The Cost of Being “Always On” with Gregg Frederick

You can look successful and still feel like your life is getting smaller. Today's guest lived that. He ran a huge sales organization. He traveled close to 150,000 miles a year. He carried the number. He also carried fear. Fear of failure. Fear of letting people down. Fear of slowing down. Then he hit a moment Where the cost got really loud. Welcome to the NeuroLeadership Edge. I'm Claire Hayek. I'm a neuroleadership expert, TEDx speaker, founder of Mind Soul Purpose Team Building. And my work focuses on one thing: pressure-proof leadership. Pressure feels productive. But it's costing you more than you realize. Pressure does not build leaders. It exposes them. This show is about what actually happens in your brain when the stakes are high, and how to stay clear, grounded, and effective, and lead with calm authority no matter what. Today, I'm actually here from Paraguay, sitting on my balcony. As you can see, this is a different setup. But you do what you can with what you got. But I'm sitting down with Greg Frederick. Greg is the owner and principal consultant at G3 Development Group. He's an executive coach and mindset trainer. He's worked in sales leadership at a serious level, and he's also trained high-level athletes. What I like about Greg is he speaks plainly about the part most people hide, the fear Underneath the Drive. Greg, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Claire. I appreciate you having me on. Look forward to it.

This is a really interesting subject. I want to know more about the story. I want our listeners to really understand what was happening. Tell us, basically take us back to when on paper, if we put it right on paper, everything looked great. What did your life actually look like Week to week. So we can paint that picture and people kind of like dive right into the reality, right?

So around 2006, 2007, I was head of sales for a company called Giant Bicycle. They're the world's largest bicycle manufacturer. They're a $2 billion company. I was in charge of North American sales. And, you know, we were under a lot of pressure to grow sales, obviously, as any salesperson or sales manager, VP of sales, anybody in sales is always under that pressure to perform. Before that, a little bit before then, I grew up racing BMX bikes. I raced bikes professionally. So I had always been an athlete, turned an athlete into sales. But as the head of sales, you know, there's tremendous pressure to get year-over-year sales and to grow the business, particularly when we got into 2008. When the economy started to take us a large slide, especially here in the States, you know, there was so much pressure to continue to grow the business.

Right.

And we did just that. So in a 3-year period from 2008 to 2011, we grew 48%. But I mean, sorry there.

You said, and I remember, you're carrying about $150 million.

Yes.

In revenue and leading about 100 people, right?

At the end of that growth, about—

I mean, that's crazy.

So the interesting part was, you know, as revenue grows, the demands on your, on your time, on your team, on your resources, on the company resources grows tremendously as well. So what I'm most proud of in that process though was growing profitably. So it's sometimes easy to grow when you're throwing money and you're not growing profitably, but We're growing revenue and growing profitably and with enough focus on our employee base. So that's where our key success factor for, at least for me and my group, was we started to really focus on the players on our team, right, and their strengths and becoming the best team that we could be.

So you're obviously under, under a lot of pressure. I mean, this is kind of a big job. Yep. Where did you feel pressure? Where was it showing up? In your body, in your mind, in your sleep, in your mood? Can we hone in on that?

Yes, all of the above. So part of it was— so Giant is based outside of LA. I was remotely based in Orlando, and our home headquarters is in Taiwan. So we were doing a lot of traveling between California, Taiwan, Orlando, plus seeing clients all over in between. And I was, as I was saying, getting more and more projects put on because of the success. You know, you, you build confidence in the company and the company starts adding more and more to your plate. So next thing you know, I'm traveling, you know, 2 or 3 weeks to China or 2 weeks or 3 weeks to UK to help their business and, and observe what they're doing.

So, so you were traveling a lot?

Um, yes, about 100%.

Is that due to your Yeah. What did that do to your family life? If I may ask?

No, no, of course. So I have 3 boys, 2, one was born in 2004. One was born in 2005. And let me throw, I, I got my master's degree in from 2006 to 2008 on top of all of that. Wow. What it did to my family life. I mean, fortunately for me, my kids were young. My wife was, is tremendously supportive through all of that, and including today. But, you know, what was burning inside of me was, going back, if you're familiar with CliftonStrengths, I have what they call high Responsibility. And high Responsibility is, you can't, you just, you have a responsibility to everything that you sign up to do.

Right.

And when you're not being responsible to those things that you've committed to, You feel like you're losing out and you take everything on your plate, right? So you have a hard time saying no to anything. So here I am saying yes to everything, not having any boundaries.

Right.

And what you can see between the travel and young kids and trying to get your master's degree and trying to hit these large revenue targets in a down market, that pressure becomes so, so enormous that you start to lose your You start to lose your way, right? You start to cut, taking shortcuts in, in what you're doing as a, as a person, not so much in the business because you're so business focused, but it was more about bumping up against my true values and my authentic self.

So you were winning professionally?

Yes, for sure.

But what you were losing everywhere else from what I, you know, what I hear.

I don't know. I don't want to say, you know, the comp— the high competitor in me is like, I don't know if I was losing everywhere else, but I wasn't, I certainly wasn't balanced or the, the life, the balance of life was definitely off.

Right.

And it was hard to bring that, the personal stuff back in balance with the work stuff.

But what did you, when did you first realize that was happening, that you were, you know, you were off balance basically?

In coaching, we all try to find those trigger moments and there were a couple of them for me. You know, it was every time I started to get on an airplane to go somewhere, it's that responsibility was kicking in on, well, I'm leaving behind my family for a week or two.

Right.

Money started— I mean, with that success, you make good money, and I— you can't complain about that. I mean, that's all part of it. But those other things that start to come into play about, you know, that responsibility— it's back to raising my kids and wanting to be a part of my family's life and my, my kids. And then that's where it really started to have a trigger moment. Then there were some other moments where, you know, when you're going into reaction mode, right. And things from headquarters or my boss or the global president were being pushed down on you. You start to think, is this really worth it? Is this pushing my, my personal values or my purpose?

So you said something, that word, you lived in reaction mode. And how would you— if some of us don't know what that is, let's assume some of us don't know what that is, right?

Sure.

How would you describe reaction mode in real-life behavior?

So in real-life behavior, that looks like you're picking up every call, you're on email 20 hours a day, you're You don't— there's no boundaries, right? You're constantly reacting to what's being asked of you.

Right.

And then you're taking on more and more responsibility because you feel like that's what you need to do to, to stay where you're at or get ahead, not realizing, you know, how that builds up and how it builds up into burnout for, for the most part.

Yeah. I mean, I can't even imagine. I think a lot of people can unfortunately can relate, and this is why we're talking about this. Right. This is not right or wrong. This is more— this is what happens with a lot of people. And there's something you can do about it. And here's a story. And this is why I really wanted you on the show, Greg. And I really appreciate you being vulnerable and open to even talk about this. I really applaud that. What was that moment, that first moment where you start realizing that I don't want to be in reactive mode anymore? I don't— I need to change. the way I do things? And what did you choose instead?

So interestingly enough, it had been— these things build up over time, right? So, and as people, we're resilient and, you know, we, we can certainly talk about the neuroscience about being resilient and, and, and staying in that reactive mode. But for me, the main trigger moment was when my third child was born in 2012. I, he had just been born like 2 hours before and I got a work call and I wasn't very happy that they were calling me knowing I had just had our third child.

Wow.

And the person on the other end was like, hey, I really need your help. I really need your help. I'm like, listen, I don't want to be available right now. And that it just came down to, hey, you either get on this call or, you know, we have to deal with this later. And I stepped outside the hospital and I took the call and I walked away from that call going, but what in God's name am I doing here? How have I allowed myself to be in that reactive mode? I can't continue to do that.

I can't even imagine. I mean, if we look at the brain, you mentioned neuroscience. Of course, we talk neuroscience on this show. If we look at it in plain English.

Yeah.

When your brain is under threat, you know, your options kind of narrow. Your body gets speed. Your thinking gets smaller. You're in fight or flight. And leaders, unfortunately, confuse that speed with leadership, with being present, with being anchored, with calm authority, with choosing to respond instead of react. And I know you live that. You live that every single inch of your body. And And until, unfortunately, sometimes, you know, life needs to give us that wake-up call, and some of us don't wake up.

Right.

And hopefully, by listening, the people listening to this or watching the show, this really brings things into perspective and helps people stop, pause, and ask, am I doing the— you know, am I respecting my boundaries? Am I choosing instead of reacting? Am I— is this the life that I want? Am I completely fulfilled? Am I just lying to myself? Let's kind of look at what you did. You know, you— I know, you know, you— we talked about this and you had— you told me, you know, you had to kind of redefine success in a way.

Yes.

So tell me now, what is success to you now? So from that moment, what happened and how did you change it all around?

So, Claire, taking a step back from that moment, because to me, that, that was the trigger moment, that moment I stood outside. To this day, we'll drive by the hospital and hate to say PTSD, but it's similar, right? Like I drive by, I'm like, I can't. That's the moment that changed everything for me.

I bet.

Yeah. And I also wanted to, I want to put a plug in for executive coaching because I had a very good, or still have a very good executive coach that I've leaned on in those times. Uh, her and I still have a very good relationship. But, you know, she challenged my thought process throughout all of that and really surfaced and allowed me to be vulnerable. Right. And that's why I'm comfortable talking about this with you today.

Like, you did the work, of course. Yeah. Yeah.

Learning to be vulnerable, but vulnerable to be able to tell a story and hope that people listening to this or in our coaching practices to understand that it's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay to talk about. The good and the bad.

Absolutely.

That trigger moment was— we all, we talk a lot about neuroscience, about responding versus reacting, right?

Mm-hmm.

So taking a step back and taking that 3-second pause before you say something, you know, really changes the outcome. And for me, it was, I walked away from that conversation saying, I need a change in my life. I need a change in my career. I tried to work it out with, with Giant while I was there to, you know, can I take a step back and start responding, start being less reactive to what they needed? But I didn't see that changing. It was getting even more reactive. They were requiring me to be more reactive. So at that point, I just started building out, you know, what would it look like to go on my own? Over the years, just having clients and understanding clients and being in the business world, I had a bunch of people saying, hey, if you ever leave Giant, you know, we'd love to work with you or have you come into our company and work with us on business development, right? Things like that.

So, so you chose, you chose differently. You chose to shift. You, you realized that if you had stayed, you tried certain things, it stopped, stopped reacting and pausing, etc. But that Wasn't working, from what I understand.

Right. The culture cat is— that's part of a company culture, right? So if a culture of a company is very reactive, it's hard to get to fit into that.

Of course. I mean, you're gonna have to change the whole culture. And this is one person, right? It starts with one person. But, you know, sometimes we don't— we may not want to take this on. This is probably not the right thing for us. Right. But I'm interested to know. So So you mentioned, you know, you stopped reacting, you start responding, and, you know, you applied a couple of tools. And of course, you had the help as well. Yep. Which is wonderful. Now, what changed at home when that pace changed in you? When that pace— whatever you change in your life, how did that trickle back to your family?

Well, for me, I became happier, I became healthier, I was sleeping better, I was eating better, you know, as, as an athlete, and I still race bikes to this day. It is all of those things that affect our mindset— sleep, eating well, being present, right? You know, for me, that was the number one thing, is, is slowing things down and being present, particularly 3, 3 young boys and a wife and now a new business. That was a big leap.

So what, what do you do? What do you personally do? Yeah. So what do you personally do in the moment When you feel the old pattern coming back? Because I mean, you said it, you know, you have your own business, you still have your life. Pressure doesn't go away. It's just how we react to it, how we choose to react to it or deal with it, right? So when you feel that pattern coming back, because you're a high performer, you're an athlete, for God's sakes. It's, and it's a good thing. It's a positive thing until it goes out of control.

Right.

So what is it? What is it that, what's that thing that you do in that moment when you're, I'm sure you're way more self-aware now, When you're like, oh, here we go, this is coming back. What do you do?

A couple of things. I'll, I'll respond. First of all, like, uh, nowhere, I don't want to beat a dead horse on that, but it's so important to be able to take that time to, to respond and think through before you react to something. I mean, obviously as business owners and coaches, we have to react to things quite oftenly, but now I can respond in the framework of, does this fit who I am?

Right?

In my value system, does this meet my why?

Right?

Is this fulfilling my purpose?

Okay. So if we, if we were to choose 2 things that, you know, we have some, someone may be listening that has that same pattern right now that you had, right? A high performer, high urgency, high pressure, If we were to narrow it down to 2 things they can do literally this week, because I'm all about practicalities, yes, in order to, to move from reaction to response. So you gave us the first one. What would be something else that you find really helps you that maybe could help somebody else?

I would say either find your form of meditation, and that doesn't have to be something, you know, where you're sitting in, in, in a quiet room. For a lot of people, meditation is walking the dog, listening to a podcast, or going to the gym. Or, you know, for me, going out on, on my road bike and riding some distance and, and really thinking about trying to leave things behind, but thinking about, you know, whatever, whatever it is in front of me that, that's pushing those boundaries.

Right.

The other part is journaling.

Hmm.

I actually, of course I'll go back to that, but I think the third part is Having a mentor or a coach or someone that you can, you can have that vulnerability with. And sometimes it's your spouse, but you know, the spouse is going to be very— they're not going to be objective, right, as much as, as we want them to be. But you know, having a mentor or coach that you can really lean on to, to have that conversation and who's going to give you, give you some honest feedback is That's invaluable. But the journaling part is, again, getting it out of your head and onto paper, or, you know, with our phones, there's so many different ways to journal now. But getting it out of your head and on paper somewhere else, it helps, you know, lift that load off your shoulders.

Absolutely. And this is all very practical tools that we use. We— sorry, we use When it comes to little tricks and reset tools when it comes to high-pressure environments, I mean, just taking a pause, like you said, just pause and before reacting or journaling, basically what you're doing is you're naming what's happening. You're just dumping it all out, which brings you back to your prefrontal cortex. If you're completely in fight or flight and you can't slow down, it just slows you down. It's like, okay, this is what's happening. This is how I'm feeling. This is what's going on. And automatically just helps you focus and get anchored and grounded all of a sudden. Literally, that's just works miracles and so underestimated. And of course, talking to somebody like you, like you said, in a way, it's a different way of journaling, if we want to call it that right now. One more thing. So what's the sign a leader is drifting into burnout, even when they still look productive, feel productive? What would be that like blind spot, you think?

I think the number one thing I see with leaders who are, who are in burnout is They dread, it's the dreading the mundane.

Okay.

So from an organizational perspective, it's easy to tell who's, who's engaged and who's not engaged. So when you see, you know, we do, we do engagement studies and you see exactly who is burned out or not burned out based on how engaged they are with their work. But from, from, you know, if someone's listening and they're questioning You know, are, am I burned out or am I not burned out? Try going through writing down 3 positives at the end of the day.

Right.

And if those negatives start to outweigh the positives, right, if you can't name 3 positives, and quite frankly, Claire, whether I'm doing a, a, a seminar or I'm coaching a group. When you ask somebody to write down 3 positives off the top of their head or how their day is going.

Yeah.

So hard for people to do.

Oh yeah, I know. I do that all the time.

Wired to think negatively, right? So if I ask anybody, hey, what's going bad or what's wrong with your life or what's going bad in your life, you know, we can rattle that off like that, but we have a hard time telling people, you know, what's going right.

Yeah. And the thing is, I call it, and listeners to the show know this, I call it Find the gift. And I'm always challenging clients and listeners, give me 3 gifts. I actually had a call with a lawyer a couple of weeks ago, one of my clients, and, and, and she couldn't see it. She couldn't see it. She's like, well, right now, right now, the 3 gifts in this horrible thing going on right now? I'm like, yes, you could do it. Get creative. Get creative. And, and she actually came up with 5.

Yeah.

Because she took the time to stop and find the gift. And I think it's a practice. And that's what we build with mental fitness. I love the fact that you brought this up and kudos for you to talk about this. So here we go. Rapid fire. So these are short answers as much as you can. I have like 4 or 5 questions for you. I'm so excited about this call. I hope I have good answers for you. There's no good or bad, man. It's just your answer and I'll take it. So are you ready?

I am.

All right, here we go. One belief about leadership you changed your mind about?

So over the years, what I've learned is leaders should be very edgy. So what I— what do I mean by that? There's a myth that people should be well-rounded, but the best leaders are very sharp in who they are. So they're very self-aware of their strengths. They're very self-aware of what they bring to the table and who they are. But they understand the well-roundedness comes from enabling others to do what they're not good at, or managing, helping other people manage around their weaknesses or their deficiencies. Yeah. Being very sharp in your leadership skills and very complementary to others to round you out.

Yeah. And I mean, I call it in a way calm authority. I love that word. Okay, moving on. A question you ask yourself when pressure spikes.

Does this feel right to me? Is this bumping up against my, my purpose?

Awesome. And one last one. One sentence you tell the younger Greg, that younger version of you.

Be self-aware around my strengths, around your strengths.

Okay. All right. This conversation really matters, Greg, because as I said, a lot of people keep pushing while their life quietly just They're shrinking in a way, right? And they're just not realizing what's going on. So everyone listening here today, Greg's story is a reminder that you can build results and still stay human. You can lead hard and still lead with calm authority. And it starts with how you regulate yourself when actually pressure hits. And we gave you a couple of tips. Greg was very generous with his tips, and I'm very grateful to that. If this episode resonated in any way, Please do follow the show, subscribe, like this episode, and share it with someone who needs to hear this, who's probably going through this. Let's get that ripple effect going. And if you're thinking, I'm tired of running on urgency, I'm tired of being in survival mode 24/7, I want to lead at the level I know I have in me, do scan the QR code that you see on the screen. And if you're listening on audio, check the Linktree link in the description. You'll see my mental fitness masterclass called Play at the Level You Were Built For. It gives you the tools to build real control under pressure. And you might also see a limited-time podcast listener code. So do look out for that. And if you want to talk about pressure-proof performance for your leadership team, reach out to me on LinkedIn. I design operating systems that keep teams clear, calm, and effective when those stakes are really high. Greg, thank you so much for being here. I do want to leave time for you to give us a couple of final words. It was a true pleasure having you, and thank you so much for sharing your story.

Claire, thank you. I really appreciate the time and the platform. And, you know, I know you and I share a shared passion around neuroscience and leadership, and we're really just scratching the surface on all of that, right? So what the work that you're doing, the work that I'm doing, the like we're at the forefront of that. So I really appreciate, again, your time and effort and everything that you're doing. And yeah, let's do this. Let's move forward.

Yeah. You know what I say, Greg? I meet brilliant people like you every day and, uh, at different levels. You know, I learn from— they learn from me. We're growing. We're still growing, right? And what I feel that there's just not enough of us out there. So When I meet people like you, I'm going, yes, like you said the word, let's do this. We don't have enough people out there doing what we're doing. And I feel that this is what people need right now. This is how we're going to grow. And this is how we're going to impact positively based on our experience, our lived experience. So thanks again for sharing yours. It was a true pleasure having you. And everyone listening or watching us, lead boldly.

Stay human.

Don't forget that and turn every challenge into a gift. And remember, Greg said it too, so it's not only me. You can always find those 3 gifts. All right. Thank you all from Caragway. I will see you next week. Bye-bye, Greg. Thank you.