yeah. Teach a man
a fish. Don't give 'em a fish.
And so when you really startthinking about that , imagine
your child reading your end ofthe year reports. Come on for
40 or 50 years of your life,man. Like, there's not a dollar

(40:53):
sign. That's rule that I wouldgive to red that for my dad.
Yeah.

Doug Smith (40:58):
Wow.

Greg Furer (40:59):
I don't have em .
And that's the , that's what Iwant. And I want, I want my
daughter to read that I had apanic attack. Hmm . Yeah. Yes .
I want her to read my sins.
Absolutely. I want her to learnfrom that. Yeah. Because we
never learn from a leaderthat's perfect and polished. We
learn from a leader that'spain. It's , that's the
American way. Right. We wantthe underdog to win and pain

(41:20):
and suffering and that growthis what we want. And I want my
daughter to read that

Doug Smith (41:25):
Man . We just, we have a mutual love for Clint
Hurtle as a leader. Oh . Formermanager of the

Greg Furer (41:30):
Pipes . Top five favorite leaders of all time.
All

Doug Smith (41:32):
Time. Oh . Oh , he's now on Instagram, which I
know you're following him. Ilove this man. And he just
started a series, which I'mlike, I gotta steal this. He
has Friday fails with Clint.
Yep . Every week he shares afailure. And I'm like, that's
way more powerful. And again,I'm someone who shares content
and he's usually sharing thingsthat are practical. But I'm
like, I could make more impactsharing one failure from this

(41:52):
week than a hundred posts on mejust sharing tips and advice. I
mean, really challenged by hisvulnerability.

Greg Furer (41:57):
Gosh. I mean, let's just

Doug Smith (41:58):
Have a clean lovefest. Oh ,

Greg Furer (42:00):
The fact he joined Instagram. His reels have been
amazing. Yes. Yes . I justlearned why his jersey's number
13. You know , I I wear mycustom Clint hurdle jersey all
the time. Yeah . And I was justlike, oh, now I know why it's
number 13. Like, I was justlike, oh my gosh. Next level,
next level. But you know what,there's a saying that my wife
and I say it come , so ClintHurl when , uh, back when he
was the , uh, pirates, he usedto do these leadership talks.

(42:22):
And there's a lot of clichesayings we use from him.
There's this crumpled up $20bill. We don't have time to get
to. There's this one foot into, uh, tomorrow, one foot in
yesterday. Crap all over today.
But one of my favorite sayings, my wife and I call each other
out all the time, is be whereyour feet are. We are day . And
he tells the whole story daywhere he takes that bowl and he
is like, daddy's only allowedto answer the phone if Andrew

(42:42):
McCutcheon or uh , uh, Bobthought he'd call, or it was
Frank Ley back then was thepresident. But man, like be
where your feet are. If theamount of times my wife will
say, Clint, and that's what Iknow, she's gonna say it.
Right. Wow. Be where your feetare. But yeah. Gosh. That's so
good, man. If you're notfollowing him on Instagram, Ugh
.

Doug Smith (42:59):
Must It's funny, man . The impact he's had on me
every day I would do a fiveminute journal and you do , I
do affirmations and it's like,you know, what are you gonna do
to make today great? I writethe same thing every day for
the past five years . Be I'mgonna be where my feet are. Uh
, and uh, and the other thing,man, that I stole from him, he
just signs all his emails Makea difference today. I'm like, I
do that now. And it's crazy,man.

Greg Furer (43:17):
Make a difference today. Love Clint. And I think
this is important 'cause thisis really huge. Yes . My wife,
you know, joined our firm lastyear and she always said this
fully known , fully love ,fully challenged thing. She's
like, Greg, you gotta stoptelling our team members you
love them. No. And , and youknow, you and I, we tell each
other we love 'em all. I I Imean , how many times every
time you and I talk, Hey, Ilove you man. And , and I think
that this, this love and , andthere's, you know, three

(43:39):
different types of , of inGreek language. Right. Uh ,

Doug Smith (43:42):
Now we're going deep

Greg Furer (43:43):
. Well, but , but everyone wants to go like
it's , it's Phil's love. No, Idon't have Phil . I don't have
brother love for you. I loveyou. Yeah . I have agape love
for you. I love youunconditionally. Yes. And
that's one of the things I'velearned from Clint was he tells
everyone an email, I love you.
Yeah. And he's not ashamed ofit. And why are we ashamed to
tell our team members that welove them? Like, I don't know

(44:03):
why in western society we'vegotten rid of that. And my wife
didn't understand it until shejoined our team. And this is a
person that loves to tellpeople she loves them . Yeah.
And has fully embraced thatbecause man with love, all
things are possible becausethat's really the heart of the
gospel. Yeah . The gospel builtdown is to God's unveiling
love. Unwavering love. Love isthe gospel. And Clint is

(44:25):
spreading that gospel. There'sa famous saying that says,
spread the gospel. Use wordsonly if necessary. Yeah. If we
could just love others, that'ssign in every email. I'm not to
the point. I've like tried toget my point where I'm like,
I'm gonna sign every email.
Love Greg. Yeah. But I lovethat. Did I see those emails?
Love Clint. Oh , it's ,

Doug Smith (44:43):
It's funny you said that, man. I, I , now I'm gonna
have to sign Love Duggan everyemail, but I never saw that. So
my, my email signatures, it'seither Make a difference today,
keep making a difference. We'rein this together. And now I'm
gonna have to put Love Doug .
But every man he, anyway, we'regonna go in a whole C Clinton
thing. We should probably moveon. We should do

Greg Furer (44:58):
A Clint Hurdle podcast. But

Doug Smith (44:59):
Anyways , um, and, and pause. I didn't check , uh,
upfront contract. Do you have ahard stop time?

Greg Furer (45:06):
No , I'm good.
Okay.

Doug Smith (45:07):
I just wanna make sure

Greg Furer (45:07):
I had , I had a beat . I moved already.

Doug Smith (45:09):
Okay. Uh , we'll probably go five, 10 more
minutes.

Greg Furer (45:13):
I'll be whatever you wanna do. It's your
podcast. You just tell me I'moff for the ride. Great.

Doug Smith (45:17):
I dunno if that's helpful for Will.

Greg Furer (45:18):
No , just , uh, all you do is long pause and when I
see the long pause we'll catchit .

Doug Smith (45:22):
Okay . So we'll just pause for a minute. It'll
go , Uh , Greg, several timesthroughout our conversation
today, you've brought up yourdad and I don't wanna talk
about parenting too. Um, youknow, you said , you talked
about you were setting goals atfive years old and, you know, I
had, I was raised differently.
I did not have that kind ofupbringing. Um, I didn't learn
about intentional living till Iwas 18 years old. And , uh,

(45:42):
man, I know through ourrelationship, man , you've been
so blessed to have your dad and, and the parents that you did.
Uh , I , I'll leave this openend before we start talking
about parenting, but what wasthe impact that your dad's made
on your life?

Speaker 4 (46:01):
That's okay.

Greg Furer (46:02):
That's a tough one for me to answer. Right .

Speaker 4 (46:05):
,

Greg Furer (46:09):
I can't quantify.

Speaker 4 (46:10):
Hmm .

Greg Furer (46:12):
You know, one of the things I , uh, we talk
about this all the time aboutour family. My dad was an
eccentric person.

Speaker 4 (46:20):
Hmm .

Greg Furer (46:22):
But what I love about my dad was he was
authentic. My dad sometimescould be a horrible human being
'cause we're all sinners. Yeah.
And he lived in that and he hadall these quirky s Right.
People call him Cecils. I heardpeople call him theisms. My
team calls some of my theismslike repetition, retention . Uh
, that was not one of his, butone of his was like smarter

(46:43):
than a rat. Doesn't even makesense. But the thing that I
think that my dad did above andbeyond, if I had to summit ,
'cause one of the things Ialways say to leader is like,
what's the one thing? Like,let's pull it up . The one
thing, if I had to summarizeeverything, it wasn't, my dad
shared his faith and taught methe faith journey . 'cause God
would've got that to be someother way. It wasn't my dad did

(47:04):
life with me together. Hmm . SoI always say to other leaders,
they're like, how do you knowas much you know about business
at your age? I'm like, I got anMBA by the time I was 10. Wow.
Because my dad, I was a , amistake or as my brother, my
mom would call it a pleasantsurprise. And my brother's
like, that is a mistake. Right.
Geez , . But I was anepisode ,

Doug Smith (47:26):
You were a mistake to God.

Greg Furer (47:27):
Yes. What a blessing it was because my dad
was in a different season ofhis life. We, we were just
talking about this. I had adinner with my brothers. My
parents were a different seasonof life than my , my brothers
grew up in and my sister grewup in. And we had different
experiences and it shaped us tovery uniquely different people.
And you know, there's thissaying, we say all the time,

(47:48):
Morris Cotton and taught MorrisCotton and taught , um, I
learned that originally fromyou. But it's, it's become a
fur . Like people get tired ofme hearing saying it. And my
dad did life together with me.
Like everything he did, I went.
So when he went and was runningthe local little league, I went
to those meetings when he was atownship supervisor. I went to
those meetings, I went to hisstaff meetings. I went in exam

(48:08):
appointments with him. He wasan eye doctor by trade was a
serial entrepreneur. But like,that was his main practice and
everything. We literally hadeye doctors that would come in
from around the country andwould live with us for a week
for no cost. Just 'cause hewanted to make the better eye
doctors and just change theprofession. And so then I would
like live like I was immersedin his life. It wasn't matter

(48:30):
if it was something stupid, itdidn't matter a lot of times if
I wanted to do it or not. I wasdoing everything with him.
Whether it was running to thegrocery store as my brother
eulogize at the funeral, youknow, it's like I woke up at
five o'clock in the morning andwent down and grabbed the
newspaper. Uh , you know , healways read seven or eight
newspapers a day. And I wastraveling there 75 miles per

(48:51):
hour. You know, like heprobably was, and he was
swerving over 'cause he wouldread the newspaper while
driving . Right .
Probably not the best safevehicle for me to be in, was my
dad driving. But I was there byhis side. So what I've tried to
do with my daughter is, isinvolve her in everything. I'm
a workaholic and I'm working.
So just last night, you know,my wife was going out with

(49:12):
friends , with her friends, mydaughter. We had to spend time
together. And I know there's atime to be where your feet are,
but that was the only way wecould work at our schedule, is
I had to work from home. So Iliterally had her on my lap as
I was doing things that I needto get accomplished. So yeah, I
want , I wish I could havespent more time with her and
I'm gonna spend time with herthis weekend, but if I'm not,
and and , and it goes to mywife, my wife's dad who

(49:32):
happened to also , uh, be inthe same profession used , used
to take her on Saturdays we hadto work. He would take her on
client appointments. And so mywife sat at client appointments
when she was six years old andseven years old. Not to mention
clients just like to see thelittle kid there. Right. It's ,
it's a huge , uh, uh, benefit.
Yeah. But man, like we wereimmersed in that. So I've tried
to take that and put in mylife. So my best parenting tip,

(49:53):
I have two para tips . I said ,everyone one , we're all gonna
screw up our kids . Soscrew up the least amount
possible, right ? Yes . We wegotta be perfect. Yep . Like,
perfection is horrible. Yeah .
I tell wife top like I , youknow, be who you are. Be
authentic to who you are. Bethe same way around my child as
around somebody else. Right. Uh, authentic of life. But the
second thing is make your childinvolved in your life. Yeah.

(50:18):
Everyone tries to be involvedin their child's life. You know
, uh, we had this in ourmastermind. Somebody said this
like a couple months ago.
Imagine if you came in andsaid, I I was caught in the act
of praying . Right ?
Like , let remember that . Yeah. Let your children get caught
in the act. Yeah. Man, I wrotethat down. I made my , uh, it's
gonna make my year review for2024, but it's on my list.

(50:38):
Let's get caught in the act ofdoing things. Yes. Because
everything you do withinreason, your child should be
able to catch you in the actof, so yeah, my , my daughter
gets my bad habits. I got to mydad's bad habits. Guess what?
They're authentic to who he is.
So I think that my dad was themost impactful. So the last
part, I'll end this with, I wastalking with a leader just a
few weeks ago over dinner anddidn't have the same upbringing

(51:00):
I had. And we talked about it.
The number one way to bring upthe poor communities, the
number one way to bring up thecommunities that need help. And
I'm not talking about theUnited States, I'm talking
about globally. John Maxwell'sdoing this globally, is to give
them access to these samethings. See, core values are
about culture. Culture is ashared thing. Like, so when

(51:22):
it's culture, it's , it's whatyou do and others tell you to
do in a shared tribe. So if wewere riding the elevator down
today, Doug, and you came in,you're facing the door when I
was facing the wall and juststaring at you, you'd tell me
to turn around. That's culture.
There's certain perceivedthings and what you don't know,
what you don't know. And so ifyou didn't grow up going to
business meetings, how do youknow how to act at a business

(51:44):
meeting? So the number one waywe can help out people that
didn't grow up the way we didis by mentoring and developing
them. And exposing them.
Exposing them . That's what Itry to do to my daughter.
Expose her to my life. Yes. Sogo out and expose somebody.
Don't just expose yourchildren, be a father or a
mother of leaders. Come on andexpose other people.

Doug Smith (52:03):
You're firing me up, man. I mean, again. Yeah.
The way I phrase it is we haveto show them another way.
Right? And so, you know, you'vetalked about my story. My life
got changed because myfather-in-law and my my youth
pastor came into my life andthey showed me an entirely
different way modeled. Mostpeople, even parenting, when
we're talking about parenting,most people only see one model
of what life should look like.
And oftentimes it's not a greatmodel. And so I couldn't agree

(52:25):
more with you. And it is funnow that, you know, our kids
are getting old enough even tohave friends and hang out with
friends. It's like, wow, we canhave influence and show people,
you know, what it's like tolive in our house and maybe,
you know, show some valuesthere to , to friends and make
disciples. It's , it's reallyexciting.

Greg Furer (52:39):
Amen.

Doug Smith (52:40):
Well, hey man , uh, we have a few minutes left. We
haven't even, we have to dopart two 'cause we need to dive
into bare tongue and everythingyou're doing here. But for fun,
you, and again, for peoplewatching this, you are the
branding master . So Iwanna talk you about your
company, but like I've never,there's no one on the planet. I
can, I can pretty much say thiswith a hundred percent
confidence's. No one on theplanet that, that brands like
you. If someone, I wanna put achallenge out there to

(53:02):
listeners. If you can name anitem that should have a logo or
brand on it, I guarantee thatGreg has already thought of it
and done it so . But,but why do you do that and talk
about branding? 'cause I thinkyou do this masterfully and
better than so many people.

Greg Furer (53:15):
Yeah, it's funny.
It's , the joke is how manyplaces on me ? So I got my
socks on today. My wristwatchhas it on my cuff, licks has it
on my jacket liner. My pens myremarkable tablet, right? My
belt , uh, and there's probablya couple missed my AirPod case
has it on it. Underwear. Uh, Ido have Brandon underwear.
Today's not the I'm wearing it.
I need to do some laundry too .
Good. Brenda , Tommy John'stoo. life changing. Um

(53:38):
, but the reason why is, and Iwrote a whole blog about this
so there's enough time somebodywant is really interested in
this. But I , I gotta go backto where I learned this from.
And so there was a company thatgave me a gift and another life
and it was this jacket I reallyloved and I would wear it all
the time. And so my wife had tomeet the uh , CFO of that
company and was like, myhusband wears this jacket all

(54:02):
the time. And he goes, I knowhe does. She was like, what?
He's like, everyone does. He'slike, that's our strategy. So
he is like, did you see ourlogo anywhere on that shirt? It
was his jacket. She goes, no.
He goes, it's in there. It'sthe same color as the jacket,
it's down the bottom. So it'shidden. And he goes, it's not

(54:22):
about seeing our logo, webought the highest quality
jacket that your husband wouldwanna wear and not have our
logo on it. So every time hewears it, he subconsciously
thinks of it. Yeah . So ourstrategy is to buy high quality
things. We love high qualitythings that we love that you
wouldn't wanna buy foryourself. That when you have

(54:44):
it, you appreciate it. Yeah.
That's how our sprintingstrategy is to, to do that. The
second part of it is what arecalled talk triggers, right? So
if you're not a Scott McCainfan, talk triggers are
basically something like youdon't just have a great meal
and go out and talk about it.
You have to have something inthat meal that's different that

(55:04):
causes you to talk about it.
Come on. Right? Yeah . So whatis the difference maker? Like
you have the best service inthe world. What triggers you to
talk about it? So talktriggers. So we do all kinds of
crazy things like we make ourown bourbon, right? People are
like, they talk about it. Wehave a studio. I remember our ,
uh, one of the custodians ofour building said, what do you
guys do for a living? Said ,I'm completed a studio. Like ,

(55:25):
what is it you do? So , sothose talk tours . But I think
the key thing here is, that'sall part of it, but why I
constantly have our logo on itand why our team always wearing
our logo is you would neverquestion me. I'm a Pittsburgh
Steeler fan. I'm a PittsburghPirates fan, and most
importantly I'm a Pit Panthersfan. That's why our companies

(55:45):
are blue and gold. You wouldnever question me if I was
wearing a pit Panthers shirttoday. You would never question
what you'd like . That guy's afan. See a fan is a fanatic.
And if our tribe, our culturebelieves in our company and
they believe the impact we'rehaving, we always say we're not
sales . Like if you were adoctor on a plane, somebody's
having a heart attack andyou're like, is there a doctor

(56:07):
that's not sales ? You're notgonna like , Hey, would you
like to come to my practice soI can fix your heart? No. You
just fix it. We believe sopassionate what we do. And we
believe that our companies makea difference and it impact the
world so much that we'refanatical about it. Hmm . We
wanna wear our logo. 'cause wewant the whole world to know
our tribe. People have spenthundreds of dollars on NFL
jerseys to show what tribe theybelong to. They spend hundreds

(56:30):
of dollars on NHL jerseysunless you have a China
connection. Right? Um , but, but they spend all
this money in these jerseys'cause they want people to know
their tribe. They want 'em ,know who they affiliate with.
We have a cross necklace on. Iwant people to understand that
I'm a Christian, that's myidentity. So why am I not the

(56:50):
same way about our logo? Sothat's why we brand everything.
We're always looking for waysto brand. It's about our
culture we genuinely believeand the impact we're having and
others need us to solve theirproblems. So we're fanatical
about our brand because we wantothers to know what tribe we
belong to.

Doug Smith (57:09):
Yeah. It's so good.
And as we start to wrap up,it's so funny we didn't even
focus on what you do, but Ithink that's the whole point.
Talking points , people gettingto know who you are, it's so
important. And I think justlike my first lunch with you
when I said, man, there'ssomething special about this
guy. I think you know,everything that everyone just
experienced through listeningto this, people are feeling the
same. But what do you actuallydo? And if people want to
connect with you, man, how canthey connect with what

(57:30):
everything you're doing here atBarton ? 'cause it's
incredible.

Greg Furer (57:32):
Yeah. We didn't get to , to touch on the goals, but
uh , I just help people pursuetheir goals is essentially what
we do. And , and the way we dothat is , is a thing called
financial planning. And I sayfinancial planning and you have
a certain perceived perceptionin your head. It's as simple as
this. We define what your goalsare, your future self, what you
wanna be, your vision for thefuture. And we look at your
resources you have, it could beyour time, your talent, and

(57:54):
your treasures. And we create aplan together. We bring those
two together to get you a planto get your preferred future.
And that's what we do. Uh, wework, we have the privilege and
honor to work with people everyeach, every day we listen to
them, we learn, we try toextrapolate their top three
priorities of what they wannado in life. And we help them
build a plan and then we helppull 'em accountable to their

(58:16):
plan to pursue those goals andlive a fulfilling life. So if ,
uh, we mainly work, so ourtarget market is busy working
professionals. Um, they'retypically 35 to 55. They're
typically , um, two W2 incomeowners . They typically make
over a hundred thousand dollarsa year. Um , they typically
have two children. Um , theytypically want to own a second
property to make familymemories or they, they don't

(58:38):
own a second property. There'ssome type of family memory
mechanism. Maybe they wannatravel the world to make family
memories. And between going tosoccer practice and between
karate and between youth group,they're pushed and pulled in a
hundred different directionsand they just want somebody to
partner with them. Just so wetalked about you need that
mastermind group, they could doeverything we do, but they want

(59:00):
somebody to do an outside look.
You know, the hardest thing inthe world to talk to your
spouse about for most people isyour finances. Right. And so I,
the hardest thing to talk aboutmy wife about is my finances.
So you just need a third partyto come to a room so that they
could be the scapegoat andthey'd be like, ha man, that
person was horrible. So that'swhat we work with. We do work
with other people, but that'sour target market and that's
why we've uh , partnered somuch with L three. We've been

(59:22):
the , uh, sponsor of thepodcast for, I can't even
remember how long because Thankyou. You guys are

Doug Smith (59:27):
Should we do the ad right now?

Greg Furer (59:28):
, but you guys do the same work we're
doing. Yeah. It's about peopleare drifting through life. Yes.
And they just, they've neversat down and just a simple
question of where do you wannabe? And we just, well our
clients close your eyes and wesay it's 10 years from now, you
wake up, what time does thealarm clock say? And we just go
through this whole day like,what do you want your life to

(59:49):
look like in 10 years? Peopledon't think that way. They've
never done that exercise. Andso , okay, now we decide what
we wanna do, how do , what dowe do? And we start at 10 years
and we work our way back tothree years. We work our way
back to one year, then we workour way down 90 day goals.
Right? What can we do? Whatbites of that elephant? Instead
of staring at elephant, whatbites can we take today to get
us to where we wanna be? Youmight not be where you wanna be

(01:00:12):
or if you are where you wannabe, how do we stay there? So
that's what we do to work withclients. It's, it's a absolute
privilege and honor to do it.
And it's, as you can tell, it'ssomething I'm passionate about.
Yeah. And that's why I'm sopassionate about personal
development because it's thesame thing we do. We just, it's
one part of personaldevelopment that we do. We help
people understand our goals,the person that they were
called to be and help them getthere.

Doug Smith (01:00:30):
Yeah. And this is huge. And , and the whole time,
I mean the theme throughoutthis conversation is community.
You need a community aroundyou. And yes, you need a
phenomenal spouse. Yes, youneed to be in a mastermind
group with peers who canchallenge you. But the older I
get, the more I recognizeeveryone also needs a coaches
and not just a coach, not justa life coach. That there's one,
like you need coaches in everyarea of your life. And what I

(01:00:50):
love about what Greg's saying,it's not just, Hey, just come
in . Let's talk about your401k. No, it's way, way bigger
than that. And hopefully you'veheard through the wisdom that
Greg shared today, it's like heis bringing a wealth. And same
with everyone that works forhim. 'cause I know his team,
they bring such a wealth ofinformation about life and
helping you get there and theycare about you. Um, and so
again, you can have greatgeneral conversations and, and
mastermind groups and getchallenged here and there. But

(01:01:13):
again, if you have a coach inyour corner, people who are
gonna come through you and walkyou through even the tough
times, like you need that. AndI can't think of a more
important area than finance,but 'cause it touches every
area of your life. And soagain, just knowing Greg, I
can't encourage you enough. Ifyou're in need of that or
you've never had that, reachout to Barong will include
links to everything and just doa call with one of their team
members and see what happens.

Greg Furer (01:01:33):
I don't know who needs to hear us out here, but
I think the number one thingthat stops somebody from hiring
financial planner is they thinkthey're not there yet. So we
literally just had somebodywho's 19 years old, come to our
firm and hire us. You do notneed to have any money. We
actually, we have clients . Wedon't manage their money. Hmm .
We are paid as certifiedfinancial planning
professionals to buildfinancial plans for as little

(01:01:56):
as $200 a month.

Wow.

You could come. And so that's the , like most
people can afford a cell phonebill. And and why I say this is
it's access. I don't wanna workwith people that have already
been climbed the mountain. Yep. I wanna help you climb the
mountain. I wanna partner withyou because you deserve it. You
need that. Let's get you tothat mountain. 'cause if I
just, I always say this to someof my other friends in the
industry, Hey, I'm glad you'rehelping rich people get richer.

(01:02:21):
Yeah . I hope you sleep atnight because that's just not
who I am. Right. Come on. And ,and like Chad would come back
to me and say something else.
But that, but you know, , I , I, I , that's who I wanna
work with . Yeah . I wanna workwith those people that are that
emerging leader that just wantshelp to get there. Let's
partner with you. So whetherit's bare tongue , I don't care
who you use, get a financialplan. Yeah. And I want you to

(01:02:42):
hear this. You don't need to bea millionaire. You don't need
to have lots of money. You canhire somebody to build a plan.
Just like you could hire apersonal coach. Just like you
could hire a fitness coach. Youcould hire a coach for every
part of your life. So if you'renot where you wanna be, let's
help build your goals there.

Yeah. And I hope everyone heard Greg's heart,
and again, I don't know muchabout the industry, but my
understanding is a lot offinancial planners in general,
quote unquote don't make moneyunless you have X amount to put
down, et cetera. And so foryour willingness to come
alongside people where they'reat, it's the same thing man .
It also sounds like it's justpart of your dad's legacy is
just like, you wanna bringpeople along for the journey.
Man, you've been blessed tohave people who have brought

(01:03:20):
you to where you are today andyou wanna do the same thing for
others. And that's our exactheart at all three. Um, I'll
just leave this open-ended aswe close. What do you wanna
leave leaders with today? Youcan go any direction you want.
Wow.

So, you know, you always do the lightning round
questions, right?

Oh, do you wanna hit 'em? We have time . We have
time.

Oh yeah, we could hit those. I was just gonna
pull one from the lightninground, but yeah. You wanna do
lightning

Round? I do wanna do the lightning round because

You do you wanna pause and

Just as long as they're lightning round for
you, let ,

Let's So , um, we'll do a pause. Yeah.

So

Why don't you do as we're closing here Yeah. And
then , uh, whatever camera youhad 'em on. Switch the camera.
Alright . So , uh,

And then I'll go back and le I I will leave it
open-ended and open-ended atthe end. So, alright , well
hey, with the three or fourminutes that we have left, I
wanna dive into the lightningground. Bunch of fun questions
I ask every leader at the endof every interview. And the
first one is, what is the bestadvice you've ever received and
who gave it to you?

So I , I really struggle with this one, right?
Because I have been blessedwith so much great advice,
, right? And so I thinkthat the one I'm gonna say, and
this is gonna be , uh, it'sgonna sound like a cop out ,
but trust the Lord of your Godwith all your heart and all
your soul . 'cause that's it.
Yeah. That advice gave for theBible. It was a leader, right?

(01:04:34):
It was the Bible. But I thinkthat's the best advice I've
ever given. And every otheradvice hinges from that.

If it's not the same answer. If you could put a
quote on a billboard foreveryone to read what we would
say.

Yeah. And this is hard for me because there's a
lot of things I'd wanna say,but I think it in the context
of it's gotta hit on abillboard. So it's just simple
as this leaders are readers,man, if you could just read,
you have access to all thewealth and knowledge in the
entire world. And so leadersare readers. There's so many
other quotes that are moreimportant to me. So many other
things that hit me. Mysecondary one, , it was

(01:05:05):
really hard for me . You go , Ithat's what I

Knew. You had to sneak

Another one . Well I had to say is was day to day
intensity. Come on. Week toweek consistency. Month to
month build championships camefrom your football coach. Yep .
It's one of my favorite seedsof all time. But I just don't
think it hits as well on abillboard. 'cause you gotta
ride past, 'cause that was myoriginal answer . And
I'm like, no, that doesn't hit.
Leaders are readers. Short,sweet to the point.

Kudos the gym .
Rankin North Allegheny FootballHigh School coach . You
know, years ago , uh, youtalked about leaders are
readers. It was funny, I wasdoing myself guided tour of
Barton's offices here. And you,I never saw this before. You
have an entire like poster of,you call it the God I don't
even know what you would callit. It's a list of like 10,000
books people need to read.

No , it's it's, it's 380 right now. We're gonna
add . It is thebarung cannon. And you could
just google that barung cannon.
And so the Bible can , right?
So one of the things we do iswe try to express our faith. So
throughout the history of ofthe faith, there's been ways
where we've taken things thatwere pagan and made him
Christian looked no furtherthan the Christian , uh,
Christmas tree, you know, theCeltic Cross as a hole in the

(01:06:06):
middle. So, so you , whenyou're worshiping the sun, you
have to look at the cross,right? So we try to take things
in our, our work life so theBible can and understand how
the Bible cans mix . So weactually have a Bible canon and
it starts out with our fourgospels. And those are to be
read. Yeah . The first yearyou're here and expect it to be
read at least annually.

So just for time sake, 'cause we could go
through the whole three 80,what are two or three books
from that

Read ? So start the four gospels . So yeah , go for
it . The first four. So it hasactually started in our
mastermind, the whole idea,God, there's a lot of ideas,
but we always refer to as thegospel according to Chris Voss
, right ? So , whichhas never split the Difference
by Chris Voss. Uh , I tended toread that about five to eight
times a year. Uh , I've gonethrough his masterclass
multiple times, just did itagain a couple weeks ago. So
it's, it's, it starts withTraction First by Gino Wickman.

(01:06:53):
Yeah, that's the first gospelyou read. That's, that is the
most important book for ourcompany. Uh, I can't, the lot
of times I've read that willBlow Your Mind. The second one
we ask people to read is Thinkand Grow Rich. Uh , the
gentleman who ran a firm Istarted with said, if you wanna
be successful in life, read it34 times. Or if my wife would
say, Mary , somebody's read it34 times. Lord knows

(01:07:14):
how many times he's read itnow. I love you , but I'm, I'm
way over 30 times on that one.
Uh , and I say go back to theoriginal. It's horrible
language. It's it , but that'spart of it. I wanna go to the
source script. The , uh, thirdone is Seven Habits, which is ,
uh, Stephen Covey'smasterpiece. That was the book
that was pounded in my head asa child , uh, has been one of
the most formative books in mylife. And then you have never

(01:07:35):
split the difference in ourgospels. If you wanna read more
about it, we have the wholeBarton Cannon. But I think the
thing is we use the kid and notonly to give the order of what
our leaders should read, but toalso teach our faith. But the
key is the Bible's not in Arccanan . And when you ask what's
like the book most powerful ,the Bible is right , but the
Bible transcends all that. TheBible should be read daily,
studied at least weekly, right?

(01:07:56):
Yeah . It should be meditatedon these other books are
supplemental and without thethe Bible, all these other
books are useless as far as I'mconcerned.

You could spend time with a lot of great
leaders, as you mentioned.
We've had a lot of greatdinners with leaders even
together. Do you have a go-toquestion that you always ask
when you get to spend time withsomeone? Great.

Yeah. And so it's the go-to question is what's
the one thing? And then Ichange it based upon that
leader what I wanna learn fromthem. So like, I was a one
mentor, like, you grew thisbusiness from 2 million to $20
million. What's if you had topick one thing that caused it
to happen? And so it's not acop out , it's it's truth. So
if it's whatever I wannaextrapolate from that leader
because whatever they're anexpert in is what I wanna

(01:08:31):
learn. So I always do the onething, the what it forces them
to think through and theanswers I get. So it's like
whatever you wanna learn fromthat person. If it's Doug , uh,
what's the one thing that madethis podcast successful? You
know, like what is the onething, right.

Biggest leadership, pet peeve, and only one. 'cause
I'm sure you could be here forthe next hour. Yeah , yeah .

This is easy one for me. It , it's , uh, selfish
leaders. Leaders are servants.
Mm . And so, like, my teamknows this. Like if I go to a
building and the leader'sparked in the front of the
building, I don't even wannatalk to them. , if
their name's the first thing ontheir website, I don't wanna
talk to them. Uh , a a leaderis a servant. And uh , man, I
just hate selfish leaders thatare doing it for themselves
because it , it's allthroughout the Bible. Like you

(01:09:14):
actually more is expected ofyou. Yeah. You have, you have a
sacred honor of being a leaderin rich in people's lives. So I
hate selfish leaders.

What's something you've done in your life or
experience that you thinkeveryone should do before they
die?

Oof . There's, there's so many things, but
one, I know, I know, right ?
, that's , that'stough, right? Yeah. I I think
it's, it is gonna say a cop out, but experience something
great with your child. Mm . Sofor me it's skiing with my
daughter, but pick one activityto your child that you would
love to do , um, and make itsomething you both enjoy, not
something you just enjoy. I , Ithink that that the , the , the

(01:09:49):
moments I've had skiing mydaughter are my favorite
moments in life. Wow. So I ,I've been blessed to do a lot
of cool things, but I thinkthat's what is , do something
with your child.

If you could go back and have Coffee with Greg
fear at any age and youwould've actually listened to
yourself, which I'm sure youwouldn't have , uh,
what age would that be and whatwould you tell that version of
Greg?

Yeah. I think it would be somewhere around 22 to
24. Um, as you know, like I wasextremely involved, extremely
driven , like the age of 14.
And at one point in time I waselected official like 21, do
all this stuff. But I , I thinkthe thing I would say is
there's that one every yearleader I've ever heard is
Pocket hays slow down. Likeit's gonna take time. That's
true. But I think it's adifferent view , view of this.

(01:10:30):
Your passions will change overtime, just like taste buds. So
at that time I was, my numberone focus from probably age
eight to 22 was to become astate senator. I don't, I'm not
saying never 'cause passionswill change, but in my current
lot life I would never do that.
It could be offered. I don'twant to do that. Um , and so as

(01:10:52):
those things changed is likeour clients, our financial
plans change. You have to alterthe course. And so I go back
and like, man, if I could havenot taken that trip with my
buddies to go do that and takethat trip with my daughter, my
wife now Wow. How much moreimpactful would it be? So I'm
always about burning the boats,but sometimes you gotta have
dry powder to follow and pursueyour other passions. I wouldn't

(01:11:14):
have been able to start mycompany if I didn't save money
and have dry powder. And so Iwish if I go back in time that
I would hold some stuff backfor future passions. 'cause
your passions will change.
Yeah.

You mentioned your dad's legacy and the the other
notebook, which I love. Uh, oneday man, we're all gonna leave
this planet. And uh , when youdo, what do you want your
legacy to be?

Yeah, that's as simple as is something that God
spoke to be on a spiritualtreat . You and I were in is I
wanna be a father of leaders.
Hmm . And so I want havegenerational impact. I want to
have the leaders that I developdevelop other leaders that
develop other leaders. Thatdevelop other leaders. So
there's a great Kerry job songcalled The Blessing and I used
to actually hate it and nowit's one of my favorite worship

(01:11:56):
songs the same. And I hate itbecause the Priestly blessing
from numbers is one of myfavorite parts of the Bible. Al
was like, she's butchering it,right. . But there's
this point in there and it'sone of my favorite worship
songs. She goes, may thisblessing be on your children.
Yes. And their children. Yeah .
And their children. And theirchildren. She just starts to go
sometimes I'm just like, andtheir children. It's a big part
of what we try to do is we tryto work with every one of our

(01:12:17):
client's children and theirchildren and their children and
their children. And so I want alegacy for my child, but that's
not my focus because if I dothis, the legacy will be there
for my child. I want leadersthat grow and develop other
leaders that grow and developother leaders because the
impact we can have on thisworld would be exponential.

Yeah. Well, and again, I just wanna say thank
you. I don't know if I'dconsider you a father, but ,
uh, you've certainly been abrother and a friend and uh ,
man , my leadership is so muchbetter in my personal life and
in my work life because of yourfriendship. And so I'd like to
say that I'm part of thatlegacy already. And uh , man,
thank you for investing in Lthree leadership through the
conference, through thepodcast, and everyone that
we're able to re we're gonnahave 300 leaders in the room in

(01:12:58):
two weeks. Every single one ofthose that gets touched, like
you have a part to play andtheir legacy and I'm just one
person that you're influencingout of. I can't even imagine
how many. So just thank you.

L three's had that legacy. We wouldn't have my
daughter if it wasn for Lthree.

Maybe we'll just end right there. Anything else
you wanna leave Leaders Wish ?

No, I think that I can't go there , but
that's true. But I , I thinkjust if I had to say one thing
to leaders, right, just do it.
Stop thinking. Just do it.

Greg. Fear it was an honor. We'll have to do this
again man. We'll have like 10parts. This was awesome.

. Thanks.
Appreciate you brother.

Hey, leader. And thank you so much for listening
to my conversation with Greg. Ihope that you enjoyed it as
much as I did and you can findways to connect with him and
links to everything wediscussed in the show notes. I
also wanna thank our sponsorEnd Dosha Marketing Solutions.
They're the producers of thispodcast and if you are looking
for help with yourorganization's marketing, I
cannot recommend them enough,check them out@enddosha.com,
that's A-N-D-O-C-I a.com . Andas always, leader, I like to

(01:13:59):
end every episode of the quote.
And today I'll quote HarveyFire Stone who said this, he
said, the growth anddevelopment of people is the
highest calling of leadershipand I could not agree more.
Well , that's gonna wrap uptoday's podcast. As always,
leader to remember, don't quit.
Keep leading the worlddesperately needs your
leadership. I'll talk to younext episode.

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