#11: Greg Gaggini, Executive Coach - Why you should become a coach, asking for help, and how to lead a virtual workforce

I see more people pausing now where some have just said, we're going to bring people back. And those that have, some have done okay. Others, to your point, Steve, they lost people. And when we go through people losing and not retaining, it's expensive. I mean, the average now to find a new person is one and a half times that person's salary. That doesn't even count the work that's being missed because they're not there. So it's a big deal.

Does that include training costs?

Training costs?

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, you're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars generally per person. It's not a small deal.

On today's episode, we have executive coach Greg Gaggini. This was an interesting conversation, Steve. We. So Greg is a really talented executive coach. He's got 20 plus years as an executive himself transitioned into the coaching arena. And he brought up something really interesting in our conversation and viewers are going to be able to listen to it. But he talked about the reluctancy of leaders to seek out a coach. And as I started thinking about it, I was like, wow, that is so true. There's we, we find coaches or we seek coaches out in every aspect of our life. But when it comes to business, there seems to be this, this hesitancy as a leader to seek out a coach. And we talk about a little bit about why that is on the podcast. But, Steve, what do you think is maybe one of the main reasons why people are reluctant to seek out a coach in their business?

Jake, I think the number one reason is that if you ask for a coach or even seek out a coach for some unknown reason, the leader thinks he is failing and it's a negative to hire a coach. But we do it in sports all day long. Leaders should, at any time, especially in the beginning, seek out a coach that'll help you on your journey to be a really, really great leader.

It's so weird how that dynamic exists. You know, when you're playing a sport, you for the most part want to be coached. You're looking for someone to invest in you. You're looking for someone to point out the flaws and to help you accentuate the things that are going well. Yet when you're leading a group of people, you're almost, you almost feel like, not appalled, but like you don't to think about how you might be feeling as a leader or as a business person, and you'd rather run from it than to embrace it.

You know, it's interesting. When I was doing my Ironman triathlon racing I hired a coach out of Colorado because I wanted to learn how to be a really good triathlete. But in the business world, people forget about that mindset.

Yeah.

Yeah. And even when I get feeling feedback, I'm thinking back to my coaching days or when I had a coach in sports. I loved it when my coach would tell me, hey, do your footwork a little bit this way, you'll be a little bit better. But when someone, whenever I took advice on how to be a better coo, I almost took it offense, like it was an offense against me. That, and I was ashamed that I wasn't quite doing it well, which is ridiculous when you think about it, that you know, as a leader, you're always going to be, there's always room for improvement. And that I shouldn't be afraid to embrace it or offended when someone points out, hey, you could be doing these things a little bit better and just accept it. I don't quite understand why that exists.

That's one of the most interesting dynamics you see going from sports into the business world, and it should be exactly the same. And leaders can really benefit from getting a coach sooner than later.

100%. Well, people are gonna really love this interview with Greg Ghaggini. So let's just head west. Stay tuned as we discuss why you should become a coach, asking for help, and how to lead a virtual workforce with our guest, Greg Gagini. This episode is brought to you by Skyline Point Capital. If you're anything like me, you're always considering where to invest your money. Stocks, bonds, crypto, a rental home. The list is literally endless. As we've all seen over the past year, the stock market is unstable, the housing market is just weird, and inflation is on the rise. In times like these, the clear place to invest my money is in multifamily real estate, AKA apartment complexes. Here's why. Returns on real estate investments have little to no correlation with the stock market. There's lower volatility, stable income streams, and the tax benefits are insane. And let's not forget that the apartments will typically appreciate in value over time, which means you can walk away with a pretty nice return when the complex is sold in three to five years. Best of all, multifamily investing is passive, so you get all the benefits without the hassle and headache of your typical rental home investment. Getting started has never been easier. Head to skylinepointcapital.com to learn how you can start investing today. You are at Tech brands for almost 20 years, if I remember correctly. But then you've Transitioned now into coaching. You were an executive leader. Now you're a coach to executive leader. What. What led to that transition? Is that something in your DNA that you've always been a. A coach that you knew you wanted to go to, or was there something that happened along the way? You're like, wow, I really want to. I want to pass. Pass on what I've learned to the next generation of. Of leaders. What. What did that look like?

Yeah, you know, that's a great question. You. And when I think about leadership, Jake, I think about A, what do you demonstrate? B, what do you cascade? And then see what he. What does everybody take away from that? Right. The behaviors, the learnings and all that. And Steve will test this. For some reason, God gives you gifts. And one of my gifts is that people just feel comfortable coming to me. They come tell me stuff, and Steve's like, what's going on? Because they're not going to tell me. We were Ying and Yang. We got our strengths and whatnot. And so, you know, they'd ask for advice. And advice could be anything from business. You know, how do I solve this, this challenge to, you know, I've got some marital issues, which doesn't happen often in business. Like, people don't necessarily feel vulnerable enough to come in and be authentic with you and say, hey, I've got some problems at home. So, you know, after years of all of that, and I'm like, you know, what, what's the next chapter? And I too, too often people say, well, what do you want to do when you grow up? And I'm a little bit like Peter Pan. I don't know if I'll ever grow up. I mean, if there's the next thing, the next thing. And my wife's always said, well, what are you going to do when you retire? Like, I don't even know what that word means. Yeah, because I'm always going to do something. I don't know what it means. I may not be making money at it, but I'm going to be doing something. So the. The coaching aspect was just something I think was a little bit of a gift from God. Like, this is something that people naturally want to come to you. And so how can you. How can you leverage that gift? And so I started thinking about that. You know, I'm comfortable talking to people. I learned a long time ago from my grandmother, she would always say, greg, you have two ears, one mouth. You need to listen twice as much as you talk. You know, there's a lot of very eloquent business speakers and leaders now who spin that into a much different and more eloquent linguistic, whatever you want to call it, format. It is simple as that. It's like, can you. Can you be intentional and listen? And so that, that decided me, I'm like, could I go out and help people? You know, could I. Could I help people do this? And, you know, coaching is a very broad term, you know, and when I, when I think about coaching, it's just, can you help people? And can honestly you get help from it, too? There's, there's key takeaways in every session, whether you're coaching a CEO, whether you're coaching your kids, or whether you're getting coached, you know, and so to answer your question, long way around, it was. It was more of a. A realization of, you know, what are you really good at? What's a gift that you're given? And can you go do that? You know, just get out there and do that. So I said, nobody goes, go for it, Genie. Just. Just freaking go for it and head west.

You put, you put head. What? You put Greg in front of a crowd, just back away and let him go. It's awesome. Absolutely awesome. And he does, he does a fabulous job in relating to the people in the stage, from the stage and in over Greg's. Oh, heck, the experience you had from way back when, was it Spiegel? Yeah, Greg Spiegel, all the way to today brings a wealth of business knowledge to young entrepreneurs, young leaders that are trying to head west and get knocked down. And Greg imparts his wisdom to that. But he's in. It's awesome.

What do you.

Speaking of the young leaders and you know, when you step into an executive role or a leadership role for most people, unless you're really like a captain of a, a sports team or president of a club, stepping into a leadership role is completely unknown territory for that individual. What have you found in your time as a coach that you see is where most executive leaders need to be coached? Like, what's that area that maybe is lacking most, that you recognize early that you need to come in and coach them up in? Do you see any trends there?

That's a great question. And it differs for many different people. The key is when we start with. To coach someone, they have to be vulnerable. They have to think, like, I get to have a coach instead of, oh, I have to have a coach. And we go sideways on you just for a minute, Jake. Because if you think about sports like team, take baseball, for example, is a Badge of honor. If your GM or head coach says, hey, Greg, I'll get you a batting coach because you're doing okay, but I want you to be better. Wow. They're willing to invest in me to do that. So it's a mindset thing that people want to be invested in, think it's an opportunity to get better. Right. So that's number one. But as I see most folks, whether. Whether I'm doing the coaching or got team members that do coaching and whatnot, it's really about setting up and identifying, what do you need? What do you need? And most of it starts with them being reflective on where their strengths are, where their weaknesses are. And most of it actually starts, I think, a little with emotional intelligence. It's funny, it's something that most companies don't invest in teaching. You know, it's kind of like you either have it or you don't. And the science behind how you show up, how you listen, what you say, it really feeds into all the other aspects of how do you lead yourself and how do you lead others. So the big. The big one really starts with a lot of emotional intelligence and getting them to. To break free, open up those barriers so you can really get down and get deep, deep with them. And that's the key. Too often people live up here in the head, and the key in coaching is you can get between the head and the heart, the emotions. That's when transformation can start to take place. It's not transactional. It's transformational. And it takes time. It takes time for those things to happen.

It takes time.

It takes. It takes time. Meaning most people look at coaching as well. Can you just sit down and coach me for a week, you know, or even a month?

Yeah, sure.

And I'm done. Presto, change. Oh, I'm. I'm done. And that's. That's not the way it works. I mean, we all know it takes at least 30 days to start a new habit or behavior. Then you want to maintain it. You got to be diligent. You got to keep doing it. You got to apply it, and then measure it and then reapply it. So that's the time component in setting those boundaries with people and expectations up front of, like, look, if we're going to do this, we're going to coach, we're going to work together. You got to be willing to let some time go by. We're going to put some measurements in place, and you're going to apply, we're going to come back and Talk about how that's working and just no different than sports. And I love drawing sports analogies to this because metrics, right. I get a, I get a batting coach. If I'm doing these things, I should see my average going up. I got a pitching coach. ERA should go up. All these different things. But if you don't apply it, the learning, you don't apply it, nothing's going to change.

Knowing you. And when you see that transformational change, I can see the smile on your face, like you're making a difference.

It's, it's like Christmas time, right? When everyone's around, open the gifts, everyone got a smile on their face and you're just going, yeah, for them, not for me, for them. Like, and, and just to hear those, you know, the affirmation is always nice. I'm not gonna lie here. I mean, the affirmation, everybody wants the information, right? Hey, thanks. It helps. You know, I'm seeing it. It's, it's, it's working. And the funny thing is, Jake, when you talk about executives and coaching and whatnot, executive can be a pretty broad term. You can be executive. Me, a single person running the company. Sure. Being executive. Right?

Yeah.

It's not about a number of you got to be a billion dollar company. It's, it's, it's mindset and they're, you got to help them. You got to figure out what it is. I've had people sit in front of me that are, they own tattoo shops and they want to figure out if they should go in and franchise and buy tattoo shops, you know, all the way up to big billion dollar CEOs. I mean, you know, the funny thing is a lot of them have the same challenges.

Like what, what is it? Can you, what are those same challenges?

Yeah, yeah. One of the, one of the big challenges they have is really, do they have and do they know the right game plan? Small company, large company, doesn't matter. Do they know how to measure it? You'd be surprised how many people have gotten to where they've gotten just through grit. But they're like now systematically, what do I need to work on? You know, retention of people. That's a, that's a big one. Retain more people. How are you showing up? Doesn't matter. For small company, big company. You know why? We're all people, we're all humans. I mean, we're hardwired. There's DNA, there's science behind this, that we are people doing life. And, and one of the key things I tell People is that if you can get past what I call the 8 to 5 syndrome, meaning that I only need to sway between 8 o' clock and 5 o' clock when I'm in the office and then be somebody else, you go a whole lot further, a whole lot faster. Because these things we do, the way we show up, it's a life thing. You know, if you're coaching to be a better leader, does that not mean you're not a better husband, a better wife, a better father, mother, all those things? It does. So all these things are applicable. And I go there with people like, look, I know you're talking about, let's say we're talking about EBITDA today, but okay, let's translate to family finances. I mean, if you're focusing on your business, are you focused on your home that way? Or if you're having issues with your employees, are you having issues at home? And they look at me go, you're a marriage counselor? No, together. Yeah. You know, if you practice this 24, 7, 365, that application is going to take you a lot further, a lot faster than you think. You get to shut it off when you go home at night because you really can't.

Do you feel like there's, when people come to get coached, it's a reactive, it's a react reactive reaction, or is it a proactive one where they see, hey, I, I can see where my ceiling is and I, I want to be prepared to break through it, or have they hit some sort of ceiling already and now they're reacting to it? What do you see as the, the trend?

I actually see both those that are reactive and many do come with a reactive, like they think something needs to be fixed. And I hate the word fixed because you don't fix people, you help transform people. Right. We're not broken. There's just something we need to work on. So those that are a little more seasoned, who have had an opportunity to have a coach and invest in them, they will bring their team members. Is an investment. Most, most of them are senior people come with, they've got a particular challenge they're trying to get through. You know, there's a particular agenda that they want to work on, whether that be succession planning or how to, how to integrate with culture better, they've got that experience. So when they then get coached and they start to bring their team members, it's an investment in the future. Like, I'm going to put, I'm going to put this person in this role and I don't want them to have to go through some of the hardships that I went through. Can you coach, mentor them through these challenges, be the sounding board, you know, try and tell them and show them where to avoid some of those holes. And you can do that to us to a degree. But Steve's already starting to smile because he knows some of these things you just have to learn, you know, when you step in the hole and you twist your ankle, it freaking hurts. You know, if I just keep telling people to avoid the hole, sometimes you got to go through some pain. Yeah. For growth, you just do. So a little bit of both, Jake. A little bit. A little bit of both on that. Yeah, Yeah.

I imagine a lot of your coaching comes to, you know, yes, avoid the hole, but also, okay, you're going to step in holes now. How do you react to it when you actually do? How do you recover from it when you do? Because it's going to happen. You're going to step in some holes as a leader.

100%. 100. We. And we talk about those things, and it's. I giggle about that, too, when I get feedback and say, you know, you told me that this might happen, and when it does, it's going to kind of feel this way. Oh, by the way, it did. But that's okay. You know, that's okay. It. I think it actually reinforces the coaching aspect and the learning aspect of those different. Of those different people's journeys.

Greg, what have you seen over the years of a leader and what is required today as compared to what was required 20 years ago, and how are you dealing with that as a coach?

Great question. 20 years ago, maybe in 25 years ago, there wasn't as much readily available information. There wasn't the. What I'll call the hybrid dynamic workforce that we have today. There were fewer generational gaps that leaders had to work with. Marketplace was different. Investment ideas were different. I could go on and on, Steve. There's a lot of nuances. I mean, even think about education, what we learned as kids right. In fifth grade, kids learning kindergarten. So the expectations have gone exponentially up. And consequently, the stress and the pressure for leaders today, I think, is much more than it was before. People are expected to do more with less, and that expectation just keeps rising. No one's coming into a company and saying, we want you to just work less hours and we want you to be less productive. So I would probably surmise that. And the big difference is the level of stress people have, the amount of expectations that are placed on them by either ownership boards or whatever to, to perform, which enhances the, the wanting and willingness for people to get coaching. Because like, if I can get there quicker with that speed and I can avoid some of these things, improve my productivity and my output, then I'm a better leader if I can cascade it. And that's probably another big one. When we coach, it's. We talk about how do you cascade that throughout the organizations. When I grew up, well, take Spiegel for example. We didn't have a lot of programs for people. You kind of followed as many of us did, the leaders in front of you. Some were good, some were not good at all. You know their styles. They were the demeanor of lead by intimidation. It doesn't fly in this, in today's society, you think about the generations we're working with. That does not motivate people. So I think the big, those big changes in terms of stress, the speed in which people want to learn now more people are more open today to coaching than I think they were 20 years ago. It was. Was viewed more as a negative than. Than today. It's more of a positive. And corporately, I mean, you'll hear people talking about this, other podcasts you research. People want to invest in their teams now. They're more willing to invest than they were 20 years ago in their teams and in theirselves in order to improve themselves. Whether it's business coaching, life coaching, fitness coaching, all of those things. People are just more willing and open to invest in those things.

You can't get on the Internet or open up an email or look at a news on anything and you can't. And you'll find an article about how do I deal with the workforce today? Pre pandemic, post pandemic, in the office. Hybrid. Greg, how are leaders handling this? That is, how are they going to survive going forward?

Yeah, yeah. And I like to say thrive. I also like to say getting from something. People say, great, that's, that's not correct. English versus getting through something. So let's just hit it straight on, Steve. Let's, let's go. Pandemic. I mean, pandemic hits. Some people have never heard, never heard of zoom. All of a sudden it becomes like Kleenex. It's a household name. They don't know what to do. Right. What do you do? And when you, when you live through something like that, where you didn't have a choice, you were forced into not even a hybrid workforce, a remote workforce. Today, here we are in these cameras and for the most part, pretty comfortable, right? People, people have to adapt and get comfortable. And so now fast forward a few years later, companies are coming and going. I don't know if I want this anymore. I want to have people here, but I got to have this hybrid. So how do you, what do you do, how do you work through this? One of the things that's, that's that we found is really key is that being intentional, more intentional about the screen time. Okay. More regular check ins with people. Right. Not just asking about work, but how are they doing personally, you know, where's our head up? Because you don't get as many of the, what I would call cues from the, from the body behavior that you can see throughout the day. You get a snippet for 5 minutes, 10 minutes on the screen with them. If you're doing these quick check ins, not only that, you only see from here up, you know, you have no idea what I could have put on. £50, you haven't seen me and you have no idea. My health could be crappy. You don't know. And so you gotta be intentional about asking those type of questions. The other piece is that I tell people is that you gotta get past the Visual. In the 80s and 90s, management looked at productivity by how long your car was in the parking lot. And there's no joke. I had people I worked with that park their car at 6am in the parking lot, go somewhere for coffee, come in at 9, leave their car there till 7 or 8, go get dinner, come back and leave. And their boss would be, you're a rock star. They were no more productive now. Less productive.

Yeah.

Than other people. It's true. And so today you people, do you have analytics? Yeah. Are your people more productive? Yeah, but I don't think they're only working six hours a day. And I say what do you care? But, but they're only working six hours. I said, well compare it to somebody else in the office who's working 10 hours. Are they more or less productive? I think they're more productive than that person. So you're looking in the wrong spot then. Yeah, you need to measure the productivity, not the FaceTime.

I remember I had a boss at a, I won't name where I was, but I had a boss who told me that, that you know, every once in a while I would leave at like 4:30 or I'd leave it right at 5 because I would show up early or I'd be highly productive that day or I got everything, you know, I had my list of the top five things I need to do that day and I got through it and, and was highly productive. But because I was leaving at 5 or maybe slightly early, because I would usually I would skip my lunch and then I would go work out at like 4:30 and then stay till like 6, you know, working out. But they pulled me aside during one of our quarterly reviews and said, you know, we know you're doing great things. Your metrics show that you're doing great, your revenue's up, your profitability is up, all yada yada, but you're leaving right at 5. And optically that just doesn't look good. And there was this, there was this, you know, that's corporate America. There's some truth to that. You just, that's just the game you got to play sometimes. But there was this culture that you at least needed to stay until your boss left. You know, if your boss is answering emails till midnight, you should be answering your emails till midnight. It's just an optics thing. And I think to your point that they're not, there needs to be a level of trust from the leader that, hey, I'm hiring. I trusted this person when I hired them. I got to trust that they're going to be productive and do what they need to do. Whether it's work 12 hours today or work four hours today, they're going to, they're going to get their work done. But that, that, I think that mentality is shifting. It feels like the leaders are recognizing that this is not an 8 to 5 working environment anymore, that, that it's more fluid nowadays.

No, that's a really good observation, Jake. When you think about pandemic and people could walk their dog, work out, do some laundry. And it goes to your point of maybe they took some time off during the day, but from six to seven or seven to eight, they sat down and did some work. So that fluid opportunity, which many people never had the opportunity to do, that now they like it. But at the end of the day, if you're being productive, leads to a happy employee, okay? Leads to profits for the company. And the big one, the big one, especially now in this hybrid workforce, is retention, right? If people aren't happy, it's too easy to get a call. I don't care if you live in Omaha, Nebraska or Los Angeles, California or wherever, you get a call from another company and people like, hey, you know, you can work remote, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and work for us here. If I'm in an environment which Gives me negative reinforcements to my hybrid or remote work. Cultural, you know, challenges start to go down the tubes. It's really easy for people to walk, you know, and the one thing we really didn't touch on yet is that that cultural piece. How do you maintain the culture in these hybrid environments or remote environments? And it's just as important to be having those calls, those touch points, and asking the right questions, getting the right feedback to make sure people are still part of the company. And let's not kid ourselves. Come on. Remote work is. That's been around way before the pandemic. I mean, how many companies, big companies got people in Dallas, New York, Chicago, all over the place. They don't live in one spot. Did they make it work? Yeah. Be intentional, Check in, make sure people are being valued. Measure the productivity, not the freaking hours that they're working. Be okay. It's really not that complicated. But, you know, headspace gets messed up when you go through something like a pandemic. And people think, we'd be much better if it were just this way. Not true.

And if, if you look at leaders today that are trying to get the hybrid workforce working, and they. Then they make the call, well, we'll start with two days a week or three days a week. They have a big challenge because it's so easy to go to another job, work from home, get paid more. And you, you hear and read about leaders that once they try to bring the workforce back in the. Back in the office, they say, no, I'm not.

I'd rather leave.

And if you. And you know what, they can go get a job very easily, probably for more money. And it really adds this, a dynamic that challenging for companies. And I'm assuming, Greg, you, when you get involved in companies like that, how do you get the leader of the organization to realize, hey, you may have a really good business here. Going remote, trying to bring them back may upset the apple cart and change the total culture. Have you run into that?

Yeah, I have. I ran into that. In fact, just last week was speaking with a client about that, where almost to that exact scenario, they've been doing two days a week, Mondays and Fridays. Right. So the leadership team now says, well, I think everyone's just taking a long weekend. You know, you can work from home on Friday, you can work. Okay. The numbers and the metrics don't support that. So they're saying, I think we're going to make it mandatory that everybody has to come back to the office. So, Steve, we use this question quite often. In our time together, my question to them is, what problem are you solving? I mean, what, what are you really trying to solve? Is it about you, you know, as the leader, your optics? Or do you really think this is something that's impacting the company? And that question makes people pause. They go, it's a great question. If it's not you, is it something that impacts the rest of the company? So maybe it's not you, but you're seeing something impacts the rest of the company. Good question. How about your clients? Is it impacting your clients? Another good question. How about other. What's the impact to people's lives? You know, are they happy? Are they not going to be happy? Why are they going to be happy if they all come back to the office? And when I go down this line of questioning, you know, this, this how it's going to impact these different areas, they kind of pause and say, huh, maybe we need to do a little bit deeper dive here before we just flip a switch and say, it was fine before pandemic, it'll be fine afterwards. So I see more people pausing now where some have just said, we're gonna, we're gonna bring people back. And those that have, some have done okay. Others, to your point, Steve, they lost people. And, and when we go through people losing and not retaining, it's expensive. I mean, the average now to find a new person is one and a half times that person's salary. That doesn't even count the work that's being missed because they're not there. Yeah. So it's a big deal.

Does that include training costs?

Training costs? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars generally per person. It's not a small deal. Wow.

And the workforce is so portable from one job to the other. We see this in some of our real estate when we have a property in Nashville, Tennessee, and we're installing offices, we're taking a gym, a gym area that's way too big, and we cut it in half, and we're putting in private offices that people will have their own spot, and we will rent those out in the apartment complex. And that is a trend going on. You are seeing people, they want to stay home, they want an office, and in this case, they don't want to be in their residence. You know, they may have kids or dogs or what have you, but they want their own private office. And we're seeing that shift. Shift allowing. They're investing to stay home. They're. They're setting up their office in Their residence or whatever. It's a, it's an interesting dilemma for leaders trying to force people back.

That's the key word. You just use the keywords that you forced. Force. Yeah. If you, if you force in our, in our lives. And anything you force, I don't care if it's forcing a screw into a piece of wood, cranking a nut, or making somebody do something that's uncomfortable, it generally doesn't wind up being a good.

Thing or using the wrong tool to accomplish something and forces the wrong tool.

You know, when you talk about tools, that's one thing I'll just mention quickly here that those that have had more success with remote, you know, getting comfortable with remote and or hybrid is making sure people have the right tools. Right? I mean, just like today, if you don't have good Internet speed, if you don't have good computers, microphones, work screens, that experience is not good at home. It's not good for those that are back in the office or the clients that they're working with. So people are doing a better job today about actually looking at the tools that people have. Do they have the right tool to do the job, to make sure that, that we, at least we don't drop any of those technological pieces in the mix of the cultural and, or communication pieces and parts of that, of that transition. But force, man, when you force stuff, got to be really careful with that. Good luck. And again, if you go, go through those four quadrants of talking about how it's going to impact those different areas, I'm not going to tell you in some cases that, that all those indicators are. Yeah, it's, it's better for us all to be here because there are certain industries where you just kind of have to be there. Right? I mean, if you're in a warehousing and, you know, you work in a warehouse, let's say that's your business. So for 3PL, it's really hard for people to not be there. They got to be there, you know, and then you got to talk with those other businesses where warehousing is a component of that business. But then we have executives who are allowed to work remote. How do you balance that culture? So there's a lot of dynamics and a lot of different business complications that people have to think through. But generally, if you work through those four different quadrants and figuring out how does that really impact the different areas of your company, you know, yourself, individuals, your clients, that'll help get you to the right answer, what you need to do.

If you don't know how to answer that question. Get a coach.

There you go.

How to put the plug in there. I want to go back. Steve teed up real estate, and you're a real estate investor. You've invested in commercial units. I'm assuming you'll get more invested in the future. But I'd love to hear what was the thing that interested you in investing in real estate. You're a coach by profession, and investing in real estate is a. A dv. I wouldn't say deviation, but it is drastically different than what you do in your, you know, your normal day. What attracted you to real estate? Why do you invest? How'd you get started? I'd love to hear your story there.

Yeah, so I love to learn, Learn new things. And when you talk about investing, it's a pretty broad word, whether investing in yourself, investing in others, or investing in something that can give you a return, and whether it's real estate, stock market, or whatever. But when you think about the market, where the market's been, and all these different challenges people have had, and you think about what's the one thing that generally is pretty stable, whether you call it dirt or you call it real estate, buildings, it's real estate. And it's. And it's a pretty cool thing. Not only, not just from an investment perspective, Jake, because that's the money side, which is really cool. But the other part is the learnings of all these different businesses, like, what do they do? How do they market to people? Why do people go there? You know, if they leave, what do you do? All those different challenges that help expand your mind and go, okay, now I got another idea. And now I understand how people live better. You know, whether it's apartment complexes or commercial, why do people want to live more? Younger generation in apartments. How long is it going to last? So one of the key things for me is that, is that learning new stuff, challenging my mind to think about things a little bit differently. And I think that adds to the growth. Like, what do I want to invest in next? You know, what's. What's. What's the next thing? And being educated about it is cool. And then my hope is that I'm trying to get my kids interested in this. Like, this would be something cool for you. I wish, I wish I blame Steve for this. It's not his fault. But I'd known about this, you know, and been in this years ago. Right. I mean, it's. Me too.

Me too.

And I wish I'd taken action, too, years ago when I did know about it.

Yes, yes. But it can't go backward. I can only go forward, you know, doing life. I'm always going to do something. So I, that, that'll be, you know, as I continue to go and grow, that'll be more and more. Something I want to do more of, is find that next thing. What. What is it? And continue to learn as we go through it.

It's a big step to, to most people think when they. About investing, they think my 401k, my, my Roth IRA, maybe a second home to rent and be, you know, a landlord. It's. It takes a, it takes a little bit more of an effort or it's a bigger jump, so to speak, to get into private real estate investing. But what was the.

What.

Because people don't know about it. Right. They don't know much about it. What was it that got you to take that step to invest in something that's not as, you know, common as I'm just going to throw money at my 401k.

Yeah, that, that, that goes to the gentleman sitting next to you. It was Steve. We started talking about this stuff and you know, we have all types of different conversations about different things. Some involve, involve wine, some involve bourbon, which can lead to some other interesting conversations. And it's like, what do you think about this? And we just start talking about it and bouncing ideas and talking. And I'm like, that sounds really interesting. I mean, up until that point, we own some property in, in northern Wisconsin with family. And that, that was different because I got to put a lot of sweat and labor into that for me to maintain and keep that what it is. And Steve's like, this is pretty cool. We don't have to do all the labor. Other people do it for us. That's pretty interesting. Yeah, so it's, it's more of a recent thing in my life. I wish I could say I've been doing it for 30 years. That'd be wonderful. Yeah, maybe we were talking about something else. I don't know.

Yeah.

But.

You know, that's great. Your comment, you wish you would have learned about that earlier. I say the exact same thing. I wish somebody had come alongside of me and said, hey guys, invest and buy real estate. And Greg's in or owners. Greg and I and a couple other people are owners in this commercial property. And the nice thing about that, when you buy a commercial property or apartment, communities and things like that, the tax depreciation you can get off that and the income you can get off that. Through distributions. And the retail strip is paying some distributions and Greg's, Greg's. We're all benefiting from that, which is awesome. But it's just if you imagine, just imagine if you started 20 years ago and you bought a little here, you bought a little there, and little all along the way, the passive income you would have off that. Unbelievable. And so Greg, you and I, 20 years ago, we should have started this.

Oh, well, yeah, you know what? Oh, it's gotta do it, Bobby, though, Steve, it's not Ricky Bobby. Ricky Bobby says you're the first or last. I don't think he had to be first in this one. We're gonna be just fine. Yep.

Oh, yeah, the, the retail strip, the commercial property we bought is. It's a great location and a lot of things are happening around that area. New soccer fields are going in and traffic to that area is going to increase drastically. And it's fun. You're it. Another thing too is when you buy a real, A piece of real estate, it's like buying it is buying a business. And which Greg fits right in that he knows how to run businesses and coach leaders and etc. And it's a, it's a great piece of property. Lots of fun.

Lots of fun.

What, what's. And before we wrap up, I'd love to ask what's your experience been like? Getting into investing in real estate was as scary as it. As you thought it would be. Stepping out like that as it was it. As was it as beneficial to your, to your life and to, you know, it being passive and not having to work on it. Walk through the experience. What's it been like, good, bad or indifferent.

So the word I would use is added excitement to life, right? Not so much of fear, but more added excitement because, you know, if one business doesn't make it, another one's going to come in and the education that you get from that. So it's, it's been a lot of excitement, Jake, in terms of seeing these things, learning these things, watching it come in. It's too soon yet for me to say all the benefits of passive, but I can see passive. I mean, there's not a lot of work that has to go into it, right? There is work, don't get me wrong. But to see that that investment just keeps paying off every quarter. There's a dividend, there's a dividend, here's a dividend again. If I'd have seen this 30 years ago and went, well, that's what it's all about. Been a totally different conversation today. Totally different conversation. But so far so good. I mean, it's been great. It's, it's, we're having fun, we're learning. It's throwing up cash and all. Good. So keyword excited. I'm excited about it.

Love it. Well, before we wrap up Steve and Greg, we always end up with a speed round. Quick questions, quick answers. So I want to ask a few of you to you, Greg, so we can get to know you a little better. Do you have any daily rituals that you swear by?

Oh, yeah, yeah. Daily rituals. Start the morning with some sort of passage from the Bible. God first, drink my morning spark for vitamins and energy, do my workout, get myself organized and go. That's my daily ritual.

That's great. You rarely hear caffeine not being number one. So starting with God first and caffeine second, that's a good priority.

Amen.

What's one piece of real estate advice that you'd give to others? And you can't say, I wish I would have started earlier because you've already said that. So I'm going to take that one off the table.

One piece. Start researching it now. Learn about it. I mean, you don't put money in, so just get out there and start to learn. Be curious. Talk to people like Steve, who's, who's been deeper and talk to others. Go get that knowledge. We've been talking about coaching. There's coaching in that. Go learn from others so you can make an informed decision. Just be curious about it. Be curious and learn.

What's one thing in life, business or real estate that you're really excited about?

Life, business or real estate? You know, I look at life as a journey. Always be learning, always be. What do you get from it? I would put that in all three categories. You know, just always be learning stress and stress your mind, meaning challenge yourself in all of those aspects of what can I learn, what can I do more and how can I use that and how can I pass it on to others? Yeah.

All right, last but not least, this is a heading west question. So you know the background of heading west, which is just get moving, just get going. You start, you learn along the way. As you head west in life, where do you hope to end up at the end of it?

So you do know the whole story on head west, right? The Lewis and Clark story? I do.

Please share. Share if you want to go into it.

So you know Lewis and Clark didn't have map, right? They're heading along the trail and a bear could jump out behind a tree, could eat them, right? Could it get attacked by who knows what. And you have to have the intestinal fork to know I'm heading the right direction and with purpose. And you know that trail blaze mentality. I know enough to know I'm heading this direction. But I need, I may need to adjust because the bear jumped out. So I don't adjust, I get eaten. So as I look at life, and again, I said this earlier about learning, where do I see myself? I see myself on an ever never ending quest. I don't have an endpoint, Jake, that says when I get here, I'm done and I'm just going to buy a super big couch and lay in that couch. I want to continue to learn. I want to continue to get better. I want to continue to give to my kids, give back to God and continue to grow until God says, you're done, you've done what you're supposed to do. Come home now. And so, you know, if I keep doing that, I got the strength, strength, you got the power, got the energy to do that and share with others. That's my head west.

All right, Greg, where can people find you if they want to look you up, if they want to reach out to you, if they want to learn more about what you do, where can they get in contact with you?

Yeah, so I've got a ton of different email addresses, different websites. In today's world of social media, I'd say the best place just go out to LinkedIn. I'm out there all the time. Hit me up on LinkedIn. I'll reply back, you know, happy to have coffee, have a conversation, whatever that is. And, and we'll get the particulars from each other from there. So you can find me. Just type in Greg Guini. Just think Greg. And five GS G R E G. That's two G, G, a G G. Three more GS I N I. Greg. Five G. I love that.

And we'll make it easy. We'll, we'll link your LinkedIn account to the, the episode so people can find you pretty easily.

Awesome. Awesome. Thank you, Jake.

Well, Greg, thanks so much for joining us this morning for this episode. That was a blast. Same here. Lots of fun, Lots of fun.

Thanks, Steve. Thanks, Jake.

Thanks, Greg.

Have a good one.