Legacy Through Leadership: How Greg Robeson Merged Business, Faith, and Family

Welcome to the Legacy All Stars podcast where we talk to successful individuals in their respective fields who do things to help others and make an impact for the greater good. Here is your host, Alan Pavloski.

Welcome to another inspiring episode of the Legacy All Stars podcast. I'm your host, Alan Pavloski and today we are joined by my friend, someone whose journey blends business success, faith, family and purpose. Greg Robeson is a proven business leader, a real estate investor and capital raiser like myself who has spent his career building mission driven ventures. After founding and selling Christian wholesale furniture, Greg and his family embarked on a four year full time RV journey across North America. A powerful testimony to freedom, values and bold living. Today, Greg serves as a partner at Harmony Homes where he's helping to develop high quality residential assisted living communities. Having raised over $5 million in private capital to fund compassionate care initiatives for seniors. With a background in youth ministry, leadership development and a master's degree in pastoral theology, Greg's life work is a masterclass in blending business acumen with with purpose driven heart. We are thrilled to have Greg with us today to talk about legacy leadership and how building for impact can transform both lives and industries. Welcome to the show, my friend.

Thanks Alan. Great to be here.

Great to see you again.

Let's start right away. Let's go back to the beginning. What values or experiences early in your life set you on the path toward entrepreneurship and mission driven leadership?

Sure. Well, I grew up Catholic, a cradle Catholic family and part of the ethos was it was non negotiable, you're going to mass and it was just the, the, you know, that worship was a given and.

But as I, as I got older that began to be framed into how can we help others who have, you know, are less fortunate, who have needs that are greater than our own. We didn't grow up wealthy but that.

You know, focus on God in our lives. As a youngster with, within that, that budding service mentality kind of set my heart on looking at others. I grew up in a academically competitive environment. I'm the youngest of four and, and so the boys were always talking about their grades and that kind of a thing. And, but that, that, that quickly turned in how can we use knowledge or training or self mastery to help other people grow? How can we, you know, make a legacy? How can we make a dent in this world that we live in? So that's, that's when that began to get planted with my, my family of origin.

Yeah, I'm going to throw a curveball on this one because did you know me with my sports background? I want to know, did being an athlete at the same time also steer that kind of mission driven purpose and is that the team kind of orientation that you took from that?

Good question. So I was always a baller, always competitive, and when I was young it was really just how I used my free time. We didn't grow up with video games and the way that kids grow up today. So I was always outside. And for me it was early recreation that I'm super tall, I'm 6 foot 10 and I was this height when I was a freshman in high school. So I was recruited early and always on teams. And then when I realized basketball was going to pay for college, I kind of whittled all the sports down to just basketball. And there's so much to learn from team sports. That's when you begin to get over yourself. You begin to realize how much you can do with a team that you can't possibly do. And basketball, like many sports is that way. You can have solo superstars, your Michael Jordans, your epic stories, but when you look you, you look at the, the difference that they make. The best in the world are always attentive to how their skills fit into.

Something corporate to a team. So yeah, 100%, lots of thankful, I'm very thankful for the opportunities ahead through competitive sports to learn some of those. And you can see how that would translate corporately into the business.

Most definitely, most definitely. What inspired you to start Christian Wholesale Furniture and what lessons did you learn from growing and eventually selling that company?

Well, what inspired me was I was doing non profit work. I was building youth programs at the time.

For kids, young adults, training just for the most part, creating constructive things for kids to do to keep stay out of trouble. And sometimes that's, you know, we roast, camp out, social stuff. Other times it was retreats and spiritual, you know, hey, do you realize there's a God who loves you kind of thing and deep, deeper stuff, you know.

But church and nonprofit work, we, I was having, you know, I was married, having kids and there's a growing family in it that generally that sector doesn't keep up with a growing family. We've got five kiddos. And so I was looking for ways to diversify and, and I had a friend who invited me to liquidate a hotel. One of those moments, you know, opportunity came along and, and it was a Marriott and hundreds of pieces of furniture and it was the first big five digit deal, you know, that made this, it Was it was an eye opener. Like look at how much money it took a year and a half to liquidate all that inventory. But that was the launching point to seeing the need that was out there. And that morphed into estate liquidation. I realized how much of a need there was for people when they're moving all these different reasons to deal with their stuff. Which is actually, it's funny that that's part of our current model with seniors.

And also people who couldn't afford retail. And it was huge market for mid century furniture because it's better made than a lot of the stuff that you pay a lot more for today. And that, that's how that, that rolled. It just grew and grew and grew. Yeah, Supply and demand. And one of the first lessons I learned is that your work is your signature. Be careful who you hire your company as a brand. The way your business card ends up on a refrigerator is by the way you do business. It's not the bottom line. It's not because, you know, someone got the best deal on a brand new mattress they've ever gotten or whatever it is the way your delivery guy installs the bed or whatever, you know, it's the, the way the transaction is done. And you can fake that. You know, you can fake integrity. You can, you can do things like naturally. You know, my mom taught me to make eye contact and be polite and say thank you and all these habits, you know, you can kind of fake it when all your heart really cares about is margins. Like all you're chasing is profit that, that you can do, but those businesses don't do as well. The businesses that have staying power and exponential growth. And this is what I learned with this first company was businesses run by people who care about people, they care about the needs they see in the community. And then building a business around that need and then following up after the sale to make sure that their business continues to meet that need. That's the difference makers in the business community and any community. And that's one of my takeaways from building that company was don't just hire anybody who can fix a problem, whatever that is. Keep my eyes on the customer, the needs that we're meeting and how efficient and how much of a well oiled machine is this company at a need in the person that we're serving. That was one of the key lessons from that first entrepreneurial venture.

Yeah, I always love the saying, you know.

Find a need and fill it or fan a fill. And if you follow those principles and you just Identify the actual needs of people that you're serving, and the other magic word, authenticity, comes into play. Then, of course, you. You end up doing better and more successful.

Yeah. Another lesson I learned was you think you're a good communicator until you try to communicate your vision to an employee. This is why there's so many solopreneurs. You know, we get a vision about a need, and then. And then we try to hire and craft a leader, you know, build a mentor, someone into the role of meeting that need within the corporation. And that's a whole nother. That's a whole nother thing, you know? Yeah. So I'm grateful.

Yeah. Let's. Let's talk about the great adventure, because I'm anxious to hear about this. I've heard some from you in the past, but I'd love to hear details about the great adventure, as I would call it. You know, many people dream about taking time off to travel, but you made it a reality with your family for four years. What were some of the biggest insights or transformations that came from that journey?

Yeah, the whole thing was transformational. It stripped me down, like, to essentials, you know, One of the takeaways is the things we call needs in life that tend to hold us back, you know? No, I can't do that because I need my morning coffee, you know, Or I. I can't do that because we do this to ourselves all the time. I can't, because I need. That language was challenged. That mindset was challenged. I don't need a home. I don't need a house. I don't need brick and mortar. I don't need a car. I don't need a backyard, you know, I need. My God, I need air to breathe. I need nutrition. I need quiet.

That. So it reshaped that. It really took me down. Took me. Give me an honest, sober look at myself, which is really helpful in business because you can't lead where you haven't been, and you can't give what you don't have. And I wasn't ready yet for the business I'm in now because it was too selfish. And it takes a lot of sacrifice to live on the road. You know, we lived in RV resorts in North America, Canada, Mexico, 32 states. So mostly. Mostly in the United States. And the goal was to create an experience for our family, to make memories, to be focused, not outward. There's so much parochial rhythm to people's lives. Keeping up with the Joneses, or we're always looking at other families or Communities. We need to be like that. Well, no. What does it mean to be a ropes? Like, you know, what's, what's. What is our family? What do we need? So it was an incredible training and self mastery. You know, Art, living in a RV is a lot different than living in the way that we're used to. So those were some of the biggest personal challenges, but it bore immense fruit. I mean, some of the greatest memories we have are sitting around a campfire and Toronto and can you believe this is our life now? You know, and all the things you used to think in your head, that defined you and that were essential, that the things that are most important that it's difficult to explain to people, like love of your family bubble to the surface because all the extraneous, unimportant stuff fades away, you know, and you, you realize something about yourself. How many, how many times you've heard testimony from people, they get to the end of their life and no one ever says, man, I wish I'd worked more and I wish that. I wish I would have camped more or, or, you know, whatever. Whatever that is. But it's about our family. So.

Yeah, how was your, how did your kids handle it and how were they. What can you see in your kids that was a direct result of the growth that they experienced from that, from that adventure?

Yeah, good question. Initially, it was hard. Our oldest, we had five at the time, and our oldest was 13. The baby was three. So she didn't remember living in a house until we got back. So we got back about a year and a half ago. And. And so it's like she's all. She's known as RV living. But initially, especially for the, the oldest, she had just started getting into like, youth group and that kind of an environment. And, and, but they hadn't entrenched, she hadn't entrenched herself in that high school community rhythm. And so initially it was hard being away from friends and so forth. But I think we hit the sweet spot on timing and the takeaway, what we see in them. Now, our kids are their community standouts. All five of them are stellar. They do things you don't see in most kids, not just the things we talk about already, which is manners, you know, natural stuff, good habits. But they, they make eye contact, they participate and add value to conversations. They're leaders in every community that they're in. One of the things we saw is we talk about diversity. It's a thing we talk about in our culture a lot. But for us, for our Kids, they were able to experience different languages and cultures and ecclesial climates too. You know, not. Not just civic, but church. How do you do church? How do you, you know, what, what does worship look like? What's important to this city? What's the civic like? What's the history of this culture here? Why is that important to this part of the country? That training and experience, like, it's, it's something you can't get in a book. You know, kids learn. They learn by doing. And so they, they. It enculturated a sophistication and a sensitivity to people's needs because they were able to see how big the world is. They were able to see the need that's present out there. And then our kids started to dream in a different way based on the need that they encounter. They saw themselves differently, and they saw themselves with respect to the world that we live in. And that changes it. The kids can dream. They can. They're awesome. But you just got to give them an environment. It's not about. It's not like everybody needs to go hop in an RV or hop in a plane or a boat. That's not the point. But as parents, we need to give them fuel for that dream so they can really discover themselves as difference makers, as legacy leavers. And that's the big. I think that's the big thing we saw is they're, they're just thinking and on a different level, and they're attending to the needs of the world in a way that they hadn't before. We made this commitment to our family that's outstanding.

I want to jump right into Harmony Homes because I know how passionate you are about this mission, and I really want to find out what drew you to. Drew you to senior assisted living and why is it such a meaningful space for you personally?

Yeah, you bet. So while we were traveling, I was already in real estate. I had sold my furniture company to buy a rig and kind of detached from that. And so we were in. I had already been in the short term rental market, Airbnb, a couple different sectors, and then vacation rentals elsewhere. And we were already, we were, we were traveling, living in resorts. So I was interviewing every resort owner I could find to look at ROI analysis on owning an RV park, because that was us from the inside. We were like, huh, what would it take to do this? And. But we were also encountering the needs of seniors everywhere in the country. So it's. Initially, it was margins that drew us to space. Anybody in real estate, you're looking at how much time do you put in per door and what's the return on the door? Right. That's the real estate question. And so many people, because there's so much return per door, many people are drawn to the senior space and frankly it can be a bit predatory. If that's the main reason you're staying there, is chasing that margin. It was what initially drew my attention, the RAL model Resident assisted living. Like we got in the academy and learned about the model, but I was experiencing it around the country, seeing the way seniors are being shipped into these big box.

Corporations and treated. And I'm just like, these are our parents, this is our patrimony, this is where we came from. And this is how we're, this is the golden years. This is how we're treating our parents and our grandparents and these hundred bed centers where the average time to bingo is 12 minutes. You know, this is ridiculous. Why do they smell the way they do? So this travel and this experience has kind of opened my eyes. And so my, at this point my, my ministry card, my, my early career merged with my, my real estate entrepreneurial and God brought them together. And it wasn't about margins anymore. It was about building something to solve a problem. And the problem was pain point. This moment when seniors are overwhelmed, they don't know what to do. Like how do I assess my care? Am I going to live independently? Do I need assisted living? I don't know. My daughter Judy doesn't know. I don't, I don't know how to figure that out. That's overwhelming. What am I going to do with all my stuff? 50%, 60% of my stuff, my kids don't want it. That's overwhelming. How do I deal with that stuff? And then the other pain point is my home that I don't need anymore. This is a four bedroom ranch or whatever. And it's too much for me. So that's where our vision for this company, we aggregated this business plan around those three main needs and said we're going to be one hand to hold. And so now for three years we've been pounding this pavement, creating a new ecosystem, a new response to the need to be encountered. You know, I, I've been in a lot of centers around the country where the nurse or the aide, it's time, it's time for medicine. The senior will walk up to them and you know, say engage. And the nurse will be like, good, go to your room, I'll come get you when I'm ready. And, and that's the feel of a lot of these places. And I'm not okay with that. And so the five partners in Harmony Homes are all, we're all Christian minded, mission minded and determined to change that, determined to use business to create a place where seniors can retire with dignity. You know, where people want to listen to their stories and be present to them because there's some such immense value there, but also create a space that's meeting those pain points.

Talk about where you are in the process of building this platform out and, and where does it go from A to Z?

Yeah, sure. So right now we just took some ground down in a part we're in St. Louis, Missouri so we, we just took down parcel number four.

So the first three weren't were 2012 bedroom ranches and another a little bit more rural part here in Missouri and the third one's under construction now and the fourth parcel is in St. Louis proper. So there's a little bit more dense population. So we bought a seven acre parcel and with actually the ribbon cutting with the mayor is going to be here in the next two weeks and we'll have a videographer and all that fun stuff. So it's kind of a big deal for the city. So this is when we're stepping into more of a visible spot with marketing, PR and commercials and all that kind of a thing.

So it's a, it's a seven acre lot that's going to hold six 16 bedroom ranches. So it's four bedrooms larger than the first three parcels, the first three projects. So project four is a six homes and each home's 4.5 million dollar build and they hold 16 residents each. And what's unique, one of the unique things is that these buildings being only 16 bedrooms, are intimate. They're built like a rectangle and, and all the bedrooms are along the outside and you know there's no residence on the fourth floor that needs an elevator and a push to get to an activity or dining. They're all no further than 15ft from the center of activity. And the whole feel of it is come out of your room. As beautiful as your room is, the painting, the artistry, the attention to detail in your room. A place that you would actually want to live and retire. As beautiful as job as we've done there, we're still really asking them to come out into the community space because it's a family environment. We're not pushing them back into the rooms like our doctors on our board and one of our partners is A physician, they'll all say the same thing. The thing that's contributing to the decline of seniors isn't Alzheimer's or some other disease. It's loneliness and isolation. So how much sense does it make to build a building just from the blueprint that encourages seniors to stay jammed up in their room? That makes no sense, just from a construction standpoint. And then how much sense does it make to run these centers? You know, the state of Missouri, for example, requires a care ratio of 15 to 1. So that means for every 15 residents, you have one caretaker. A lot of these centers are pushing that because the more you push that, the margins go up, right? The profit can look real good, but the service level goes down. And this is why the testimony is what it is in the United States. You know, ask, ask anybody. You know, where's your mom staying or your grandma? And what's it like? Is it worth that dollar figure per month? And I rarely find someone who says yes. So the ral, the resident assisted living is meant to answer that. And then also the people we hire, the type of people that are on the caregivers have got to be mission minded and attentive to the needs of people. So that's, that's what's going to set. That's going to be our brand. That's our signature. People are going to know us by the way seniors are treated like royalty, like gold, the gold that they are. That's the Harmony brand.

Hey, Greg, without putting the cart before the horse, you know, as you're building out this model in St. Louis, do you feel confident that you'll be able to provide this opportunity to other places that haven't built this model and grow it out further in other parts of the country?

Yes, I am. We, as we've developed this in the last three years, we've been courted by different parts of the country as a lot of people in senior living, a lot of developers, investors, it's an attractive place to be. So as they learn about the model, Our model is one hand hold. It's all those verticals.

We will deal with your estate liquidation, we will liquidate your home and we will help you with placement and care. One company doing all those things, that's an attractive model. It's also overwhelming. And so we're, we're being invited, and not, you know, by fund managers who want to raise for us, but also.

People in the space that want to learn. And so what we're doing long term here in the next three years is we're Developing a business in the box so that we can look around the country and see what's being done. Well, okay, you've got senior living. You care about who you hire, you're a resident, but you don't have any kind of estate liquidation to deal with. So we're just. What we're doing is developing it to where we can help people where they're at. Like, we realize there's. We're first to market. There's no one else in the country doing everything that we're doing in the way that we're doing it. And so that's, of course, going to need to be exported. And the question becomes, how is it franchising? And the approach that we're taking is, is that people already have certain sectors really cranking. You know, there's. There's people that are helping seniors liquidate their homes because they're in real estate, and that's easy for them to do, but they don't know anything about senior care, you know, and so we're taking those case by case. First, we have to get the St. Louis market not, you know, locked down and do it well, with part this. This parcel will be a big step in that direction. But in three years, we do want to be that authority in the space that's helping others serve better. We're encountering in every sector people with huge hearts that want to use their skill to change it in their city. And so we are positioning ourselves to help where people are at. Thanks for asking that.

Yeah, of course. I mean, it's such an important space, and it's. It doesn't get enough positive attention. So I, for one, am really excited to hear about what you're doing. Let me dovetail into another question. And I try to ask this of all the guests on this show, but how do you define legacy? And what steps do you intentionally take in your life to work toward building a legacy that matters?

Difference making is legacy. So.

It'S not just what you leave behind, it's what you build into others. That's what legacy means to me. While I'm still here, what am I building into other people? For me, legacy means fidelity or faithfulness over flashiness. I think some people think legacy and they think wow factor, visibility, pop, stage presence, whatever. To me, it's commitment to the core values over time. To me, legacy means raising children who know that they're loved, but also called not just loved and sheltered, but also look at the need. What are you called to now that you've been. You've Been, you know, poured into. What are you going to do? You're going to build your own business? What. How are you going to, how are you going to make a difference? To me, legacy in business, it means building businesses that bless the people that they touch. You know, it means investing in projects and relationships that matter eternally. That's what legacy means. Like, I pray, I'm a prayerful man, and I think about my day with Jesus. I think about Judgment Day. Whether you are a Christian or a believer or not doesn't change the reality that Judgment Day is coming for everyone. So you can, you can believe that you could jump off a bridge and not fall. That doesn't change the reality of gravity. And Judgment Day comes for all of us. And so I think when you ask me about legacy.

That'S what I think about, is that day. I think about the project sub built, the relationships I've built. And does it matter eternally? Not just temporarily, but does what I'm building matter forever? That question's coming.

Yeah, for sure. Well, we're coming to the end of the show. Where can listeners connect with you or learn more about the incredible work you're doing? Greg?

Well, livewithharmony.com is our website and gregwithharmony.com is my email. And I would welcome questions at any level. Collaboration. Come check out what we're doing. It's magnanimous. It's, it's attractive. And I think projects like this, no matter what field you're in, what sector, it helps you to dream. It helps you to elevate your game. Like, what need are you meeting in the world? And one of my questions, when I'm working with other businesses, how can I help you thrive? How can I help you raise your game? We don't have to copy each other. We all need to help each other figure out the best version of ourselves so that we can be most effective. And I want to do that for you.

Absolutely. Well, I sincerely hope that the content shared on this show inspires everyone listening to commit to legacy building. If you want to learn more about how I help others learn the process of building a legacy through passive income, visit legacyallstarspodcast.com I want to really thank my friend Greg Robson for, for his kindness and his willingness to share his journey, and most importantly, for the great work he's doing. So thank you, Greg.

You're welcome, Al. Thank you.

Until next time, I'm Alan Pavloski for Legacy All Stars podcast. See you next time.