We all have the same amount of time on our hands. The difference is just a matter of pacing ourselves accordingly to the events that happen during our day. There are days when we feel that we are just spinning the wheel, knowing in the back of our mind that we are not getting anywhere. Bestselling author of Three Feet From Gold, Greg Reid, believes that the power to persevere is the key to keeping the passion to whatever task we have at hand. He explains that there is a difference between adapting, adjusting, and persevering.
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We’re going to talk with Greg Reid. Greg is a great entrepreneur, a great business leader, and he’s no stranger to the red carpet because he’ll grab every opportunity that he can in order to share his message and insights. He’s done this as a bestselling author. He’s written over 50 books with over 28 bestsellers. He’s a keynote speaker sought after all around the world. He’s also a film producer and an adventurer. He loves to share his experience. He does so with energy and always an adventure and something to learn. He will share some valuable lessons that you can learn to take back time and they’re also easy to apply.
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The Difference Between Knowing When To Adapt And The Power To Persevere with Greg Reid
I’m here with Greg Reid at the Secret Knock. After reading your book, Three Feet From Gold, what stuck out for me is talking about perseverance. I wanted to get your thoughts on what and how somebody can be in that place of persevere all the challenges that are going to come up. They are three feet from gold. How do they know? How do they stick with it?
Three Feet From Gold: Turn Your Obstacles Into Opportunities (Think and Grow Rich Series)
There’s a big difference between having stickability, the power to persevere, and also knowing when to adapt and adjust. That’s what it comes down to. Stickability means that you’ve got your eye on the prize and you know exactly what you want, but you have the ability to adapt and adjust along the way or you get stuck. If I want to get to the end of the street and that’s my goal, I got stickability to where I know where I’m going, but I don’t get too caught up on how I’m going to get there. Did a kid leave a skateboard or a bicycle out to make my journey short? Can I hitch a ride by a neighbor driving down the street? Either way, I got stickability. I’ll get to my destination. I just don’t mind how it has to happen. That’s the thing that people lose focus on.
Somebody said something powerful. They said, “It’s not just about passion because passion can fade. It’s about love.” What’s your perspective on that?
It’s a brand-new perspective. It’s fascinating. I’m going to borrow it. You can have passion and be all excited about something, but passion fades. You have to have love for your business, for your entity, for your relationships. I thought that was brilliant.
I love the fact that we’re here at your event, Secret Knock, and it’s invitation only. You’re still learning new perspective too. You say that’s a new perspective. People here are getting you to think totally differently.
One guy was talking about what dark matter is and space and dimensions, and we can’t see it. It’s pretty mind-boggling stuff. I don’t even know what to say to that. It’s spectacular.
What would your time management tip be? You’ve interviewed the most successful people around the world. You, yourself, are managing a lot of different things.
There is no such thing as time management. It’s all bullshit. At the end of the day, everyone’s got the same amount of time. How you handle your phone is how you handle your life. That means are your apps are up to date? How many unanswered emails and phone calls and things do you have? Your phone is a direct reflection of how we handle our life. The real reality is I’d stop and look at that, and then you can see exactly where you’re headed.
That’s awesome because how we do something is how we do everything.
We all have the same time. It’s just a matter of knowing what we do with it. It’s also how we leverage it. I understand the power of “work my strengths and hire my weaknesses.” What that means is I’m not a great writer, so I hire great ghostwriters and that’s how I put out so many books. I worked my strengths not focusing so much on trying to develop my challenges. To me, that’s a waste of time. If you can sub it out or hire it out, I say you do it.
[Tweet “Seek counsel, not people’s opinion.”]
They’re going to do it a lot faster and better, and that way you can focus on working your strengths.
No matter what, I’m never going to be a great wordsmith. I got a D in English, I’m just a regular guy. However, if I can hire people that write the curriculum for Princeton University and they can help me write my books and take my words and make them dance off the page, and then it can inspire millions of people, that sounds like a marriage made in heaven. That’s what I work on.
As a parting tip for our audience, what would you say?
Seek counsel, not people’s opinion. What’s the difference? Opinion is based on ignorance, lack of knowledge, inexperience. Counsel is based on wisdom, knowledge, and mentorship from people who paved the way. If you go to a family friend and you say you’re going to write a book, they might talk you out of it because they’ve never done it. If you go to Mark Victor Hansen who wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul, he’ll say, “Before you get started, here’s what you need to know,” and give you counsel. If we would spend our activity seeking counsel and ignore people’s opinion, that’s the day your life will change. Where are we getting your information from? More importantly, is it current information today? Surround ourselves with people that are getting the results we want now.
Thank you so much.
It’s about being proactive, getting a mentor, seeking counsel, and creating leverage with the time that you have and showing up. My expression that I use is every day is game day. What I leave with you is show up at your best for the time that you do have, and be smart about the way that you work it.
Those were some great nuggets from Greg Reid. I can relate to them with the projects that I’ve been working on. There were times when I felt like I was just spinning my wheels, like I wasn’t getting anywhere, and I wanted to quit. I certainly wasn’t passionate about this project all the way through, but I was in love with it and I still am in love with it. That’s what has helped me to persevere because I know the impact that it’s going to make is going to be huge. I’m going to be able to deliver a software program that’s going to enable people to coach themselves and bring themselves into a greater awareness of where they are and what behaviors they need to change in order to get better results. It’s going to make a huge impact and it can be used across any context.
It’s like that metaphor of, “Three feet from gold.” Gold runs in a vein, and there have been times when I’ve gone through it. I’ve had a taste of success, but I wasn’t catching the full vein of the gold. It took me to find the people that were going to work with me that were going to collaborate the right partners, and that made all the difference so that I wasn’t taking on everything. Greg says, “Focus on your strengths and outsource your weaknesses.” That is so key. Once I let go and let people in to be a source of support and collaborate with others, that brought me much closer to the end result that I was looking for.
Power to Persevere: Focus on your strengths and outsource your weaknesses.
Why would I ask anyone who’s never developed a piece of software and marketed it and look to get a mass number of people, a million or 2 million people on their software, if they’ve never done it? Why would I want to listen to someone who wants to give me their opinion but has no experience? That doesn’t make any sense. I am pretty good at not listening to people who have opinions and want to tell me to stop doing what I’m doing or this is how I should do it. That’s not who I’m going to be taking advice from. I’m going to be seeking counsel of people who have had experience in this area and can help me to propel my marketing, to find the right partners because they’ve done it and it’s in the same context.
There’s so much wisdom and so much that relates to my project that I’m working on. It’s exciting because I’m at that point where I’m starting to gain traction and I’m starting to hit the vein of gold there. That’s there for you as well. I want you to think about which project or part of your life is this most relevant to and what’s the biggest thing that you can take away, even if it’s just doing that phone exercise and understanding where you are in your use of your phone and how that relates to other areas of your life. What’s the one thing that you can be more deliberate about and take control over? Also, let control away from the things that you can’t control. Release and let go of what you can’t control. Find the best tools, the best partners that you need in order to be focused, directed, and deliberate in everything that you do. You definitely took away a nugget to help you to take back time. My name is Penny Zenker and I will see you in the next episode.
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About Greg Reid
Greg Reid is a highly sought after Keynote Speaker, film producer and best-selling author. He has written over 50 books and 28 were best sellers. He has graced the stages form the Pentagon to the United Nations on the topics of perseverance, success, adaptability, and turning ideas into reality. As producer and writer, Greg is known for Three Feet From Gold, Pass it On, and WishMan.