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Speech Transcript (very little editing so not exact)

Please introduce yourself the time to shine today podcast versus the squad but first tell us your favorite color and why

my favorite color is the color blue. All right, I have no idea why it’s my favorite color but I learned something about it. Maybe two years ago I was having a conversation with a meeting planner and she was asking about my my branding because if you go onto my website most of my branding is a mix of blue and yellow nice complementary colors and she said which is your favorite blue or yellow I said blue. She said that’s interesting because with your background and singing and speaking and all the issues with your voice, which I know we’ll get into Scott she said Did you know that blue is the color of the voice chakra now really, I am not a chakra type person right? But I thought well maybe that does maybe there’s something there maybe it makes sense or maybe not I don’t know but blue is my favorite color.

Well that’s that’s interesting your color wheel your handsome devil so I mean I’m sure you and your rock the blue looks good. And I got the you know Atlantic Ocean I’m looking at right now and that’s mighty blue itself in my area. I’m in South Florida I’m 60 miles north of Miami and Jupiter in blue is my thing sometimes I say purple because you know I got a little red streak that can kind of come out they mesh together but no man seriously. Thanks for coming on. And I really want to get to the roots of you know where you really started because I know that maybe tell us a little bit about the suit and tie and knowing that there was more out there and in breaking out getting out of that in the Clark Kent into the superhero bro.

Well as a keynoter, I’m I’m really glorified storyteller. They’re stories with a purpose. Yeah. And what that has to do with my journey from suit and tie to where I am now is the stories we tell ourselves. The stories we tell ourselves have power, because they are on repeat all day long in our mind, and if those stories don’t paint an accurate picture, we can create false beliefs. And I had told myself stories about what it meant to be a professional musician. What would have to happen for me to be the type of person that became a professional musician. And those stories became so powerful that by the time I graduated college, I didn’t believe that I could be a professional musician. So I did what I thought the world expected me to do. tried to find a place to fit in professionally. Sure, I fell into the world of sales and marketing. It happened to suit my background that I’m generally good with people I’m generally good with words I’m generally enjoy meeting new people and persuading them about things it used to be selling products now really, I’m selling ideas As from the stage, I’m trying to get you, the listener to buy into the idea that work doesn’t have to suck, that we can take the IRQ out of work, and that it’s possible to be high performing, and highly fulfilled. So while I was amidst involved in this day job of sales and marketing and working in the world of risk management, I had this night job as a dueling piano performer, you you did that, I did that. And so the day job satisfied the financial needs, yeah, and the night job satisfied the internal the fulfillment engine. But in 2015, I realized that I had something going on with my vocal cords, I wasn’t able to speak or to sing. It came on pretty suddenly. And when doctors investigated the trouble, they told me that I had about two months until I lost my voice permanently and irreversibly. Oh, they said, you can either do what you’re doing. And in two weeks, two months, maybe a little longer, we don’t know your voice will be gone. Or you can undergo vocal cord surgery and have a shot. At regaining your speaking voice. We think your singing voice is gone. Now, anybody who knows anything about music knows that there are lots of vocal professional singers, speakers who have undergone this surgery and it didn’t go well. I’m thinking of the woman who was in The Sound of Music and her name is escaping me, but very beautiful voice can’t sing anymore, because she had a vocal cord surgery that went that went wrong. I opted to have the surgery, but I tried to negotiate with the surgeon. Because he told me it was going to be eight to 12 months before I’d be able to have a conversation again, after the surgery. And I said, Well, is there a way that we can maybe ramp that up to six to eight weeks, you know, I got this day job, like, I gotta make money, I gotta pay my bills, I gotta sustain this lifestyle I’m living. And so for whatever reason, he allowed me to do this. And as a result of negotiating less than what the doctor thought I needed, I wound up having more surgeries than I probably should have. And to date, I’ve had 13 surgeries on my vocal cords. And to to completely rebuild a valve in my stomach, it turned out acid reflux was a really big part of why my voice went downhill so quickly. Okay, I share that story. Yeah, go ahead, please. Because I had built up a story in my head, that this income from the day job was what mattered in the world, was what mattered about me that my value was tied up in the income that I was able to produce. Wow, that belief was creating so much dis ease within my body that I was depressed, I was self medicating. And I wasn’t achieving or becoming all that I was capable of becoming. Because I spent all my energy and focus trying to avoid these negatives in life. In psychology, it’s a concept called approach avoidance, that we will run more quickly from things we want to avoid, than we will towards things we want. Sure.

Right. It there’s a lot of like, the two panes of like the regret pane, and then the discipline, pain of coding the good old Jim Rohn. That I love that but like I you know, you mentioned something about, you know, because I, it took me a long time to really become an observer of my thoughts. You know, because they you’re, you’re hearing what your brain is saying, it gets confusing, but soon as I just cut off, saying, Listen, I have a decision to make, and I can make a decision to what I’m hearing to take that and either garbage it or take it and utilize it. Are we on the same page, kind of like that what we were talking about?

Yeah, the brain is not our consciousness. So we’re getting real deep and philosophical here, but there are in psychology, they’ll call them intrusive thoughts. I call them fleeting thoughts or fleeting ideas. And I don’t know if maybe I’m the weird guy in the room when I say this, but I would be at conferences in my past life, and you know, talking to people networking in a group, and you have this thought go through your head, like what would happen if I just punched this guy right now? That’s what that’s that’s not even, that’s not even who I am. Where did the thought come from? And if we give volume and voice to that thought, if we if we ruminate on it. It can become problematic, right? When we learn to just say, Okay, that was a thought. Moving on, observe it. Yeah. And that happens with all types of other thoughts. Not just weird, strange, crazy ones, like what I described, but the thought of I’m not good enough, right? I can’t do this. Right. Who am I to take this on?

So good? Yeah. Yeah, I know when I’m coaching, you know, clients, my thoughts will pop up in there, and I know the direction I want to take us but the You know, you’ll start thinking like, this guy’s this guy or girl is batshit, you know, and I’m sorry squad if I coach anybody out there, but I will have them, you know and be like, well, whoa, observe that see it and then work the next question around it and it takes skills to do that people understand. And that’s where I think a lot of marriages fail and I failed at two of them. So I can speak to it is like you’re unleashing the thoughts that are there that like your thought of, Hey, I just want to punch that guy know, I’ve had that before, you know, and and be like, wait a minute, that’s not me. And then you don’t do it. But if you were to do that, with anything, that’s not me, you know, and do what you know is right. I think that that that’s super powerful, man. I love that. Man. I’ve never had a conversation philosophically with this. I have a lot of Laaser friends, and stuff like that we get into Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, and stuff like that. I’ve never had it on the podcast. So thanks for bringing that up, man. So do you do coach people? I’m just curious about that. Do you coach people or consult? Or how are you getting your message out now?

Yeah, so my work is squarely focused as a keynote speaker, I do. I do emcee events. Okay. When I started, when I started this business, I thought I was going to go out and have a three pronged approach where I did speaking, consulting and coaching. What I learned was that each of those disciplines needs to be marketed and thought of in a very specific and different way, right. And I wasn’t interested in doing three things. So So or being mediocre at three things, I wanted to be excellent at one thing. So I looked at those three avenues and said, which do I think will bring me more joy, and marrying my love of being on the stage with my interest in seeing that aha moment and pupils eyes and delivering a message of value and an experience that’s fun and engaging? It was very clear and easy to make the decision that I’m going to focus my efforts on keynote speaking now, has that led to consulting work? Absolutely. Absolutely. Happy to take it on. And I’m grateful for the clients that I have. I don’t directly market that though. I get any follow on business through keynotes. That’s done the odd coaching it it’s, it doesn’t do it for me. Okay, you know, it’s it’s I admire people that do and for whom, it it brings joy, joy for me, it brings a ton of it brings a ton of anxiety.

Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of people would flip that where it’s, like, you know, speaking with give them you know, because people are more afraid of speaking public speaking than dying a lot of that cliche, right and, and that’s how I went just basically the same thing as you. But I started in the coaching, and then that just parlayed into speaking, and I immediately hired you know, a speech coach, if you will, like how to present and thank God I did because it’s like I’m super anxiety at all. Before I go out there. I literally start all of my speeches. With a trampoline on stage one, it helps my anxiety and two, I rebound every single morning and being 50 years old. It keeps me on the jujitsu mats, five mornings a week, it keeps me going keeps my lady happy. Everything and because rebound out of the first two minutes is me rebounding, and I’m like, Listen, if you’re an inch off the rebounder, you’re at zero gravity hit the rebounder, you have four times a gravity. So it’s taking that lymphatic system, which is a one way valve and cleans it out and gets me ready for the day. But the best part of it and you’re a professional speaker, you get this is everyone’s going like this. They’re about to affirm what I’m about to talk about after you know whether it’s overlapping your happiness or get your asking gear whatnot. So I love I love that you were admitting or being transparent. I’m sorry. That you know, you do have anxiety and other things that you took the one thing, which I’m going to get to a question here, you took the one thing that you felt you were strongest at because you were a performer before but do you ever have any fear about your voice doing all the speaking that you do? Yeah, I do is on packet.

It is my Achilles heel in a way. All right, because as a speaker, I can get up on stage, I have a defined period of time during which I need to use my voice. I have a microphone so there’s amplification. Sure, but people want more of your time when you’re at the conference, there are the conversations after the event, which I love. Right? Virtual was a challenge for me because I would do an event virtually. And when we’re done, we close out the Zoom Room where we turn off the camera and I’m I’m in a quiet room, there’s, you know, there’s no coffee bar to go to and you run into people saying hey, I really enjoyed this or, Hey, I want to tell you a story about something you said that reminded a story in my life. Those are how I re energize but they can also become a liability because now if I’m there for another hour, I’m now talking for two hours, right? Where if I’m doing pre conference activity, so learning how to say no, even when my nap tril inclination is to say Yes, right? To protect the value that I’m bringing is an ever evolving process. And I have this fear, this fear that I’m not giving my client enough value. Because, you know, I, I feel blessed every time I get to walk out on the stage, I’m, you know, I’m in the plane, and I’m getting ready for programming, I’m just looking out, I’m looking around, I’m going, this is my job. This is freaking awesome. I go fly, I was in Ireland a couple months ago. And as we’re flying over, you know, they’re serving as champagne on the plane, I’m going to Holy crap, this is a business trip. It’s amazing. So I’m grateful for every moment, I get to be up there. But I’m also conscious of the fact that they’re paying me to deliver value, right? And if that means sticking around for the whole conference and meeting people, I want to be able to do that, right? So that fear is on me, that fear is always going to be there. My job is to take that fear and say, Okay, that’s a fear. How are we going to navigate it? What are we gonna do about this? I

love it. I love it. I love it. And so what do you been a speaker, then what do you feel might be one of your blind spots or something that you could level up? Even better?

Cheese? If it’s a blind spot, I’m not sure how I can see it. But I’m certainly not in the workforce, like I was sure. So a lack of empirical knowledge about what’s really going on in the workforce, may cause me to overstate or understate components of a program. I think that’s why research becomes so important to me. Sure, I may over research topics, because I want to know that when I get up there, I’m not just an empty suit, spouting hot air, what I’m saying is relevant, and valuable for people that are giving me their time and their attention. But I guess I’ll never know.

Yeah, that’s why I have somebody that points stuff out all the time I have I get critiqued, you know, and that’s why I enjoy constructive criticism, you know, for me, and I, you know, I have one where I, I was an um, guy, you know, and I would say it without even knowing it. And it was like, kind of my blind spot if I’m, you know, doing a lot of that, you know, and I’ve had a radio show in South Florida, and in Detroit, Michigan, and I would go back and listen, how many times how come nobody pointed out to me to level that part up? That’s awesome. So let me ask some Greg, have you seen the movie Back to the Future? Oh, yeah. All right. Let’s get in that DeLorean with Marty McFly. Let’s go back to the double deuce, the 22 year old Gregory? What kind of knowledge nuggets would you drop on him? That’s what you’re changing. Because your journey sounds pretty freakin awesome. But what kind of knowledge nuggets? Would you drop on him to maybe shorten the learning curve blast through and level up just a little bit quicker?

Well, I found that I mean, let’s just go deep, right? I found that I used alcohol in situations when I was uncomfortable in an unhealthy way. Okay, I would continue to drink even when I didn’t really need another drink because I was uncomfortable. Sure, once I arrived that knowledge, I was able to make different choices. And at 22 That would have been something that I would have paid attention to. Okay, I would have also paid attention to some knowledge that and I tell people this now, if you don’t love your nine to five, do something you do love with your five to 9am and PM Well, I was the type of person who would come home from a day work, change out of the suit and tie into you know, regular clothes civvies and hit the bar with friends. And then come home and binge Netflix either late night cheeseburger and call it a night. Right? And looking back if I could go from 22 to 32 and take even three hours a day. Of that time I think about the business that I could have built the things I could have changed. I really believe that we don’t we most of us I certainly wasn’t are aware of how much time we waste. Oh, yeah,

absolutely. Yeah, my mentor used to say, you know, work your day job, but mind your own business. Right. So that’s what I would do, man, I’d get it done. Do whatever I had to do in real estate and then coaching and in building an email list and stuff is something that I did. And it became fun for me because I especially when you start seeing, you know, because I had to get my asking gear a lot you know, ask a lot of questions and it really forced me to stretch my comfort zone to ask for that help. But then that five to nine became my life and that’s that’s amazing. Thank you for saying that and being trained whenever I’ll

add you know what, let me add one more to that Scott. Sure. I read a book. My first manager gave me a book called The automatic millionaire, okay, I was, shockingly not very good with money. When I first got out of college, I would get my paycheck on Friday, spend it at the bar on Friday and Saturday night and then come Monday, I’m gonna make it till Friday boys, how much ramen we can eat this week, I would say to my 22 year old self, if your income is the most valuable thing you’re getting from a job, you’re in the wrong job. Because the job can provide growth can provide opportunity for you to expand your skill sets and capacities that is infinitely more valuable. If you’re if you’re building relevant skills and capacities, then the money you can then use the money to further increase those skills and capacities showing how you invest it. But so many people look at the job as I’m going to trade my time for money that I need for things I’ve already spent that money on. Right? For the average person the paycheck is a pass through it passed through to the mortgage person to the car note person to their health care provider. What is really left? What do you really get for most of it is less than 10% of our actual annual income. Right? So if if your paycheck is the most valuable thing that you’re getting from your job, you’ve already lost last time to make a decision.

Yeah, in in people don’t pay themselves first at all. They like you just said it’s a pass through. That’s super true. So how does Gregory one has dash remembered that little line in between your incarnation date, your expiration date, your life date and your death date? Hopefully it’s a long ways down the road, brother. But how do you want your dash? Remember?

I wouldn’t be remembered as someone who left each person he encountered better than when he found them.

Yeah. Love it. And do you find that hard to have? I was just saying the energy that you have that because you’re you have infectious energy as well, you you’re very low key right now. But I’ve saw your speaking and stuff and it’s fired up. So to keep that energy around the people that are not. Okay, let me ask you this. Have you had a dud speech? Sure. Okay. And then what was the we’re not gonna say a fix, but what was the adjustment? Or?

I mean, this is a great story. So I’m glad you asked the question, Scott. So I delivered a speech in the middle of COVID. It was one of the only in person speeches that I delivered in 2021. And I was so excited to deliver this speech, because again, it was in person at my time, I got to shine on stage, I get to see people’s faces, that quick reaction, that biofeedback that we get for being on stage. So I drove to the venue, it was about six hours away from my house. And when I got there, Scott, the ballroom was huge. I was so excited now, because not only was it an in person gig, it was in a real legit full sized ballroom, you know, not just like the back room at a Holiday Inn, so to speak. Right, right. And the stage setup was magnificent. Even though this room could have held 2000 people, they were only going to have 200 Because of the COVID protocols they were following. Right, that stage. That stage was gorgeous. So now I’ve got a video ographers coming. I’ve got a photographer coming. I’m finally getting some more in person footage from my reel. I am so excited. I was the closing keynote for this conference. And when I got up on stage, there were 20 people in the audience. Okay. Because remember, it’s the middle of COVID, where we were was a beautiful resort. And folks had said, you know, after three days of conference and stuff, I think I’m going to skip the closing and just go lay by the pool or just go hang out outside. Oh, oh, now. Photographers, they’re videographers, they’re the stage is there, I’m there. I say you know what, I’m gonna go out and just give it Yeah, Full Tilt performance, bring the energy. And I drowned the crowd in energy. The energy that I brought was way too much for the 20 people that were out there, it just didn’t resonate. And I learned a very valuable lesson. And it speaks a little bit to that anxiety you were talking about earlier that some people feel before they go out on stage. Sure. I’ve learned that that anxiety is more reflection of my desires than my audiences desires. I wasn’t focused on my audience. In that speech, I learned a very valuable lesson from this. I wasn’t focused on my audience, I was focused on me on what that stage that backdrop the videographer, the photographer, all that that was going to do for me. And I forgot that I am there for them. Wow. What I should have done was say, Hey, friends, I know this is a bit unusual, but what I want you to do to your comfort level, you know, bring it a little closer to the stage. I see somebody in the back can we get just a little closer? I know you’re spread out. I’m just gonna sit here Have a conversation because you there’s one of me break down, you know what in the business you might call an acoustic set? Yeah. And when I got off that stage, I mean, no surprise maybe to the listeners, I bombed that gig. And when I got off stage, I knew I bombed, they knew I bombed the meeting planner knew I bombed, and I had a six hour drive home. And I got in the car, mad as hell. And I looked in the rearview mirror, and I said, Alright, dude, you get five minutes to freak out, bug out, screen out whatever it is you want to do about what just happened in there? And then you’re going to use the rest of this drive to figure out what could be good about

it. Yeah. And what was mentioned what was good about it

exactly. That came out as the good about it, it’s that I learned a valuable lesson. I’m never going to repeat that mistake. And I’m better for it. Because somebody could have told me that lesson. It wouldn’t have sunk in as deeply as it did experiencing that lesson.

That’s that’s a great lesson to learn. And it’s probably something that has happened to me that I didn’t learn it. I just wrote it off. Like, okay, you just have your A game, but I there was a lot less than there that I’m looking back. And no, my mind had a couple of those. And I did it. You’re so worried about the anxiety about oh, my gosh, Mee Mee Mee them that you’re serving. And like you said, you made it more intimate, you could have made it more I love. Thank you for being transparent to that. That’s awesome. So what is? Let me ask you this, what do you think people might misunderstand the most about Gregory?

So many things to pick from Scott. I think that people may think that I’ve got all the answers, because I get a microphone and I get a big stage. And I get hired to come and speak at all these events. And I mentored some people a little later in my career kind of just before I made the switch. And one thing I always made sure to share with them was that, you know, I’m gonna bring biases and preconceived ideas that I’m not even aware of to this conversation. And I may be jaded because of something that happened to me six years ago, I don’t I’m not even aware that that’s going to factor into the advice, or the questions I may ask you. Right, I need you to be aware of that. So that’s the first thing I need to be aware of. The second thing I need to be aware of is that I have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow. Neither does Warren Buffett. Neither does Bill Gates, neither does the janitor at McDonald’s down the street. Right. We’re all going to experience tomorrow together. And the biggest BS that goes on in the world is other people trying to masquerade like they’ve got it figured out. sure nobody has it figured out. So we’re all trying to figure it out. Right, I will share what I know and try to help you figure it out. And I’m going to learn from you as you ask questions and share your experiences. Some of that might help me figure it out. Right? Life is it is a reciprocal process. And if we’re not all in it to help each other, we’re all going to fail together. Because this BS of pretending like they’ve got it figured out. They’ve got it made. I’ve got I’m not saying this to brag, there’s a point I’ve got friends that are nine figure millionaires. They don’t have no problems. They’ve got more expensive problems. They’ve got dumb problems, like they bet so much money that nothing impresses them anymore. But a nice steak dinner. They get that every day. Right? It’s so it’s so difficult for them to find an experience that’s surprising that that makes them happy that they throw stupid amounts of money at things they don’t even care about. Because they miss that feeling that maybe you and I experience.

Yeah. And as I started putting commas in my bank account, it was like, they didn’t have the identity to have that. You know, so I blew through stuff in because you know, you have you know, the theory of relativity, when you start making it for yourself, like everyone’s your relative, right? They come to you and they think you have all the answers right? Or not just for money. But the answers again, you’re freaking transparent. This is this awesome. Your vibe is insanely good. So what is Gregory’s definition of a life well lived?

I think I’ve taken this from somebody else, but it’s being able to do what I want, when I want with the people that I want.

Yeah, that’s, that’s awesome. And it’s super true. I mean, it can’t get any better than that the decisions and again, when he goes back to the monetary in the money, money, doesn’t give you anything but choices, you know, and then that you could like you just go back back to the choices of what when and with who and that’s amazing, but that you don’t even need money for that. Because again, we go back to when we first talked about perspective, you know, and being able to do that there’s freedom because there’s no story about the Have a stockbroker that’s on the beach and he sees a fisherman pull up with a bunch of fish. And he’s like, you know, would you do? I’d caught fish for my family, what are you going to do with it? We’re going to cook it up, and I’m going to take a siesta and make love to my wife, and then we’re gonna go out, he’s like, man, you do this every day, I can help you build up the fishing business. And he’s like, why would I want to do that? He goes, so you can sleep and take a siesta and, you know, make love to your wife. And enjoy life is like, dude, I’m doing that right now. You know, it’s all about the perspective and I love that we would talk about that. It’s quite, we’re back with my good friend Gregory offner here and Greg, you and I will meet one day and hopefully share a stage and rocket and we’ll maybe talk 1520 minutes about each one of these questions, but you got five seconds with no explanation so you got to put it on the entertainer rate erotica. You ready to go do it? All right, and they can all be answered that way. So great. What’s the best leveling up advice you’ve ever received?

Don’t chase income Chase impact?

Oh my gosh, dude, I’m sorry. I’m gonna take notes. In Greg, what share one of your personal habits that contributes to your success.

Working out at least three times a week.

Beautiful, beautiful. And see me walking down the street like Fergie looks like he’s in his doldrums a little bit and you think that I need to read a book that might help me level up what book might that be?

The happiness hypothesis by Jonathan Hite?

That I’ve read that believe it or not, that’s that’s a great read that stuff. What’s your most commonly used emoji when you’re taxed?

The crying laughing emoji got it?

Nicknames growing up. giggy giggy. Love it. Love it. So chess checkers or monopoly? Checkers. Beautiful. Thank you. Simple. Go to ice cream flavor.

Mint Chocolate Chip.

We’re like brothers from different mothers. Man. This is awesome. There’s a sandwich named the giggy offner. Build me that sandwich. What’s on it?

Okay. It’s disturbing. I could do this so quickly. It’s an everything bagel lightly toasted with hummus, turkey breast and American cheese. No bacon. No bacon.

Okay. Give me some man candy on that. So you can take a time machine, Greg, you know, you can go for one day come back. The president can’t change the thing. Just observe, would you go 20 years in the future or anytime in the past

20 years in the future.

I’d go on the path versus kegger and 1989. Did I would just like to write I love it. Great. Any favorite charity organization that you’d like to give your time or money

to? Yeah, I’m on the board of directors of an organization called Music copia. We bring music education to schools and communities that don’t have the funding or the ability to provide music education for the students within that community. Do it nationwide? No, right now it is solely based in the Philadelphia in the greater Philadelphia area.

Okay. Very cool. Then the show notes. And he’s done. Okay, awesome. Last question. You can elaborate on this, and I’m looking forward to hearing this one from you. But what’s the best decade of music? 60s 70s 80s or 90s? Gosh.

I actually, I mean, if I have to pick from those 460s 70s 80s or 90s? I’m going to say the 90s. But my answer would actually be the 50s. Really, I love Motown do up. I mean, there is a whole part of a street in Philadelphia, dedicated to TSLP, the sound of Philadelphia. I heard there are some artists from that era, who made and mixed all of their music here in Philadelphia, and there’s a very distinct sound and beat. Real um, I think the OJS would be an example of one of those bands. Yeah,

there you go. Yeah.

I just think that music is got so much richness and depth. That it’s it’s probably the most powerful decade of music in my opinion.

Love it. Love it. I’ve been, you know, from Detroit, you know, we had Motown. And it was, you know, it was amazing growing up there. And my dad was a monster of a man. Like, he’s literally like, six, five, like, almost three pounds, but put together. He’s a country boy from Alabama, and he used to work security and all the shows and the people I got to meet that I didn’t even know I was meeting, you know, I got to sit with Bob Seger. You know, like, in our basement, you know, have that, you know, just all the local talent. You know, that really kind of came out of Motown ended up meeting Larry Brown, one of the Four Tops, lives, like three doors down for me here, right? And like he performs on Thursday for free for people. And it’s just so cool to go in and listen to him sing that Motown and granted the I guess the age in there is a little bit older than you would act, but it’s still I’m right there with you. I’m an 80s guy just because I graduated 9090 But I do love thrown around the 50s. And, you know, like people will say Beatles or stones. I’m like, how about the four seasons? About Frankie Valli, man? You know, it’s like the Valley had like the, you know, the Four Seasons had a number one hit before the Beatles during the Beatles. And after the Beatles, like you say, I heard radio, Frankie or you know, four seasons, like you’ll recognize 50 songs. I love like you just said the 50. That’s a great deck. And I should probably add that. But anyway, so great. How can we find you my friend? Yeah.

So I appreciate you asking that. People can go to my website, Gregory offner.com. I’m on Instagram. Facebook, now not Facebook. I’m on like Instagram on everything. I don’t really hang out on Facebook. So Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, good lord. That’s what I was trying to think of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is my main jam. Gotcha. And it’s just Gregory offener, Jr. Just search for me.

And then you’re you’re going to offer it? Or is it offered on your website, or one shooter for the seven keys to success? Yeah, I’m

glad you brought that up. So you know, you’re asking about that lesson I learned and I told that story about speaking on stage and really not being in it for the audience. And one of the things that I developed throughout the course of the surgeries was an understanding that soft skills are generally more valuable than hard skills, because they can be applied to any job in any industry. And they also bleed into our personal life, you know, you may not impress your friends at the bar with your knowledge of spreadsheets and pivot tables. But if you understand body language a bit better, you can not only get what you want, but you can get where you want. So I identified seven, core, I call them keys, skills, that we can develop within ourselves and within the people we lead, that will make them better. And as they grow, our business grows. So the way that your audience can take advantage of this is just send me a text, text, the word keys K EY s 233777. It’ll ask for your phone, your name and your email. So I can send you the one sheet, I don’t spam, you don’t go on to some subscription list where you get five emails a day from me, you know, I don’t try to pitch you or sell you things. I just want you to have the list of these seven skills and what they can do for you. Because if you start to develop them within yourself, again, I you know, you asked, What’s the best piece of advice I got. And I said, Don’t chase income Chase impact these skills help you make a larger impact no matter what you do. And as your impact grows, so will your income.

Wow, that’s amazing. It’s impossible for not to just the law of reciprocity. In whatnot. That’s beautiful. And I, I would you know, I I’m gonna say this, even though you said it’s not out yet, but I want to be one of the podcasts that says it because it’s at the end, because you people out there don’t always listen to the end. But there’s a there is a book coming out at Tip Jar culture, right?

Yeah, yeah, one of the things I do is help organizations create a culture of highly fulfilled high performing people. And the end state of that culture is what I call a tip jar culture. You know, what is a tip jar and a piano bar where I used to work, it’s, it’s a place where discretionary effort is rewarded and acknowledged. And when we create a culture, when we create an organization, where discretionary effort isn’t expected, it’s rewarded, and it’s acknowledged, people are more inclined to give you that effort. And that’s going to make all of us better.

Okay, I can’t wait. And when that book does come out, squat, I’m going to put I’m going to do a book giveaway and I will send it out via social I’ll repost the podcast interview if the books not out by then with with a book of one time to shine today’s time. So Gregory, give me one last salad and leave us with one last Knowledge Nugget we can take with us internalize and take action.

Yeah, you got it. As we make change in our lives, understand that it’s not just us who change. But it’s everyone around us. By extension. What I learned in my life when I started to build my own business was that as my quality of life increased, the relative quality of life of some people around me decreased. They didn’t they didn’t do anything to change, but because I felt better, they felt worse. Yeah. When when your listeners go to make change in their life, they’re going to encounter that same challenge that friends they thought would be supporters turn into detractors. Sure. And I think just knowing that that’s coming allows us to prepare for it, to see it faster, and to make better choices about what to do next.

That’s that is fantastic advice and squad we had an awesome conversation very transparent, full of knowledge nuggets in basically kind of a free masterclass, my good friend, you know, giggy giggy offner Over here, but he sees himself really as a kind of a glorified storyteller, which makes sense because, you know, being a musician and whatnot, he tells stories all the time, which he just started doing that and taking it and starting to rock stages now, which is just a beautiful thing he’s overcome so much with his voice You know, the didn’t let it stop him from pursuing his dreams with the operations and whatnot, and he wants to remind us that the story we tell ourselves have power. And if they’re on repeat all day long, and you start listening to that, then that’s the route that you’re going to go, you know, he wants to really work to take the Urk out of work. I love that he said that, you know, you can’t be both highly performing and highly fulfilled at the same time, because there’s that harmony, not so much balance, but that harmony, you know, you know, he said, beliefs can his beliefs were causing him and does ease. So he was it the stories he was telling himself and listening to, he started changing those and starting to work his way towards leveling up, you know, you know, he wants you to ask yourself, what brings you the most joy, when you have choices to make go towards joy, you want you to stretch his comfort zone, without the use of narcotics, like he got comfortable in a maybe a negative way by using alcohol, but he wants you to stretch your comfort zone, by the use of feeding your mind the right food, you know, if you’re doing something nine to five, and you don’t like it, don’t, don’t be there, like you start a five to nine, find something you’re passionate about an inch by inch, it’s a cinch, right people by the yard, it’s hard. So you inch by inch, and work your way up towards your passion and make that your vocation. You know, and I have just so many notes that I’m picking from, you know, he mentioned that anxiety, you know, can be a reflection of your own desires. And that’s what happened to him on stage. He was about his desire of having a packed house and only having 20 people out there, instead of shifting and saying, Hey, move closer, let’s make this intimate. It’s a lesson learned. And trust me, Scott, if you listen to my other shows, you know that I’ve kind of came to those as well, you know, he realizes that life is a reciprocal process, you know, we got to do it together, eventually, we’ll all fail. You know, you watch don’t chase the income, chase the impact, which that will definitely be as quote there because that 100% stands out to me and he’s got his seven keys to success. So make sure you text the word keys to 33777. And he’s not going to spam you but he’s going to give you exactly what you ordered up is one cheater. So make sure you get in there and do that. And, you know, you want to remember that if you’re going to change your lives. Not everybody is going to be on board. Okay, that’s gonna be like the crab in the bucket where, you know, like Gregory was climbing up climbing out but those other crabs are like pulling him back in. But he just kept climbing and under. He’s not seen he doesn’t love them and he doesn’t like them. But he also understands that they’re not part of his journey and that part of his life. So he might go have a beer whatnot with and whatnot, but he’s not gonna let them influence his choices. And that’s what we talk about here a lot in time shine today and Gregory, you level up your help you level up your wealth. You’re humble, you’re hungry. I can not seriously wait to rock stages with you. You’ve earned your varsity squad letter here at times shine today. I absolutely love you guys. Brother. Thank you so much for coming on.

Thanks, Scott. It’s great to be here.

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