Glenn Bill chats with Keynote Speaker and Author, Greg Reid.
1:10 – Greg Reid introduction
3:17 – Greg Reid has a lot of things going on
5:01 – How has your Three Feet From Gold book changed your life? Three Feet from Gold: Turn Your Obstacles into Opportunities! (Think and Grow Rich) (Official Publication of the Napoleon Hill Foundation)
6:39 – Love Adversity
7:50 – Remax founder Dave Liniger
9:14 – What are your thoughts on disruption
11:02 – What was your first business venture
12:34 – How cool was it to get a start on the Hollywood walk of fame and what was that experience like, and what project(s) went into that achievement. “Wish Man”
14:38 – Who’s the most famous person you ever interviewed. Invented the switchboard.
15:37 – Americans’ love for celebrity. Advice to NOT screw it up. NASCAR creator
18:29 – What does attitude mean to you and who affected your attitude the most?
23:34 – Was there any time in your life where you felt sorry for yourself?
26:25 – CPC – Clues Patterns Choices is about accountability and responsibility
28:36 – Knowledge through the decades. what is the attitude lesson at birth?
30:06 – What is the advice as at 10
33:01 – What is the advice as at 20
34:54 – What is the advice as at 30. A tiny penis story. Tony Robbins story
38:22 – What is the advice as at 40? Honor your mentors Booster #5 was previous booster.
40:57 – wrap – what is the advice as at 50
43:45 – Last nugget
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Greg Reid
I’ve been fortunate enough to help tens of thousands of people get attitude, the secret formula to success in your business and in your life and this show is going to help you get yours. Let’s get some. I want to welcome everybody. Please remember to subscribe, rate and review. We have a guest that is going to blow your mind. We are covering booster number eight, love adversity. This gentleman, Mr. Greg Reid, is somebody that you are going to want to read to. You’re going to want to share this show.
If you’ve got people that are down in your life, that aren’t sure that they can make things happen, you’re going to want to forward this show to them. He’s going to talk to us about Three Feet from Gold. Tens of millions of sales with that program. He’s been in 100 different books, 45 different languages. He’s got an honorary Doctorate Degree from Lamborghini. He is trending on Netflix. He is an international keynote speaker and most of all, the coolest thing that he has done is he has a star on the Walk of Fame. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor and it is your pleasure to be reading the one and only Greg Reid. Greg, welcome to the show. Greg, tell us where you’re talking to us from?
The mean streets of San Diego, California. A little beach town community called Carlsbad.
Is that close to Coronado?
It’s in the same city. Absolutely. It’s a little bit more North but it’s one of the greatest little spots you could ever imagine. Anyone ever driving through it, you got to stop by and say hi and I’ll take you to the library.
Tell me, where did you grow up? Where were you born? Are you originally from there? Did you move there?
I am born and raised. I’m one of the few. I always go West Coast. That little beach town community called Del Mar, probably 10 miles away from me. I’ve always lived really close to a coastal lifestyle.
Guys and gals, Greg Reid does a lot. Were you always ADD high energy and always doing 50 different things at once. Was that always your attitude or is that something that you morphed into?
I used to get in trouble for it in school like all of us and now I get rewarded and paid. It’s one of those fine things. When I was a kid, I’ll tell you a critical story when I was seventeen. I was leaving the house and my dad goes, “Go to college. We’ll send you anywhere in the world you want to go.” I say, “No. I want to get into sales and marketing. I love communicating. I love the idea of closing sales.” He looked at me and said, “Son, you’re never going to make a living talking to people.” Here we are now, all these years later, I’m glorified for it so figure.
Obviously, you’re not making a living. You are making a freaking fortune talking to people. Your father was right.
More importantly, I’m making an impact and a difference. It’s interesting when you get into personal growth, the pesky thing is that growth part. We’re always learning and growing. We always say, “If I can impact one person’s life, I’ve done my job.” Once you’ve done that tens of thousands of times over or a million times over, it starts changing its paradigm. Now it’s like, “How can we make the greatest impact in the greatest way possible?”

Number seven on our attitude boosters, which I forgot when we were talking earlier is grow or die. This is what happens with most of our guests, you are probably going to talk and hit on all ten attitude boosters but we’re going to focus on loving adversity and we’re going to walk with you on this journey called Three Feet from Gold.
As far as I’m concerned, let’s get there because the content is ridiculous. Tell us what Three Feet from Gold is all about and how it’s changed your life and your business and how it could change the people who are walking on the beach, sitting in their car or crying and depressed. Maybe they’ve got a financial or a personal reversal going on in their life. People read the show because they want attitude. Share with us about this wonderful thing called Three Feet from Gold.
I’ll start with this. Have you ever heard of a book called Think and Grow Rich?
I have, yes.
In 1908, Napoleon Hill was given a letter of introduction from Andrew Carnegie to meet all of his friends. He sat down and wrote the first-ever formula for success. One hundred years later to the date, the Napoleon Hill surviving family grandkids and the foundation gave me that same exact type of letter. I have a Willy Wonka ticket to meet any human alive.
The very first project we did was called Think and Grow Rich: Three Feet from Gold. It’s the story about RU Darby who literally gave up three feet away from the largest strike in history. The moral is, how many times have we or someone we know quit one class short of a degree for sales or marketing. It’s easy to quit but it’s the people that persevere and go that extra little bit. They’re the ones that come in on top. First, there’s a dream then there’s a challenge and then comes victory. We only tell the stories and write the songs about the people that kept going. Three Feet from Gold is a classic parable that helped separate the 95% who dream of success from the top 5% who do it.
What do you think when you talk about love adversity? I love adversity. The more crap that goes wrong, the better for me because I know it separates us from the masses. Tell me, number one, do you love adversity? Number two, how do you look at adversity? Number three, if it’s okay, what do you do to overcome adversity or what would you say, “Here are a couple of things you should try and consider?” What’s the formula to get through whatever adversity is going on in the life of the people that are reading?
First of all, I embraced the fact that I have survived 100% of every adversity I’ve faced so far. I’m batting 1,000. I’ve got confidence that this too shall pass and I’ll get through it. More importantly, I also am a realist. Every time I crash my car, I get a better car. Every time I lost my apartment, I got a better house and every time I’ve got divorced, I met a better spouse.
The bottom line is that every time something weird happens to me, I’m the oddball that goes, “Something good is coming around the corner,” and I start looking and capitalizing on it. I’ll tell you the first story of Three Feet from Gold. I interviewed a guy named Dave Liniger. You might not know him but you’ll know his business.
I know. RE/MAX.
He goes, “I wanted to get started in the industry but it was brutal. All the money ran out. For three years, every phone call that came in was from the bill collector. I had the courage to pick up the phone and call the bill collectors and said, “All the money is gone. I’m broke. I don’t have $50,000 but I’ll send you $50. Don’t give up on me.’ I called every bill collector every month until the fourth year, someone finally believed in me and bought the first business called the RE/MAX Real Estate. How many people’s lives were changed because I wouldn’t quit?” How do we know someone reading to this isn’t about to give up on their own dream because Visa was calling them this morning?
It's easy to quit, but it's the people that persevere and go that extra little bit are the ones who come in on top. Click To TweetThey had over 120,000 agents. The real estate space is as everything is. It’s like the disruptors are now getting disrupted. I was with a client and he said, “Here’s the question you need to ask yourself, how do you disrupt Amazon?” I don’t know about you, my guess is and I have books on Amazon. There are a lot of people not happy being a customer of Amazon and they’re doing everything they can to get out of it.
What is your thought about creating disruption? The companies you’ve represented when it comes to disruption. Being disrupted, what are your thoughts on that for those people whose companies are getting disrupted, who are maybe getting fired and laid off downside? A lot of that going on. Give me the whole thought on disruption and what that means to you and what it looks like.
It’s adaptability and adjustability and that’s what it comes down to. If you’re not willing to adapt and adjust, you’ll end up getting stuck. That’s what we’ve seen time and time again. Back in the day, Sears, Roebuck was exactly Amazon and now they are no more. Everything has a life cycle. If you don’t adapt and adjust to going times then you’ll end up dying and shrink.
The reason why Amazon is growing so much is they’re constantly adapting and adjusting to modern times. I’ll give you an example. When I grew up, my favorite toy store was called Toys R Us. I grew up with Toys R Us and they went bankrupt because they would not adapt and adjust. Could you imagine if Toys R Us started their own little Comic-Con but it was like a Toycon and they became the leading competition for Legos building and things of this nature? They would still be the giant conglomerate but if you’re not willing to adapt and adjust, you’ll end up getting stuck and perish.
When you mentioned being a little kid, did you have any siblings that affected your attitude?
Not really. I have a little brother. The fact of the matter is we had two different outlooks on everything. I was one of those entrepreneur kids. I was quick as a child. My neighbors wanted their yards mowed for $10. I hired the neighborhood kids for $5 and they’d mow it for me. That’s the rude mentality I’ve always had.
Did you get professionally trained in college or did you say, “I’m working? I’m starting my own business.” What I’d love to know is what was your first business where you made $1 million or tell me about the first time you made $100,000.
Back to the original story, I never went to college. My dad wanted me to go. I wanted to get into sales and marketing but I had a bucket list of 80 different items. Years ago, I got the last one off where I got a couple of honorary PhDs were Tonino Lamborghini and I flew to India and we were awarded these degrees where we did the university commencement speeches all around the country.
To answer your question, from age 20 to 40, I was only in one business. I was in sales and marketing and I grew my business. I started my own and I grew up and sold it for my first million dollars when I was 39. What’s interesting about that is that people said, “How did you do it?” I’m doing these things like that. There’s no Santa Claus.
I cannot read and write. I’m dyslexic and I can’t spell. Play Words With Friends with me and win every time. I’m an award-winning author with a star on the Walk of Fame for being so and here’s how I get it. Work your strengths and hire your weaknesses. Stop bitching and complaining about what you don’t have and find a way to fill that gap. I found the greatest ghostwriters and some copy editors that can take my gift of gab and create it in a way people would want to read and here we are 100 titles later.
Everybody reading this, we have a few celebrities that may have a star on the Walk of Fame but I doubt it. How cool was that? What was the project that may be put you over the edge that may be all of us know? What could we look up on YouTube and go, “Holy crap?” What was that whole experience like when they told you you’re going to have a star and tell us some of the projects that went into the critical mass to make that happen?

There’s been a ton of it. When I was awarded this star, it really was cool. I did it alongside Frank Shankwitz because I helped make his dream come true. A lot of people know of a nonprofit called Make-A-Wish Foundation. It grants wishes to terminally ill kids. I was interviewing him for one of my books and I asked him what his wish was and he said no one ever asked him.
I said, “I will grant your wish. Anything you want, I’ll give it to you.” He says, “I want my story to be told so my grandkids will know I did something.” He signed over his life rights and I said, “I’ll make it into a major feature film but just know, I’ve never made a feature film.” He trusted me and it took six years and millions of dollars but we finished it and we made the official ballot for the Oscars. We’re trending worldwide on Netflix and the movie is called Wish Man.
Is he the Founder of Make-A-Wish?
Yeah. I got the right to tell his story. Think about it from my perspective. Here’s Napoleon Hill, who wrote Think and Grow Rich. I was given the opportunity to follow in his footsteps and to share his message to modern society and then the Founder of Make-A-Wish, I was honored to be able to tell his story to the masses worldwide to millions upon millions of people. The reason we do this is that more people now were following a movement than gurus. To follow another guy on top of a soapbox telling you, “You should do this.” I like to put the spotlight on other people and honor them in a huge way.
Who’s the most famous person you ever got to interview and what was the best thing they taught you?
It’s so funny. I created something that’s called The Switchboard. I say that because this is my little thing that connects to people. I have access to everyone from the guy who invented the elevator to space to the guy who started NASCAR and President Vicente Fox just came to my last event.
Edward Snowden is hiding in Russia. I did a private Skype with him. I got taught the Pulp Fiction dance with John Travolta during Grammy’s night. I proposed to Halle Berry on stage. There are so many but what’s cool is they’re just cool people. That’s the whole thing. How do you surround yourself with kickass people that are doing what you want to do?
One of the things I certainly know and I know you know that Americans especially have no idea how attracted they are to celebrities. It’s like they’ll do anything. How do you keep your crap if you’re a normal guy like us and you meet a celebrity and you don’t want to screw up that encounter? What’s the advice for a normal Joe and then all of a sudden, Halle Berry is walking down the street or whoever it might be. What would your thought and coaching point be? “If you run into a celebrity, here’s how you’re not going to screw it up. Here’s how I would approach things.” Any thoughts on that?
Everyone’s got a different approach. In Hollywood, unfortunately, you do want to do a resumé interview. I won’t do it but that’s the way that they teach you to do it. You go up and all that person your resume, which I would never do but that’s what they want you to do. For myself, I always ask usually unique and mind-altering questions.
By doing that, you get a different response. I’ll give you an example. One of my greatest interviews because it was so weird, was the guy who started NASCAR. I was sitting in his office with all these lights and cameras. I’m from San Diego. I don’t even know what NASCAR is. We don’t have it down here and I had no idea how big it was.
I was sitting in his office and the interview was going bad and so I stood up and did a pattern interruption and said, “This is the worst interview I ever did.” He goes, “What?” I go, “I wasted all my time flying across the country. I think I’m done.” We stood. He starts taking off our microphones. I go, “By the way, let me ask you something.” He goes, “What?” I go, “When you got that first cardboard check with $1 million on there? What did your mom say?” He goes, “She told me to take out the trash. She didn’t even care about it. My dad, he was proud of me.”
If you're not willing to adapt and adjust, you'll end up getting stuck. Click To TweetHe sat down and started relaxing and then he reached in his pocket and he pulled out a tattered piece of paper. I go, “What’s that?” He goes, “It’s the Cowboys Ethics, Code of the West. This is how we created NASCAR.” I go, “What do you mean?” He goes, “I never left home without it. This is how I did it all.” I go, “Describe it.” He says, “Speak less but say more. Do what’s right, ride for the brand.”
He goes, “When Winston Cup was so big, kids were coming out and we didn’t want to promote smoking. We got tied as the sponsor and we started adapting and adjusting and this is what grew.” As I walked out of that interview, which turned out to be spectacular, the Vice President of NASCAR pulled me aside and says, “I’ve been working with him for 25 years and I never knew he had that piece of paper in his pocket every day.”
I always tell people in the interview process or in sales and marketing, what you always want people to say is, “Nobody has ever asked me that before.” That’s when you know you’re getting ready to strike gold. How do you define the attitude and what does attitude mean to you?
Abraham Lincoln had a great quote. He says, “People are as happy as they make up their minds to be,” and I believe that to be true. If you meet me today, tomorrow, last week, I always have the same attitude. As a kid, I was yelled at because I had a prima donna or the pink cloud syndrome but that’s how I lived my life. I choose to look for what’s possible. If there’s a big pile of horse poop, I know there’s a pony somewhere and I’m always looking for the pony.
Who do you think affected your attitude the most in your life?
I’ve had great mentors in my life and one person was really huge and it sounds cliche. I almost feel weird saying that but in my case, it’s my mom. She was a great teacher of mine and she would tell me I could do anything I put my mind to and I was crazy enough to believe. I barely graduated high school. I can’t read and write but I pulled off more accomplishments than a lot of people because I’m crazy enough to think that I can do it but the way I do it is I surround myself with people that have already accomplished what I intend to do.
I asked them for feedback. Here’s the greatest a-ha from Three Feet from Gold. The guy who invented String Theory. If you ever watched The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon was trying to figure it out. The guy who created it told me the greatest lesson. He said, “Successful people seek counsel and failures listen to opinion.” I said, “What’s the difference?” He goes, “Opinion is based on ignorance, lack of knowledge, inexperience where counsel is wisdom, knowledge mentorship.”
If you go to a family friend and say, “You’re going to write a book,” they might talk you out of it to protect you plus they have never written the best-selling book. If I go to Jack Canfield, who wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul, he’s going to say, “Before you get started, here’s what you want to know,” and give me counsel. If we would spend our activity only seeking counsel and ignoring opinion, that’s the thing your life would change.
I love the fact and it is cliché. I learned it from my mom. When I keynote spoke, I did a huge keynote before all this hit. I looked at them and I do this thing about motherhood and I’m like, “Just lead, love and have loyalty like a mother.” What was your mother’s name? I’d love to know her name and her maiden name and what was her story in general? Where did she come from?
Dr. Mary Gale Hinrichsen. What’s cool about her is at 50 years old, she didn’t even have a high school diploma. She was an entrepreneur who made millions of dollars and like me, she winged it. She decided to go back to school and got a GED and then got her diploma. She then got a Bachelor’s, three Master’s then a PhD and now she is a clinical psychologist.
Was she a millionaire before she did all of that? What business was it?

Temporary help industry plus real estate. When she was twenty-something years old, she was one of the first women ever to walk into a bank to get a home loan and they said, “Where’s your husband?” She says, “He’s probably at work but I’m with myself.” The realities are, it was hard for her to even get loans at the very beginning because it wasn’t done back in that time in the ’50s. What’s interesting is that she always looked at what was possible and not the obstacle in front of her.
What was the most adversity you’ve ever faced, either personally or professionally and how did you get through that?
Every project I take is adversity because I didn’t know anything about the industry when I started. When I wrote my first book, it was called The Millionaire Mentor. I was turned down by 268 publishers, agents and distributors in a row and the 269th one said, “We’ll do your book. Change the title, the beginning, the middle and the end.”
I can’t write. I got a ghostwriter who breathed life into it and it went on to become a global best-selling international book, selling gazillion copies. That was the platform that started me to sell 100 books later but if I had quit after 50, 80, 100 or 212, I wouldn’t have got to where I am. It’s the stickability factor that always keeps me going.
Making a movie, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. It took six years, trials, tribulations, ups, downs and everything but now we’re a success. People will look at the success. They have no idea the journey behind it and I never tell people when I’m in it. Here’s what I learned. If you tell people the drama that you’re going through when you’re in the middle of it, you’re bitching and complaining. When you come out the other side and tell people what you went through, you look like a hero.
That’s Zig’s old saying. “When you bitch and complain, 80% don’t care and 20% are happy that you’re going through it.” Nobody cares about that. I love how you said when we have that imagery of bridging the gap and crossing that bridge. I almost feel like you were never at the foot of the bridge because you always saw yourself at the other side of the bridge. Was there any time in your life where you said, “Woe is me, I can’t do it? I’m in a crappy position.” Has that ever been in your mind or in your life ever?
All of that except I don’t listen to it for more than seconds. The ideas we all have stinking thinking. Here’s a fact, a guy named Bob Proctor for being the secret. He and I wrote a book together, Think and Grow Rich: Thoughts are Things. We ran and interviewed everyone from Holocaust survivors to the guy who started JetBlue Airlines to find out how thoughts become things.
We realized that thoughts are not things. Only thoughts backed by action become things. A Harvard scientist proved to us that we have 64,000 thoughts a day and the majority of them are called ANTs, Automatic Negative Thoughts. They’re the reptilian part of your brain to protect you, to keep you safe. If you walked out of a cave, a dinosaur wouldn’t eat you. The bottom line is that if we have 64,000 thoughts, the majority are negative, everything would be chaos for our life if thoughts were things but it’s only the thoughts we take action on becoming our reality. I’m very careful not to buy into the plots and I take action towards the positive ones.
We are here with Dr. Greg Reid. You’ve been dropping some bombs on us. For those of you who are sitting there searching and saying, “How do I get from where I am to where I want to be and from who I am to who I wish to become,” where can they find you?
GregReid.com. Go to Instagram @GregSReid. Follow me.
We are getting ready to do knowledge through the decades. Greg is an influencer. He’s a worldwide sensation. Best-selling author, filmmaker and published in over a hundred books. This guy spits knowledge. I am sure that you got some attitude from Greg. Can’t we all learn to adapt and embrace what Greg’s telling us? One thing I didn’t get to that I wanted to make sure we did was this thing called CPC. That’s our Gappers. That’s what we call them. They need to know this. Please tell us a little bit about what’s going on with CPC.
Work your strengths and deal with your weaknesses. Stop complaining about what you don't have and find a way to fill that gap. Click To TweetI wrote a book called Wealth Made Easy. I interviewed people worth $100 million to $1 billion for three years just sat down with the top 1%. I realized that they taught me something called CPC. It stands for Clues Patterns Choices. This is the single most powerful tool that I can use in business and life. I’m going to share it with everybody.
It’s about accountability and responsibility for every single thing that happens. Stop blaming other people and it works like this. If I go out on a first date, I’m a single guy and the woman shows up twenty minutes late, that’s a clue. If I go on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th date and she’s twenty minutes late each time, that is a pattern. Now it is my choice. I deal with it, adjust it, yell at her and break up with her but it’s not her fault.
She’s just late. It’s not my job to change her. How many times have we seen someone with a bad reputation in business then cheat a friend of ours, then we do business with them because we think it will be different this time? When things go sour, we’re mad at that person. We saw the clue and pattern but we made a choice. We got to sleep in our own bed. It’s the same thing as seeing a rattlesnake rattle, bite your kid sister and then you go to pet it and it bites you and you’re mad at the snake. It is time to start having accountability and responsibility to pay attention to clues, patterns and choices.
We talk about attitude awareness. It’s important to look at the clues, patterns and choices of others but isn’t it the most important to look at the clues and patterns of yourself? “I’m eating a whole cake again. I drank half, a fifth of scotch.” That’s a pattern. That’s a $1 million piece of business advice that our Gappers got for free. That’s so cool. We’re going to do this thing called knowledge through the decades. This is fun. I’m going to put you on the spot. I want you to speak from your heart and your gut. What we do is we take you through your life and you’re in your 50s.
We’re going to take you from 0 to 50 and we’re going to walk you in decades and I ask you what the attitude lesson of that time in your life was. Maybe it’s not in your life. Maybe it’s in somebody else’s. What I want to ask you is this. I don’t know if you remember but you’re nuts enough that you may remember being born but what’s the attitude lesson of the newborn, of birth? A nephew, niece or a baby that you ever saw. I think you said you have a child.
I have a kid and I would say, it’s the naivety that everyone’s born in this world. They’re not Christian or Muslim. They’re not Black or White. We’re trained. Every thought that we have is something that we’ve been conditioned to. When I think of the newborn, I think of a clean slate of an opportunity. Let them think on their own and give them all the information so they can choose wisely.
That’s beautiful. We haven’t had that answer. We’ve had a lot of people. I love it. The naivety and the clean slate. Who’s to say that every morning that you wake up, you shouldn’t be reborn and start with a clean slate and get rid of all the crap that has been hitting you. You were ten years old. I’m sure you were very annoying. That puts you in about third grade. I’m sure your teachers are like, “What am I going to do with this kid?” Do you remember being ten? I’d love to know what school you were at. If you remember your teacher, we’d love to know if you got her name. What was the attitude lesson you learned at ten years old? I think that puts you in about third grade.
She had an initial P like Mrs. P. I don’t remember her name. It was here in San Diego along the beach and it was really cool because our view was the ocean where we could go watch the whales come by and things of this nature. I also remember all my report cards. I was always feeling fearful because I knew I would get such bad grades.
I remember I got D’s, F’s and C’s my entire life. I’ve never had a straight-A report card ever in my existence of being on this planet. I always thought that I was what people claimed I would be on my report card but I knew in my heart of heart I wasn’t what they were defining me as. It was a frustrating feeling of going gap but that’s not me. There’s a thing on the internet that says, “Because a fish cannot climb a tree, it doesn’t mean the fish is stupid. It not in its element.” That’s how I felt.
I’m sure you studied Les Brown. One of his big sayings is, “To never let somebody’s opinion become the definition of you.” For our Gappers out there, some of you may be suffering. What may be holding you back from crossing the bridge to who you want to become or to where you want to go, is it’s quite possible that you feel like Greg did, is that other people’s opinions and projections, that’s what’s holding you back. You feel deep down inside that, “I’m not what other people say and I am more than how I’m defined.” I’m going to go create my own definition. You knew that at ten, which is lucky for you because there are people walking around our age who still fight that, which is crazy.
Les Brown baptized my son. He’s one of my closest friends.

I attended a four-day deal with Les and he’s so powerful. He walks up and he puts his hand. He says, “You are anointed. You need to do this. Glenn Bill, I’m telling you,” then he opens his eyes and I’m like, “I better get on that stage.” I came strongly to Les’s thing. He recognized me and he’s unbelievable. He’s meant so much to me.
Now you’re through puberty, you’re barely through high school and now you’re twenty. Can you remember number one, your 20 or 21st birthday? I would love to know what you were doing at twenty, which I think is the answer and then what was the attitude lesson if you walked yourself back to being twenty? What did you learn?
I was a party, unbelievably messed up twenty-year-old. I remember my 21st birthday going into TGI Fridays. I was so proud because I was getting drinks for everyone and the bartender was so mad at me because I’ve already been going there with a fake ID for years and the fact that I was actually 21. He goes, “You could’ve gotten me in all this trouble.” When I was 24, I got sober.
That 21st birthday was obviously a crap storm. No wonder you’re so happy. No booze for that long. I always believe I’ve been through AA and I’ve taken a lot of people to AA. I still drink. Why aren’t we teaching that principle in high school?
If nothing else, that’s the process and the steps are. I’m not a Bible-thumping guy. I’m a big AA guy. I happen to believe in myself. That’s what I needed so I never project and I very rarely share even what I did. That was a sneak glimpse of something.
We’re grateful and congratulations because my guess is half of my readers probably wish they had the token. The twenties were good. Now you’re clean and clear. You’re like, “I’m going to start to kick some ass,” and then you hit 30. Where were you at 30? What were you doing at 30 and what was the attitude lesson at 30? I’m guessing that’s when you were ramping up hard.
The thirties were great. All of it has been great but the 30s were awesome. I was running a company. I got headhunted in the same industry. That was my late-20s, early-30s and they put me in charge of 68 employees plus a whole manufacturing thing. They gave me this giant office, a company Ferrari and Porsche stock options.
I remember I had this giant office and I put a conference table as my desk. Then I made stairs where you had to walk up into my office because it was all that ego. This girl was eighteen years old, she walked up and she went, “Is this your office?” I go, “Yeah.” She goes, “Is that your red Ferrari?” I go, “Yeah.” She goes, “Is this your table?” I go, “Yeah.” She goes, “Your penis must be this big.”
I looked at it. I go, “I don’t know you, but you just changed my life. Thank you.” To this day, I wish I knew who that was. She walked out and I called the staff that said, “Come take this table thing out.” That’s the day everything changed and that’s the day my life changed because I stopped living a dream that I saw on The Wolf of Wall Street type of stuff. I started becoming the person I wanted to be rather than the person I wanted the world to be projected.
One of the things I always tell people is, “Your world changed because not at a Tony Robbins seminar because a normal person walked in and said something to you. I think that a lot of us have had our lives changed when somebody makes an offhand comment who’s not famous, not considered a prophet or whatever.
Just the normal everyday Joe. Has said something that boom changed your life. One of the things I want to do is get those stories and publish that because it’s so true that what you say to somebody could be life-changing. I think we all need to know that we have that power within us each and every single day without even trying.
Surround yourself with people that are getting the results you want for yourself. Click To TweetEveryone you meet will know something you don’t know. Back to the Tony Robbins thing, it was an interesting story about that. When I was working at that corporation, I was listening to Personal Power. I remember at the end of it. It says, “You probably started this with other people. You’re the only person left.” I decided to quit that dream job and start my own business and that’s how I made the millions.
It was so scary. I literally gave back the cars and the thing and I went all in. When I went to sign the lease for my first place, they gave me an assigned parking space. As I pulled in, it said Tony Robbins on it. I go, “What?” He was walking up. I go, “What is this?” He goes, “I’m leaving to a different place but my whole office is staying here. You’re getting my spot.” I go, “I just listened. What’s the odds that I started this because of this,” and he looks at me, he goes, “Keep going, Greg.” Is that great?
That’s certainly the law of attraction and the secret. All wrapped up into one. Unbelievable story. I love it. The 30s were great. You’re rocking and rolling. You got your own thing and then you go, “I’m turning 40.” My guess is you didn’t care that you were 40 but we’d love to know where you were. Do you remember your 40th birthday? Who was around you? What were you thinking? What was going on in your head and what was the attitude lesson at 40?
The 40s were great. At 39, 40, right at that age, I sold that business. I had a boatload of money and nothing but free time. It was interesting. I took years off. I retired and basically played tennis and golf and goofed off. Someone said, “How did you pull that off, not being able to read and write, being all this stuff.” I said, “I listened to these tapes and I went to these seminars and stuff.”
They asked me to speak at a university here in San Diego and then they passed me around like a joint at a Grateful Dead concert at every university. Finally, a kid came up and said, “You should write a book.” I go, “That’s a great goal because I’ve never really written one.” I went on that mission where I got turned down 268 times and completely transformed my life and here we are now. The 40s were the most pivotal time.
The message is that it’s never too late to change. It’s never too late to start and there is always something else.
I want to share something. This is very powerful and it has to do with Les. The only thing I did differently is I honored my mentors by following through and this is what I mean. When I wanted to be a speaker, I hunted down Les before I knew him. I said, “Mr. Brown, I want to be a great speaker. Would you give me one nugget of something I could do differently,” and he did.
I applied it and I found him a month later and said, “Mr. Brown, I met you a month ago. I asked for a nugget. You gave it to me. Here’s what I did. What should I do next, sir?” What’s the chance of him giving me that second nugget? One hundred percent because no one’s ever done that. Now Les calls me for the nuggets but the bottom line is that we’ve created this synergetic thing by honoring your mentors by following through.
Attitude booster number five whether you know it or not, is to have a mentor. Copy him or her. Understanding how to approach your mentor, what to give to a mentor and how to be a value to a mentor. That’s all in month number five, which we’re producing, which is cool. What a great story. I encourage all of our Gappers. The first thing you should do is to find a mentor or get a nugget and then act on it, which is great. We’re going to round this thing down because we’re about done and you’ve been so giving and you’ve been dropping big bombs on us. It’s been so great. I know that you’re going to change some Gapper’s lives and I hope you guys all look up Greg Reid.
I hope you all hit them on LinkedIn. I hope you all message him and hit him on Twitter. Tell him what it meant and it will hopefully be fun for you to get some new feedback. Now, you turned 50. Who were you with at 50? What restaurant did you go to if you did? What did you do on your 50th birthday? What was going through your head and you said, “I’m half a century. What’s in store for me for the next half?” Tell us the attitude lesson of turning 50 and what’s going on with you now?
I can remember that one because it was a surprise party. I went to a fancy hotel and all my friends and family were there. It was one of those fancy brunch types of things. It was spectacular. My former wife gave me a Corvette for my birthday. It was pretty amazing. I got the greatest ex-wife in the world. I know people don’t say that in California. You don’t have to hate each other. We’re still trying to dig each other in a great way. We got a kid together. I’ve got an amazing ex-wife. If you ever want to interview someone, she’d be next on your list?
What’s her name?
Allyn Reid. Absolutely amazing thought leader. It was interesting. From that time of my 50s, I’ve gotten more things accomplished than I had in the works in my 40s. Now it feels like everything’s coming to fruition. All these accolades, all they are is a by-product of my 40s of planting the seed. It’s like a fruit tree. I planted a boatload of fruit trees when I was 40 and now I’m getting all this fruit.
You have given us fruit. We are eating the nectar of Greg Reid. It’s so powerful and we are so thankful that you shared your attitude with us, that you helped us navigate the bridge and helped us bridge the gap. You helped us get from who we are to who we want to become, from where we are to where we want to be.
Please subscribe and share. Please follow Greg, buy his books and listen to his stuff. I know you got stuff on YouTube. I’ve been checking out some of that. Unbelievable. Incredible speaker. I loved the story you told about. I think it was Evander Holyfield at the United Nations. Check out that on YouTube. It’s unreal. Greg, I’m so grateful to you. Is there anyone last thing that you’d like to leave our Gappers with? One last thought, one last word of encouragement and then we’re going to let you go enjoy San Diego.

The secret is to surround ourselves with people that are getting the results that you want for yourself and then here’s a big word, today. What does that mean? When I wanted to be a best-selling author, I went to Barnes & Noble and I bought every best-selling book. I didn’t want to be a great writing author. I told you I can’t write.
I went to those people and said, “How did you get that best-seller status?” I duplicated those efforts and here we are now. When I went to Africa to climb in the summit, Mount Kilimanjaro, I did not ask a dope-smoking surfer here in California to take me to the roof of Africa. I found a Sherpa, the porters that have climbed it 900 times.
Wherever they put their boot print, I put my boot print. I followed successful actions. What that also means is if I was going to open a brand-new restaurant chain, even though my close buddy and mentor of mine started Chuck E. Cheese, I probably wouldn’t ask him because he did it years ago. I’d say, “Who’s doing In-N-Out or Five Guys ?” I’m getting the results I want for myself and duplicate those same efforts with their own spin. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. The secret is just simply doing it for yourself and put a new hubcap on it.
Greg, thanks for giving us a new hubcap on our attitude. We do appreciate you. God bless you and much success to you and if I can ever be at service, let me know.
Keep smiling.
Thanks. We’ll see you later. This is Glenn Bill with Get Attitude thanking Greg Reid for his time.
Important Links
- https://LinkTr.ee/GetAttitudePodcast
- Glenn@GlennBill.com
- JasonAaron.pro
- fm/adchoices
- Greg Reid
- Think and Grow Rich
- Chicken Soup for the Soul
- The Millionaire Mentor
- Think and Grow Rich: Thoughts are Things
- @GregSReid – Instagram
- Wealth Made Easy
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About Greg Reid
Award-Winning Author | Keynote Speaker | Film Producer
Greg is an entrepreneur known for his giving spirit and a knack for translating complicated situations into simple, digestible concepts.
As an action taking phenomenon, strategy turns into results fast and furious, and relationships are deep and rich in the space he orbits.
A firm believer in the role of win-win partnerships and making a difference in others to succeed.
He can be found having a great time brewing up inspiration, occasionally breaking into song and dance, and being of service to those around him.