Burn the Rulebook: How One Entrepreneur Flipped an Industry on Its Head with Greg Hague

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now let's meet today's guest.

This week we're going to be talking about the why of contribute to contribute to a greater cause, add value, have an impact on the lives of others. So if this is your why, then you want to be part of something bigger than yourself. You don't necessarily have to be the face of the cause, but you want to contribute in a meaningful way. You use your time, your, your money, your energy, your connections to push other people forward. You want to be that pebble that starts the ripple effect that goes on and on in the lives of others. And so today I have a great guest for you. I've been looking forward to doing this interview for a while. His name is Greg Hagan. He is a true adventurer and visionary entrepreneur. He survived a bear attack, a plane crash on a remote island, and even sleeping in a tree over crocodile infested waters. But beyond the adventure, he's revolutionized the real estate industry as the founder and CEO of 72 sold. He's built the fastest growing home selling program in America. Featured in Forbes, abc, CBS and NBC. Recognized as a real estate visionary by Real Estate Today. He's a best selling author, keynote speaker and even scored number one on the Arizona bar exam 35 years after law school. He's a pilot, motorcycle adventurer and passionate innovator. He's here to share his journey and insights. Welcome Greg Haig.

Hey Gary, it's really a pleasure. Pleasure to be on the show and on your podcast and yeah, that bear attack, that was when I was a lot younger than now. I'm not sure I would survive that bear attack today.

Well, maybe you're not as fast as you used to be.

Well, actually the story is I was with my dad and we were. First time I'd ever been on a hunting trip. My dad, when I was like 14 years old, took me from Cincinnati, where we lived, to the mountains of Tennessee. And, you know, he said, hey, would you want to go hunting with me? I said, sure. So we got in the car, drove to Tennessee. We get a guide. We're boar hunting. And I'd never hunted. I had a Winchester Model 94. If you ever watch the old, old movie the Rifleman, you know, that had this little. Okay, so that's what that was. But it didn't have the big under thing. So we have boar dogs. And we're up in the mountains of Tennessee. There's a couple of dogs out there in front of us. My dad, who unfortunately, you didn't know smoking back then was so bad. He was back down the trail behind us because going uphill, he was out of breath because he smoked. He. In any case, all of a sudden, the dogs go wacko. I'm up with the guide. Guide doesn't carry a gun. Gods are guys are not allowed to carry a gun in Tennessee. Back then, he just had a knife. I'm up there, you know, and I have my Davy Crockett hat on. I am like, Mr. Mr. Hunter, big game hunter, 14 years old, right? So all of a sudden, the two dogs go like, wacko. And this bear comes running down the trail we're on. It's a narrow trail, side of a mountain. And. And these. This bear comes barreling down, this big black bear. And the first thing that occurred to me, I'd never seen a black bear live. I'd seen movies, but not live. You can't even believe how fast these bears run. I mean, this sucker is flying, and the one dog goes running right at him. And the bear just swats the dog up against the side of the hill, and he's just like, no. And so the guide says, shoot, shoot, shoot. And so, you know, I am like. I'm sure. My mind goes numb. Totally. Like, are you kidding me? I cock the gun and put it up. I'm sure. I close my eyes and I mean, this bear is coming at us, and he's now 40ft, 30ft. I mean, he's not far away. And boom, the gun goes off and it catches him on the behind his ear, and it goes into his brain and he drops and he slides right up. I mean, totally lucky. Totally lucky. Totally lucky. And here's the thing. When you think back and turned out, by the way, there's more to the story. So later on. They get up there and they get the bear out and weigh it and everything. I at the time, got in Boone and Crockett. That was the largest black bear ever shot in the state of Tennessee. So I'm like, get in food and Crockett, you know, which is like all these records, I'm sure that still doesn't exist. In any case, here's the thing. Number one, purely lucky. I mean, I just closed my eyes. Number two, kind of a shame. That bear, I don't think was attacking us. He was just coming down the trail, and then the dogs go at it and whatever, and it gets all aggravated and it's coming right at us. And so in any case, that was the last time I ever hunted. You know, it was just. And not because I was afraid. It's just because the truth, I didn't like killing something. It's just like, you know, wow, look at this bear. I killed this bear. And this bear is just out having a good day and coming down the trail, and then he sees these dogs and it starts running. And in any case, I thought that'd be a fun way to start my fire. Yeah, that's an amazing. Sorry, a TMI there.

Well, and the kind of what if, right? What if you hadn't open, you know, what if you'd tried it with your eyes open and missed?

I probably wouldn't be here because the bear would have run right over me, would hide over me on the trail, and I don't know what else it would have done. But, yeah, it just shows you because.

Would have very likely killed me. But the unfortunate part is I don't think it was attacking us. It was just coming down the trail at a gazillion mile an hour. Yeah.

Wow. Wow. Well, let's. Let's let our audience get to know you, Greg. Let's go back into your life. Let's take us back to when you were growing up. What were you like growing up? What were you like in high school? Where did. Where did you grow up first? And then what were you like growing up as a kid?

Well, let's see. I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and my dad, after World War II, as so many soldiers did, my. My dad was a fighter pilot instructor in World War II. And that's what got me interested later on in flying, because he talked about, you know, the war and all his flying adventures and teaching fighter pilots how to fly fighter planes. So grew up in Cincinnati, and when I was young, I was. You can see I'm pretty skinny today, but When I was young, I. At 12 years old, I weighed 220 pounds. And I. I had the unfortunate habit of when I'd get home from school every day, I'd eat like four or five or six donuts, like before dinner. I was addicted to donuts. And then it was interesting because if I had kept on that trajectory, my life may have been very different than it is today. But my uncle, my dad was working night and day, you know, to try to build his real estate business. Amazing father. He taught me so much, but he was. He was gone all the time. So my uncle got a hold of me and got me started the working out, went out for the football team, eventually lost weight. And so I ended up then, you know, going to Cincinnati Country Day School, which is a private school in Cincinnati, and Miami University.

There in Oxford, Ohio. Had a great college experience. American University Law school in Washington, D.C. passed the Ohio bar exam, but instead of practicing law at the time, went right to work for my dad's real estate firm to help him build that. So proud of him. My dad had a. Unlike me, who had all these advantages because of my. My father and my mother's hard work. My mom worked with my dad in the business. Both mom and dad, you know, my dad had a high school education. No advantages, no contacts, no nothing. And he just worked like a dog and built this real estate firm. He had a couple hundred agents in Cincinnati. It was one of the larger firms. And that allowed me, Gary, to have a private educ. Private high school education, Miami University law school, et cetera. So I worked with dad in building, helping to build his real estate firm for a few years. His health became bad because of smoking, and ultimately he passed away from emphysema. I started my own real estate firm in Cincinnati. And that was the first big, big.

Lesson I had in my life. Big lesson because it was a big reversal. I had had nothing but great education and a lot of success. And because of my dad, you know, belonged to, you know, the country clubs, and I wore Brooks Brothers suits, and I thought I was pretty damn cool back then. And then I started my own real estate firm in Cincinnati in the late 70s, in 77, 78. Graduated from law school in 74, and over three years, it became one of the largest real estate firms in Cincinnati. It's called Heritage House Real Estate. And then interest rates in 1980, 81, went to 16, 17, 18%.

I didn't have, like, money. I was making money. The firm was doing well, but I didn't have money. I lasted Six to nine months. Business slowed down to nothing. I mean, who buys homes with a 17% rate? You know, the market's pretty slow right now with 7% rates. Right. So. So ultimately, I had to close the doors. I had to sell everything I had. I didn't really have any debt, you know, but point is, I also didn't have any money, so.

And then a friend and that, by the way, I wrote about it, I have a website called Savvy Dad. And on the Savvy dad website, I wrote a. I spent a year writing a lot of stories about other people and how their fathers had positively impacted their lives like my dad did. Well, the story I tell is probably the low point in my life at that time is because I had to generate money. We had a yard sale. The home that I owned, we sold. I had to sell. And my son Brian, at the time was four or five years old. He had a jacket. And he came to me in the middle of the yard sale. It was a snowy day in Cincinnati. And he said, hey, dad. Where? He doesn't know what's going on. I mean, he's young, but he says, where's my jacket? So I went over to the neighbor that was helping me at the yard sale, and she says, oh, my gosh, I'm sorry. That car driving away, I thought it was for sale, and I sold it for $6. So. And it was like, I just sold my son's jacket, winter jacket, for $6. I mean, that's like, after. You were a big guy on the block.

Yeah.

And I mean, I was. Bottom line is, I moved to Arizona. A friend invited me to come out here. Uh, he. Tom Hopkins. You know, he worked for Tom Hopkins. Tom was somebody that I used for training and gotten to know since and become a good friend. Bottom line is, I moved to Arizona. I started over, and it was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. I needed to have a reversal. I needed to realize that, you know, I'm not all that smart. You know, I realized real quickly, it's really dumb to think you're smart. You know, it's really dumb to think the day you start thinking you're so smart is the day somebody's going to outsmart you. So that was my trajectory up till Arizona, and then my passion. And then I'll. My passion became. Because I grew up in the business, and the business had done so much for me educationally and my dad. My passion became.

Improving the way business is done in this industry. And I'm well known for my belief that the real estate industry needs change. It needs somebody to come in. And we were talking before the podcast.

To be the Uber, still get point A to point B, but to do it so much better than the taxi drivers did. And I believe sincerely that this industry needs that. I believe that the idea that real estate firms spend most of their time trying to recruit agents instead of developing business models that serve consumers, helping their agents implement those models, driving business in the door for their agents, not worrying. So they shouldn't be worried about how many agents they should have. They have, they should be worried about how to take care of the agents they already have. They shouldn't even be thinking about bringing on more agents. So the agents they have are doing business, doing a lot of business and doing business better than they have because the firms help them. So that's been my passion for a lot of years. And that's what 72 sold's about.

Yeah. So that gives us a really quick almost like start to finish, but I want to jump backwards a little bit. I want to go back to. Okay, so you're in high school now. We're in a high school. We with you. What are we seeing in Greg? There he goes walking by. What do we see? Is he now down to £200? Is he still 4? You know, is he a football player? Is he, who is Greg and what, how did you interact with people back in that day? Were you always a helpful guy trying to help others or what kind of take us through who you were back in the day?

Yeah, I, I, I think that the best description of me in high school, I had lost the weight. I was played football, I played either loose end or tight end for the football team. And I was not super talented, but not bad. I did start and.

My thing then was.

I loved.

I love to do entrepreneurial kinds of things. I was always looking and I don't know why, I was just always looking for where, where are the gaps, where, where, where are the things that people aren't thinking of that you could do it better? And I mean I had a grass cutting business, for example, and it was a really very different model than any of the others. And so I was, I don't know, I've always had this thing where I kind of look at what's there and then I apply this concept I have later.

Kind of outlined as seven dimensional thinking. So seven dimensional thinking is again just something I came up with. And I came up with this term is look at anything in seven different ways to see if it can and should be changed to make it better for the people who use it and buy it. Seven different ways are bigger, smaller, faster, slower, opposite, different, and gone. So bigger, smaller, faster, slower, opposite, different, and gone. And the idea is, what if I did it bigger? What if I did it smaller? What if I did it faster? What if I did it slower? What if I did it just the opposite? What if I did it, like, in a different color, a little different? Or what if it was gone? What if I could not replicate in any way what was there and it just went away and it was just like, all right, how could you achieve the same result for consumers in a totally different way? You need to just run that kind of thought pattern through. And I hadn't thought of it in that kind of a sequence or defined way back then, but I always seem to look at things that way. And when I practiced law, I did litigation for a few years after I took the Arizona bar exam, which, yeah, I did overstudy. I did get the number one score, which means I overstudied. They actually put me on TV and they said, how does an old guy 35 years out of law school get the number one score in the bar exam? And I said, I way overstudied. You don't get any extra. It's like, you pass the bar exam, you're doing fine. But then when I practice low, same thing I was looking for. All right, how do you do this in a way.

That'S more efficient and also more consumer friendly and quite frankly, allows you to get the same result at a lot lower cost for the people you represent? So I don't know. That was the me in high school. And honestly, kind hasn't changed much.

Yeah. So for the listeners, you know, we talked about your. Why being to contribute, make a difference in people's lives, but how you go about doing that, which is exactly what you just said, is you're always looking for better ways, but then ultimately, what you bring is a simple solution. You take it and simplify it down to seven steps, three steps, just do this couple of things so that it's useful, doable, and. And people can do something with it. Does that feel right to you?

Yes, you. And. And well said. And you have to, because.

You. You get these ideas, at least me, I can't speak for others, but you get these ideas, and they're kind of mushy. So the idea is, all right, how can you take mushy and turn it into clarity? You know?

So the answer is, yeah, that's like I have these kind of trigger responses. And you know, in real estate I teach a lot of this. If people say this, then, you know, you need to have an outline come up immediately in your mind. It's not a script. It's like boom, boom, boom. Three talking points as to, you know, why, how you would respond to that. And yeah, it needs to be, it needs to be like bullet pointed. I mean, mentally bullet pointed. Say it in your own words, but mentally bullet pointed. Like when you asked me how I see things, and I wasn't planning to, but I just brought up, well, there's this seven dimensional thinking thing that I just developed to help me just quickly checklist different ways to look at whatever it is I want to look at differently. So the answer would be yes.

Yeah. So you, when you graduated high school, you were already entrepreneurial and then off to college. You said you went to Miami, Ohio.

Yes.

Why? Why Miami, Ohio?

Because that's where my girlfriend went.

Very technical, very, very, very detailed reason. Yeah, I mean, seems like it makes a lot of sense.

You. I, I could, I could have said, well, I, I dug deeply into Miami University and its campus and its curriculum and it's all this stuff. Or I could tell you the truth.

Okay, now you're at Miami, Ohio. What are you like now in college? And then what were your interests in college? How did you pick your major?

Yeah, so easy to pick my major. I majored in business and I'm proud to say I did very well. I got mostly straight A's because I loved it. I mean, I loved it. Class was not work for me. Class was fun. And to be able to learn about business in a formalized way was just a, a gift to me for four years. So that's number one. Number two, I was Fiji Phi Gam. Joined the Fiji fraternity at Miami and had a blast. I mean, just had a blast. A really great group of guys and we had a really good time. And then the third thing is I started a band. So I had been a drummer growing up. We had a two story house in Cincinnati and my dad bought me a drum set when I was like 12 probably. Big mistake on his part, right? So I. It was down in the basement, so I would go down every night after dinner and practice. And then he got me lessons. So I started a band that actually became quite successful. We, we traveled and played. And bottom line is that was, that was one of my highlights. Well, let me put it this way. One of the priorities for guys in college is, is having girls, you know, like be attracted to you, right? And I had a girlfriend, on and off, but she was so hot looking, she would, I would, she'd be my girlfriend for a while, then she would dump me. And so, you know, so back and forth in any case. So I was looking for a way. Number one, I loved bands and drumming and I was pretty good at it. But if you really want to figure out like how to be attractive to the girls when they wouldn't let me in the Sigma Chi fraternity. So Sigma Chi at Miami was all the great looking, blonde haired, blue eyed guys and I wasn't, I didn't have chiseled features, didn't have the big broad shoulders. So I couldn't be a Sigma Chi. I mean, if you were a Sigma Chi, the girls were lined up, so that was a bummer. Well, Fijis are great, but the girls weren't lined up. So I figured it out. I grew long hair, I grew my sideburns. I already was a talented drummer. I formed a band. There was a, a saloon. We were allowed to drink 3:2 beer at, at Miami. You know, that was legal on campus. 3, 2. You know, I think beer is normally 6, 7% alcohol. This was 3, 2. Okay, so you could drink 3 2. So the boar's Head Saloon. The Boar's Head Saloon was a big, like Jilly's, you know how Jilly's, you know, in the movie. That was what that was. So we pretty much played like most Saturday nights at the Boar's Head Saloon. All right, you want to be a Trout, you want to get the girls, you just be the bad boy drummer with the long hair in the sideburns, you know, at the Boar's Head Saloon. And all of a sudden problem solved.

Makes a lot of sense.

That's my college experience. I love business. I studied it, got great grades and Fiji's great fraternity had a great time. And then I was the long haired, long side vern bad boy drummer at the Boar's Head Saloon.

Well, you are very good at finding simple solutions to complex problems, right?

Yeah. Okay.

And so now you're. You graduate from Miami, Ohio. Is. Did you say you went right into real estate from there or you went to law school?

Well, there's one part I didn't tell you. Okay, so also you mentioned that I fly, right?

Oh, yeah.

So you want to have some fun on this podcast? Can it just, you can, you know, fun, right?

Yes.

Okay, so. So, so.

I got my pilot's license when I was like 16 years old through the inspiration of my dad. Et cetera. And so my dad helped me join a flying club at Miami. Miami University does have a little airport and there were a couple, three Piper Cherokees out there. So a flying club means that you spend whatever it was back then, a hundred bucks an hour, 75 bucks an hour, you can, you get checked out in the planes. You can go fly the planes. And I was like what, 18, 19 years old. So I had a key to the planes out there on the field and they were, you know, rental planes for our little flying club. And so check this out. So you're the long haired, big sideburn drummer at the Boar's Head Saloon. You get done with the gig at 10 or 11 o'. Clock. So you're up at the bar drinking three, two beer, talking to whatever girls, and you say, how would you like to go flying? And they say, oh, what do you mean flying? It's some pickup line. I said, no, seriously, I can put you in my car and we go out to the airport and I'll take you flying. You're kidding me. There's no way. You're not.

Promise. Tell you what, here's 50 bucks. You can have this. 50 bucks. You just get in the car, come out. You know who I am, right? I'm not going to do anything. Come on out and I'll show you that I can take you up flying, see, get in my car, go out to the airport. The fun part was I took the key and the door opened. Oh my God, you can get in the plane. I said, hop in. So I fire the plane up, take off and fly around at night up there, you know, at Miami University Airport. And in any case, I had a lot of fun.

Gary, you did have a lot of fun. You had a lot of options too. I mean there was. Yeah, you picked all the right things to have all the right attention.

Yeah, all the right things, yeah. In any case, that was Miami University. And then my dream was to be an attorney, litigation attorney. And so that's what motivated, motivated me to go to law school. And reason I went to American University is the John Sherman Myers who founded the, the College of Law at American University. Washington College of Law at American University. His, his wife, Alvina Myers, was friends with my dad's attorney in Cincinnati. And she flew to Cincinnati to recruit me. I met her there in Cincinnati to recruit me to go to American University Law School. And she said, if you come to American University, we'd like, you know, I did very well in college, so I was admitted to several top law schools. She Said, if you come to American University.

I will show you for four years the whole political scene. I'll introduce you around. She's very influential. So I did and she did. And what's interesting, get this. I went to law school in Washington, D.C. during Watergate. Didn't know this when I went, but Watergate broke out at the time. So Alvina living up to her promise to me, she got me into all these really interesting political circles. I was over at the White House at the Capitol, got to talk to. She took me over to the Washington Post, you know, to meet Woodward, Bernstein and all the people writing and breaking this. I mean, it was. I've just been blessed. It was an amazing experience during those years in law school. And then I graduated, came back, took the Ohio bar and went to work with my dad. So that was.

So never practiced law?

Yes, actually, I practiced law in. Back in 2009, not that long ago when. Remember the. The 2008 crash? So my real estate firm.

But you didn't practice law right after law school?

Oh, no, not at all. Not till. Not till many years later. Yeah.

So you moved to Arizona.

Yep. Later on in Arizona.

Gotcha. So off to law school and decided when you graduate law school, I don't want to do law, I want to go into real estate.

No, actually I was excited about doing law, but my dad asked me to join him in the business and to help him grow the business, and so I did. And. And so that's why I didn't practice law in Cincinnati. I. I helped him with a lot of legal stuff. In fact, interesting story.

Back then, this was the 70s.

There was a practice going on in our industry.

Called racial steering. So what that meant is that if you're, you're a real estate agent and you, you are a, A buyer comes to you and, and is looking for homes.

Just not because you're a bad person or you. If they, if they're like in Cincinnati, there was a. A village, a community called Amberly Village. It was mostly Jewish. So if somebody would come to you and you knew they were Jewish, you would just assume they would want to see homes in Amberly Village. You just assume that. Or there were areas of Cincinnati that were more white and more black population. If somebody would come to you and they were black, you would just assume they would want to live in a black community. So you would show them homes in a black community. You would. Those are the homes you would put in front of them. Well, that's stupid in retrospect. I mean, that's stupid to think that way, but that's just. So that was what's known as racial steering. So the. The government.

Whatever the administration was back then. This is my first practicing law, by the way, in Cincinnati. It had sent testers in to ride around with all. With many of the agents of the various real estate firms to prove that they were engaging in this practice. Now, again, be clear, they weren't doing this for any reason other than they just assumed that, but it was still like a bad assumption. In any case. Lawsuit was filed against several of the real estate firms, including my dad. And I was the attorney that represented him and convinced him and the other brokers there to settle this and not fight it because they all got mad and said, it's ridiculous. We're not doing anything wrong. It's not intentional. Of course, if somebody's Jewish, they'd want to live in a Jewish community. If they're black, they want to live in a black community. Why would we not. Why. Why would we not assume. I mean, that was just the way people thought. These are not bad people. That was just a product of the culture and the way people had been trained to think. So I. I was very proud at a young age, out of law school. I. Because I was in the business, I had influence with all the brokers in my dad. And I actually signed the settlement as attorney. If you go and pull it up, that, that settlement agreement for the racial steering case, I signed off as the attorney. I pulled that up and looked at my signature going all the way back into the 70s. So. So that was my, you know, some of the things I did in. On the side, practicing law back then. And that was. That was one of the most interesting because it was really me talking to the brokers that owned the major firms and getting them to think in a different way. You know, they weren't doing anything intentionally wrong, and neither were their agents, but they were doing something thoroughly wrong, unknowledgeably. Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah. It's just how it was. Wasn't like a. A plan to do it. It's just. That's how we did it.

Yeah, that's how we did it. So that was, you know, I did things like that, but I didn't go to court and fight lawsuits back then. I helped my dad build his phone.

Okay, and then you said your dad's prac. Real estate firm actually went on. What got you to Arizona? Okay, tell me. Tells you.

So my dad's health, you know, deteriorated. I started my own real estate Firm and that I. I built that. I was very successful with that for a few years. Had, I think, seven offices, a couple hundred agents, and that was between 1978 and 1981. 81. Interest rates go to crazy numbers. It was, I think, 80 or 80, 81. In any case, I. I held on. I had, like, seven offices. I had a lot of expense. Held on for six to nine months. There was no business. I just couldn't pay any expenses anymore, so I had to close up. That's when I had the yard sale. One of my office managers.

Charlie, moved to Arizona and called me a month or two after I'd closed down. And I was searching for a why. What was my why? What's my purpose? What's my rest of my life going to look like? Everything, all my image, every. It was gone. I mean, it's so closed. I was embarrassed. And he called me and he said, come on out. You ought to visit me in Arizona. And I did, and it was 8081. He let me stay at the house he had rented for a few days. And the bottom line is, I fell in love. And so I moved to Arizona and started over selling real estate out here. I was a bmoc, big man on campus back in Cincinnati. In fact, I was involved in Jerry Springer's campaign back then for mayor. Jerry became a personal friend, obviously, later went into the entertainment business. But, you know, I was. I was. For a young guy, I was pretty big stuff in Cincinnati. And then I just got. I just got pushed right on my back and lost everything and was embarrassed and started over in Arizona, thanks to Charlie. And it was the best. As I said, I needed that. I needed to understand that. That thinking you're a big deal, wearing the Brooks Brothers suits belonging to the country clubs. This whole thing, that ain't what it's all about. There's no purpose, there's no why in that. You know, something that if I could, that I'll share that when I do a fair amount of public speaking. And the thing that I have shared, that I believe of everything I've shared and the talks I've given, that has resonated most, and it relates, Gary, to your why very closely, is when I talk about happiness. Moved to Arizona, work like a dog, like my dad had when he got out of the war, became very successful in real estate, Had a lot of. Worked really hard, had a lot of, you know, good fortune. And so I started buying stuff and I had. I'm embarrassed to say, after years of working very hard, I Had several motorcycles, you know, my own plane, big house, several cars. And I'm having coffee with a friend, his name's Bruce. And he said to me, he said, greg, you don't seem like the same as you used to be. And I said, what do you mean? He said, all you ever talk about is the next new thing you're going to buy, the next car, the next motorcycle, the cool Hasselblad camera. You're just consumed with stuff. What's the coolest, latest stuff? And he said, that's not the you I got to know years ago. You, prior to that had real purpose. Your purpose, number one, was being financially free, but also making a difference. You had a purpose of making a difference, getting accumulating net worth in a good way, where you were making a positive difference for the people that you served. You always talked about that and you did it. And now all you're doing is talking about stuff. He said, and these were the key words. He said, I don't think you really understand.

The definition of happiness. And I said, what are you talking about? He says, you listen to me. And he's dear friend, still a dear friend today, one of the smartest guys I've ever known. He said, greg, happiness is the deep sense of satisfaction that comes from the enthusiastic pursuit of a worthwhile goal of your own choosing. And it all has to be there. First of all, it's a deep sense of satisfaction. You wake up in the morning, you're excited and you're enthused, and a deep sense of satisfaction about what you're doing. You believe in that. That comes from the enthusiastic pursuit. You gotta wake up excited, 4:35 in the morning with fire in your belly. So the deep sense of satisfaction comes from the enthusiastic pursuit of a worthwhile goal. It's gotta be worthwhile if it's not doing good. He said, that was the you in the past. You were wanted to make money, you wanted to be financially free, but you want to do good at the same time. And he said, a worthwhile purpose. And then of your own choose it. It can't be something, somebody voice on you. It's got to be something you've chosen. It can be with other people, but it's got to be something you have chosen to do that is happiness. And he said, you're confusing, you're confusing.

Pleasure.

With purpose. Pleasures are fine. Taking a nice vacation, having a nice car, having a nice home, that's fine. But it is no substitute for purpose. He said, you must think of purpose as being the Cake and pleasure as being the icing. All icing is, is too sweet. You'd gag and you'd hate it. And he said, that's the path you're going down right now. It's all about pleasure. That ain't purpose and that ain't happiness. You know, Gary, you talk about you and the why, and I so respect what you're doing because you're, and I mean this, you know this. You are making a positive difference in people's lives by helping them understand their why. You've done that for me, you're doing that for other people. Bottom line is Bruce was saying something like that in a different way, that happiness is about purpose, worthwhile purpose. Making a difference in the lives of others and then financially benefiting from it is fine. That's okay. Helping yourself and your family like my dad helped me, you know, have a better life through his hard work. Totally good. But that was the game changing moment for me. That coffee with Bruce, I've written about that. And, and that's when I determined that my passion was to take an industry that had been so good to me, so good to my dad, and to make a positive difference in that industry, not by necessarily taking it and just making it the better, better the way it is. Simply because I've shared this, I believe this industry needs to change. I believe it needs to look at the way it operates in an entirely different way. I believe consumers are not served as well as they should. And something also is the real estate agents who are mostly independent contractors, they don't have a salary. These real estate firms are not giving them salaries, they're not giving them health insurance. They're not doing the things that normal employees, employers do. Fine, got it. That's the nature of the industry. But real estate agents are so missserved, you know, by being parts of companies that are really, when you really get in the back room board, the companies are just developing models that help them have more agents. They're not thinking every day, how do I take the people we have, the people that aren't doing well and how do I turn their life around? How do I help them? If I have 400 agents, how do I make darn sure every single one of them who is willing to work, has an amazing life and continues to have their business grow and makes all the money they need to support their family and live that good life? That is not what is being thought among the real estate firms in this country. You know, they may say that it looks good, it sounds good, but Their business models don't emulate that. That's not what their business models are. Your business model determines who you are. It is not what you say. It is the model with which you put people in. In any case, that's. That's my little riff on the industry.

No, that's because that really leads us because I want our audience to know about 72 sold. Because you, okay, you got into the real estate industry, you went out to Arizona, passed the bar, did law for a bit, but then ended up back into real estate. But you did it differently, or you. Maybe not right away, but take us on the journey from starting from scratch again to Building 72, sold. To then what you're doing now, because you have done some amazing, innovative things that a lot of people like and a lot of people don't like, and you're okay with it. And let's talk about that.

Yeah, for sure. So.

Early on in my real estate career, my dad had taught me that the, the key to success in real estate is to have listings sellers who list their homes with you. You could primarily choose to focus on buyer side or seller side. And nothing wrong with buyer side, except my father said, you know, there's all these little terms in our industry list to last. You know, the idea that the sellers are typically the ones who pay the commissions. The teller sellers are ones who have the product, the product to sell. If you have the inventory, if you could have the product, then you will be successful in this business, be the one who has the product. So I got that message right away. So I go out and I start my early days selling real estate. I start trying to. Trying to talk people into listening. With me in Cincinnati.

I lose, I lose. I strike out. I strike out. I strike out because all these appointments that I went on through, calling by owners and people trying to sell by owner and people whose homes had expired, I'd go in and interview to be the next, you know, the person who helped them. And they would say to me, you know, how long have you been in the business? How well do you know my neighborhood? Well, at the time, I hadn't been in the business long, and in particular, I hadn't sold any, many of any homes. So. So they said, well, you're really, you're a really nice young man. But we're going to list with xyz, who's the neighborhood expert and big name and all this stuff. I couldn't get a listing. So. And this was the transformation that that is, that has evolved to 72 sold today. I said, well, I thought, after a while, it's like, boy, this stinks. So.

I got an idea. And the idea was to. Instead of marketing me, Gary, to market a program. So I developed my first program ever, not even knowing much what I was doing. It was just that I can't get the listing. Maybe if I offer this product instead of me, this program, this product instead of me, people will say, okay, ain't going to take me, but they'll take the product. Okay. So my product was back then.

Make every agent your listing agent. Why choose one agent when you can have every agent in Cincinnati, including all the top producers? And so I started distributing flyers. And back then, how did I market? I would go to shopping centers that would have hundreds of cars parked in their lot, and I would put flyers under all their windshield wipers, right? So it's a cheap way to market. And it was like, you're thinking about selling your home. New program, it started. New home selling program in Cincinnati. This wasn't about me. Wasn't my new home selling program in Cincinnati. And you no longer have to list with one agent. Why list with one where you can have every agent in Cincinnati selling, trying to sell your home. Have them all. Don't just have one. If you want to know more, give me a call. I am the administrator of the program, which of course, I was. I started getting a lot of calls like, hey, we're thinking about selling. We saw your flyer in our car. Don't do that again. But since you did, you know, so I would say, hey, you know, I knew the rules. Let me come over and talk to you about it. So I did. And I would say, here's how it goes, Gary. Let's say you're a seller and I'm in your home. You say, all right, cut to it, Greg. What's the deal here? I'd say, all right. So traditionally, the way it's done, and back then, the commission in Cincinnati at that point was mostly 7%. Now it's more 5, 6%, but we'll use 7%, because that's what it was. And by the way, everybody back then charged 7%. You know, everybody back then charged 7%. So I said, typically, the way it works is you pay 7% to sell your home. Your listing agent gets 4%. That's what was customary. And then they offer a 3% commission to whomever represents the buyer. And I said, you know that, right? They all did. They say, yeah, we got that. We know how it works. And I'd say, well, here's what I do differently. I pay the entire 7% to whomever sells your home. And by the way, the flyers that I used that I put on the cars, they listed all the top agents. So I took every one of them that are all the big names, and I listed them. You could have all these. All these, you know, with this program, why pick one? You can have them all. All the ones I was losing listings to as I put their name on the flyer. So the sellers would say, seriously? I'd say, yeah. Imagine every agent in Cincinnati, all the big ones. It's like your home is their listing too, because they're going to make the full 7% if they sell it. And every agent in Cincinnati, everybody's going to be beating your doors down to sell their home because your home, because they make so much more money. I said, do you see the power of that? The sellers would always say, yeah. I mean, how do you not, Right? So they say, well, yeah, but then there was always one question. There was always the one question. The one question was, well, Greg, what's in it for you? You know, you're not making anything. I'd say, oh, that's the magic. What's in it for me is what's also in it for you. I can make the 7% if I find the buyer. I'm in the same boat with everybody else, so I can make the money. I just can't be a lazy lister. I can't just get you to sign and know I'm going to make 4%. I've got to go out and earn it. I've got to find the best buyer for your home. And here's the thing. I'm going to win either way. If I do find the best buyer, fine. Then I make the 7%. If I don't, you're going to be happy. Your home's going to sell. Somebody else will make the money. But you might buy a home through me. Would you? They said, oh, yeah, totally. We'll do that. And I said, you'd refer people to me, wouldn't you? And they say, sure. And I say, that's what I get out of it. Bottom line is I. I have a happy client. I might sell your home. You'll refer people to me. You might buy a home through me. So I win you. It's just a better. This is the. It's just a better way to sell your home. Next 10 appointments, next 10 listings. Every single one. Now I remember the stats. I sold only 2 of the 10 myself. So I made 2, 7 percents. And then several of the people bought through me. So I made three. Bunch of three percents. I think six or seven of them bought through me. I made. Others were moving out of state or whatever. Bottom line is, you say, well, but some. You didn't make anything on Gary. I wasn't making anything anyway. This was all found money. And all of a sudden, I have 10 sold signs. All of a sudden, I get to be known. All of a sudden, people are calling me, hey, I see you sold Harry's house. Will you come over and sell mine? Here's the last thing. Great lesson here. And that's now.

I get a call from my dad, who owns the company. This is like a month or two later. And he says, you gotta come in and talk to me. I said, all right. So I. What? What's up, dad? He said, what is this you're doing? You're giving away the whole commission? I said, dad. And I explained the thing to him. I said, are you kidding me? I said, I'm getting a whole bunch of listings. We never would have had that. We're taking away from other firms. And this is a program, and here's why it's working. And he said. I remember what he said. He said, number one, you have to stop it right now. Number two, one of the smartest programs I've ever heard. He said, hats off to you, but as I said, you have to stop it right now. And I said, why? He says, because I'm going to lose everybody else in the firm. They're all ticked off. All my other agents are saying, the boss's son has gone rogue. He's offering this crazy program. Now my clients want me to offer it, too. And. And so if you don't stop your son from doing this, I'm going to leave you and go to another firm. It was my first dramatic lesson. And when you do something different and disruptive. Whoa. You better watch out for all the traditional entrenched minds. Because rather than saying what you see so much in this industry, rather than saying, look at what he's doing. Hmm, interesting. His business is growing. People seem to be happy. We should look at that and maybe figure out how to do it better. Very much. Just the opposite, unfortunately. Like, how do we stop that? We need to stop that. That's ruining the way it is. Like the taxi drivers. Taxi drivers went nutso trying to stop Uber. They didn't want to ruin the way it was. Now, that's not everybody in our industry that thinks that way, but that's a lot. There's a lot of them out there in social media. So fast forward to today. My life in real estate has been a series of consumer friendly programs that have propelled me and my agents to make a crapload of money because we deserve it. We have served consumers better. 72 sold home selling program I'm going to toot its horn for a minute. It is far and away the best way to sell a home. Anybody that doesn't hire an agent that knows how to a 72 sold certified agent that can be with various real estate firms that doesn't hire an agent that understands how to market, negotiate, show their home the way we teach. They've lost their mind. They are sellers that don't know our program. The last study that just came out in 2025, the last just over 11,000 home sellers who used agents who were certified on our program that can be with a variety of firms. They ended up with a Median sale price 5.8% higher than other homes sold in their local MLS. 5.8%. Don't tell me that. Understanding how to better market a home how to better show a home we have a seven step showing process. It's killer. How to better negotiate like we have a process called counteroffer intelligence. I developed a way to call a buyer agent after they make an offer and a series of questions to ask them subtly that will typically cause them to tell you how much higher their buyer will pay than the offer they make. They shouldn't do it, but they do it. And we share that with our sellers so our sellers don't leave a nickel on the table. The way we market in four stages, four different stages of marketing. Trying to minimize the negative effect of time on the market. I developed a concept called the ESU effect stands for exclusivity, scarcity, urgency. That everything we do is built around every showing, creating the perception that you're there. It's exclusive, it's a vip. Showing naturally creates scarcity with the house, creates an urgency to act before the next buyer gets in. I mean this whole process, this program 72 sold it is designed to achieve one specific goal. If you're selling a home, you're going to walk away with more money. It's a program, it's a methodology for selling homes. And it all started back then when I couldn't get a listing. And I figure out all right, I better start offering a program instead of talking about me. And that is 72 sold is the today's version of a program for home sellers. It was A program back then, and it's a program today.

All right, so let's talk about this for a minute, because those that are listening, I'm sure they're seeing the pattern, because I'm seeing the pattern coming through loud and clear, right? If you. If this is a game that's not going to fit you well or is not the best game to be in, you create your own game. You did it in dating. You did it. You've done it every step along the way. So you did it now in real estate, and you're going to continue to do that. But. But I want you to tell our audience why you called it 72 sold. Because I didn't understand it the first time I saw it or heard it. You're in it, so you understand it. But for the rest of us that are not as familiar with it, why do you call it 72 sold?

Yeah, it's a great, great question. So. So the. The 72 sold home selling process consists of four stages, and it's 11 days consisting of four stages. Stage one is the stage prior to when the 11 days start. We identify buyers, but we don't share the address. We don't share the exact price. We just market it in generality. It's not an mls. It's not online. It's not on Zillow. That's stage one. It's what Apple has so masterfully learned to do with its iPhones back in the day. How did they get the buyers lined up in front of the stores? They would market generalities about their iPhone before you could buy it. And then they would say, here's the date. It'll be on the shelves. Then it was 500 people outside the store wanting to buy an iPhone. They didn't even know what it was specifics about. So stage one is where we market to all the agents in a community, e flyers or off MLS about a home we have coming up. Don't give them the address. It's this neighborhood, general price range, a few basic things about it. And on a particular Friday, this is when we can reveal the address. And. And this is when that afternoon we are going to. We can conduct. We will conduct a VIP private showing event if you happen to have a buyer. This builds curiosity, builds excitement. It puts agents in the community. Like here we have thousands of agents in the community. It allows them to call any prospective buyers and share a secret. Makes them a hero. Makes the agents a hero. Greg Hague got this property. 72 solds got this property. Coming up, I will know the address on next Friday. And this thing is this. And it's in this price range and it's the neighborhood you're looking. Would you like me to sign you up to attend with me the VIP private showing of this property that Friday afternoon? Are you kidding me? It feels like crazy. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. So then, that's stage one before the 11 days begins. Now, I know your question is about the 72 soldiers. Get to that. Take a minute here. So then stage two is still off mls. It's a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, we have that private VIP showing and we try to sell the home on Friday to one of these VIP buyers and to pay a premium to head off all the buyers that might be fleshed out in our later marketing. Common misconception. In our industry, Gary. There's this misconception that the key to a higher price is getting a home in front of every buyer. Not true. No Ferrari, Rolex, Patek Philippe, Hermes purse. No premium retailer thinks that way. The idea is to get a buyer who really likes it and will pay a premium to head off what they perceive to be future buyers. Actually, in our industry, this idea of time and hope, put it at mls, put it online, and hope it sells, man. After a week, buyers start to wonder why nobody else bought it. And in their mind, the perception of value goes down. So. So stage one, identify buyers, build curiosity. Stage two, the private VIP showings. Then for four days, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, we do another round of marketing with the address and the specific price, try to flush out more buyers if that stage, and we each one opportunity showing, see it privately before the next stage. What's the next stage? Stage three. That's the MLS stage. That's online. That's a strong motivator because buyers you identify in stage two, if you didn't sell it that first day, they have an urgency to act before it goes online and everybody knows about it. Try to generate a premium offer, then don't get it sold. Go to stage three, put it on Zillow, realtor.com MLS. Now, good news is it has no visible days on the market at this point. So you're brand new and fresh. You've gone through two tranches of buyers, haven't gotten it sold. So now the 70 stage three goes for Tuesday. You put it in MLS late Monday night. It appears early Tuesday morning. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you're identifying buyers through Zillow and realtor.com and MLS. Any you may have missed, who did you miss? There it is. Because everybody looks online what's their urgency to act?

Saturday, Sunday, Monday, coming up. Is our 72 hour home launch weekend. Saturday is our big public unveiling. Think of it as a mega open house. Sunday is the day we answer buyers questions and negotiate them their offers. And Monday is decision day. Call it decision Monday. That's when we put all of the offers in front of the buyers or in front of the seller. So the idea is in stage three to get the buyers to step up and make great offers to head off the public launch the 72 hour weekend. Everything in these processes designed with that 72 hour public launch weekend at the end. And the goal of the program, common misconception is the goal of the program is to sell it in the 72 hour weekend. Goal of the program is to use the 72 hour weekend to get a premium for the sellers and sell it before. But if you don't, you still do it because there are buyers that maybe drive around, they don't look online, maybe they see the signs, neighbors might be interested, they like that home better. Maybe neighbors have a friend. You know, we do do it to flesh out any buyers we may have missed. But the good news is and that's a total of 11 days from a, from the Friday which starts stage one that right after I'm start start stage two. Right after stage one through that Monday, you know, a week later is 11 days. It's an 11 day four stage process with stage one being before that. It is the gold standard on how to sell a home. I mean, are you kidding me? Think how much better that is then throwing it in mls, putting a sign by the way, no sign in front of the property until stage four. It blows the whole VIP exclusive opportunity feel when we're showing it to buyers and they feel like they're seeing it privately and before other buyers. And then even one last thing like showing a home. We have a seven step showing process so that when buyers come into a home, whether they're with an agent or not, it doesn't matter. Our listing agents, there's the way they present the home, the way they create scarcity, the way they create urgency is not pushy. It's all conversational. The way they talk, the peripherals, our agents are taught not just to talk about the home, the neighbors, the neighborhood, the community. People buy more than a home. People buy a place to live. And so you want, you can increase a perception of value by talking about all what we call the peripherals in addition to the obvious. And then the end of the seven step Showing process. Last question. You know, and I'm for anybody out there that's in real estate, this is great stuff. Just use it yourself. You don't have to be part of 72. So the question you ask the buyers say, hey, this is step seven in the seven step showing process. You're a buyer, Gary, you seem to like the home. Let me ask you, how does it compare to the others you've seen? You'll always tell me, maybe you say, oh, no, it's not for us. And you say, you know, it compares favor. We kind of like it. We kind of like this home, if you like. Because sometimes you can't make somebody like a home that isn't for them. But if they say, hey, I kind of like it, then we ask. Listen to this question. And this is, this is the question we ask after the seven step showing process. It's called our opportunity purchase question. Here's my question to you as a buyer. Well, okay, you know that the public launch is coming up on Saturday, or maybe you know that we're putting in an mls, you know, whatever the next stage is. Would you like me to call the sellers and see if they would consider.

Selling you the home before it's made available to all the other buyers? Any buyer who likes the home is going to say, yeah, would you do that? What I've just done is shifted the buyer perception from. Normally buyers feel like they're doing the seller a favor by making an offer. I've shifted the whole perception. Now the buyer feels like the seller is doing them a favor by entertaining their offer. So then we call the sellers. Well, of course, the sellers know the process. So they say, well, sure, call the buyer or buyer agent back. Yes, the sellers will. But then I say to you as the buyer, you know the price that we quoted, you say it's 550,000. Now, you know the flyer that we gave you the brochure, it's called starting price. We use starting price instead of asking price or list price. Better perception in a buyer's mind. I say to you that's the minimum that you really should be thinking. That's the minimum that the sellers are thinking. And they're really planning on getting multiple offers over and above that here when we go to the next stage. Now, you may offer more than that. You may offer just that, you may offer less. It's just changing the characterization so that it seems like a floor or a minimum to you perceptually. So I just remind you of that when I call you or call your agent and say, okay, the sellers will consider selling you the home. Do remember that the sellers are really thinking about their price in the form more of a starting price as opposed to like an asking or hope for price. So keep that in mind when you're making the offer. And bottom line is technique, technique, process, ESU effect, creating every single thing, excluding creating exclusivity, creating a sense of scarcity, creating an urgency to act and make an offer. Bottom line is you can. Don't ever think that a home sells for what it'll sell for. You can the art of psychology, leveraging what I call these psychological drivers. You can make a big difference in the way everything sells. It's not just true of homes, computers, watches, Ferraris, any type of car. You know, if you understand how to leverage exclusivity, scarcity and urgency in the right way so that it's not pressure, it's, it's the whole process that does it. You don't have to do it. You're not, you don't have to sell. It's just the process. You're the friend of the buyer. And one last thing.

What we do at 72 sold is purposely and specifically designed to help sellers sell for more money, faster, better, but for more money. We also then teach our agents a whole nother set of skills that relates to helping buyers buy at a better price. So that when our agents represent buyers, there's a whole bunch of similar skills that can help them actually those buyers get a better deal on a home. It just depends. Like an attorney, you might represent the plaintiff, you might represent the defendant. The bottom line is some attorneys are way better than others because they understand how to go to court, how to argue, how to draft motions, how to convince a jury. And believe me, you want one of those attorneys. You don't want one of the pretenders. You want somebody who's got it. You want the, the, you know, like, like the total Perry Mason. You know the old movie Perry Mason. You want the Perry Mason. When you sell your home, man, you.

You'Ve turned, you've turned that house into the long haired, long sideburns, drummer in a band that knows how to fly.

Yeah, well, it's, it's. I'll tell you, I am, you can probably tell how passionate I am about what we're doing. And quite frankly, a big part of that my why is I believe this industry needs the. I mean, and, but somebody do me a favor because it'll make me better go out and do a better program than that. You take that and you make it better. Because you know what I'm going to do? I'm not going to criticize you. Going to look at what you're doing and try to make that better. That's what this industry should be, but it is not.

So the next question is how does, how do the typical traditional real estate businesses feel about you?

I think behind closed doors they would like to see me go away.

I mean I do not believe that the way most real estate firms operate is the way firms should operate. I do not believe that the leadership in real estate firms should be waking up every morning thinking about what kind of business models do we need to have to attract more agents? There are too many agents out there. Agents are starving right now. I mean there's one point some million realtors in this country. Last I looked, 1.5, 1.6 million realtors. There isn't enough business to support a third of them. There's not enough unit business in this country to support one third of them and to have a decent lifestyle. Bottom line is why? Why would you build a business model about how many agents I can have? You know why? Because you don't have to pay them a salary, you don't have to pay health insurance. They're independent contractors, they're out on their own. Every single agent you have, no matter how much they do, whether it's a little or a lot, you make some money from them. That's it. And all of these firms have these multi level models where come to my firm. Because if you come to my firm and you record more agents, I pay you part of the money I make from those agents. The fastest growing real estate firms out there right now in agents, not in agent production, but in agents are the ones who agents join them. Because selling real estate is so darn hard. Because there's too many agents and not enough business. They join them in the hope that they can just recruit agents and make money instead of going out and sell houses. What kind of purpose is that in life? My goal is to recruit a bunch of agents. Are you kidding me? What kind of positive difference does that make in the world? My view, None. Zero. It's just a way to make money. That does not conform with your why theory at all.

No. So Greg, last question.

What's the.

I mean we've learned a whole lot about you. Your how you think, how you take a situation that doesn't look like the best situation and create a new game so that you can win and it's.

Worked for you over and over and.

Over in your life. So maybe the last question would be, what's the best piece of advice that you've ever been given? Or maybe the best piece of advice that you've given.

Yeah, the. I did share the best piece of advice I've ever been given, and that was that the definition of happiness. I needed that. Happiness is the deep sense of satisfaction that comes from the enthusiastic pursuit of a worthwhile goal of your own choosing. There's purpose and pleasure. Your life needs to be driven by worthwhile purpose. And then the pleasures are great. I like pleasures. I like having nice things. But that does not. That is not my purpose. That is just a byproduct. I love to play golf with my wife. We. We have a home in Sedona. We like to get up there when we can on the weekends. I look forward to it like crazy. That's a pleasure. But believe me, if I didn't have this purpose, my life would not be the kind of happy life that it is. So that's the best advice I've ever been given. I think the best advice I've ever given is I teach a set of rules. Rules for living in my personal development speaking, which I love doing for fun. I'm not a professional personal development speaker, but I love to do it. I'm and share what I've learned over the years. And these nuggets of these thinking guides that I share have seemed to make a big difference for the people I share them with. I'm going to give you an example. So it started with my dad starting me to teach, starting to teach me how to think and sharing with me the following.

My dad did not have an education. Gary. He had a high school gra. Unlike me, he had a high school education, but he learned how to be smart. He learned how to take what he did have and, and. And act in a way that was very smart. So what does that mean? So what that means is the first big lesson is there's a big difference between being educated and being smart. The fact that you may have knowledge does not mean you know how to make better decisions and fewer mistakes and know what to do when others don't have a clue. That's what you need to understand. So how do you go about that? It all sounds good. Like being smart. Yeah, I want to be smart, but how do you go about it? So you, you once, you commented a while ago about how I kind of take things and put them in structure. So I have this whole list of what I call chubby rules. My dad's nickname was Chubby, so I've affectionately named all the things I've learned the way I think after my dad. Here are some examples of Chubby rules. Like, one is the three Circles of Worry. So my dad. And this is one my dad actually taught me.

Greg, do you ever worry? I said, well, yeah, of course. He said, can I share something with you that will cause you to hopefully never worry again? And I said, sure. It's just a way to think. And I said, what's that? He said, it's. I call it the three Circles of Worry. He said, circle one is everything you can control. Like, you can control how often you brush your teeth. You can control how much you study. You can control a lot of things. Well, there's nothing to worry there, because you can control it either. Do it, don't do it. That's up to you. But why worry about it? Circle two are all the things that emanate from what you do in circle one. For example, brush your teeth a lot. You'll probably have fewer cavities, but you still may get a cavity. You don't know that you can study your butt off for a test. Circle two, you may get an A, you may not. Why worry in circle two? All you can do is do what you can in circle one. And whatever happens in circle two is a result of that. Fine. And then he said, this is the big one. This is what causes people to worry. And I'll tell you, you should never let this get you. I said, what's that? He said, it's Circle three. It's all the things that you cannot control. At the time, we were in the Cuban Missile Crisis, this was in the 60s. Everybody was worried about war. Khrushchev was sending the ships over. Everybody was consumed with it. And my dad never talked about it. He was, like, working like crazy. Never brought it up, never talked about it. And it's all we talked about at school and everybody else. And I asked him, that's what brought this up. I said, dad, aren't you worried about war? And then he shared that with me. And then he finished with circle three. And he says, look, why should I worry about what I can't control? Khrushchev's going to do what he's going to do.

Kennedy is going to do what he's going to do. And the bottom line is, I hope nothing bad comes of it. But I'll tell you what. Right now, my competitors here, the other real estate owners, they're all consumed in whether we're going to be at war. And what I'm doing is working extra hard right now to get ahead of them while they're asleep at the switching. So. So that all the way to little things. Gary, like dad taught me, and then I've learned a lot from other people. He taught me, when you think something nice about somebody, share it right then before you forget. And just a simple little thing that. So I try to honestly and genuinely, in today's world, send five text messages a day to people who I really am thankful for. Honestly. I'm not trying to stroke them, to just tell them I appreciate them being in my lives and what they've done. And that's just. And boy, has that made a difference. If in no other reason, I've just made five people feel good every day. So it's all these little rules of living, you know, that I've learned over time. And you say, what have I taught that I think may be the most meaningful to people? It's how to have this set of thinking guides and rules you live by that make a positive difference in your life. And of course, probably in most cases, the lives of others. If that's.

I love that, Greg. If there are people listening that want to learn more about you, work with you, bring them, bring you on their podcast or, you know, connect with you, what's the best way for them to connect with you?

Yeah, just. Greg. G r e g72soul.com Just send me an email. My blog, where I've been writing newspaper articles for 10 years, every single week for independent newspapers here. All those are on my blog@greghague.com so a lot of what I shared today I've written about on my blog. There's like a thousand different articles up there. But mainly anybody wants to reach out to me, greg@72soul.com awesome, Greg, thank you.

So much for being here today. I know you're super busy and thank you for taking an hour out of your time to spend with us. So I really appreciate it, Gary.

I am. I so respect and admire what you're doing, what you've accomplished. The difference you're making. This is coming from my heart. You know, like I said in the beginning, you know, Jerry Maguire, you have me at hello. Anybody who is doing what you're doing for other people, for this world, the difference you're making, any way I can help you, any way I can serve you. It is absolutely my pleasure. Thank you for having me on.

Thank you.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest, you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to why institute.com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez, and I'll see you on the next episode.