EFR 844: How to Conquer Midlife - Best ADVICE for Men in 20's, 30's and 40's with Greg Scheinman

00:00 - Chase (Host) The following is an operation podcast production that kind of hard look in the mirror comes up of. Am I proud of the man that I have become?

00:08 - Greg (Guest) Midlife is not a specific number. I think it's more of a mindset. You probably know people like this too. I know some really young 60 somethings. I know some really old 30 somethings. I'm sure you've seen some of your friends let themselves go already.

00:22 - Chase (Host) Who's in their 30s, in their 20s? Hell, if you're an 18-year-old right now, the true life-changing information begins thinking that far in the future when you're that young.

00:33 - Greg (Guest) But how do we really talk, guys? Man to man, man to young man? How can I really help you? What do I want to share with you so that you can learn and develop your own operating system? It's important to stop seeing aging as something to fear and start seeing it as something aspirational. Hey, I'm Greg Scheinman, founder of Midlife Mail, husband, father, entrepreneur, and I am here on Ever Forward Radio One. I think midlife is not a specific number, I think it's more of a mindset. You probably know people like this too. I know some really young 60-somethings. I know some really old 30-somethings that are there. I'm sure you've seen some of your friends let themselves go already. They reach the proverbial crisis themselves without even realizing it. And then you see some other guys out there that are thriving and seemingly have it all figured out and the game is slowed down for them and they know where the puck is going and you're just like, ooh, how is that?

01:40 - Chase (Host) happening? How is that different happening how?

01:43 - Greg (Guest) is that different? And what are we doing to learn, to experience, to define or redefine what midlife looks like at any age or stage that we're at thinking, okay, what do I want my life to look like three years ahead, five years ahead? What did I see growing up? What did I see, you know, with my father? What did I see with my grandfather or my boss or colleagues at work or my supposed teachers, like, literally and figuratively, teachers in life? So what do I want to glean from that and apply to my own life for how I want to operate?

02:22 Yeah, whatever age you're at, I just happen to see things through the lens of a midlife male, because that's exactly where I am now, at 51. And as I started getting older and we can get into this, these tipping points, these different stages it became obvious to me that I needed to make some changes, I needed to do some things differently. I needed to start listening and hearing and learning from from guys that were out ahead of me and and doing it better. I had a lot of questions that I didn't have answers to and I knew all the why why I wanted to be healthier, why I wanted to be happier, why I wanted to have enough money, you know, in a way to see to be a good husband, be a good father. Where I struggled was in the how, what, do you mean by that?

03:16 - Chase (Host) What do you mean by the how?

03:18 - Greg (Guest) I didn't know how to do the things I wanted to do, meaning I didn't have. I didn't feel like I had great mentors. For a while I didn't have my father around. Since I was a teenager, we discussed that. So where I struggled was well, who am I going to ask? How am I going to get the help I need? And at the time I also struggled with identity and ego and narcissism. And from the outside, looking in, everything looked great, like I had it all covered. So it was like is this going to be a sign of weakness If I start asking for all this help or admitting that I don't have it covered, or telling you know, I can't tell my partners in business that I'm unhappy or going through this. I didn't want to bring it home to my wife, I didn't want to burden my kids. So I actually you know that's when I started my podcast going back years ago Because I said you know what?

04:14 - Chase (Host) what if I put a microphone on the table?

04:16 - Greg (Guest) To kind of channel all of these thoughts. What if I become? I'll just make myself the host.

04:20 - Chase (Host) Then I'm an authority figure, then I'm obligated to ask these kinds of questions, then it's not a weakness right, then I'm an authority figure, then I'm obligated to ask these kinds of questions, then it's not a weakness, right?

04:25 - Greg (Guest) No, it's not a weakness, it's a strength. And I invited guys on that I thought were represented what I thought success was looking like. I wanted to get fitter, so I invited really fit guys and asked them what they were doing. I wanted to become better with money. I wanted to become better with money, so I invited some really smart wealth managers and financial people on and started tapping into my network and an extended network, and that's where I was starting to figure out. Okay, getting some answers to the test and starting to take what I learned, curating it down to what was working for me, eliminate what I thought wouldn't work, and then testing and retesting it over a period of years really from 47 to 50, were the three pivotal years of midlife progress.

05:17 - Chase (Host) You didn't really start having these intentional thoughts and making intentional changes in your life until 47?.

05:25 - Greg (Guest) Really, I had experienced success and experienced failure multiple times. For both. I have a great wife, amazing boys. I was in shape, but not in great shape. I was drinking too much, I was staying out too late. I was networking shape, but not in great shape. I was drinking too much, I was staying out too late. I was networking very differently. You know, I was going through all the motions, networking.

05:51 Yes, I was doing all of the things that you were supposed to do. Following the path, I was chasing a lot of salary and title and I was also experiencing a lot of problems of prosperity that I call them to on this kind of roller coaster. I was getting a little heavier, getting a little softer and some energy. I'm really liking who I was, and it really was at 47. And I've said this before, that was the same age as when my father passed away. So at 47, I came to this position where I was like you know what I can kind of squander life and these opportunities that I have, or I can make some changes and pour rocket fuel on the next phase of my life and really look to make it the best phase that it can possibly be. I've now learned enough to know that this is not enough and that I can do better and live better and happier and healthier and wealthier and longer and stronger. And what does that look like? If I can do that for me, then can I help other guys do the same.

06:51 - Chase (Host) What do you think it would take to effectively convey the message that you're talking about now and that you kind of like experienced at 47 to someone at 17, so that they don't have to wait from 17 to 47 in theory?

07:10 - Greg (Guest) I'm a father of two boys. They are 21 and 18. So I'm right in the thick of it. I'm right there and I think about this all the time. How can I help my boys who are really young men all the time? How can I help my boys who are really young men? How can I help them become better men? How can I help them become the best versions of themselves and have that really mean something? Not a cliche, not this, just live your best life, be the best version of yourself.

07:40 - Chase (Host) And here's your motivational Monday quote you know, does it even mean you know those things?

07:44 - Greg (Guest) Right, but how do we really talk, guys, man to man, man to young man, and say how can I really help you? What do I want to share with you so that you can learn and develop your own operating system? A lot of what I talk about now in midlife is developing this personal operating system, this midlife action plan or map, because if you don't know where you're going, you're never going to get there, and I talk about that a lot with my boys and I also try to have my boys talk to other men, because they don't always want to listen to their dad.

08:21 Yeah, trust me dad's not that cool. Dad doesn't have it all figured out. Dad is lecturing me or dad is doing this.

08:29 - Chase (Host) We can hear the same thing, but when we hear from somebody that's not an authority figure or a parent, it kind of just clicks differently, right?

08:35 - Greg (Guest) Correct. I do a lot of sharing with my boys of conversations that I have with other men that inspire me.

08:42 Oh, great approach have with other men that inspire me. Oh great approach, because that's how I've done. Most of my best learning has been not from doing the talking has been from the listening, and that in itself took me years to figure out. I bet yeah, it always does. Stop being the talker, stop thinking you've got talent, letting, making sure everyone knows that you have it covered and you have all the answers, and you're the entrepreneur, you're the authority. It's like you don't have it covered and you have all the answers and you're the entrepreneur you're the authority.

09:10 It's like you don't Start listening to smarter people. You're going to go a lot further there. So I do a lot of sharing the conversations that I have, which is one of the reasons I'm so grateful to get to do what I do now. I share those with my boys and say take a listen to this, or I clip this part out and this I think really important so you just like dming finding like reels and podcasts and just like blowing up your your son's like email.

09:33 That I'm doing constantly yes, that I'm doing constantly and I think they appreciate getting that more than they see me posting my own stuff which is like mortifying to them and them getting messages from their friends like, did you see what your dad put up today?

09:46 You know, you see your dad with his shirt off again, you know, did you see your dad doing this? So yeah, I'm embarrassing to them to an extent, but I also hope that I make them proud. I also hope that they see, you know, by comparison maybe and you know, look, you can say comparison is the thief of joy and it's not out there to compare everything. But hey, am I doing things differently from maybe some of the other dads? Am I operating at a different level?

10:13 Again, do we care about what we put on our bodies, in our bodies, what we do, how we operate, how we approach things? And we look to surround ourselves with people that seemingly are living lives by design that we emulate and can see for ourselves, because 18 will be 25. 25 will ultimately be 30. I mean, we're all moving forward, whether we're doing it well or not. As well, we're not getting any younger. Aging is inevitable, is inevitable, and I think it's important to stop seeing aging as something to fear and start seeing it as something aspirational, no matter what age you're at. My 18-year-old, for example, is not as excited to go off to college and graduate and move out of the house, as my now 21-year-old was. But here are opportunities and we're going to get there. We're going to figure it out together. Here's how you thrive, and they should hear from a guy at 39 who's about to turn 40.

11:11 - Chase (Host) You know they should hear from all these different people. As you're kind of unpacking this midlife aspect, one word comes to mind that you just said, and that's a sense of pride, feeling proud.

11:20 I have to imagine we'll just stick with a guy you know as a guy going through different phases of your life, and I think I have to imagine, especially going into midlife, that kind of hard look in the mirror comes up of am I proud of the person I am? When no one else is looking, and especially, I think, for maybe someone like you and me who no longer has the first and foremost, typically father figure or, you know, parental figure, is this guy, this father, around to kind of get that Whether or not, hey, dad, are you proud of me? Literally asking, but kind of getting that feeling.

12:03 - Greg (Guest) Do you think?

12:04 - Chase (Host) as we navigate midlife or contemplate that. Is it really a matter of a level of pride we have or don't have in our life?

12:13 - Greg (Guest) I spent a lot of years seeking approval, seeking validation, seeking others to be proud of me, or wanting them to be proud of me Like I needed that to be proud of me, or wanting them to be proud of me like I needed that. Only more recently have I come to realize that I've got to be proud of myself, and it's in my book. It starts with that long, hard look in the mirror and asking yourself like hey, am I proud of who I am? And for a while I wasn't, and it was all my own fault that's the thing about pride, isn't it?

12:52 - Chase (Host) I think, if you get really, really real and honest, if you have it, it's because of you, and if you don't, it's also because of you I think that's exactly it.

13:01 - Greg (Guest) It's about taking ownership, and you can try to blame others. It's your boss's fault or your colleague's fault or this fault or that one's fault. There's a lot of blame that you can do and you can carry a lot of anger, you can carry a lot of resentment towards others, but at the end of the day, that's all bullshit. It's hey. If you really want to get real and get wrong, get naked and vulnerable with yourself, it's it's you. It's taking ownership. It's the choices you make and the actions you take lead you to the outcome. You know we attract and repel exactly what we deserve, and there were years I was attracting the wrong people, the wrong kinds of opportunities.

13:44 - Chase (Host) How did you know that Only now, looking back, or were you aware along the way?

13:48 - Greg (Guest) I was aware. One of the things I say is that chasing authenticity where authenticity doesn't exist is exhausting, and I knew that's really good.

13:58 - Chase (Host) That's really good.

13:59 - Greg (Guest) I was playing a role, I was playing a part.

14:03 It didn't feel right, the deals didn't feel right, the schedule didn't feel right, the clothes didn't feel right, and that was perpetuating year after year. And when that happens, you get conformity, complacency, redundancy, anxiety builds, stress goes up. You try to either buy your way out of problems, you're looking for quicker fixes and solutions to situations and circumstances, versus hitting the pause button and saying you know what. Let me really think about this. Let me reset here. Let me create a system for myself with preparation, with discipline, with accountability that really measures up to who I want to be and how I want to actually act.

14:49 - Chase (Host) But how did you know how to do that? And that has to start with you.

14:51 - Greg (Guest) That's the thing. I really did not know how to do it. I knew I wanted that. I knew that what I was doing wasn't working. So it's like Seinfeld with George Costanza, you know. If you saw that and maybe this dates me where nothing's working for George, so he does the exact opposite.

15:13 And he's like well, if my life is terrible and nothing I'm doing is working, then, by the transit of property, doing the opposite would be what should get me to the results I'm looking for. So you consciously started doing the opposite and that really is what I started doing. And the reality is the answers are obvious. The choices are obvious. I started having conversations with other men. I started listening to what they were doing. I started to then test and retest what I was learning from them, and when things were working, I would do more of them, and when things were not working, I would do less of them.

15:45 - Chase (Host) Genius, genius, genius stuff here. Simplicity scales, complexity fails.

15:49 - Greg (Guest) Okay and I'm a simpleton and I got it down to a very simple question Better one or better two? Two choices. There's typically two choices. Do I wake up this morning or do I sleep in? Do I kiss my wife in the morning when I wake up this morning or do I sleep in? Do I kiss my wife in the morning when I wake up or do I roll out of bed and kind of take her for granted after 25 years of marriage? Do I go to the gym today or do I stop? Do I swap the Diet Coke that I've been drinking six of every day for water? Do I stop at Lululemon on the way home from work because I deserve another $200 worth of impulse?

16:24 - Chase (Host) purchase retail therapy.

16:27 - Greg (Guest) Or do I put that money aside and invest it? And the answers are obvious. We know the answers to the test. The hard part is having the discipline to make the right choice the majority of the time. But when you start making the right choice the majority of the time, the majority of your life gets better. It's that simple. It's not perfect, it's not 100% of the time, but can we string together a series of better decisions, the right decisions the majority of the time, and when we screw up and we will mistake, misstep, wrong choice, whatever just start the chain over again.

17:07 - Chase (Host) It makes me think. I definitely resonate with what you're talking about of looking to particularly other men to go all right, you know, I see something that they're doing and or they have or a way of just their essence, their being that I that I like and I would like to have or more of, especially in the absence of my father, and becoming an early 20-something, mid-20-something, late 20-something young man, and a lot of those served me. I won't say that any one of them wholeheartedly served me. It definitely had some good and some bad with it. So I guess my question question is in the absence of a father figure, in the absence of these other men that we can maybe pull from, whether friends, peers, co-workers how can we source if we don't have a readily available supply?

17:59 - Greg (Guest) it's. It's a great question because there are a lot of guys out there, at, again, all different ages and stages, that don't have deep networks. They don't have a deep bench. But here's what I also believe. I believe that anything and everything you want is available out there. It exists. You just have to be willing to go find it and go after it. And what you can do is you can develop skills and strategies and tactics to determine again what works for you, who to listen to, who not to.

18:32 Again, what I call aggregate, curate, eliminate the ACE principle. Aggregate from all the noise and the people and the influencers and the books and the podcasts and everything that are out there. Curate down to what works for you and eliminate what does not. And you got to trust your gut and your intuition on that. But you know what you can do. They can listen to shows like yours, they can pick up a copy of my book. They can use these platforms that exist that are not inherently bad. They can use them for good. And you can consume. There can be positive consumption, materials, advice, experiences, guides, pull it all in. You can use the consumption to then flip it to start producing more than you actually consume and I think that's a key point too. So you may not know me personally, but there's a lot of material I put out there that you can absorb and hopefully some of it works and some of it will. Maybe some of it won't. You get to decide that, you get to choose that. I don't know half the guys that I've learned from.

19:40 I've read their book, I've listened to them on other shows. I identify with that. Or I can look at that guy and go, oh, he's 55. I'm 51. Okay, he's married, he has a couple of kids. This is what he does. Okay, I identify with that. I can apply that and at the same time, I can discount some others. Okay, here's what this guy is doing, where he is. What he said about wealth is different from what my beliefs are. What he's doing in his life are different, so I'm going to put that on the shelf. I'm not going to take that in. But there are coaches, there are retreats, there are I don't love the word masterminds and all this other stuff.

20:22 But you, you become the aggregator and curator and eliminator again, of seeing through what's marketing, what's opportunism, what's really relatable, credible and ultimately aspirational. And this doesn't have to cost you anything. There's so much free, free information.

20:39 - Chase (Host) Yeah.

20:39 - Greg (Guest) What you have to get really good at is dissemination and the curation and then, most importantly, the application.

20:47 - Chase (Host) Most important.

20:48 - Greg (Guest) Most important. You got to put it to work and you can't do everything. You can't be flip-flop Pick a horse, yeah, pick a horse and you got to stick to it, otherwise you end up in this perpetual cycle of kind of like paralysis. By analysis, I'm doing so much work on myself that I'm actually not making any progress at all.

21:09 - Chase (Host) You're not doing anything.

21:09 - Greg (Guest) yeah Right, it's just it becomes this vicious cycle and circuitous. In there. I'm reading every book, I'm listening to every podcast, I'm doing everything that this person says and that person says and why is nothing? Good happening and you're exhausted, you're spinning your wheels. Good happening and you're at, you're exhausted, you're spinning your wheels. It's like two strong, equally strong people playing tug of war. Yeah, yeah, You're. You're nobody, you're stuck.

21:34 You're pulling this stuff in opposite directions, you're sponging it all up but you're not actually, you know, ringing it out on anything Correct. So, whether it's me, whether it's you, whether it's any number of of individuals out there that are purporting to have an offering or whatever it is, be very cognizant about what success looks like for you. Write that down and then go search around for individual situations, circumstances, materials, events, experiences that align with what success looks like for you.

22:06 - Chase (Host) What about if we do have mentors in our life, other guys in our life, and we are pulling we're? You know, we work next to them, we listen to their podcast, we read their book, we go to their workshop, we do whatever. How do we know what is like a fair litmus test to know that this is time well spent, this is money well spent, this is actually serving the future man that I want to be, because I think it's pretty easy for us to get caught up in, like you were saying, I'm doing all the things and, on the surface, this is what you're supposed to do. This is personal development, this is self-help, this is becoming a better man, a more confident man, more prideful man. But how do you measure that?

22:48 - Greg (Guest) So one progress is a process and incremental progress is often difficult to assess. Meaning. Yeah, let's just say you haven't worked out in six years and today is the day you're starting your new fitness program and you take your photo on day one and you go to the gym and you do your hour and a half of of of your workout with your new trainer, your new program. You're on and tomorrow morning you wake up and you take the picture of yourself again. Are you going to notice a difference? Are you going to feel a little bit better about yourself because you completed day one? I would offer yes. Are you going to feel a little bit better about yourself because you completed day one? Yes, are you going to feel better about yourself when you check the box on day two on the calendar? But if you keep going and if you follow the program and there's a purpose, a process and ultimately there's a payoff. Now take that photo of yourself in 90 days and I guarantee you you will see a difference. More importantly, you will feel a difference and you a difference. More importantly, you will feel a difference and you will have felt the difference all 90 of those days. It's almost like you could train in like the big sweatsuit and everything else, keep it all covered up and everything else was bodybuilder style, and then like, while we're doing the cut, and then here comes the big reveal yeah, but along the way you already feel better because you have that momentum.

24:02 The motivation comes from the discipline. It's not the other way around. I started and I'm continuing and I'm doing it and now I'm liking myself better and now I'm feeling a little bit better. And that's momentum and that's positivity and that's pride. Now here's what's happening. Now I'm starting to get the payoff.

24:23 Now pants got a little looser that 35, 36, whatever pair of jeans I'm wearing now when I used to wear 32 in high school. Now I'm going backwards. My answer is not to just keep buying bigger pants. My answer is like when do you hit the point where you go okay, I now need to go, I need to do the work. And then this is all areas. They're all connected.

24:47 So you start putting in that work and then you don't want to wreck the good work that you're doing with bad food. So you start becoming more intentional about what you put in your body and you start cleaning that up and your energy level goes up and you feel a little bit better. And then you start thinking about okay, well, I'm going to dress a little bit better right now because all my pants are falling off, or now my arms are getting bigger and I want that T-shirt to fit right, or whatever I'm wearing, okay, so now I'm going to upgrade that, and all of these things are incremental along the way. But what's fundamental? Preparation, accountability, discipline and that's consistency. Consistency gets talked about a lot, but it gets talked about incorrectly.

25:31 - Chase (Host) In my opinion how so?

25:33 - Greg (Guest) Oh, Greg, you're so consistent, I could never be that consistent. Oh, Chase, you're so consistent and you do a show every week and you've been doing it for years, and two shows a week, I could never be that consistent. It's like, no, we're all consistent. But let me tell you the hard truth You're consistently making poor choices.

25:50 - Chase (Host) Okay.

25:52 - Greg (Guest) You're consistently drinking. You're consistently consuming hours of social media a day. You're consistently eating poor foods. You're consistently not working out. You're consistently getting poor sleep. You're consistently blaming everybody else. We're just as consistent. It's where, again, you're applying your consistency. It's the same with motivation. I don't want to get up and do this every day.

26:20 - Chase (Host) It's not always fun.

26:22 - Greg (Guest) Certainly, 200 pounds is 200 pounds, fucking heavy. Sorry, no, you're fine, it's heavy.

26:28 There's days you don't want to do it, but you know it's on the calendar, we're going to do it anyway. The discipline gets you more motivated and you feel better when it's done. Absolutely yeah, yeah. So I think it's those things and it's back to how do we live and lead by example. That's pride. I think the best thing I can do for my boys is live and lead by example. Am I a better example, not drinking, than I was when I was drinking heavily? I'll tell you the example. Kids are always watching. I knew I had a drinking problem, if you will, or a perception of even a drinking problem that shows you had a drinking problem, if you will, or perception of even a drinking problem.

27:05 That shows you had a drinking problem. When my best friend's daughter drew me a birthday card I think I was 45, 46, okay Drew me a birthday card and she drew the birthday card as a bottle of Patron tequila she drew-.

27:23 - Chase (Host) That's what she associated you with.

27:25 - Greg (Guest) Yep, because when she thought of me, she associated me with coming over and drinking tequila with her father. I would always come over with a bottle of Patron tequila Wow, and she associated me with drinking.

27:39 - Chase (Host) So how did that land on you when she gave you that card? What did that do? What did that mean?

27:44 - Greg (Guest) I mean, it was a major wake up call, not that particular day or night, because I was probably drunk at the time, probably partying and celebrating my birthday at her house, when I got that card with a giant bottle on the table. Matter of fact, I think I have that picture, the card and the bottle, and I've kept that as a reminder. But when I woke up the next day and I saw it and I'm hungover, it's time to make a change, because if she's seeing that, what are my own kids seeing? What are they thinking? What's normal to them? What's midlife to them? What do dads do? How do they act? They're watching.

28:36 - Chase (Host) You said earlier going backwards. That stuck with me. I feel like, guys, when we're trying to better ourselves, more often than not we have an idea, a version of ourselves in the past that we're trying to get back to. I'm trying to get back to that weight. I'm trying to get back to those size pants. I'm trying to get back to squatting this number, benching this number. I'm trying to get back to this thing. Is that the best way to go? Should we be trying to get back somewhere? What's right or wrong about that?

29:10 - Greg (Guest) Don't look back. You're not going that way. We're moving forward. You can look back to learn from the experience, but the direction that we're going is forward. I mean, we're sitting here, I'm staring right at it. It's ever forward. Right now, the direction we're going is forward. So what does positive forward momentum look like? What does, as my friend said, relentless forward motion. That's where we're going. It's not about getting back to my 32-inch waist. It's about getting to 32-inch waist now.

29:52 - Chase (Host) But how do we know? Because there's definitely, I think, a lot of motivation to be had in looking at okay, because when we look in the past we see what we accomplished. When we look in the past, I see I was able to fit into this gene. I was able to move this amount of weight. I was able to reach this level in my job. So I think there's a lot of motivation that can be found in like breadcrumbs for success. So how do we know? We're looking at tips and tools to get us where we want to go in the future without relying on or staying stuck in the past.

30:25 - Greg (Guest) So I think at who you're looking at again, who you're looking at, including yourself. Are you asking yourself is that what success looks like? Is that what success looks like for me? And everyone's definition is different, so we get into this. You know, in developing your operating system, developing your map, I have a few rules that now I've developed after all these conversations that I kind of live by. Number one is knowing what's important is what's most important. You get to decide that For years, for me that was salary and title and this path of what you're quote unquote supposed to do Today. It's what I call my six Fs. It's a more holistic metric of what success looks like Family, fitness, finance, food, fashion, fun the things that are important to me.

31:13 - Chase (Host) Covers about all the bases there, yeah, so what does?

31:14 - Greg (Guest) success look like in there fashion, fun, the things that are important to me, covers about all the bases there, yeah, yeah. So what does success look like in there? And if it matches, if it works and it's in alignment with what I look like, feel like success looks like lives, like, feels like all earns, like all of those things, then I'm going forward in that direction.

31:31 - Chase (Host) Would you call those core values?

31:33 - Greg (Guest) Yeah, I call them core values, I call them principles, and my Fs don't have to be your Fs or anything else. This really is about again determining for you what success looks like. And in every one of those categories you can, you know we'll go down the rules and they start to work themselves out, because now this has to be measurable, it has to be quantifiable, because that's also success. Number two if you don't know where you're going, you're never going to get there. I operated rudderless, without a map, without a playbook, for a very long period of time. That's a very reactive way of doing things.

32:07 - Chase (Host) What's the phrase? Like a ship sailing under any wind will land in any port, kind of thing. I'm probably butchering the phrase and you're smarter than I am, so I don't know that one.

32:17 - Greg (Guest) But again, if you don't know where you're going, you're never going to get there. And one thing I also talk about is if you're one degree off course, it doesn't seem like much, but if you're one degree off course for a year, Along the way, you're fine.

32:42 But then you're a. But then you're in that flight or on that ship. Guess what? You're ending up somewhere completely different. So knowing where you're going and actually staying that course is vital to your success.

32:46 Number three like I talked about, aggregate, curate and eliminate. You got to do that because otherwise it's overwhelming. So've got to skew from the noise. You've got to curate what works for you. You've got to eliminate what doesn't. Then you get into number four Show me your calendar. I'll show you your priorities. What we schedule gets done. If your family is really your number one priority, it's the first thing that's scheduled on your calendar. I put all my personal stuff first, then I reverse them, then I put all my personal stuff first, then I reverse and then I back into my professional commitments, then everything, and then I look at how much open space is still left. And I used to be obsessed with filling all the open space because I have to be busier and I have to be more productive and this should be. These are working hours and everything. Now I intentionally leave open space. I love open space.

33:29 - Chase (Host) That's where the magic happens. I love that white space.

33:31 - Greg (Guest) Yeah, absolutely. And number five grace, gratitude and latitude. To your point about looking backwards and all of this, we're too hard on ourselves. We're way too hard on ourselves. So when we break the chain, when we have a misstep, a mistake, a failure, whatever it might be and they're inevitable you just start back over again. And to the guys men, women, any age stage, whoever who's out there that are listening right now, they go. You know what? I don't know?

34:01 - Chase (Host) when to start.

34:01 - Greg (Guest) I miss this all the time. You know when do you start? I can say, oh, I had my thing at 47 in the parking lot, or I had this, but that's all bullshit too. It's not one thing. It's not one moment.

34:11 - Chase (Host) That's just the moment you actually realize it. We'll get somewhere.

34:13 - Greg (Guest) Yeah, and it's the culmination of all kinds of moments and other things. The truth of the matter is, today is the day you start, whenever you get there, whenever you feel today is the day to start. That's the day you swap the soda for water. That's the day you start going for a walk instead of taking the Uber. That's the day you start saving instead of spending. That's the day you start saving instead of spending. And I do want to just kind of delta that with. That doesn't mean be impulsive. That doesn't mean be galactically irresponsible. That doesn't mean to listen to some guy say quit your job and follow your passion, and you walk in and turn in your papers. That day.

34:52 - Chase (Host) Making a decision is good but, you know, be mindful of the ripple effect.

34:56 - Greg (Guest) Yes, be intentional. Today is the day that you start, and if you've determined that, hey, this is not the career path I want to be on or this is not the kind of life, okay, well, today is the day you start making the plan, the plan to go from where you are to where you want to go. There were years that I was unhappy in a professional capacity, but it would have been incredibly responsible for me to just up and quit and throw away 10, 13, 14 years' worth of equity or worth of stock. So it's okay. What's the plan? I have a family to take care of. What's the plan?

35:31 Today is the day I'm starting to think about what my life is going to look like three years from now or next year, and I'm going to back into how I approach this and work this. So I get where I want to go, that map, but I'm going to do it responsibly. I'm going to start seeing it a little bit differently. Take that paycheck, or take those commission checks, or take those sick days and use them for something it all for good. See it differently. You know what? I'm not angry at the job, not angry at the position. I'm not blaming my partners. I'm not doing anything, taking ownership of it. But today's the day I'm starting to move the ball forward in a different direction and say here's how I'm going to prepare for that I love that.

36:09 - Chase (Host) I think. Ownership, taking responsibility, radical responsibility shout out, jocko, you know. Extreme ownership, just any, in any and every capacity, taking ownership of every facet of your life. When you do that, when that day comes, then everything else falls in line. There's so much, I think, especially as a man, that does not get changed, despite our best efforts, despite us thinking we're moving the needle and doing certain things, I guarantee you you're not where you want to be, you're not feeling how you want to feel, you're not looking how you want to look, because you have not yet, over all areas of your life, decided I am responsible for all of this, especially the things that you are going to fight tooth and nail that you feel like it's their fault, it's my boss's fault, it's my brother's fault, it's this person down the road, it's they cut me off, it's all of that. You have to take radical responsibility for everything, and until you do, you will not get where you want to be.

37:09 - Greg (Guest) Absolutely. Could not agree more. And here's the other part is you don. You don't have to be exceptional, you don't have to be remarkable as you would be. You don't have to be Jocka or any of these other things. You don't have to be that. That also is not taking ownership or accountability where it's like. I can't, or these guys are different from me, or they have advantages that I don't have, or any of these other things. They have, this training they have have, or any of these other things.

37:34 - Chase (Host) They have this training, they have this privilege, they have this, whatever.

37:38 - Greg (Guest) Correct? No, what you have to do is you just have to believe that you can make change and then you have to be willing to actually do the work that it takes, and you have to again define what success looks like in each one of these categories. It might be very different for you than it is for me and anybody out there, but you go. Okay, what's my standard for family? If I say I'm putting my family first and literally written standards go. I attend 80% of every one of my children's games. Okay, not 100%, it's a hard standard to keep, but I attend 80% of both of my boys' games every time they've played. And the reason it's 80% is because you know what Life happens. I've got businesses to run. Sometimes there are trips that I have to take. You may get sick, it may be an away game from a team, whatever it might be, but that's the minimum standard that's set. So they know I'm going to be there 80% of the time. They also know 20% of the time they may look up in the stands and dad's not going to be there, but they know there's a damn good reason why I wouldn't be. More often than not I beat that standard, but that's the minimum standard. Same thing with health and fitness. I want to be 175 pounds, give or take 10% to 12% body fat, look pretty good, naked, not be injured, be able to do what I want. That's the standard. So what do I have to do each day, each week, to maintain that standard? Have an event I want to do that requires more training or amp it up?

39:06 Okay, you turn the dial up a little bit. Want to go back to day-to-day life? Here's the standard, here's the financial standard. And these are written, measurable, quantifiable, like I got to wake up every day, Chase and reread this. That's the map, that's the operating system. Those are the reminders that we need. At least I do Wake up. What do I do today? Look at the calendar Okay wake up.

39:34 Look at my operating system. How do?

39:35 - Chase (Host) I eat. How do I dress?

39:35 - Greg (Guest) Okay, what is this? All of these areas, and now give me finance. For some guys it's millions and millions of dollars. You know they're chasing whatever they're chasing. You know some other guys are like hey, I'm the happiest. You know whatever person in the world setting my own hours or working for this other company and making x dollars. It looks different for everybody. I simply define wealth as I get to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, with who I want to do it with, for as long as I want to do it absolutely if I have that kind of freedom in there.

40:08 But if you want a private plane, yeah, you know like you're gonna have to change, like my metric of success isn't going to work for you. But if you want a small footprint, a high quality footprint, if you want to be able to travel X number of weeks or months a year, if you want to be able to do certain things, well, okay, my numbers work for that, for me and for my family. But if you want this, this and this, you may have to make some changes. Mine might be further than others are willing to go where they can be content and be happy. It comes back again. It's back to ownership. It's about you. It's about what works. So when you look in the mirror again, are you happy? Do you feel good about yourself?

40:50 - Chase (Host) I've known a lot of guys. I've known several guys in my life that, whether by just me looking at them and because I know them well, I can kind of understand a bit more of what's not happening in their life and definitely had some hard conversations, some very real conversations with them just opening up about this. I think men struggle most whether they're 20s, 30s, midlife, whatever when they become detached from purpose or feel like they have no purpose, and I know a lot of guys right now struggle with that because there are so many options. I feel like we live in a day and age of a lot of potential and opportunity, but you're chasing a lot of things that can give you quick fixes, whether in financial means, professional means, just pure dopamine enjoyment but then you kind of look back and go. I'm not passionate about what I do. I don't feel like I have purpose or meaning. So how do we know what we're doing is in alignment with our purpose? And if we get detached from our purpose, how do we get back to it?

41:55 - Greg (Guest) So that depends. And when what we talked about before is hey, this isn't about giving advice, it's about sharing experiences, and I think there's a lot of. There are a lot of misconceptions, and it's nuanced around purpose and around passion and around how we have to combine our personal passion with, let's say, professional expertise. You know there, and if we haven't found our true purpose, or if we do and we're still doing something else, then we're somehow being inauthentic or less than we should be, and I don't buy that. I think if you're fortunate enough to be able to combine personal passion and professional expertise, that's amazing, that's wonderful. I certainly think it should be the goal. It took me a very, very long time to find it. I also believe that work is work.

42:49 I think a lot of guys don't know what they're passionate about. The grass always looks greener. They love working out, so they think they should be a gym owner, and then they realize gym ownership is the worst thing they could have possibly done. I did that once too, you know, in there. Or again, they're angry, they're resentful at their job or their career and it's boring to them and they never thought they were going to do that. But, by the way, it pays really well, provides benefits, and instead of being angry at that, reframe how you look at it. I get paid very well to do a good. All I have to do here is do a good job, take the proceeds of my profession and my acuity and my expertise and take the proceeds of that to fund my passions. Not every single thing has to be integrated and combined in this quest for perfection.

43:38 So glad you said that, yeah, yeah, hey. I said for a year ago. You know what? I make a lot of fucking money hosting a podcast and writing a newsletter. And you want to know why? Because I didn't quit my job to host a podcast and write a newsletter. At the time I had a multi-million dollar book of business that threw off a considerable amount of money and I had equity in a firm and I was not personally and creatively satisfied. So I took it upon myself to be personally and creatively satisfied and I created an outlet for myself and, rather than quit, you know what I had worked so hard to build up and have, I'm not done with this part of the journey. That would be irresponsible.

44:26 - Chase (Host) That's like a common, I'll say mistruth or even lie. I think that a lot of people fall victim to and that just because it is so easy now to pick up your phone to pick up a lot of people fall victim to and that be just because it is so easy now to pick up your phone, to pick up a microphone, a camera, whatever, and create something call yourself a creator, call yourself a CEO, call yourself an entrepreneur.

44:45 Yeah, it's so easy to do that and then we see so many examples supposed examples of people making money, making good money, from that. So then it's just like, oh, I got to go all in If I'm really going to pursue this, if it lights me up, then I got to burn the boats and do everything. But that's not always the case.

45:04 - Greg (Guest) That's another it's very counterculture. This comes back to again who do you listen to overall? And yes, there's a lot of loud noise around quit your job and follow your passion. There's a lot of loud noise on your shark tanks and everything else, like, oh, I'm not investing in that because you're not all in. You know what? Well, guess what? I got a mortgage, okay. I got two private school tuitions. I got two $70,000 cars in the driveway. I got all this. You know what?

45:30 - Chase (Host) No, I'm going to hedge All in is me being very all in on the honesty I need to have with my situation?

45:37 - Greg (Guest) Yeah, you know what I'm going to do. I'm going to work weekends, yeah.

45:39 - Chase (Host) I'm going to work nights.

45:40 - Greg (Guest) Okay, I'm going to max out my sick days, if you will. I'm going to milk this company, this position, who, quite frankly, doesn't really care about me. I'm going to look in the mirror and go okay, how do I want to operate? I may not be the CEO of this company, but I am the CEO of my own life.

45:56 - Chase (Host) You know, that's exactly what I did when I started this podcast. I have no doubt the last year of my job at a director level I used sick days, maxed out my sick days, pto work weekends for a year to build this up to what I'm doing now.

46:10 - Greg (Guest) Yeah, and it's not sexy. No, okay, and up to what I'm doing now. Yeah, and it's not sexy. No, okay, and you know people don't want to hear that overall, they don't, they, they, they cringe at that because that's the. That's the truth. That's the reality. You know, I have a mentor of mine now who we're in a keynote speaking organization, we've written books and he speaks and this guy's on a totally different level. It just absolutely crushes it. But when his early advice advice is like how do you know when?

46:40 - Chase (Host) you're a full-time speaker. I'm like what do you mean? It's like when you max out your sick days.

46:42 - Greg (Guest) It's like you don't quit your job to become a full-time speaker when you have no demand yeah, you'd have no bookings and everything. You quit your job to become a full-time speaker when guess what, you're getting so many gigs because of the outreach you've done at night, on the weekends, everywhere else, that now wait a minute. The second I leave here I'm booked for the next two months.

47:01 - Chase (Host) Yeah, this is good. What do you think is another piece of bullshit that's running rampant right now? That surface level is kind of like very appealing for guys.

47:24 - Greg (Guest) High performance lifestyle this notion of what high performance lifestyle looks like or should look like and live like and feel like. And it's not a knock on anybody out out there or anything that's out there, it just happens to be a term term that I think has a perception of a kind of guy that seems, you know, almost hustle, grind, 24 hours sleep when I'm dead, you know, multiple workouts a day, the jack, like all this stuff, and it's intimidating. It's intimidating and it's scary and it's, quite frankly, it's not sustainable. No, and do you know how it's not sustainable? No, and do you know how many of those guys I can say this in my fifties, right now I've seen burnout, burnout, get injured, have a problem? I can't. And their identity is so wrapped up in this, this obsessive, obsessive compulsion of high performance make more, do more, lift more, earn more, go like to keep up with that. It's again, it's exhausting and I think high performance is what you determine high performance looks like. I don't dislike the term, I don't dislike the lifestyle. I question sometimes the application again.

48:33 - Chase (Host) Yeah, by definition, I think, to be a high performer it has to be very individualistic. How can we have an objective standard of high performance when we are not all the same people? Correct, we don't have the same starting point, we don't have the same biology, we don't have the same finances. We don't have the same finances, we don't have the same socioeconomic or home situation. So to think that we can attach ourselves to this standard of high performance and that it's always going to look and feel the same forever, that's like our biggest mistake out of the gate.

49:11 - Greg (Guest) It's not one size fits all, and that's something I think we got to peel back. Success doesn't look like only one thing. High performance doesn't look like only one thing. There is no perfect diet, there's no perfect fitness program, there is no ideal amount of money or anything. It's what works for you, works for you and are you putting yourself in a position to achieve the level of success that you determine is the maximum, if you will, that you are looking for, you're willing to do and do you feel good about that you talked about? I love the open space. Okay, guys that are obsessed with filling every minute of every day that are in there.

49:59 You're not successful and you're not high If you're not reading every book and filling every minute and doing everything. Oh, I've got time for two more calls today. You're like you know what? I'm going to sit on the couch, I'm going to take this hour and I'm going to sit on the couch and I'm going to chill. You know what? I've earned that and that's my definition of high performance and it's built into my operating system and this is where it goes. Again, it's by. So you know, mediocrity happens by default, maximization happens by design.

50:26 - Chase (Host) Ooh, I like that. Say it again.

50:27 - Greg (Guest) Mediocrity happens by default, maximization happens by design and we default into this place where again we think, oh, we have to do more, be more, everything else. And what ends up happening is we end up feeling pretty mediocre because we're not really making the progress or the achievement or feeling like the success from all this perpetual motion and busyness. But when you look at what maximization really looks like and it's by design you've built in the open space, you're enjoying the fruits of your labor, you're being more purposeful and intentional with your actions. Therefore the results you're getting are better Momentum compound interest. Really, again, progress that happens in between the actual stroke Row wait boat moves row again.

51:13 - Chase (Host) You've seen this in all like rhythm and cadence.

51:16 - Greg (Guest) Again, you see this frenetic pace, people on bikes or people in life, or people in business they always seem like they're frenetic in doing. And then some guy will just come, looks like he's coasting right by almost effortless. He's got a rhythm, he's got a cadence. He's generating more power per each revolution. He's got a cadence. He's generating more power per each revolution. He's got intentionality there. That's, that's interesting, you know there with your two sons.

51:45 - Chase (Host) There are 17 and 20 18 and 21 just turned the corner on both.

51:49 - Greg (Guest) Basically, yeah, their birthdays are close, so it's like tick 20 to 21 the next month, month 17 to 18.

51:55 - Chase (Host) That's a quick turnaround, mm-hmm. So with an 18-year-old and a 21-year-old, do you feel like? When you look at them and the potential trajectory of their life, do you see more of their design or yours?

52:16 - Greg (Guest) I really hope theirs, why If it's mine, then I think I'm doing it wrong and I hope to positively lead them and help them and guide them. But their lives should not be mine, their lives, again, their design has to be their own. What I hope to instill in them are the tools to make better choices, the tools to be able to put together their own operating system, their own life, by design, how they want to approach things, how they want to make decisions and choices, and the actions they take, and the choice that I hope to instill in them. And, by the way, their mother does a much better job at all of this than I do, but not to.

53:06 This is how I work out, so this is how you should work out. Or this is how much money I think you need to earn or to have, and you should do this. Or you should become a, or you should become a banker, or you should go to law school, or you should major in this or you should go. No, I want you to make your own choices, make your own mistakes, have some of your own missteps. Not sure what you want to major in? Great, okay, take some different classes, take some time, figure it out. Know I'm a, I'm a slow learner and a late bloomer. I consider. I think I'm just, I'm just getting warmed up, I'm just getting started.

53:43 I think my boys have a tremendous advantage and that they're much smarter, much more mature, much wiser, better heads on their shoulders already than I had at their age and stage of life. But they get to choose. I hope my job is to be supportive. My job as a dad is to be fun and to be with them and to smile and to joke and to go to football games together and do all this other stuff. My job as a father there's a difference there is to try to live and lead by example and make sure that they also understand where the lines are, where the boundaries, where the guardrails are. There's a time to be their friend and to be their dad and their fun, and there's a time, I think, also where you have to be you got to be their father.

54:31 You got to be their father and then I hope that they understand the difference in how I act from time to time, based on what I want for them. And what I want for them is to control and then to own their own lives, actions, choices, discipline. I don't need or want them to be me at all. I need them to be them.

54:58 - Chase (Host) It reminds me of, I guess we'll say, a personal value that my dad instilled in me.

55:05 - Greg (Guest) And I think this is probably the biggest.

55:09 - Chase (Host) This is probably what influenced my life the most as an individual and helped me the most as a young man growing up, and probably the value I hope comes across most to anybody and everybody in my life, and that's integrity, and it's something that, as I'm getting ready to become a new father to a boy, is what I'm aligning myself with the most, because it's a it's a lot of you've been there of. Your life is about to change in every single way. What I try to say true to is I just want to live and act out of integrity, and I want him to know that as well. And when I think, when I think to what makes me a good man, when I think what I hope makes me a good man, what I hope makes me a good man and what I think hope is going to keep me on the rails of not having a midlife crisis, is just staying true to my personal integrity. Do you think most men have personal integrity now and what is their relationship to it if it is there?

56:13 - Greg (Guest) personal, integrity now and what is their relationship to it if it is there? Look, I don't know if I'm equipped to speak for what most men have necessarily or don't have, but I do believe that I think men struggle. Men really do struggle with making good choices, getting pulled in directions that maybe they didn't think they were going to go in Influence over time, situations, circumstances, jobs, careers, relationships and the next thing and they wake up five, 10, 15 years later. This is not who I thought I was going to be and mean, and again, it's not to justify it. We're back to ownership in situations. There, it's that again, it's that 1%, off course, and I did this once and, like you know, nothing really bad happened. Or, and then-.

57:08 - Chase (Host) Get away with this, get away with that.

57:09 - Greg (Guest) But I'm doing it for the right reasons and I find ways to justify it. And then the real question is like okay, can and when are you going to course correct? Will you? Does it mean enough to you there? And sometimes it's ooh, wait a minute, I have a child now, so now I need to change who I am. The other part of that is it shouldn't take a child for you to change. You know who I am.

57:34 - Chase (Host) The other part of that is it shouldn't take a child for you know, for you to change Like again this is back to looking in the mirror and being able to to take, to take ownership of of things.

57:43 - Greg (Guest) I think also, again, we know, we know when we're compromising our values, our integrity. You know, and one thing I think about a lot is okay, I'm not a religious person, we're not a religious family either. But again, how do I operate emotionally, spiritually, physically, financially? If I'm doing those things well or feeling like I'm doing them with integrity, feeling like I'm doing them with empathy, with some skill and some tact and maybe even some expertise that's come over the years in certain areas or competency, then okay, we'll be aligned. Even in some of my other ventures and partnerships and careers, it's like we were very different people in terms of, maybe, clients, that we went after, the way we did things. But you know what, we were aligned morally, ethically, spiritually, like that's integrity. So fine, if you want to do it with a suit on, or you want to do it at night and you want to do it in the morning and you want these kinds of clients, okay, totally fine. Like as long as again. Again, what I'm not questioning is I'm not questioning your integrity, I'm not questioning the manner in which you did the deal. I'm not questioning the manner. You just want to go after these kinds of clients. I want to go after these kinds of clients. I want to open this kind of restaurant. You want to open up that kind of restaurant.

59:07 You want to talk about this on your podcast? I want to talk about that, but where we're aligned, you do all those other things. But I know you're a man of your word. I know you operate this way in these areas Cool. So whatever the widget becomes, that's OK. Yeah.

59:26 - Chase (Host) How do we pursue a successful life and let's just say in terms of our profession, our career, our finances? At first I'll say it's okay to want that, and that's something that, over the years, I've become more and more comfortable with and have really stepped into and has really been helpful for me as an entrepreneur, but also as a man is it's okay to want to be successful, it's okay to want to have a comfortable life, it's okay to want to travel, it's okay to want to provide for your family or make opportunities for your business? How can we become more successful while still acting out of?

01:00:02 - Greg (Guest) integrity? Sure, I mean. First, to your point, I'm not a minimalist by any stretch. I have no issue. Money's great. You want to live a life, have a life of luxury, earn it, go out and do whatever again makes you happy. I used to Google giant houses and all that. Now I actually Google tiny homes.

01:00:23 - Chase (Host) It always swings the other way right. Things just change over time and I think what this comes down to is.

01:00:27 - Greg (Guest) It's about mastering the middle like not to over-index in necessarily any direction. I like quality.

01:00:32 - Chase (Host) Yeah, this is your jam. I know this is kind of your thing too.

01:00:35 - Greg (Guest) Yeah, I like quality and I want a smaller footprint because I don't like overhead. You start to figure out what mastering the middle looks like for you. But, to answer your question directly, I think one of the ways to really do it is define what a good day looks like to you. Not the rainbow and unicorn vacation good day, you know, the fantasy day that you rarely have, okay, or that you have again when you go on vacation or when you do things. But what does a good day look like, as people say, what does a good day look like for you? Write that all down and then how many of those can you string together? And if you start having repeated good day after good day, I can assure you that's gonna start. That adds up to a good month, adds up to a good quarter. You stack two, three good quarters together. Guess what? Now you've had a good year, you know. So it really comes back to being simple, being simple, being intentional and understanding what works for you, what makes you happy, what makes you feel good, what is generating return, not only on investment but return on life. So what does that look like? You know I wake up at 6 o'clock, give or take every morning, without an alarm clock. I have a cup of coffee. I don't rush out the door anymore. I take a look at my calendar for the day. I look at my operating system and my rules of engagement. If you will, I let the dogs out in the backyard. If it's Monday, I'm recording a podcast. If it's Tuesday, wednesday, thursday, I'm working with my clients directly. If it's Friday, I'm writing the newsletter and magazine stuff In between there. Okay, am I doing yoga today? Like what day of the week? How many workouts am I getting in? What does a good day look like when I used to pick up my kids from school before they could drive? Am I picking up the boys today from school or am I driving them to school? You know now I don't have that luxury anymore because one's out of the house and the other one's driving himself and doing it. So what am I? What am I doing at that time? You know again, you start building these good days that that meet again your standards, your standards and your goal. Okay, like that's a good Wednesday. Am I sitting down with you here and I have two hours for that? What was before, what was after? And I think if you can do that and you don't have to think so grand and put so much pressure on yourself. You have that. I've got the three-year goal. The five-year goal, that's out there, it's in the action plan, it's in the map. But really the key, I think, chase, is to reverse engineer back from that to the annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily positive action steps that you're taking every day and you just focus on that and those good days stack up. Those good days equal good weeks. Then it goes back in the other order those good days stack back up to good weeks, to good months, to good quarters and ultimately, to good years. And once you have that, it's like an update on your phone or anything like. Once you have that foundation and you've built on a stable foundation, now you can update 2.1, 2.2.

01:03:47 Okay, last year I was driving my kids to school and I loved that experience. I did it well. This year my son has a car the joy of buying him a car and letting him drive. So what do we replace? Am I replacing that time with anything? This changed, that changed, but those are slight upgrades, slight differences. They're not starting from scratch. You're just looking at your operating system and you're going okay, it's worked. I'm doing my recaps, my quarterly reviews, my annual stuff, and going all right, so true. What do I have to tweak now a little bit here? What's the next market you're going to go open a place in? Why? Because this one worked. And what does scale look like and how much? Maybe I want four, maybe I want six, maybe I get to 10. And I realized 10 is three too many. I mean, we all come to these, these intersections, but the key is, I think, that you operate the same way, you approach them the same way, so that you can make the decisions that are ultimately the best ones for you.

01:04:41 And in this case, now you're growing family.

01:04:43 - Chase (Host) I didn't want to mention that because I wasn't sure if you were going public with that.

01:04:46 - Greg (Guest) But then you start to make okay well, now I have a child at home, so we talked about this earlier. Is this the right time for me to sign up for a marathon, you know, or train for an ultra, or to put another big, hairy, audacious goal, you know, on the calendar. Or is it the time for me to commit to being home some paternity time? Maybe I'm not going to be as ripped for the next six months, but I'm not going to let myself go altogether. Yeah, you gonna be as ripped for the next six months, but I'm not gonna let myself go all together.

01:05:19 Yeah, do you know those types of things? In that percentage of the holistic and pie chart of it all, now family will take a bigger chunk and then at a certain point, okay, well, now finance and the business piece will take a bigger chunk, because I got another mouth of you and I got another thing and I want to fund that college program. And then, another time, you know, this thing will take a bigger chunk and you're just readjusting the dial constantly how long have you and your wife been together?

01:05:42 uh, so we are going on. 25 years of marriage, almost 29 together. 25.

01:05:48 - Chase (Host) We met out here, actually in la that incredible May and I were coming up on it. This month actually will be our eight-year wedding anniversary. Congrats. We've been together for 11. Thank you. How important is it for a man to have a committed relationship, be in a committed relationship, have a significant other, for us to be the man that we want to be, for us to reach our potential.

01:06:18 - Greg (Guest) First, I think it's a privilege and I think it's a blessing to have somebody that I feel in my corner for as long as I have. It's the fucking best Look, and I think for me it's needed and necessary. I would feel lonely and I would feel void if I did not have that. That being said, what I think is more important is having the right person, and you know I used to feel differently about this. You know about divorce, you know about divorce. You know all these things.

01:06:56 And now look again like I see both sides to this and over the course of 20 plus 30 years, people change too. The question becomes in these relationships, or any relationship, I think are you changing and evolving and growing together? Can you accept one another's differences as you grow and evolve? I thought I had a good idea of how Kate was going to be as a mom, but you don't really know until you become an actual mom. How could you Right, how could you? Who we were in our 20s and why she was even with me in my 20s I have no idea is so different than who we were in our 20s and why she was even, why she was even with me in my 20s. I have no idea you know is so different than who we are now. So and we're entering another phase now where we're going to be empty nesters in a year. So who are we as individuals when we get all this time back? You know for now, for the last 20 years or so we were, you could say you live almost.

01:07:51 You know through your kids oh, yeah, everything and everything else, and then all of a sudden you get some of your life back in, your individuality back in. All of your conversations are not about who's taking this kid to baseball, who's taking this one to basketball, who's driving here what?

01:08:04 - Chase (Host) do we talk about? Do I even like you anymore?

01:08:06 - Greg (Guest) Exactly Everything changes.

01:08:08 You know, look, your sex life changes, your looks change, your financial situations change, how you parent changes, your own parents change, like your relationships with your in-laws and brothers, and everything change over time. So it's a roundabout way to say look. What I'm really concerned about in terms of relations do we have the right relationship for us in this period of our life? And we have gone through ups and downs, trials and tribulations, and we have chosen throughout to continue to reinvest in each other and to be with each other. If that was not the right call, we probably would have made a different call, but we're fortunate and we're blessed to have not gotten to that position.

01:08:54 - Chase (Host) Okay.

01:08:54 - Greg (Guest) So do I also believe that it's better to be alone than in bad company. I believe that.

01:09:01 - Chase (Host) Yeah.

01:09:02 - Greg (Guest) If somebody is bringing you down, holding you back, causing you unbelievable stress, anxiety, whatever it might be, and you find yourself in this valley of despair from a relationship that just is not working, then I understand that side too, because I also believe there's another opportunity ahead for you to find the right partner out there. So I see both. I see life is too short to be in a bad relationship your whole life and to squander what could be the best years and times of your life.

01:09:36 - Chase (Host) Or not even a bad relationship. I've been there. I think it's like I wouldn't say this was a bad relationship, but it's not the one that I should be in Correct.

01:09:44 - Greg (Guest) So I see that side of things. And then I also see the side of hey, we are committed to one another and it's not easy. It's not rainbows and unicorns every day for 25, almost 30 years, but we're committed to one another and this does work. And then the last thing I'll say is I also think that this is I never know and I can't speak for anybody else where their proverbial line is. I've thought about this, I've written about this a lot what makes some people stay together and work it out and do it, and what makes other people get divorced and separate and go and go on, and where that line is. And I can't speak to that for anybody else, but I've always wondered, kind of where you know where that is.

01:10:29 But I I think, if I had to lean, that I don't think the institution of marriage is taken as seriously and perhaps it should be in terms of like I think people are willing to pull the plug on things, like anywhere, like too soon or too quickly, or they think it's going to be easier, and it's like life isn't easy anywhere, period. The grass is not always greener. With your job, with your career, with your boss, with your husband, with your wife with your everything. It's not easy, so that's one thing I would offer. It's like hey, when shit gets hard, it's supposed to be hard. Pressure is a privilege. These relationships are not easy, they're not perfect, and I think it's a metaphor in all areas of it's like, hey, you know. Like don't quit, don't give up too soon. You know, really like feeling have I really given this my best shot in in everything that I'm doing? And if so, and if you can again look in the mirror. We keep coming back to the personal integrity yes I have given this my very, very best shot.

01:11:34 I can live with this decision that I'm making.

01:11:38 - Chase (Host) What about before we get to that? This is the relationship that I want to commit to and, whatever that road looks like, there's a lot of guys out there. You know you're supposed to just tear it up in your twenties, never get married before 30, just sleep with as many people men, women, whatever as long as possible until you can kind of settle down. And it has to look like dollars in your bank account, a number on your calendar kind of thing. What's your take on that?

01:12:03 - Greg (Guest) Perfect is the enemy of good Meaning that. I know guys that have said again I'm not settling down until I do this Again. It could be any of the criteria that you again, I'm not settling down until I do this Again. It could be any of the criteria that you mentioned. I'm not until I have the right job or position or security, or until I have enough money saved, or until I've dated enough other women or anything else.

01:12:28 - Chase (Host) Reach a certain body count.

01:12:30 - Greg (Guest) Yeah, whatever it might be, and I would just caution that I think perfect is the enemy of good and I think because of that, sometimes it's like they've missed great opportunities or they've looked back with regret going. You know what, Like she might have been woman number two or relationship number two and I thought that I needed to have 10. I said some crazy number, you and I thought that I needed to have 10. I said some crazy number, you know, like for myself, before I settled down, and you know what, Like I let the best one you know get away you know there.

01:13:01 Or man. I can't do it for these other reasons Again my position, my job or my finances or whatever. But you know what you had. You had somebody that really loved you for who you are and was willing to take the ride with you and be there with you at the time. And you maybe passed that up because you didn't have enough pride, enough integrity, belief in yourself or that you were good enough for this person right then and there. And you put this other pressure on yourself. I've seen all of that. You go back and we were talking about my boys before and not giving advice per se, but as much as sharing experiences, I do tell my boys all the time look, who you marry is the most important decision of your life.

01:13:43 - Chase (Host) Could not agree more.

01:13:45 - Greg (Guest) Who you marry is gonna be the most important decision of your life and, by the way, who you have children with is going to be an even bigger like that's the most important kid. What could be more important than the most important? Well, that's when you have children with somebody. And if you have children with the wrong person, okay, that will be with you also for the rest of your life. So think very, very carefully, long and hard about who you are going to marry and who you are going to have children with, because, also, if you marry the wrong person and then you think that having children with that person is going to fix it, okay, no no, and that I know way too many people who, unfortunately, marry the wrong individual.

01:14:30 That makes that individual wrong, the wrong individual for them, the wrong relationship, and then ultimately had children with that individual, and now those two are there, everyone's in each other's lives forever and and it adds a layer of complexity, no matter how amicable it may be or anything else, it just it adds a level of complexity that is that is harder. And, by the way, unfortunately in today's society. I don't know exactly what the statistics are, but that's the majority.

01:14:58 - Chase (Host) I think, 67% rate divorce right now, I think, in America.

01:15:03 - Greg (Guest) And I would wonder how many of that 67% are divorced with children.

01:15:10 - Chase (Host) Probably a majority, probably got to be pretty close, I imagine it's probably pretty high up there too. It's probably not that far off 60% of the time they're divorced, with kids every time.

01:15:20 - Greg (Guest) Yes, exactly. So to that effect, again, I don't think it's quantity of what you have to go through in terms of going through either women or whatever it is. I don't think it's dollars, I don't think it's this. I think it's dollars, I don't think it's this, I think it's quality. I think, again, you know, and, if you know, believe it.

01:15:38 - Chase (Host) You do, you do. Yeah, I think, especially if you think you don't, you do. It's just a matter of sitting with that long enough until you allow that truth to rise to the top and keep it with you every day One and keep it with you every day.

01:15:50 - Greg (Guest) One of the other questions is listen. Are we talking ourselves out of things more often than we talk ourselves?

01:15:54 - Chase (Host) into things, oh my.

01:15:55 - Greg (Guest) God, yeah, you know, it's certainly a lot easier. Again, in either direction, we tend to go for whichever path seems easier, the path of least resistance. Should I be talking myself out of this? Should I be talking myself into it? Am I talking to my friends? Are they talking me out of this or talking me into this? Yeah, okay, and which one really is right? Am I doing this for myself? Am I doing this for appearances? Am I doing this because, look, this is how everybody does it, or this is what I'm supposed to do? Or am I really doing it for for me?

01:16:29 - Chase (Host) well, greg. To wrap it up, man, I want to go back to this quote of yours that I heard. I believe you mentioned this when you were recently on Gabrielle Lyon's show, and it just really stuck with me.

01:16:43 - Greg (Guest) She's great, by the way. Shout out Gabrielle. Yes, we got a shout out to Dr G. She's tremendous and I really appreciate her having had me on her show as much as I appreciate you having me here.

01:16:55 - Chase (Host) I mean it's just a great opportunity. And you know, just to give credit to her. She's crushing it, she's amazing, she's a mom, she's an author, she runs a business, podcast, social media, all these things. She was one of the first people to text me when we went public about the baby, and so it's really cool in these big life transitions Um the people that are paying attention, people that are paying attention to people that really, really matter, and have your back. Um, they really rose to the top, and she was one of them.

01:17:23 - Greg (Guest) I'll tell you that's consistent. Uh, and we can turn this into the Dr G praise praise segment but I don't know anybody that's had a bad word to say about her. People that I love and trust and respect speak incredibly highly of her. Since she moved down to Houston and we've gotten friendly together in her entire family. I am just blown away by again she cares.

01:17:43 - Chase (Host) I was talking about this earlier.

01:17:45 - Greg (Guest) To really be successful at anything, you've got to care the most, and she is one of those people who genuinely cares the most about people and what she does and how she does it.

01:17:54 - Chase (Host) She cares a fucking lot and I think she would probably say it that way too. You said did I do enough in the past to help me in the future? And I think if we just summed up our entire conversation, this great long, meaningful conversation, into that question, I would like the person, especially the guy listening, to carry that with them.

01:18:20 - Greg (Guest) Can you kind of elaborate on that please? My answer to it is and I remember saying it and I say it over and over again but here's the answer Maybe. I don't know. I don't know if I've done enough in the past to carry it. I'm still figuring it out. My answer to a lot of things is maybe. I believe that maybe is a really good answer right now, that maybe I have, but I don't know. But what am I going to do tomorrow to continue to do better? Maybe it's enough, Maybe I find that it works just fine, or maybe I have to do a little bit more.

01:18:56 I think, again, we tend to bog ourselves down with thinking it has to be absolute or it has to be black and white, and I think more often than not, again, it's nuanced, it's in the middle. You know, I say the middle is messy. Middle is messy midlife or otherwise, but the middle is messy. But it's also the sweet spot and this really is about mastering the middle, like I've said. So the answer to that more often than not backwards or forwards, more often than not is maybe. And I think as long as you're committed to making progress, then over time those maybes will become certainties and then there'll be another, maybe because there'll be another pivot, There'll be another obstacle, There'll be another thing that's unexpected, that you couldn't plan for Truth. So you know, there it is, and that's why it might be cliche to talk about again progress being a process or the journey. You don't know where you're going in any way. You want to phrase these things and kind of put them on a board, you know, and put them up there and do it and like strip back all the, all the glamour and the style and the influence and just go back to like okay, like Like okay.

01:20:11 Am I doing the best I can?

01:20:14 Am I making progress each day?

01:20:20 Do I wake up with energy and go to bed tired, the good kind?

01:20:23 Did I call my son on the drive over here and talk about you know he's picking up golf, like the things that make you smile, like the little things are the big things and it and it's a longer answer to your, to your question again but it's like man, like that's the stuff that matters. So I don't know if I'm done enough in the past, you know, to propel myself, you know, forward in all these other areas, but I know I'm doing the best I can, and I know that the tools that and experiences and generosity of others and things that I'm picking up from men like you guys, younger guys that are older, from women, from all other areas, that we're stacking those to try to create a life that has value, that feels good and focusing on the people that matter. And back to that rule number one knowing what's important is what's most important. Am I proud of myself? Is my wife proud of me? Are my boys proud of me? Beyond that, most things are out of my control.

01:21:28 - Chase (Host) Yeah, I love that answer because I think if we get really honest and again to kind of revisit our entire conversation, enough, even when holding it up to our own standards should be relative, because it might have been enough for today. Am I going to hold the same standard? Am I going to have the same goal? Am I going to need to pivot? Am I going to need to move into finances, move into relationship, move into physical, all the kind of your six Fs talk about?

01:22:01 - Greg (Guest) I went to a conference yesterday and you speak about evolution and growth and change and everything else, and it was a conference. It was at the intersection of sports and media and technology and on the panel was CeCe Sabathia, Albert Pujols, Rob Manfred the commissioner of Major League Baseball.

01:22:18 It was a great panel, but what struck me about it was, to your point, they were talking about rule changes. Again, the game of baseball has been around for and what are they still doing? They're evolving and they're growing and they're making rule changes. Now there's a pitch clock, there's all kinds of stuff that's going on in the game to speed it up. They remove the shift. All these things that I didn't know about.

01:22:39 - Chase (Host) Oh, thank God I used to play baseball, but man, they need to speed that shit up, Right.

01:22:43 - Greg (Guest) Okay, so here they do it. So the point being is that there's always room for and they don't know whether or not it's going to go. Well, you know, at the beginning of it I was like, oh my God, you can't change this. And even the players were saying, well, you know, after it takes us like a couple of weeks to adjust and to do it, and then you go, oh, you know what, that's better.

01:23:01 - Chase (Host) And then it becomes your new norm.

01:23:03 - Greg (Guest) Right. So that's my point in it. It can be sport, it can be business. You know, change is inevitable. That's the one constant that if you're not growing, you're dying. You know there too. And if you're stagnant and you've reduced yourself to that conformity, complacency, redundancy, well, you're not really going anywhere.

01:23:26 I mean, you build a book of business and you sit back on your book of business and guess what's going to happen You're going to lose a client, you're going to have a smaller book of business If you're not still actively chasing new business and development and all of those things or taking things for granted. We can apply it in any one of those areas. So I just found it very interesting and kind of a metaphor. That's like no matter what's been around, no matter how much success you have, no matter how much history you have, you still have to be thinking about growth and evolution and serving today's environment and situation and individual and community. That's out there and they just put it in baseball terms.

01:24:04 - Chase (Host) But my takeaway was like oh okay, and here's one little thing I'll add to that. This has been a lesson for me this year is that to think about growth and to think about creating more, doing more, being more dare I even say having more it is not the same as not being okay with what you do have. It is not the same as going like this is enough and that more is never enough kind of thing. It is, I think, the realist truth we could ever hold up to ourselves, especially, let's say, you know, in our professional life, because when we get still, the rest of the world passes us by and the rest of the world is going to keep going and growing, and then we're going to wake up one day. We're going to be really fricking behind the eight ball, you know.

01:24:57 - Greg (Guest) But that is also to the conversation about high performance and definition and to the notion that more is not always better. Better is better. And oh, yeah, yes, yeah so okay, there are your guardrails again and there is the. Okay, where am I going from? There's a lot of white space again in the middle between those two things. So what is your happy medium? What does your mastering the middle look like?

01:25:21 What is best for you, Because I would offer that the high performance could be either or Meaning like my high performance might look like a little extra time off, might more open space more of this Then less is more. Somebody else's might look like hey, I'm dropping the hammer and I'm going 110, you know for the next year, because I want to get from here to here and the only way.

01:25:41 I can do. That is, if I go this pace, I go. You know what, I'm going to run that marathon, but I'm going to run it in a. Here's the thing your metric of success looks different for me your capability. If I ran it at six million I probably six minutes a mile probably blow a hammy, you know, or not be able to go to work the next day or play with my kids, but at nine minutes I can wake up feeling pretty good tomorrow you know like again and stay high performing in every other area of my life.

01:26:06 That's it yeah, action, reaction. I do this, this happens, I do this, this happens well. If I do this, this happens Well, if I do this over here, I better be prepared that this plate's going to drop over here. So that's strategy, that's tactics.

01:26:25 That's knowing yourself Honesty in there, All of those things, and that's what I really just enjoy working with guys on right now, Making it about again. How do you see it? What do you think? What does it really look like If we did this and this? Let's play that out. Let's put that in a system. Let's test and retest that. Let's see. Okay, and that's where the confidence and the integrity comes from. Okay, I'm cool with this. Here it is.

01:26:55 I can run this playbook and I can feel really good about myself, no matter who else is in the room, whoever else is at the table, whatever that guy, I'm running my own race.

01:27:01 - Chase (Host) High performance is doing what you want to do because you know why and you know the results it gives you, in the presence of anyone else or no one else.

01:27:12 - Greg (Guest) Yeah, we can keep digging this conversation and it's all about those things. It's, you know, it's. That's one of the things that happened. You know how did you know the most change or whatever happened, or this? You know, it's not from the things that I'm doing, it's from the things that I stopped doing. It's always about subtraction rather than addition.

01:27:27 - Chase (Host) Everyone go back. Rewind, listen to that again. Yeah, Rewind, listen to that again, yeah.

01:27:31 - Greg (Guest) It's always easier to add Like busy is easy, complexity is easy, doing more is easy. All this, it just finds us. I mean, you can't get away from it. It's on your phone, it's in your email box, it's on social, it's in comparison, it's in keeping up with whoever the proverbial Jones is, more is like boom. That's the easiest thing to get overwhelmed.

01:27:56 - Chase (Host) All right, man. Well, I know you got places to go and people to see and I'm getting excited, so I got to stop myself here. But let me get to our final question. Yeah, man.

01:28:04 And this has been a real treat. It's been great to sit down with you in person, it's great to see you again and I thank you for your time and your willingness to just, you know, share your truths and your experience with me for me, but also with the listener, the viewer, for them as well. So the whole point of this show is to help me and my audience learn ways to you, know new ways and old ways we need to come back to and others we should adopt, or should try, I should say, to move us forward in life and to keep moving ever forward. So those two words, Greg, what do they mean to you? How would you say you live a life ever forward?

01:28:45 - Greg (Guest) It's about thinking ahead. I mean, that's what ever forward is right. We're moving forward. It's about thinking ahead. It's about living for today, but thinking ahead and I see it as again I'm just getting warmed up, I think I said it before I feel like I am in again perpetual, ever forward motion right now. So I see it as liberating. Right now, Um and that's a liberal, so I see it as liberating, I see it as freedom, I see it as opportunity. Um, I think my best days are still ahead of me, not behind me, and I want more guys to feel that way. So what you're doing with ever forward in that movement, like that's the direction we're going. So that's how I see it.

01:29:30 - Chase (Host) I love them.

01:29:30 I always say there's never a right or wrong answer or wrong answer, but uh, what just struck me the most out of that was, I think, one of the best litmus tests we could ever give ourselves, especially as a man, is to as many times as possible but honestly as many times as possible say, I feel like I'm just getting started, and if you can keep that, that fire with you and the gym and the yoga studio, at work, in the bedroom with your kids, whatever like, if you can honestly feel like you were in pursuit of that as often as possible, man, you're fucking crushing it. What?

01:30:06 - Greg (Guest) drives me is I hope other guys out there you know what. I didn't see midlife that way and now I see it differently. You know, greg helped me with that, showed me what was possible, what was probable, and that gave me a new lens, a new lease on life. You know a new lens to see it through. You know that's that's what drives me.

01:30:28 - Chase (Host) Well, where can my audience go to connect with you, learn more about your work, your book, all this stuff?

01:30:32 - Greg (Guest) Midlifemailcom. Very simple. You can go there. You can subscribe to our digital magazine that comes out every Sunday. You can subscribe to the podcast. You can get my free how to Maximize Midlife guide. That's there as well. The book. So we break it all down and we've got tons of great content on that site. I try to give everything I possibly can away on there and reach out. I'm reachable, I'm not hard to find and I try to get back to everybody as quickly as I possibly can.

01:30:59 - Chase (Host) Well, it'll be linked in the show notes for everybody and in the video description box. Greg, thanks so much, man.

01:31:04 - Greg (Guest) Awesome. Thank you for having me Chase.