53. Greg Reid: Author of Three Feet from Gold

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to episode number 53 of our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, I interview one of the world's top authors, and as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better. In this episode, I have the pleasure to interview author and now a friend of mine, Greg Reid. Greg is, like I said, an author, but he's also a keynote speaker and filmmaker known for his giving spirit. And he has a knack for translating complicated situations into simple digestible concepts. Greg has published over 30 bestselling books in 45 different languages and now has a star on the Las Vegas Strip Walk of Fame. Our conversation today is all about one of those bestselling books. It's titled Three Feet from Gold, and the subtitle reads, Turn Your Obstacles into Opportunities. This remarkable business fable tells a fascinating story in presenting the key principles of Napoleon Hill's revolutionary bestseller, Think and Grow Rich. I had a fun time reading this fable. I love fables because they teach business lessons, but they're sort of like a fiction book. So without further ado, please enjoy this amazing conversation with Well, Greg, thank you so much for jumping onto the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. How are you doing today? Come on.

So good, even I want to be me today.

I want to be you as well. I want to be you as well. Listen, when we connected on the phone the other day, you had amazing energy. And I just hope that I can replicate a little bit of that for everybody today so that they can feel what I feel when I speak to you.

Well, right on. Yeah, a little boom shakalaka. You know, Abraham Lincoln had a great quote. He said, people are as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Yes.

And the very first mantra I ever came up with, I was at a grocery store and the cashier, people go through and they kept asking the question, how you doing? How you doing? They didn't care. That was just their job. And people would say the same answers, fair, fine, fair to middling, and then a double negative, not bad. And I said, I'm going to come up with a double positive real quick, quick, quick. And she gets to me, she goes, how you doing? I go, always good. And she looked at me, she goes, how can someone always be good? And then I said that quote, people are as happy as they make up their minds to be. And it became kind of a mantra in my world.

I love that. I'll start using it. I always say living the dream, living nice. And then they say, come on, are you really living the dream? Yes, I'm really living the dream. So Greg, for people who aren't familiar with your work, can you introduce yourself to the audience and give a 2 to 3 minute background on who you are and how we got connected.

Well, first of all, if you're not up to date with my work, don't feel bad. I'm not very popular at home either. So, I'll be upfront with everyone. I'm probably the least qualified guy to do what I do. I'm dyslexic. I can't really spell very well. I'm a horrible reader. Play me Words with Friends, you'll win every single time. And I learned a very valuable tool that you work your strengths and you hire your weaknesses. And so I'm a good storyteller, a good orator, so I got great ghostwriters to help me craft my message into a way that people would actually want to consume it in a literary, uh, you know, through books and different types of medium. And what's really interesting is I've been published in 112 books, 45 different languages, just got a star on the Walk of Fame for writing books, and even a couple honorary PhDs. And the moral is, is that everyone can do what they put their minds to, as long as they collaborate and associate with people that play at something that you would have a challenge at. And a lot of people miss that simple point.

So that simple point, let's go a little bit deeper into it. In half of the personal development books behind me, you hear double down on your strengths like you're saying and help fill in the gaps with other people. But then on the other half, you hear, okay, you can become the ultimate human being and cover up all of your weaknesses. So let's start with what you're worst at and start spending time on it. How do you feel about that? And why do you think people get that message wrong?

I don't do anything I suck at. So, I'm not a good example of that. So, guess what? The reality is, I don't do my taxes. I don't mow the lawn. There's certain things that I don't— I don't do laundry because I mess everything up. So, what I do is, I surround myself with people that excel at those chosen fields of endeavor and then, I encourage them and pay them very well to make sure that everybody feels like there's a win-win situation. But I'm a firm believer, you know, I got a major motion picture that's trending worldwide on Netflix right now. We're up for the Oscars last year, and guess what? I never ran a camera. I didn't write a script. I didn't do casting. I created the film. I produced it. So the whole idea is you work your strengths and then you hire your weaknesses. At least that's where I come from.

It's fantastic. And so you've been a part of over 100 books. For a guy that's dyslexic, how did you choose that to be your medium for distributing your wisdom and information?

Oh, come on now. It's all by accident, obviously. I never expected to. But when you write your first book, you do something called a query letter. It says who you are, what's your message, why are you an expert, who's going to read your book. I was turned down by 268 publishers, agents, and printers in a row because again, I'm on their side. I got a D in English. I didn't know what I was doing. And finally, the 269th one said, we'll do your book. Just change the title, beginning, middle, and end. And let us rewrite it.

They did it for you. Yeah.

I go, what am I missing here? And they go, you need a ghostwriter, man. So mine was like, the story was so interesting. It's called The Millionaire Mentor. And it's about these kids that I mentor here in San Diego. But mine was, look, a boy wants a bike. He gets off his butt, goes out, mows lawns, makes money, buys a bike. And they took it and crafted it. It was a warm Sunday afternoon when a young bright-eyed lad caught the entrepreneurial spirit as he went outside. Right? And so they took my message Hey, crap. But here's the moral of this part. One of the quotes in that book was shared 37 million times to date right now. And it'd have been easy to quit after 50 rejections or 80 or 120 or 212. However, I didn't let another person or myself talk me out of what I knew to be true. I knew I was onto something. And by doing that, impacted the lives of millions of people.

Now, I love that. I'd like to read something that I read about you online here. It says that Greg is an entrepreneur known for his giving spirit and a knack for translating complicated situations into simple digestible concepts. And that's really what you did with 3 Feet from Gold, right? You took a very famous book that I think for some people is very difficult to understand, Think and Grow Rich, and you're able to simplify it into this fun inviting message, probably with a ghostwriter, But that's what you do. Is that how you also identify with your brand?

That, and I tell parables. Look, no one wants to hear a story about you should do this, you should do this in today's marketplace, especially, you know, the youth of today. So, what I do is I tell stories within stories. So, I'd rather give a message that's hidden within a message. So, for example, one of my favorite interviews from that entire thing was John Schwarz, who created superstring theory. If you ever watched The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon was trying to figure it out. And the one person who did, I asked him, what do successful people do different than others? And he said, that's easy. He said, successful people seek counsel and failures listen to opinion.

Yes.

What's the difference? He goes, opinion's based on ignorance, lack of knowledge, inexperience, like all your family friends who've never done what you want. Counsel's based on wisdom, knowledge, mentorship. So if I go to a family friend and say, I'm going to write a bestselling book, they're going to do everything to talk me out of it because they know I'm dyslexic and I can't spell. But Plus they've never written a bestselling book. If I go to Jack Canfield, who wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul and sold a billion copies, he's gonna say, Greg, sit down, here's what you need to know, and give you counsel based on wisdom, knowledge, mentorship. John Schwartz said if we would spend our activity only seeking counsel and ignoring people's opinion, that's the day our lives would change.

Yeah, I actually, I highlighted that part of the book actually from 3 Feet to Gold because I wanted to talk a little bit more about that. We get a lot of questions about mentorship at book thinkers. And it seems to me like you've surrounded yourself with this ultimate council. You can rely on these amazing people and they cover up all of your weaknesses. So, at what point in your life did you begin to understand the key to success was held by other people and not really by yourself, you know, in one way of phrasing it?

You're asking a couple of different things. And first of all, I'm a semantics guy and by no means have I ever covered up anything. So, I'm very transparent. I think that's what's missing in today's world. And when you read Three Feet from Gold, it's very transparent. Uh, you know, it is, it is the way it truly is. I think there's so many of these fake-ass guru people talking about how wonderful they are, and they're taking pictures in front of a Lamborghini. I just get to hang out with Mr. Lamborghini. It's just two different energies, right? And I found out that the most successful people are also the most available. If you're brand new, you're happy-go-lucky, you're fresh, you're cool. If you're at the top, you're happy-go-lucky, you got nothing to prove. In the middle, pain in the neck, you're filled with ego, you're edging God out. Jump to the front of the line. And the way you do it is with specificity. This is what people miss. Look, no one wants to brainpick. No one wants to go to lunch with you. They don't want dinner, they don't want coffee. With specificity, you open up the doors. So if I'm writing 3 Feet from Gold and I want to get to the founder of Remax Real Estate, I'm going to say, listen, Dave, I'm going to cover all my own costs to get to you. I need 12.5 minutes of your time. From the moment I open the door till I leave, my alarm will go off 12 and a half minutes. I'm going to ask you one question, why you didn't quit 3 Feet from Gold? The chance of him coming downstairs from his office to the lunchroom to do that is so high, yet people don't understand the power of that specificity.

Well, thankfully, Zoom has made that very convenient for somebody like myself because this podcast is set up so that I can give authors the ability to highlight their work and connect with my audience. And I can give my audience the ability to connect with amazing people like you. But I'm also naturally curious and I have a lot of questions about life and I can shortcut that process by reading your books and then asking follow-up questions. So, I sort of play that reporter role myself and it makes it a little bit easier when it can be so frictionless for you to just sit down in your office, which you're already in, and jump on with me and chat for a few minutes. So, that's sort of a representation of what you just said.

Yeah. And it was interesting. I started this event called Secret Knock for that reason. is that I got tired of coaches, teachers, and mentors. I said, what if you just hung out with the people who did it? So like at our event, if you want to work on a clothing line, great. The taco bar over there, there's the founder of UGG Boots, a billion-dollar brand. Hey, you got an invention? Here's a guy who created that, you know, magnetic strip on the back of a credit card. Go over there and have a beer. And where could your life be if you just started hanging out with the people who are actually doing, not teaching, not talking about, but the people are actually doing what everyone else is just You know, dreaming. And by doing that, that cuts your learning curve 10, 10, 10-fold.

Well, you're pretty well known for Secret Knock, so let's go a little bit deeper into that. What is Secret Knock and how do people apply for it, become aware of it? What's that process look like?

Yeah, it's all by accident again. It was so funny because people kept saying, how do I meet all your friends when I was writing these books, right? And I said, well, I'll invite a couple to the house, come over and hang out. And they said, do I need a ticket? And I go, no, just bump it about, just knock. And they left and told people, and we ended up becoming Forbes Magazine, Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine recognized top event in the world for networking. And it's the greatest event you cannot go to unless you're invited or you go fill out an application. There's nowhere you can give us money. You have to go actually apply and go through the system. And once you do and we accept your tuition, we still won't tell you where it is or who will be there. We just tell you the city, state, and that's it. And then when you come, there's no name tags. You fend for yourself, you're treated like a grown-up. And what that means is we have one rule, it's be cool. If water runs out of your table, don't complain, get off your butt, get some water and bring it back for the table. If there's trash on the floor, throw it away, be normal. And we've created this really cool ecosystem of the most amazing humans you've ever could encounter all in one place at one time.

Wow, that's amazing. So we have a lot of young professionals in the audience, and you seem to be a master networker with Secret Knock and everything like that. You talked a little bit about Napoleon Hill's journey. And so networking probably becomes a little bit easier with a purpose. But for people who are just starting out and they say, I aspire to be like these people, I want to learn from them, what are some tips or tricks or things that you would recommend, I guess, for the average listener who says, I want to elevate my life and I know that I'm the average of the 5 people I spend the most time with and that circle needs to be elevated a little bit?

Yeah. And surround yourself with people you have respect for, not people you have influence over. That's key number one. Surround yourself with people you have respect for, not people you have influence. And then door number 2, again, people, you're saying, oh, it's easy for you. Look, everyone watching me, you've never seen me before. You don't know who I am. Never. So that's a bunch of crap. Because the fact of the matter is, when I reach out to people, they don't know who I am either. I only do it with specificity. So I'll give you an example. If I'm on stage and there's 10,000 people and you get off and there's a long line for folks who want to meet you, they say the nicest things. How can I work with you? How can I be of contribution? How can I be of service? I don't have 30 minutes to do a resume check. I don't know who you are. But if you came up and said, hey man, you crushed it on there. I saw your Instagram. You have half a million followers. I like your memes. I make those myself. Let me send you one. If you like it, you'll use me. What's that, 8 seconds? I know who you are, what you do. You got my cell phone. We're in contact. That's what's missing. Everyone wants to pick brains and, you know, and all this stuff. It doesn't work that way. Specificity opens up the doors. Sure.

And that's what this podcast did for me. I came to you with, with, well, actually my message was a little bit more scattered and you helped rein me in a little bit, but, uh, I'm learning in the process as we go. So we're here to talk about 3 Feet from Gold. And I'd love to learn a little bit more about how you initially got connected with the Napoleon Hill Foundation. And then we can go from there to some of my favorite lessons in the book.

Well, in 1908, Napoleon Hill was given this letter by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, the richest guy in the world, and gave him an opportunity to meet all of his friends and wrote the first-ever formula for success. 100 years later, the Napoleon Hill Foundation and the surviving family gave me a very similar letter, basically a Willy Wonka ticket to meet any human alive. So my job is to travel around the planet, meet these amazing humans, and then tell their stories in books and film. And so that's how it all came to be. And so I write the Think and Grow Rich series. It began with 3 Feet from Gold. After that, we did Think and Grow Rich Stickability. Then Bob Proctor and I did Think and Grow Rich Thoughts Are Things, Napoleon Hill's Road to Riches, and this latest one's called, uh, we just came out with this one here. It's called, uh, Success and Something Greater. This is the last book that Hill was going to write before he died and never got a chance to, by the way.

Wow.

And so the foundation gave it to us with unpublished work from Hill, and it's pretty phenomenal. But I was going to show you something kind of cool here, like if I got it. Oh yeah, check this out. I didn't put this away yet. So when the Napoleon Hill Foundation gave us the opportunity to do it, they pulled this off the back shelves The one, the originals. This is one of the last ones he ever signed before he passed away.

Wow, that's very special.

Wait, wait, there's more. Wait, there's more. And then yes, we went in the back archives, which is a storage shed, and we found checks. And Napoleon Hill handwrote himself a check for $100 to pay him back for promoting Think and Grow Rich traveling around the world. There's only a few of these in the world, but it's kind of cool. What's really nice is that, you know, we just had a unique opportunity and now we can modernize and update the teachings so this generation can grasp it as well.

I've always been fascinated and I haven't done this yet, but I've been fascinated with Stoic philosophy. And I've always thought about traveling to Rome, which I will do soon, and walking the same streets as Marcus Aurelius. And it sounds like that's what you've done with the Napoleon Hill Foundation. They've given you access to behind the scenes. So did you ever have a moment when you were kind of like in there feeling the energy and just thought like, wow, this is This is really happening. I'm really the person that's representing this brand.

Absolutely. And I did it with a way where, okay, people always say, why me? Again, I'm the least qualified guy in the world to do this type of thing. Why not the big name people? Well, the truth of the matter is the big name people were making it all about them and they forgot to put the homage on the people who impacted the most. So when Sharon Lechter and myself started doing this work, it was all about Napoleon Hill. It's all about his foundation. It was all about these modern-day leaders that have carried the torch. And we just happen to be blessed to be part of that journey, and it's done in that order. And I think by doing that, we've been able to respect and, you know, keep this very clean, but more importantly, impact the lives of millions.

Yeah, it's all about the reader too, right? At the end of the day, the reader's sort of in the center of the circle. And I think that with this book, like we talked about a little bit before, you've taken a lot of the principles from Think and Grow Rich, and in 3 Feet from Gold, you've simplified them. So that the average modern-day young professional can digest these, put themselves in the shoes of the young Greg in the book, and really identify with that person and go through this process of being mentored while reading the book. And so you did a really nice job with it. So before we go in any further, can you give us a brief history of Think and Grow Rich and how that book came to be?

Sure. And by the way, you're setting this thing all up for— ask me a few questions. I can't wait till some of your nuggets that you got. It's kind of like the biggest buildup ever. What do you got, man? So I'm looking forward to seeing some of your takeaways. It's nice when people come up and they share their highlighted, you know, books. You know, again, 112 books. It's kind of cool when they come up and they go, this one impacted my life, this one, you know, meant the most. So I'm curious to see what it meant to you. So Think and Grow Rich, again, I think I just told the story. Andrew Carnegie gave Napoleon Hill an opportunity to go meet all of his friends And he wrote the first-ever Formula for Success. And what's really interesting about that journey is that Napoleon Hill was never paid a penny. He had to work for free for 20 years to go do it. And when Napoleon Hill first met him, he says, you know, you got to work for nothing for this whole time. And Napoleon Hill reached in his pocket and said, work for free for what? And he went to Carnegie, says, not only will I accept your mission, I'm going to complete that task. And then Carnegie says, fine, you got yourself a job, and wrote that letter of recommendation. But people don't know that Carnegie was a stickler for action and gave his guest 60 seconds to make up his mind to work for free for 20 years, Napoleon Hill. And when Napoleon Hill said yes, Andrew Carnegie pulls out a stopwatch and gave him 60 seconds. There was 31 seconds left. He made a life-changing decision in just 29 seconds. But what gets fascinating is that Carnegie made that same offer to 250 men before Napoleon Hill. He was the only person to say yes. Everyone else had a bad case of the one size. That means I'm gonna take action once I get the big break, once I get the kids out of the house. And one of the stumbling blocks of human nature is their big butt, not the one they sit on. They sit there and say, I'd go do that too, and it's that butt.

Yeah, there are a lot of writers that never write a book and entrepreneurs that never start a business, and procrastination kills a lot of people. I mean, it really does. So, we will go into some of those golden nuggets. There is a quote that I would like to read and then have you expand on because right in the beginning of the book, this is one of my favorites.

It says, hang around thinkers and you will be a better thinker. Hang around winners and you will be a better winner. Hang around a bunch of complaining, griping boneheads and you will become a better complaining, griping bonehead.

And so, a lot of us, we grow up with certain people.

We are hanging out with certain people and we realize that our circle hasn't elevated enough. We might be the only lonely one pursuing personal development. So I'd love to have you sort of expand on that. And what were your first days like when you decided, I need to elevate myself?

Yeah, that was Charlie Tremendous Jones. And he says, you'll be the same today as you'll be in 5 years, except for 2 things: the people you meet and the books you read. And I think it's today, it's the people you meet and the books you're in. Because it's, you know, I believe it's a great opportunity to open up the doors to meet amazing people. Now it's the podcasts we're producing. It's the movies or TV shows that you're producing. And for myself, I've always sought to surround myself with people that, again, I had respect for, not people I have influence over. One of my first mentors that was in that book is Jack Mates. And he's the guy who created Velcro and, or brought Velcro to the world. And I said, how did you sell 5 billion people Velcro? And he says, I didn't. I just sold 5 people, the head of automotive, the head of aerospace, the head of fashion, they found the application brought to the world. He says, stop trying to sell everyone, just corner a market. So as crazy as it is, Three Feet from Gold, I don't know if he knows or not, but the only bookstore left in America, the big one, is Barnes& Noble. So what happened is when we came out with this book, Sharon got a meeting with the founders of Barnes& Noble, and Three Feet from Gold became the first book in history where they actually published it themselves. So their sister company, we did a joint venture deal where we shared the profits, and that's why the books were always on the shelves. Now, who has a bigger email list? Me or Barnes& Noble? And by doing that and having that leveraged opportunity, it went on to become a global phenomenon.

Yeah. So leaders allow them to corner the market or capture the leaders and allow them to corner the market on your behalf. I, I, that makes me think of Malcolm Gladwell and sort of looking for those connectors. Uh, we also have a lot of young aspiring entrepreneurs in the audience who aren't necessarily salespeople.

You're a fantastic sales guy. You have this incredible energy.

What advice do you have for young salespeople outside of just seeking others to sort of sell on your behalf?

Well, that's what I would say. Again, work your strengths and hide your weaknesses. Again, I don't, I don't say a fish should climb a tree. I just don't understand that concept. So that's just a different way of life. So I would say work your strengths, hide your weaknesses, surround yourself with people that are getting the results you want. And find out what they're doing and go for it. And I also understand this, we're doing a brand new program with our events, and I realized that everyone's doing these affiliate marketing things like make some money, make some money. But yet people do more for a cause than they'll do for money. And so right now I'm coming up today, like in the middle of this conversation, I should get a text any second. I'm creating a brand new program where it's gonna say Secret Knock and it's gonna say influencer. Underneath there. And I'm going to look for influencers that would like to be part of our message, align themselves with these amazing human beings. And yes, they'll get a little kickback commission, but the more importantly, they're going to go out and find other positive, like-minded people to invite them into our sphere. So I don't have to do all the legwork. I'm going to do the jack maids. I'm going to surround myself with people that have their own database, their own reach, and then we'll collaborate. And imagine the party that will be when all of our friends come together and their friends, where we can actually be of service to one another.

Yeah, no, it's an amazing network. It's amazing opportunity. And it doubles down on, on the piece of gold that you keep giving to the audience today, which is focus on what you're good at and then create this network of people who combined are sort of better. The Napoleon Hill 1+ 1= 3 concept. And I really commend you for doing that.

And he always talked about collaboration over competition. I'll give you an example. Like right now, everything's getting ready to open up again. And people are always worrying about competition. And I'm saying, what if we just change our mindset? Here's an example. Let's say there's a strip mall, a little mini mall. In the corner is a pizza place and the other corner is a liquor store. And they hate each other. They're always fighting for, you know, parking spaces. Isn't this the time to come in the middle of that parking lot and say, hey, let's create an alliance. Tell you what, every time someone comes in and they buy a pizza, From now on, I'll give them a gift certificate for delivery for a bottle of wine next time they come in. And guess what? Every time they come in and they buy a keg of beer, give them a discount for 50% off a pizza. Well, what happens if both of your— both ships rise? No one loses and everyone benefits. And I'm seeing that that's going to become the new economy. I believe more people will be doing collaborative deals than ever before.

Yeah, I read a lot in, in the book and on your website about how you focus on win-win partnerships. It's all about win-win partnerships. And so what are, what are you doing to sort of teach those principles to people?

Like, what are you doing to fight against that whole competition narrative?

Yeah, so here's the funny thing. I'm not a teacher. I'm not a coach. I'm not a mentor. I'm just a doer. So I'm so busy writing 5 books a year, making major motion pictures, TV shows, creating events, I have no time to do all this. I just, I live the example. And then people come up and say, hey, I'd like to do that too. What should I You know, start implementing in my own daily life, and then I can give them feedback. And again, even when I do, I tell them to do it with hand in the sand. And that means you grab a handful of sand. If I give you input and you give them input, both of our sides is right for us because that's what we know. And if it works for them, keep it in their palm. If not, you let it slip through your fingers. But you say thank you very much either way. You don't say yeah, but you say, all right, thank you very much, that works for me. And as you close your hand, that becomes the program that works for you.

There's another really big lesson, another one of these golden nuggets for me, which was stickability. And so you've actually written an entire book on stickability, but could you give us a little bit of context on how you teach stickability?

Yeah, it's so— my favorite interview I ever did, a guy named Marty Cooper who invented the cell phone. I saw him on 60 Minutes. 3 days later, I'm in his office and I go, Marty, what does stickability mean to you? And he said, stickability has to be parallel with flexibility. You have to be willing to adapt and adjust or get stuck. And he told the story about a spider monkey. He said, in the rainforest, you can't catch it. It's too wiry. One hunter figured it out. He took a heavy log, drilled a tiny hole, dropped at the base of the jungle, and a monkey would smell the nut. He'd come down, reach his hand in, grab a hold of the nut, and his fist becomes so big he can't pull it back out, become anchored to the log. All he's got to do is let go, but he holds on with dear life thinking that nut is nutrition and saving him. The hunter comes by. Captures elusive spider monkey. The moral is, are we holding on to our own nut in life? But it could be in the form of that deal or a job or fear or car or guilt. And what we're holding on with dear life thinking it's saving us, just like the monkey thought the nut was, could also be the thing that's leading to our own demise. Sometimes we have to have the courage and the fortitude to simply let go and adapt and adjust so we can live to fight another day.

The character Greg in the book was going down a pretty bad path and had a couple different wake-up calls. Girlfriend packs up and leaves, sort of has this situation where he grabs the wrong coat in the beginning of the book and it ends up being a potential mentor of his. But what about for people in the audience who haven't had those kind of wake-up experiences yet, but maybe feel in their gut that they are holding on to the wrong thing and they can't get their fist out of the jar? There are certain things that that you would recommend people do to cultivate awareness or gain the courage to, to seek mentorship if they find themselves in that position?

Well, first of all, if you have to wonder if something's right or wrong, chances are it's wrong. So you already know the answer. Okay, so there you go, door number 1. Door number 2, yes, you should always be seeking mentors. And, and the way you do that is surround yourself with people that are getting the results that you want for yourself. And I'm gonna add a word to here, today. So for example, if I was going to open a brand new restaurant chain, a buddy of mine, Gene Landrum, created Chuck E. Cheese, but he did it 40 years ago. I'd probably go to MrBeast or Five Guys or In-N-Out or one of these ghost kitchen guys and say, how are you doing it today? Ask them and look for that guidance, look for that counsel. And I believe that's what's missing is what we want to do is surround ourselves with pooled ignorance, other starving artists, and wonder why we're starving. That's not the way I think. If I was going to be an artist, I'd go to the gallery, And I just watched whoever's art's being pulled off the walls and sold. I'd hunt that person down and say, what do you do? What's that system? When I wanted to be a bestselling author, I went to the bookstore and I went to the bestselling section. I didn't get to the best-written book section. I didn't want to be a great writing author. I can't spell. So I went to that section and said, hey, how does this work? What's the system? I asked them, I duplicated it. Here we are today.

Yeah. Now I love that, that selective ignorance.

Exactly. It's so funny, when I went running with the bulls in Spain, I didn't ask a dope-smoking surfer here in San Diego to take me there and do it. I found the person who wrote the definitive book and said, man, I want to go have a good time, not get killed. What do I do? And he says, oh, it's easy. When the cannons go off, run about half a mile, stand in this one section. Bulls are going to run one side, people are going to trample themselves the other out of fear. You'll be in the middle. You can even take pictures. It's a great spot. Where do you think I went, right? And that's the thing that's missing. Most people don't seek that guidance. When I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, I found the people that had climbed it 900 times. That's who I hired. Wherever they put their boot print, I just put my boot print. I just followed successful actions. You don't have to reinvent the wheel, just put a new hubcap on it.

Yeah, no, great advice.

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So the whole theme about giving up sort of 3 feet from gold, somebody else comes in, they push a little bit farther and they get the reward. How do people know when is the right time to pivot and look in a different direction? Because we shouldn't just pursue something if it's really not working out for that long, right? I mean, what are your thoughts there?

Well, I do— you put a time frame on there, so I strongly disagree. So again, it took me years until I got my first book done. It took me, you know, 6, 7 years before my movie got made. It took— so I don't buy that part at all. So I do not condone or endorse that statement whatsoever. On the same note, I believe if you're doing an if-when-then deal, that's where you have to look at it. Those are usually the ones that don't happen. And that means, well, if all this comes together and when this planets align, then I'll be in the position to have this. Those never do. You know, that's like swinging for the fences, the home run. You might hit one once in a while, and you should always have one in your back pocket. But we got to focus on the singles and doubles to build our foundation so strong, because the greatest form of ourself becomes the greatest form of ourself by the foundation in which we set. So I think it's very important when you use the word that you said earlier, you know, that means you don't hope, you don't wish, you don't believe, Hope's not a strategy. But when you know, look, when I got turned down by 268 publishers, it didn't make a difference to me. I knew I was going to write that book. I knew I was going to get it out. I just didn't know how. And I think that's the power. And I'm going to tell a quick story about that. In the book 3 Feet from Gold, Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-fil-A, says, look, the secret is to look for and capitalize on unexpected opportunities and stop planning. He goes, if I'm on my sofa and I want to get to the end of the street, I get off my backside, I take action and move that way. The universe or, you know, higher power rewards those who help themselves. He goes, a planner is going to plan every step where they're going to pause, take a break. Not me. I'm looking at opportunity. Did a kid leave a skateboard or a bicycle out I could borrow to make my journey short? If I get lucky, a neighbor will drive by and I'll hitch a ride. He goes, either way, I'll get to my goal. I'm just not so caught up in how it has to happen. And that's how the most successful people think.

And then as part of your mindset, it seems like you understand there are going to be setbacks. In the book, you say that success is the reward for setbacks. And so understanding that failure is part of the process is sort of calming, right? A lot of us anticipate failure and it scares us. What you're saying is that those setbacks are what allow you to be successful.

Have you ever been skiing? I have, yeah. So if you're going skiing and you're top of the hill and you want to get to the clubhouse at the bottom, You know, on the way down, there's moguls, black ice, snowboarders, trees. We already know that. So, if something happens, I don't fall down and cry about it. I sit and go, holy crap, mother, those snowmobiles are out the way. And I go to the next thing and go, oh, here comes these kids, skiers. Better watch out over here. Oh, they tripped me up. All right. Got to go to the next thing. I don't focus on that. I just figure that's part of the journey to get down to the bottom of the hill. And that's our mindset. So we don't get caught up in the minutia.

Yeah, and there's another line in the book which is another nugget, and this needs to be reinforced all the time, I think, given our current political and business climates and social media.

Run from people with negative attitudes.

And so before we jumped on, you said, hey, I just focus on positivity. I just love positive people, like attitude of gratitude type stuff. And so that was an important lesson in the book, and it seems like people that embrace failure and they say, hey, this is just part of the process.

I need to get down there.

It might look a little bit messy at first, but it's going to work its way out. That's just part of your, your process, your attitude.

So the Napoleon Hill Foundation's president sent me this PMA, Positive Mental Attitude, and nowhere in PMA does it say you have to avoid reality, but you can never say a negative thing as long as you say with a positive attitude. And so for myself, I just look at things from a different perspective, so to speak. My mentor, David Corbin, who's in that book, 3 Feet from Gold, says you have to illuminate the negatives. You don't run from it. And I said, what do you mean? He says, well, you know, if you got a pimple on your nose and you go on a first date, she opens the door, say, all right, get this out of the way. Here's Mount Kilimanjaro. You laugh. It's done. I don't have to worry about hiding it. And I remember when I did one of my books and I had all these great reviews, but one person gave a 1-star with 2 words, it sucks. And I felt so bad. I called my mentor, Dave, and I said, what do I do? He goes, illuminate it. So I sent an email to 37,000 people and said, hey everyone, my new book's out. People seem to love it. One guy says it sucks. Here's the link. What do you think happened? It became a bestseller that day. And all my friends and stuff jumped on that person. They ended up taking it off of Amazon. So the realities are rather than run from it, Yeah.

And it sounds like it starts right when you wake up in the morning too. Like you just jump out of bed because you say in the book, your first 5 minutes dictate your day. What does your morning routine look like? Is there something that you would recommend people wake up and start to do?

Yeah. And that's because that kept coming up over and over, daily routines. People always ask that question. So for mine, it's real simple. As soon as my eyes open, before I do anything, I say, thank you. That's it. So that, that, that's my routine. I'd say thank you, and then I grab my phone and see what's on my schedule. I have my coffee and go do my thing. But I also believe in Etch A Sketch. What that means is that if I work out of the house, before I get my coffee, if you're ever here, I'll walk outside in my robe, and then I'll come in, go upstairs, take a shower, and get changed like I'm going to work, right? And so the whole idea is that I have that kind of a mindset shift. And by doing that and placing that, all of a sudden it changed my perspective. So I feel like I'm in that work zone and not just play zone.

All right, Greg, before we wrap up, I want to have you tell everybody a little bit about that star behind you and the star that's on the Walk of Fame. How did that come to be?

Yeah, talk about crazy. Look, I'm 6 from Elvis. I'm with all the, like, real important people. It's pretty insane. So in, in Las Vegas, on the Strip of Las Vegas, right across from Bellagio, if you go to the Paris Hotel, right where the Eiffel Tower is, on the sidewalk is my star. And it's so cool when people are sending pictures all the time with your star and whatnot. And I was very fortunate where the founder of Make-A-Wish Foundation, I did his movie called Wish Man that's trending on Netflix now. And when they gave him a star, they decided to give me one alongside, which was such an incredible honor. And now a new group, this one's crazy until it— when it actually happens, I think I'm pretty much done. I couldn't even check this one off a list if I had it. Yet they're landing a rover on the moon in November with SpaceX, and they're putting one of those time capsules in there, and they have the top 100 influential leaders of all time, and somehow I made that list. So I'm going to be on the moon for the rest of, I guess, existence because there's no atmosphere. So who knows? But how crazy is that? Wouldn't it be cool if my great-great-great-grandkids end up there on the moon, they get to pop that thing open, my name's there.

It's amazing, man. Well, you're very humble, uh, with the way that you describe yourself. I think you've impacted a whole bunch of people in a really positive way. This book was very uplifting.

It's very digestible.

I think it makes a great introduction to personal development for people who aren't in this space. Um, so anyway, I commend you for what you've done so far, and I look forward to future collaboration. For people who want to learn a little bit more about you, and they want to go a little bit deeper on some of the subjects that we talked about, where should they go? What should they do?

Yeah, you can go to my website, you can Google, but just reach out to me. We're just people. So go to Instagram. I'm @gregsread. Direct message me. Don't talk about the weather. Don't talk about what you had for dinner. But say, hey, what's a good book I should read? What's a good connection over here? As you know, 100%, I'll get back to you right away, personally, one-on-one. And thanks for having me on. I truly appreciate it. I look forward to collaborating in the future. I have a feeling there's some good things in alignment for you and I.

I think so. Thank you, Greg.

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