Greg Furer on Why Mistakes Are a Good Thing

In this episode of the L3 Leadership Podcast, host Doug Smith interviews Greg Furer, President and CEO of Beratung Advisors. They discuss the origins of their friendship, the transformative power of personal growth and reflection, and the importance of making mistakes and taking risks. 

Greg emphasizes the need for a supportive community and authentic leadership, sharing insights on the vital role of mentors and mastermind groups. They also delve into intentional living, legacy, and the profound impact of parenting and personal relationships on one's journey. The conversation underscores the necessity of aligning one's life goals with financial planning and concludes with practical advice for leaders to take action and grow.

00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:37 The Beginning of a Friendship
02:20 Personal Growth Journey
04:27 Transforming Visions into Results
05:30 Political Involvement and Lessons Learned
06:44 The Power of Failure and Pain
11:51 Taking Risks and Entrepreneurial Leap
18:46 The Importance of Community and Mastermind Groups
31:46 Journaling and Self-Reflection
36:57 The Importance of Personal Annual Reports
37:44 Reflecting on Personal Milestones
38:04 The Value of Year-End Reviews
39:11 Leaving a Legacy Beyond Wealth
40:45 Learning from Failures
41:04 The Influence of Clint Hurdle
42:26 The Power of Love in Leadership
44:32 Parenting and Leadership Lessons
51:46 The Significance of Branding
56:38 Financial Planning and Goal Setting
59:36 The Role of Community and Coaches
01:02:33 Final Thoughts and Lightning Round

Learn more about Beratung Advisors on their website: beratungadvisors.com

The L3 Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Andocia Marketing Solutions. Andocia exists to bring leaders' visions to life. Visit https://andocia.com to learn more.

To find more leadership resources and helpful content for your leadership journey, check out our website at https://l3leadership.org/ today.

Transcript

Doug Smith: 0:00

Hey, leader, and welcome to another episode of the L three Leadership Podcast, where we are obsessed with helping you grow to your maximum potential and to maximize the impact of your leadership. My name is Doug Smith, and I'm your host. And we recorded today's episode in the Bare Tongue Advisor Studios. And this week's episode, you're gonna hear my interview with my longtime friend Greg Fear . He is the CEO and founder of Bare Tongue Advisors. And as I mentioned, he's been one of my closest friends over the last decade. He originally came to an event that Laura and I hosted through L three Leadership and immediately scheduled lunch with me. And I'll never forget it, I sat down to lunch with him and the first thing he said to me, he said, listen, I have listened to all 94 episodes of your podcast and the last 72 hours. And that was the beginning of an incredible friendship. And Greg is one of the most interesting people I've ever met in the entire world. He is filled with wisdom and knowledge, and I think you're gonna love this episode. We talk about everything you can possibly imagine, and I think you're gonna fall in love with Greg. So enjoy the conversation and I'll be back at the end with a few announcements. Well , here we go, Greg. Fear , this has been long, long overdue. I'm over 400 episodes in , I don't know how I haven't interviewed you yet, <laugh> , but I think we were waiting for the studio. Man. This is a studio. Uh, we are live from the bare tongue , uh, studio. Is that what you call it? Or is it , I'm sure you have some fancy name for it.

Greg Furer: 1:15

Oh , bar Tongue Studios.

Doug Smith: 1:16

So , uh, but welcome. It's an honor to to have a conversation with you and with our wealth and and depth of our friendship, we could go a billion different directions, and you have so much inside of you that I wanna draw out. And , uh, you're the president and CEO of Bar Tongue Advisors, which we'll talk more about later. But I wanna start really where our friendship started and we met actually at an L three event, maybe briefly, and you reached out to me and said, Hey, let's grab lunch. I had no idea who you were. I thought , great, I'll meet this guy. And I'll never forget, we sat down at Legends on the North side <laugh>. And the first, I don't even know if you said hi, you're just like, I, I followed your podcast and I listened to 79 episodes in the last three days. I was like, is that possible <laugh> ? And uh , and at that moment I'm like, man, there's something special about this guy. Talk to us about that moment. And, and I want to dive into personal growth, but yeah. Yeah.

Greg Furer: 2:01

And I'll actually correct that story a little bit. You're gonna remember this as soon as I say it . It was actually the first time you interacted with , was it email? And the email that I just listed all 79 episodes in three days, was that email , okay , can we have lunch? And you were like, is this guy for real? Right, right. And then we sat down lunch. As soon as we sat down lunch, it was lunch North Shore. So I hadn't even gone to an L three event that point in time. And , and

Doug Smith: 2:22

Oh man , I just blew all of that <laugh> . No,

Greg Furer: 2:24

No, no , no . That's , but the reason why was because my, my brother-in-law had been doing an L three event and told me to listen to your podcast to hear a particular speaker. And then I listened to one speaker, and then I was like, well, there's 79 episodes at that point in time, why not Over the next 72 hours? Um , I was also, and I think you know this, I was in a really bad place in my life at that point in time. And so when I need a , a little bit of a , a , a something to jerk behind that space , uh, it's usually leadership podcast. So it came, you know, God had a , a purpose at that time. But <laugh> , I remember, you know, I showed up in my notebook and I immediately started asking you questions. And , and I remember you saying like, a while after, tell somebody else, there was no small talk. Yes. It was just, let's get right down to it. Right.

Doug Smith: 3:06

Which I love, man. I mean, I, I felt as soon as we we met, man , it was like, we are kindred spirits. And man, you could see the passion and personal growth for you. Let's just get down to business. And that's actually one I wanna talk about first is, man, I've been on a personal growth journey and it's probably my number one passion in life is I wanna help other people grow. Talk to us about your growth journey, man. What are some things that you've done and what kind of started that journey in you?

Greg Furer: 3:26

Yeah. You know, one of my , uh, mentors is actually, funny enough, this actually happened L three one day , uh, a mentor of mine and I were talking and he said, Greg, and I'm speaking in third person, 'cause this is him talking to me. He said, Greg, I boiled it down that successful people, there's one difference. They just simply make more mistakes than unsuccessful people. And it's just like you ever have , like somebody just tell you one thing and like all times stopped and I can like close my eyes and go back to that moment. I know exactly where I was <laugh> at L three one day . Like remember the temperature of the room. I can remember the conversation I had right before that, and I was like, wow, that's the truth. And so my journey's been a journey of mistakes. And I always like to say like, I've made more mistakes than anyone I know. I'm sure there's somebody out there that's made more mistakes, but it's just been constant. But I look at every mistake as a gift from God. And so I made mistakes that led me up to that moment that you and I met. But had I not made those mistakes, we would've never have met. Yeah . So those battle scars are gifts from God that we can learn from. And then what's awesome is once we make those mistakes, it's like touching a hot stove. You could tell me all you want not to touch a hot stove, but sometimes, and maybe you're wired differently and you just listen to rules. I gotta touch the hot stove for myself to see if it's actually hot. Yeah. But once I touch a hot stove, I realize , holy crap, that bird, I don't wanna do that again. Or maybe I would do it differently next time. And , and so that's really been my journey and my growth has been , uh, let's go and try it and see if it works. So one of the things we say in our team is MVP minimum viable product, but we talked about 80%. If it's 80%, it's ready to go. And a lot of times we launch before 80%. So we're constantly trying to figure things out by doing, and we'll get a better lesson than if we sit around and try to understand at,

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Greg Furer: 6:22

Back at another point in my life, I was really involved in politics, right? I , I used to love politics. Uh , my passion for everything was around politics. It's not anymore. And so I would run campaigns and I remember as young staffers on some larger campaigns and running some of the smaller campaigns, we would sit around and try to understand what the electorate thought. And I couldn't wrap my head around that. Somebody wouldn't know who their state representative or state senator is. <laugh>. Like, I just literally, I thought that was like, people are making it up. They wouldn't know who the Supreme Court is. Like, come on, everyone knows that the justice on the Supreme Court. So we were sitting in a room trying to understand how somebody that has four kids that doesn't care about politics, what their psychology is to go into the booth. So the only way you can figure it out is by testing it. Mm . And I've tried to bring that in that journey into there , uh, throughout everything I've done with my leadership. Yeah ,

Doug Smith: 7:12

It's interesting. Someone recently asked me when they were interviewing me for a podcast, they said, you know , Doug, what's been the greatest source of growth in your life? And again, passionate about personal growth, you know , I've listened to a gazillion podcasts, audio books , read a thousand books. But when I really reflected on it, man , it was the suffering I've gone through. It was the failures. It's just what you're saying. And , and I know you have a similar passion for all of those things, but would you agree, like, would you say the greatest source in growth in your life really has been those failures in those hard times?

Greg Furer: 7:38

I , I couldn't agree more. And Doug, even just to you, I , you and I have talked about surround a campfire the one time, you know, I, I said like, you gotta tell your story. Mm . And I actually told you there was a leader one time, I told me they were jealous of the pain you had in your life. They were dead seriously, because they were , I don't have that story. Yeah . But I think what they were trying to say, and what they didn't understand is, and the pain is where there's growth. The , the , the worst things that ever happened to me in my life have always brought, so, like one of the worst things that ever happened in our lives, we had two failed adoptions. Mm-hmm . You know , that painted suffering, learning to pray over the person was trying to take my child away. That changed everything. Hmm . And it brought my marriage closer. Mm-hmm . And maybe a better leader and maybe a better husband. And do I wanna go through that again? No, but when I look at mistakes and I look at things I would do differently, there are very few regrets I have in life because the mistakes I made made me the person I am today. Yeah . And I've been reading leadership books, you know, this <laugh> , uh, I actually can't tell you because before my memory I was leading to , and my daughter's the same way , went home from the hospital. She was listening to a leadership book. I don't know when her memory's gonna be, but there's gonna be a memory of leadership books. You know, she actually came to an L three event when she was still only six months old. We just had her at Bare Tongue University listening to speakers. Right. I from the young age am doing that, but that's not what led to the success. It's just a tool. Yes. It's just a tool. What it is, is applying that tool. Doug, you and I have talked about this. You had a mentor call you out that you used to read the books, but not do the workbooks

Doug Smith: 9:11

<laugh> . Yep . Yep .

Greg Furer: 9:13

And you know, one of my personal disciplines is I do a book report at every book. I I'm not gonna spend four to five hours of my life on something and not get ROI out of it. So if I'm gonna read a book, I'm gonna apply the principles to it. And I'm really big on that. And I figured out how to use four senses. I still haven't figured out how to do a scratch and sniff leadership book. If anyone's listening to this and you go and create scratch and sniff leadership books because the power of smell is important, I will buy them. But figure out how to do an audible, 'cause I'm an audible based learner, but like, when I listen to a book, I'm listening to my ears, and then when I write notes, I got touch and I got sight , and then I talk to others about the book I've read. So I'm now evoking all my senses as I write a book report. I'm continuing to invoke my senses so that I can have that knowledge of that book to where I go in the future. But at the end of the day, you only learn from that book by applying.

Doug Smith: 10:03

Hmm . Yeah.

Greg Furer: 10:04

Because I, you know, it's the same thing in the church world. Like, you go and listen to scripture from a , a pastor talking about a church, but if you don't go apply that in your life, it's never gonna invoke what that scripture means.

Doug Smith: 10:15

No, that's so good, man. I, I , I was interviewing this guy named Chad Willerson, and I asked him something like, Hey, what separates you from all the other entrepreneurs? And he just said, I think my ability to take action quicker on the principles that I learned , and I'm not afraid to undo something that I've done forever. If there's a better way of doing something, I'm gonna instantly implement that. And that's just been in my head that speed of like, Hey, I may have been, you know, reading books and not doing the workbooks forever, but hey, I'm gonna change that right now. I'm gonna start doing book reports like that. That ability to take action immediately is such a separator.

Greg Furer: 10:45

Yeah . I have to say this. So a lot of people when they first meet me, they have a different reaction, right? <laugh> , there's actually a mentor who said to , to meet Greg Fers , to hate him , know Greg Furs to love him . But I was like, what does that mean? Now I kind of get it right . I have a bad first brush , doesn't matter. But one of the things that people think about me is that I will not change. Right? Mm . And so we just slaughter two sacred cows. That's an EOS term for the things in your company that you won't change, right? So we actually created our core values before our company ever started, and we just recently changed one of our core values. And we have a process we use for our clients that we just recently changed. And so, by the way, I follow him on LinkedIn, he's a great follow. Yeah . But that really speaks to me because you have to be willing to change and try things. And I think that what that mentor was saying to me is, they make more mistakes. It's because they take more swings. There's a famous Wayne Gretzky saying, right? You only make the shots you take, right? Yep . You're gonna miss a hundred percent of the shots. You don't take it . What I see is people are so afraid to fail, And we have grace. Grace is not about being safe. Grace is about taking risks. And I think that that is what I, you know, there's that what I put on a billboard, what my answer is never gonna be this one, but it , it could be something like that. Like make mistakes. Yeah. It just wouldn't settle well . Right? So that's not my answer, but it's like, man, if we could just make mistakes, if every person could get comfortable with making mistakes, that's the beauty of capitalism. Yeah.

Doug Smith: 12:16

Well that , but why don't people, 'cause they're afraid, right? They're afraid of what's on the other side. What if I fail? And they always, by the way, think they're gonna fail. They never really think that they'll succeed you. And we're gonna talk about mastermind groups in the power of those. But, you know, one thing that we immediately did after we met is we jumped into a mastermind group together. We'd been together for almost a decade, which is crazy. Uh, but I remember you were in the corporate world, you were working a comfortable job. I'm sure it was comfortable. And , uh, but you had this dream in your heart of creating your own advisory firm, and we're actually sitting in the fruit of that. But that was a huge risk. I mean, that's, no, just, Hey, I'm just gonna leave my corporate job and , you know, do this. Walk us through that. Now, you may be prone to, to taking risks mm-hmm <affirmative> . But I , I feel there's so many people listening and watching to this, that they have that dream, but they're in a comfortable job, their comfortable lifestyle. And you know, before they know it, 20 or 30 years are gonna go by. And , and their biggest regret is gonna be that they didn't jump. What was that like for you? And what did you learn?

Greg Furer: 13:07

Yeah. So I think there's, I am a natural risk taker, but I'm not a risk taker. I'm a calculated risk taker. And every entrepreneur I've ever met that's successful is a calculated risk taker. So there's always this, like, you get this advice a lot of times, leadership books . It's like, if you think you're ready to launch, you're already too late. And like I, a lot of times give that advice to somebody, but I actually have to get the advice from mentors like the opposite. Like, Greg, wait a little bit longer till you take action. So, I mean, there's always that balance. You gotta understand. But I think the reason why a lot of people don't take risks, it's say they're not prone to taking risk , is they've never done the calculation of the risk. And so there's a famous story you love to tell that John Maxwell tells about a gentleman who walked up to John Maxwell after speaking with that , said, I wanna do what you do for a living. Yep . He says , I understand you wanna do what I do for a living, but do you wanna do what I did to get here? Right. And I'm probably butchering that up a little bit. No,

Doug Smith: 14:03

That's it.

Greg Furer: 14:03

But the , but the , the key here is the price you want to pay. And so we talk a lot about this in our mastermind group. What's the price you're willing to pay, right? What's the price, the cost of discipleship to follow Christ ? What's that? What's the price you're willing to pay? Here's the problem. When I say calculate it, there would be more entrepreneurs in this world if you could tell them exactly what that calculation is. Hmm . I remember sitting in a room with my wife saying , we're gonna take our entire life savings. We're gonna dump it in this business based upon this dream. Right. And, and , and I told her all the reasons why I felt led to do it. And I went through her. Dad was an entrepreneur that left a big nice job and, and started his own business. And so was my dad. We lived that life. We lived where, you know, there was times where we had to pull back and some of the spending in our family and , and things we couldn't get because of the entrepreneurial life, but she still didn't fully understand it till six or seven years later. Mm . Because you can't ultimately calculate the price. So calculated risk doesn't mean I know what the price is. It means I have an expectation of what the price is. So I think that a lot of people when they , they start doing this calculated risk, they wanna know by definition, it's not risk if you know what it is. So you could be all the probabilities in the world , it doesn't matter. Like if I know that that plane's gonna go down, I'm not gonna get in a plane, but there's a chance every time I get a plane, even though it's the safest form of travel, by definition, it's risk. Risk is what you do not know. Hmm . So when I say it's calculated risk, you just have an expectation of what could happen. So I think what, what I want leaders to hear out there is when you're afraid of taking risks, it's because you haven't looked at what the possibilities , what does paying a price, what could it possibly look like? Yeah. But you'll never know until you pay the price. That question mark of what price. And so what you have to ask yourself, it's not a number what price I'm gonna pay. It's what pain, what is my threshold of pain that I'm willing to endure? So I just talked to a leader last week that was talking about launching your own business. And I said, how passionate are you about that? And I said, well, I really like this. I said , ask how knowledgeable you are . Ask what skill sets you're, how passionate are you about this? If you literally get to the point where like, you are frustrated every day and you hate what you're doing, are you so passionate about that purpose that you're gonna go through it? That's what paying the price is. It's how much pain you're wor willing to endure. And that's what that entrepreneurial leap of faith felt like to me. You know, I I could never completely quantify it, but my wife and I burned the boats. Yeah . And we said, we are going to do this no matter what the price we have to pay. That's what making that leap of faith feels like. And has it been easy? No, it has not. There's been many times I wanna quit many times along the way. And , and , and I think a lot of times you look at people that made the , the leap and you see them successful. I was just talking to a very successful business owner that has a business that a lot of people envy and telling me that times are so tough that he's not taking a pay from his business. That he's taken all these cuts. But from the outside, this person's had a business for 15 years. That is from all purposes an unbelievable business. Gino Wickman always talks about the 10 year business cycle. You ever heard of that? Mm-hmm . So Gino Wickman talks about a 10 year business cycle. There's gonna be two terrific years. Like it's gonna be unbelievable. I can't believe we blew our numbers outta the water. We don't know how we did it. Right. There's gonna be six good years or average years, and there's gonna be two horrific years. Like you're actually on the verge of bankruptcy. You are on the verge of collapsing. And it's almost like you can set your watch that over 10 years. You just don't know when they're gonna come. Maybe those two come right in away for a lot of businesses. It was covid in the last 10 years. Right. The covid shutdown . Yeah . You're gonna have those. So how do you handle those two terrible years? That's the price you're gonna pay.

Doug Smith: 18:21

Yeah. And Greg, I know you're what, six or seven years into this journey yourself? So it's not like you've been doing this for decades, but you've mentioned there's many times that you've wanted to give up. And man , I see so many leaders give up way too early. In fact, I , I close every episode by saying the same thing. I said, leader, don't quit. Keep leading the world. Desperately needs your leadership. And I absolutely believe that the world needs more leaders who are tenacious and won't quit and will go to their finish line. What advice do you have for people or what, or maybe some practices you have in your life that have enabled you in those tough times where you do wanna quit and throwing in the towel? What's enabled you to push through those and get through?

Greg Furer: 18:52

Yeah. I mean, Doug, you know this, but , um, was it two years ago roughly? It was round ash Wednesday. Uh , it's just how I remember when it was. Um , I actually was physically curled up on a ball on my couch. Hmm . Could not physically move. Not something I ever thought would happen to me. I I had a panic attack. The weight of the vision of what I was trying to , uh, achieve in my, my business. I saw no way forward. Hmm . And at that point in time, I, I was ready to throw in a towel. I was ready to give up running my own business. I was ready to go back to work for somebody else. The only way I got through that is first and foremost, by the grace of God. So, turning to God in those moments, my yoke may be heavy, but my burden is light when I give that yoke to God. Yeah. So that is first and foremost. And if you're not a person of faith, I would not wanna be an entrepreneur. Hmm . I always look at, at , at like funerals and people aren't our faith. And I just feel like bad for them. Yeah. Because how do you deal with that without God? So that's the first and foremost. But God gives us other gift. And it is people. Yeah. You know, I think that , um, I , I had this point where I , I questioned my faith. And so during college, after college, there was a lot of pain in the church world for me. I'd seen a lot of bad things happen. And I said , organize religious stuff for me. I'm just gonna be , have a personal relationship with God and study and study and study. And I'm glad I went through that, by the way. 'cause I think one, if you don't question your faith, you don't have strong faith. But two, it led me to study. Like, what do I believe? Is it 'cause what I was taught? Or do I actually believe this? And , and I started studying all these different faiths, all these different traditions within my faith. And I realized one thing all my faith told me was, was I have to be around other believers. <laugh> , I gotta be around a community of people. Yes . I need a strong community. We weren't meant to do life alone. That's this quote that you say all the time. Yep . That I always love to say is we were not meant to do life alone. That's actually the core value. We just changed. Our team was together 'cause we're meant to do life together. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . We do life together. We celebrate the wins together. We celebrate everything in life together. We also share our pains together. Right . So the second thing that , so I got the grace of God. The second thing is people around me. And so when I was curled up on that couch, my wife immediately called one of my mentors. She didn't hesitate. She said, you gotta call Greg. So it was another business leader Calling me to say, you know what, Greg, I've been in your shoes. Hmm .

Doug Smith: 21:21

Wow.

Greg Furer: 21:22

And that's what it's been able, I have been able to build a community of other leaders that have been through the leadership pain. Other entrepreneurs that have gone before me. I stand on the shoulder of giants is one what my , my mentors always say. I totally agree with that. Like, I've been able to build myself around with people. And then it doesn't have to be somebody that created a Fortune 500 company. It doesn't even have to be somebody that created something. It could be a one person business. Just somebody that understands the pain is willing to listen, believe in you, be your cheerleader. They have unconditional love for you. One of the big things we say on our team all the time, and , and this comes from a , the one of the I we , my wife , I just did our top 50 most impactful meals. <laugh>.

Doug Smith: 22:10

Right . I love that man. I love

Greg Furer: 22:12

It . Uh , the weird just to relive them, right? Yeah. Oh, it's important. I could go on and on about the importance, like a theme of , of meal. Yeah . Whether you believe in sacraments or not, but there's a reason why the sacrament is a meal , right? Yeah . And just the power of being around other leaders. But you and I were blessed Yep . With a meal with Matt Keller. And you know exactly where it goes. I do it is my ,

Doug Smith: 22:33

Where did this make it? Yeah. Yeah. Where's this in the top 50

Greg Furer: 22:35

So much to my wife Sugar. This was number one. Yeah.

Doug Smith: 22:38

Yeah. It was . Sorry . Sorry, Amanda. Yeah .

Greg Furer: 22:40

I mean there was other things that like, and I talked to her . It wasn't like we had meals where we talked about our life goals and stuff, but there's just these certain sense of just like the vibrations happen . And so Matt Keller shares the comment fully known , fully loved, and fully challenged. And that changed everything. And , and our wall here we have, it's a big part of our mantra, it's part of our 4 1 2 vision for our company, is you want want everyone to be fully known, fully loved, and fully challenged. And what happens is, we go on about this in detail, but usually get two of the three. Right? Yeah . And so what I want is mentors that fully love me, that no matter what they love me for who I am, not because of the mistakes, not because of my identity, not 'cause of anything else. That they fully love me. They fully know the pros of my life and the cons of my life. They know where I sin. They know my failures. And they fully challenged me. And after that mentor did, he loved me in that moment. He knew me in that moment, but he also challenged me in that moment. And that's the only way I would survive. 'cause I'll tell you right now, if I didn't have that, I'd be six feet under the ground right now as we speak. Wow. And so having God one, two, but I'd be remiss when we talk about those people, the most important decision you make in your life. 'cause I don't believe we decide to follow Christ, but we could have that conversation. That's a ,

Doug Smith: 23:58

That's another podcast. That's for another day .

Greg Furer: 24:00

So I think the most important decision, the most important decision in your life is who you marry.

Doug Smith: 24:05

Yeah, absolutely.

Greg Furer: 24:06

Who , who God is to . And so ultimately that mentor's only on the phone. 'cause my wife was there. Yes. That's how I got through that. And so building this company, my wife has given up at sacrifice so much. I would make the argument she's actually sacrificed more because the fulfillment I get, the passion that I'm following in my company gets me through those tough times. And I keep trying to , uh, put this in my wife's heart that I want her to start a mastermind for the spouses of entrepreneurs.

Doug Smith: 24:38

Yes .

Greg Furer: 24:38

Yes . Because it is just one of the toughest things in life to understand. And then if you work with your spouse as an entrepreneur, she talks about all the time, like she knows things about the company that she shouldn't because she's my spouse. <laugh> . Right. And then like, she has to go to these environments and, and , and what she is sacrificed to follow our dreams to make the life that we want together. It's, it is, it's one of those things I always tell younger people, yes. Like, whatever you do, pick a spouse that is your team member. Because once God yolks you together, that's everything. It's more important in your children. It's more important in your business. It's more important than anything. Yeah.

Doug Smith: 25:19

I mean, mentor told me once, you know, marriage is the closest thing to heaven or hell you'll ever experience on this earth. And he couldn't be more. Right. And,

Greg Furer: 25:25

And , but sometimes it's both. Right. <laugh>, <laugh> ,

Doug Smith: 25:27

Uh , speak for yourself, <laugh>. I'm just joking. But , uh, I mean, even to think and grow rich with Napoleon Hill, like that is one of the key attributes. Like you have to have the right spouse, but even bigger than that, broader, like you said, it's , it's all about community. It's one of our values here at L three community. No leader should do life alone, but in community. And I remember reading a stat that really, again, part of me driving to build L three leadership was hearing Henry Cloud say that he, he meets with executives all over the country. He believes he's 80% of leaders don't have one single, not not a couple. One single person that they can confide in and and that fully knows them, loves them, and challenges them. And I just wanna say thank you personally. You've been a friend like that in my life. I don't always love the challenge part with you <laugh> , because you're a challenge sometimes a capital

Greg Furer: 26:12

C challenge , right?

Doug Smith: 26:12

Yeah. Yeah . Greg's a challenger by nature. But you always speak the truth and love. And I know I could go to a hundred other people and they may pat me on the back and say, great job, but you're actually gonna give it to me straight. Which I so appreciate. Um, but beyond your spouse, can you just talk more about the power of being in a mastermind group? You've been in several , uh, kind of different groups. Why, you know, I tell leaders, I believe every leader on the planet and their spouse, to your point, should be in a mastermind group. Uh, I've been one for 10 years. It's been so helpful. Why are they important? And what's been the impact on your life?

Greg Furer: 26:40

Yeah. I'm just gonna start this with whatever leaders . Listen to this . Find your tribe. Yes. Find your tribe and find it yesterday. I I just, man, I , I think the best explanation of masterminds ever goes back to Napoleon Hill. Mm-hmm <affirmative> . Uh , in his landmark work. We call it the gospel according to Uhon Hill here. Uh, and thinking grow rich. But there's, he talks about this vibrations and we just had this moment. This is not a recency bias. The , it , I had multiple people talked about this. So we do our annual Barton University, and you've , uh, been here almost every year except for this year with , with travel and everything. But , um, we sat around, there was this moment, and I, I very distinctively remember the moment and I heard God's voice like, this is our tribe. Wow . And multiple leaders, the vibrations of your mind when you're around other leaders has a multiplication impact that is not easily able to be explained. Hmm . But what we just talked about that being cooled up on the couch and the other down moments in my life, it's my mastermind. It's that tribe that helped me do this. So as I'm making these leaps of faith and I'm trying to calculate the risk, how do you calculate the risk without other people around you? Perception is reality. We judge every other person by their actions, but we judge ourselves by our intent. The only way to be judged by your actions is to surround you with a group of people that will fully know you, fully love you, and fully challenge you. Yes. It is one of the most important things we can do in our lives is to surround us. I don't care what you do for a living. I don't care if you're retired. I don't care if you don't view what you do as a vocation and you hate what you do. You have to have people around you . And I think this's as important to mention, so my wife joined a mastermind group. Right. It was a thing where I asked her to do it and I said, look dude , for six months, if it doesn't work, I'll do this other thing for you. Right. We had a partner , right ? Yes . And the reason why she didn't wanna join, she's like, Greg, I have great friends that fully know and fully love me and fully challenge me. I don't want more friends. And I said, there's a difference to your friends getting together versus a business meeting that you are around with the tent of fully knowing, fully loving and fully challenge . It is just different You could do with your friends. I actually strongly believe you should not do with your friends. Right. You're that maybe those people replace your friends that that's not here and or there. But you have to be around a setting where we are there for the implicit reason of fully know each other. Fully loving , fully challenging. We could do small talk some other time, right? Yeah. We could go and have fun some other time. You know, with our mastermind, we go and do retreats with our mastermind. We go and do things that are fun together. Right. Go on the boat. Right. Go to pirates games. Great stuff. There's time for that. But you , it's a business meeting. It's Doug Smith Incorporated . It's Greg Fear Incorporated . It is your board of directors Yeah . Of Doug Smith Incorporated . It's your board directors. And I believe it so strongly. And you are the same way. I'm not just in one type of group like that. Yep . I'm in five groups like that. <laugh> . 'cause I kick it enough, right? Yeah. And then I have my own advisory board on top of that and other things I do. And I'm always looking for that because with wise counsel , right? You , you have a bunch of wise counselors around you, your plan succeed, right? Yeah. And that's a , uh, a play on the proverb right there. But it's the truth. And , and you can't make wise decisions. And so yes, you wanna launch an 80%, yes, you wanna launch an MVP, but how do you get the MVP in 80%? Yeah. And yes, mistakes are a gift. But if I could limit some of the mistakes and if I could learn from others' mistakes. But the last part we're gonna leave with this is you will never, ever know yourself as well as people outside of you. And that's why you need a mastermind. Because nobody can do it alone. We were designed in our DNA to do life together.

Doug Smith: 30:40

Yeah, absolutely. And , and John Kotter once said, most people don't lead their lives. They accept them. And similar to your point, most people don't even realize they're drifting through life. And, you know, once you get a hold that you can live intentionally, that you can be more tomorrow than you were today, that, that you can actually have a life plan and think about what you want your life to look like at the end of your life. And every day can drive towards that. Like the excitement that brings in joy that that brings into your life. And not just into your life, into your marriage. I I , you know, someone once said the growth equals happiness. Like if you really want your life to be exciting, grow every day , grow in every area of your life. And once you start doing that, I guess this goes back to, you know, our first meeting. You don't wanna like just sit around and talk about nothing. It's like, man, well how could we grow? How could we get better? Like how can we make a bigger difference? And like, that's what makes true friendships so exciting and this back and forth. 'cause I know if I spend an hour with you at lunch, I'm gonna be better as a result of it. And that is awesome.

Greg Furer: 31:31

Sometimes that's the fun. Yeah. Right . Don't get wrong . I enjoy fun things. Right? Yeah. I love going on a boat. You've been on a boat, but guess what, we're on a boat. What do we end up talking about? Growth and development, right ? Yeah . Yeah . Because that's the thing. That's that vibration. When you get yourself around other people that think the same way, you can't help yourself. Uh , one of my mentors, we call it solve the world's problems. We get together once a month and we solve the world's problems. And it's kind of famous. Like my wife knows about it, his wife knows about it, our teams know about it, and we literally can't help ourselves. It's like my , one of my favorite dates on the calendars where we get to go solve the world's problems. And we just can't. We , we literally don't talk about our personal lives much at all. Yeah . He's a lot of people closest to like, we don't know much about our personal 'cause We don't care. 'cause it's that vibrations together and we just wanna whiteboard. Hmm . And we wanna solve the world's problems and we wanna look at our businesses. How can we grow? Because ultimately we wanna build stuff to have a better impact to change the world. Wow . And that's like, that to me is something that you can't get unless you design that intentionally. That's

Doug Smith: 32:31

Such a fascinating subject for our conversation, man. I, I might need to add that to date night for Laura and I with other couples. That's awesome. Uh, I want to to dive more into intentional living. We've been talking about personal growth , uh, you know, in our mastermind groups you mentioned we do retreats and things like that. And things that we try to introduce to leaders in mastermind group. A few , a few things. One is journaling. I want to hear your journaling journey and I'll end up asking five questions. So let's just stop here. Like, I encourage everyone to journal. My mentor encouraged me to journal in 2004, Larry Bettencourt . I thought it was a dumb idea, but I said, Hey, I'll try. It changed my life. And I I know you had a similar reaction. So talk to me about your journaling journey, man. Yeah.

Greg Furer: 33:06

So I've journaled since I was young. Um , there was a show called Doogie Hauser , MD <laugh>.

Doug Smith: 33:12

Yep .

Greg Furer: 33:12

And I, we had a Tandy , if anyone listens , remembers a Tandy computer. Nope . That was very similar to what he did. We were like, my dad for some reason put money into technology to better ourselves. And like we had a computer before, like other, but it was like this Tandy thing and it was like, it was called Word perfect. And it had this cursor, it looked like Doogie Hower md. And that's how I started journaling because I wanted to be Doogie Hauser, md. Okay . Um, and then that journaling practice continued throughout my life. Sporadically. Like my grandfather died that time. It was the toughest thing I'd ever dealt with. I journaled through that. Right. Or sometimes I'd feel like God was wrestling something inside of me. I would journal through, but it was never consistent. Hmm . And every once in a while I'd read a leadership book like , oh , I'm gonna start journaling. I wouldn't do it. I tried journaling by hand. It didn't really work. And most of this because of Doogie , Hower MD was on the computer. So Doug, at the point in time where we met, when we started talking about journaling, I was like, Doug, I journal, I journal when I need to work through stuff and it's all on Evernote. Right. And , uh, you were like, what ? You had your notebook. Right. And I'm a big notebook guy. My dad was actually buried in his coffin with a yellow tablet. Huh . Uh , because he was f so famous for his yellow tablet. I didn't know that. Wow . Yeah . That's cool. So like, that was like a big thing. Like, wow . When you ask people Mom and dad, they would always talk about the yellow tablet he always had. So it wasn't great to me. Right. And I've just switched the remarkable like two years ago. Yeah . Which is probably, my wife refers to it as my <laugh> my emotional support dog. I don't go anywhere without it. I'm with you . It's , it's so important in my life. It's the same thing as yellow tablet . Right. It the same part. But you encouraged me to start doing it consistently and to start doing a notepad. And I remember being so like, I'm gonna do this just to prove Doug is wrong. Of course he would . Right . I'm gonna classic . I I literally wanted to do it to Spitey . Right. And so <laugh> it , it , it transformation transformed everything in my life. And I know distinctively when it started catching on was actually spiritual retreat that we had had together. And , uh, one of our, our mentors talked about different ways to hear God's voice. And , um, that journaling I did in that retreat changed it to a habit. But regardless of whether you journal every day, and I think this is the thing, and we talk about , so there's a , a leader, I don't wanna say their name, that a lot of people we know follow that I can't stand. And the reason go figure the reason why is he's so formulaic. Yeah. So I, I always teach people, here's the way I journal, but be a first rate version yourself, not a second rate version of me. Yeah. There's all different types of ways to journal. Yes. There's these five minute journal apps people use, whatever it is. The whole point of journaling is one thing and one thing only. It's to self-reflect. So I don't care if you do it on paper, I don't care if you voice record yourself. Yeah. But take it a moment to be still and look back at what you've done. Because what you remember without journaling is different than when you journal. So that's the reason why I think it's one of the best things you can do to grow as a leader because it makes you sit down, reflect on your goals , reflect on what you've done, reflect on who you are. Am I the person that God's called me to be? Am I the person I want to be? And what do I wanna change? Because those mistakes we talked about, those mistakes that God gives us to empower us in our growth and development are useless if we don't journal through them. Yes. So I don't care if you do it where it's like I take five minutes at the end of the day, begin of the day notepad. I do believe in the power of handwritten. I mean, study after study keeps showing that it is much, much better to hand write something than it is to type. Um, and you can just Google that. I mean , there's , there's so many studies on it. There's just the power of what it is, but it doesn't matter. It's that pause and reflect and looking back on things. So I , I have a , a blog on my website if you want to see how I journal. It's in great detail. Um , I've learned it over years and I tweak it almost every year. And I have one thing to it because I'm journaling through does this work, does this not work? Um , but that journaling is so vitally important and I encourage everyone, there's like two things. I encourage everyone to try affirmations and journaling and try for 30 days. And if you come back and it doesn't work, you can punch me in the face. <laugh>. Right. And so it does, it just works. Uh , it is so vitally important and that journaling has led to one of the most life changing things I've ever done. Just gonna jump in <laugh> . Go, go thing alike . Take it . So , so that journaling led me to the thing I did next. And I actually just , uh, ran a group of leaders through this yesterday. And that's the annual report. And we know companies, right? I love us entrepreneurs all the time that do all these things for their business and they don't do for their personal life. Mm . Wow. Come on . And it's like, oh , if you're doing that for maritime , what are you doing for Greg? Fear in incorporate , if you're doing that for L three or Light of Life, what are you doing for Doug Smith Incorporated ? So they make these annual reports for their business, but they don't make an annual report for themselves. Yeah. Now my annual report, which my processing can go read my blog about it, it takes three days. I'm actually about to extend to four days to do It didn't start that way. Right. And I always encourage these leaders, I said, just ask yourself five questions and take 10 minutes on a piece of paper. That's all it requires. Right. So I think it's so important. And I know you have your process that you use. I've taken a lot from your process and then adapted it. You know, my top five favorite restaurants is one of my favorite ones. My inner circle, you know, I look at my mentors and who's impacted my life that most. And then I write them a thank you card. I have this whole process I go through. But the key is, is you're sitting there at least once a year looking back, one of my favorite things to do is I , uh, I use my personal Instagram. I post the things I wanna remember from that year. Mm . That's the only things I post on my Instagram so that I can look at those little squares when I'm looking at my end of year report and I'm like, oh , that's when Abby first started skiing. Oh , this is when she did this. And this is when, when she did this. And having those memories to look back on. But it changes your, this is the , this is a recent not a recency bias, but my last year in report was when I became pa from passionate about year in reviews to extremely passionate. 2023 was the worst year of my life. Hmm . I didn't have anything crazy. Go on. I've had bigger pain points, but all in all, it was the first year. And, you know, I've been set goals since I was five years old. That's what my dad forced us to do. My daughter's five, she set goals this year.

Doug Smith: 39:23

Come on. Yeah .

Greg Furer: 39:25

Got it. Right. We'll

Doug Smith: 39:26

Go there after this. I want to hit that.

Greg Furer: 39:27

But I , I think that's so important to, to reflect. So I was in a bad way. I was like, this year sucked . 'cause I did not make a single one of my goals that I set out for. But looking back on it, it gave me such gratitude because I looked at how God had built things for 2024. I looked at, we actually, I achieved more than I ever cheated in one year, just once in while I , not to Chief <laugh> and I'm an intentional person, so that bothers me. Right. But man, and I'm like, it took that peak. There should be that valley of 2023 to get to the peak of 2024. It set me up. And I've never been more excited to enter a year than I was. And I would've not been that way. Hadn't I knocked on my annual review? The last part, I think about annual reviews. I think we think about a lot of leaders talking about legacy. Hmm . And we just had this , uh, a leader speak at Barton University about , uh, leaving a legacy for your kids or your memories locked in your device and have you created a video for your child to talk about the lessons you've learned and have you been intentional about that? And one of the things that , uh, another person always says is, you're not dead until the last personal alive stops whispering your name. Wow. That's tough . And so that legacy you wanna leave is not the money. We work with a lot of our clients that like, it's not about the money you wanna leave. Right? Yeah. Teach a man a fish. Don't give 'em a fish. And so when you really start thinking about that , imagine your child reading your end of the year reports. Come on for 40 or 50 years of your life, man. Like, there's not a dollar sign. That's rule that I would give to red that for my dad. Yeah.

Doug Smith: 40:58

Wow.

Greg Furer: 40:59

I don't have em . And that's the , that's what I want. And I want, I want my daughter to read that I had a panic attack. Hmm . Yeah. Yes . I want her to read my sins. Absolutely. I want her to learn from that. Yeah. Because we never learn from a leader that's perfect and polished. We learn from a leader that's pain. It's , that's the American way. Right. We want the underdog to win and pain and suffering and that growth is what we want. And I want my daughter to read that

Doug Smith: 41:25

Man . We just, we have a mutual love for Clint Hurtle as a leader. Oh . Former manager of the

Greg Furer: 41:30

Pipes . Top five favorite leaders of all time. All

Doug Smith: 41:32

Time. Oh . Oh , he's now on Instagram, which I know you're following him. I love this man. And he just started a series, which I'm like, I gotta steal this. He has Friday fails with Clint. Yep . Every week he shares a failure. And I'm like, that's way more powerful. And again, I'm someone who shares content and he's usually sharing things that are practical. But I'm like, I could make more impact sharing one failure from this week than a hundred posts on me just sharing tips and advice. I mean, really challenged by his vulnerability.

Greg Furer: 41:57

Gosh. I mean, let's just

Doug Smith: 41:58

Have a clean lovefest. Oh ,

Greg Furer: 42:00

The fact he joined Instagram. His reels have been amazing. Yes. Yes . I just learned why his jersey's number 13. You know , I I wear my custom Clint hurdle jersey all the time. Yeah . And I was just like, oh, now I know why it's number 13. Like, I was just like, oh my gosh. Next level, next level. But you know what, there's a saying that my wife and I say it come , so Clint Hurl when , uh, back when he was the , uh, pirates, he used to do these leadership talks. And there's a lot of cliche sayings we use from him. There's this crumpled up $20 bill. We don't have time to get to. There's this one foot into , uh, tomorrow, one foot in yesterday. Crap all over today. But one of my favorite sayings , my wife and I call each other out all the time, is be where your feet are. We are day . And he tells the whole story day where he takes that bowl and he is like, daddy's only allowed to answer the phone if Andrew McCutcheon or uh , uh, Bob thought he'd call, or it was Frank Ley back then was the president. But man, like be where your feet are. If the amount of times my wife will say, Clint, and that's what I know, she's gonna say it. Right. Wow. Be where your feet are. But yeah. Gosh. That's so good, man. If you're not following him on Instagram, Ugh .

Doug Smith: 42:59

Must It's funny, man . The impact he's had on me every day I would do a five minute journal and you do , I do affirmations and it's like, you know, what are you gonna do to make today great? I write the same thing every day for the past five years . Be I'm gonna be where my feet are. Uh , and uh, and the other thing, man, that I stole from him, he just signs all his emails Make a difference today. I'm like, I do that now. And it's crazy, man.

Greg Furer: 43:17

Make a difference today. Love Clint. And I think this is important 'cause this is really huge. Yes . My wife, you know, joined our firm last year and she always said this fully known , fully love , fully challenged thing. She's like, Greg, you gotta stop telling our team members you love them. No. And , and you know, you and I, we tell each other we love 'em all. I I I mean , how many times every time you and I talk, Hey, I love you man. And , and I think that this, this love and , and there's, you know, three different types of , of in Greek language. Right. Uh ,

Doug Smith: 43:42

Now we're going deep

Greg Furer: 43:43

<laugh> . Well, but , but everyone wants to go like it's , it's Phil's love. No, I don't have Phil . I don't have brother love for you. I love you. Yeah . I have agape love for you. I love you unconditionally. Yes. And that's one of the things I've learned from Clint was he tells everyone an email, I love you. Yeah. And he's not ashamed of it. And why are we ashamed to tell our team members that we love them? Like, I don't know why in western society we've gotten rid of that. And my wife didn't understand it until she joined our team. And this is a person that loves to tell people she loves them . Yeah. And has fully embraced that because man with love, all things are possible because that's really the heart of the gospel. Yeah . The gospel built down is to God's unveiling love. Unwavering love. Love is the gospel. And Clint is spreading that gospel. There's a famous saying that says, spread the gospel. Use words only if necessary. Yeah. If we could just love others, that's sign in every email. I'm not to the point. I've like tried to get my point where I'm like, I'm gonna sign every email. Love Greg. Yeah. But I love that. Did I see those emails? Love Clint. Oh , it's ,

Doug Smith: 44:43

It's funny you said that, man. I, I , now I'm gonna have to sign Love Duggan every email, but I never saw that. So my, my email signatures, it's either Make a difference today, keep making a difference. We're in this together. And now I'm gonna have to put Love Doug . But every man he, anyway, we're gonna go in a whole C Clinton thing. We should probably move on. We should do

Greg Furer: 44:58

A Clint Hurdle podcast. But

Doug Smith: 44:59

Anyways , um, and, and pause. I didn't check , uh, upfront contract. Do you have a hard stop time?

Greg Furer: 45:06

No , I'm good. Okay.

Doug Smith: 45:07

I just wanna make sure

Greg Furer: 45:07

I had , I had a beat . I moved already.

Doug Smith: 45:09

Okay. Uh , we'll probably go five, 10 more minutes.

Greg Furer: 45:13

I'll be whatever you wanna do. It's your podcast. You just tell me I'm off for the ride. Great.

Doug Smith: 45:17

I dunno if that's helpful for Will.

Greg Furer: 45:18

No , just , uh, all you do is long pause and when I see the long pause we'll catch it .

Doug Smith: 45:22

Okay . So we'll just pause for a minute. It'll go , Uh , Greg, several times throughout our conversation today, you've brought up your dad and I don't wanna talk about parenting too. Um, you know, you said , you talked about you were setting goals at five years old and, you know, I had, I was raised differently. I did not have that kind of upbringing. Um, I didn't learn about intentional living till I was 18 years old. And , uh, man, I know through our relationship, man , you've been so blessed to have your dad and , and the parents that you did. Uh , I , I'll leave this open end before we start talking about parenting, but what was the impact that your dad's made on your life?

Speaker 4: 46:01

That's okay.

Greg Furer: 46:02

That's a tough one for me to answer. Right .

Speaker 4: 46:05

<affirmative> ,

Greg Furer: 46:09

I can't quantify.

Speaker 4: 46:10

Hmm .

Greg Furer: 46:12

You know, one of the things I , uh, we talk about this all the time about our family. My dad was an eccentric person.

Speaker 4: 46:20

Hmm .

Greg Furer: 46:22

But what I love about my dad was he was authentic. My dad sometimes could be a horrible human being 'cause we're all sinners. Yeah. And he lived in that and he had all these quirky s Right. People call him Cecils. I heard people call him theisms. My team calls some of my theisms like repetition, retention . Uh , that was not one of his, but one of his was like smarter than a rat. Doesn't even make sense. But the thing that I think that my dad did above and beyond, if I had to summit , 'cause one of the things I always say to leader is like, what's the one thing? Like, let's pull it up . The one thing, if I had to summarize everything, it wasn't, my dad shared his faith and taught me the faith journey . 'cause God would've got that to be some other way. It wasn't my dad did life with me together. Hmm . So I always say to other leaders, they're like, how do you know as much you know about business at your age? I'm like, I got an MBA by the time I was 10. Wow. Because my dad, I was a , a mistake or as my brother, my mom would call it a pleasant surprise. And my brother's like, that is a mistake. Right. Geez , <laugh> . But I was an episode ,

Doug Smith: 47:26

You were a mistake to God.

Greg Furer: 47:27

Yes. What a blessing it was because my dad was in a different season of his life. We, we were just talking about this. I had a dinner with my brothers. My parents were a different season of life than my , my brothers grew up in and my sister grew up in. And we had different experiences and it shaped us to very uniquely different people. And you know, there's this saying, we say all the time, Morris Cotton and taught Morris Cotton and taught , um, I learned that originally from you. But it's, it's become a fur . Like people get tired of me hearing saying it. And my dad did life together with me. Like everything he did, I went. So when he went and was running the local little league, I went to those meetings when he was a township supervisor. I went to those meetings, I went to his staff meetings. I went in exam appointments with him. He was an eye doctor by trade was a serial entrepreneur. But like, that was his main practice and everything. We literally had eye doctors that would come in from around the country and would live with us for a week for no cost. Just 'cause he wanted to make the better eye doctors and just change the profession. And so then I would like live like I was immersed in his life. It wasn't matter if it was something stupid, it didn't matter a lot of times if I wanted to do it or not. I was doing everything with him. Whether it was running to the grocery store as my brother eulogize at the funeral, you know, it's like I woke up at five o'clock in the morning and went down and grabbed the newspaper. Uh , you know , he always read seven or eight newspapers a day. And I was traveling there 75 miles per hour. You know, like he probably was, and he was swerving over 'cause he would read the newspaper while driving <laugh> . Right . Probably not the best safe vehicle for me to be in, was my dad driving. But I was there by his side. So what I've tried to do with my daughter is, is involve her in everything. I'm a workaholic and I'm working. So just last night, you know, my wife was going out with friends , with her friends, my daughter. We had to spend time together. And I know there's a time to be where your feet are, but that was the only way we could work at our schedule, is I had to work from home. So I literally had her on my lap as I was doing things that I need to get accomplished. So yeah, I want , I wish I could have spent more time with her and I'm gonna spend time with her this weekend, but if I'm not, and and , and it goes to my wife, my wife's dad who happened to also , uh, be in the same profession used , used to take her on Saturdays we had to work. He would take her on client appointments. And so my wife sat at client appointments when she was six years old and seven years old. Not to mention clients just like to see the little kid there. Right. It's , it's a huge , uh, uh, benefit. Yeah. But man, like we were immersed in that. So I've tried to take that and put in my life. So my best parenting tip, I have two para tips . I said , everyone one , we're all gonna screw up our kids <laugh> . So screw up the least amount possible, right ? Yes . We we gotta be perfect. Yep . Like, perfection is horrible. Yeah . I tell wife top like I , you know, be who you are. Be authentic to who you are. Be the same way around my child as around somebody else. Right. Uh , authentic of life. But the second thing is make your child involved in your life. Yeah. Everyone tries to be involved in their child's life. You know , uh, we had this in our mastermind. Somebody said this like a couple months ago. Imagine if you came in and said, I I was caught in the act of praying <laugh> . Right ? Like , let remember that . Yeah . Let your children get caught in the act. Yeah. Man, I wrote that down. I made my , uh, it's gonna make my year review for 2024, but it's on my list. Let's get caught in the act of doing things. Yes. Because everything you do within reason, your child should be able to catch you in the act of, so yeah, my , my daughter gets my bad habits. I got to my dad's bad habits. Guess what? They're authentic to who he is. So I think that my dad was the most impactful. So the last part, I'll end this with, I was talking with a leader just a few weeks ago over dinner and didn't have the same upbringing I had. And we talked about it. The number one way to bring up the poor communities, the number one way to bring up the communities that need help. And I'm not talking about the United States, I'm talking about globally. John Maxwell's doing this globally, is to give them access to these same things. See, core values are about culture. Culture is a shared thing. Like, so when it's culture, it's , it's what you do and others tell you to do in a shared tribe. So if we were riding the elevator down today, Doug, and you came in, you're facing the door when I was facing the wall and just staring at you, you'd tell me to turn around. That's culture. There's certain perceived things and what you don't know, what you don't know. And so if you didn't grow up going to business meetings, how do you know how to act at a business meeting? So the number one way we can help out people that didn't grow up the way we did is by mentoring and developing them. And exposing them. Exposing them . That's what I try to do to my daughter. Expose her to my life. Yes. So go out and expose somebody. Don't just expose your children, be a father or a mother of leaders. Come on and expose other people.

Doug Smith: 52:03

You're firing me up, man. I mean, again. Yeah. The way I phrase it is we have to show them another way. Right? And so, you know, you've talked about my story. My life got changed because my father-in-law and my my youth pastor came into my life and they showed me an entirely different way modeled. Most people, even parenting, when we're talking about parenting, most people only see one model of what life should look like. And oftentimes it's not a great model. And so I couldn't agree more with you. And it is fun now that, you know, our kids are getting old enough even to have friends and hang out with friends. It's like, wow, we can have influence and show people, you know, what it's like to live in our house and maybe, you know, show some values there to , to friends and make disciples. It's , it's really exciting.

Greg Furer: 52:39

Amen.

Doug Smith: 52:40

Well, hey man , uh, we have a few minutes left. We haven't even, we have to do part two 'cause we need to dive into bare tongue and everything you're doing here. But for fun, you, and again, for people watching this, you are the branding master <laugh> . So I wanna talk you about your company, but like I've never, there's no one on the planet. I can, I can pretty much say this with a hundred percent confidence's. No one on the planet that, that brands like you. If someone, I wanna put a challenge out there to listeners. If you can name an item that should have a logo or brand on it, I guarantee that Greg has already thought of it and done it so <laugh> . But, but why do you do that and talk about branding? 'cause I think you do this masterfully and better than so many people.

Greg Furer: 53:15

Yeah, it's funny. It's , the joke is how many places on me ? So I got my socks on today. My wristwatch has it on my cuff, licks has it on my jacket liner. My pens my remarkable tablet, right? My belt , uh, and there's probably a couple missed my AirPod case has it on it. Underwear. Uh, I do have Brandon underwear. Today's not the I'm wearing it. I need to do some laundry too . Good. Brenda , Tommy John's too. <laugh> life changing. Um , but the reason why is, and I wrote a whole blog about this so there's enough time somebody want is really interested in this. But I , I gotta go back to where I learned this from. And so there was a company that gave me a gift and another life and it was this jacket I really loved and I would wear it all the time. And so my wife had to meet the uh , CFO of that company and was like, my husband wears this jacket all the time. And he goes, I know he does. She was like, what? He's like, everyone does. He's like, that's our strategy. So he is like, did you see our logo anywhere on that shirt? It was his jacket. She goes, no. He goes, it's in there. It's the same color as the jacket, it's down the bottom. So it's hidden. And he goes, it's not about seeing our logo, we bought the highest quality jacket that your husband would wanna wear and not have our logo on it. So every time he wears it, he subconsciously thinks of it. Yeah . So our strategy is to buy high quality things. We love high quality things that we love that you wouldn't wanna buy for yourself. That when you have it, you appreciate it. Yeah. That's how our sprinting strategy is to, to do that. The second part of it is what are called talk triggers, right? So if you're not a Scott McCain fan, talk triggers are basically something like you don't just have a great meal and go out and talk about it. You have to have something in that meal that's different that causes you to talk about it. Come on. Right? Yeah . So what is the difference maker? Like you have the best service in the world. What triggers you to talk about it? So talk triggers. So we do all kinds of crazy things like we make our own bourbon, right? People are like, they talk about it. We have a studio. I remember our , uh, one of the custodians of our building said, what do you guys do for a living? Said , I'm completed a studio. Like , what is it you do? So , so those talk tours . But I think the key thing here is, that's all part of it, but why I constantly have our logo on it and why our team always wearing our logo is you would never question me. I'm a Pittsburgh Steeler fan. I'm a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, and most importantly I'm a Pit Panthers fan. That's why our companies are blue and gold. You would never question me if I was wearing a pit Panthers shirt today. You would never question what you'd like . That guy's a fan. See a fan is a fanatic. And if our tribe, our culture believes in our company and they believe the impact we're having, we always say we're not sales . Like if you were a doctor on a plane, somebody's having a heart attack and you're like, is there a doctor that's not sales ? You're not gonna like , Hey, would you like to come to my practice so I can fix your heart? No. You just fix it. We believe so passionate what we do. And we believe that our companies make a difference and it impact the world so much that we're fanatical about it. Hmm . We wanna wear our logo. 'cause we want the whole world to know our tribe. People have spent hundreds of dollars on NFL jerseys to show what tribe they belong to. They spend hundreds of dollars on NHL jerseys unless you have a China connection. Right? Um , but <laugh>, but they spend all this money in these jerseys 'cause they want people to know their tribe. They want 'em , know who they affiliate with. We have a cross necklace on. I want people to understand that I'm a Christian, that's my identity. So why am I not the same way about our logo? So that's why we brand everything. We're always looking for ways to brand. It's about our culture we genuinely believe and the impact we're having and others need us to solve their problems. So we're fanatical about our brand because we want others to know what tribe we belong to.

Doug Smith: 57:09

Yeah. It's so good. And as we start to wrap up, it's so funny we didn't even focus on what you do, but I think that's the whole point. Talking points , people getting to know who you are, it's so important. And I think just like my first lunch with you when I said, man, there's something special about this guy. I think you know, everything that everyone just experienced through listening to this, people are feeling the same. But what do you actually do? And if people want to connect with you, man, how can they connect with what everything you're doing here at Barton ? 'cause it's incredible.

Greg Furer: 57:32

Yeah. We didn't get to , to touch on the goals, but uh , I just help people pursue their goals is essentially what we do. And , and the way we do that is , is a thing called financial planning. And I say financial planning and you have a certain perceived perception in your head. It's as simple as this. We define what your goals are, your future self, what you wanna be, your vision for the future. And we look at your resources you have, it could be your time, your talent, and your treasures. And we create a plan together. We bring those two together to get you a plan to get your preferred future. And that's what we do. Uh, we work, we have the privilege and honor to work with people every each, every day we listen to them, we learn, we try to extrapolate their top three priorities of what they wanna do in life. And we help them build a plan and then we help pull 'em accountable to their plan to pursue those goals and live a fulfilling life. So if , uh, we mainly work, so our target market is busy working professionals. Um, they're typically 35 to 55. They're typically , um, two W2 income owners . They typically make over a hundred thousand dollars a year. Um , they typically have two children. Um , they typically want to own a second property to make family memories or they, they don't own a second property. There's some type of family memory mechanism. Maybe they wanna travel the world to make family memories. And between going to soccer practice and between karate and between youth group, they're pushed and pulled in a hundred different directions and they just want somebody to partner with them. Just so we talked about you need that mastermind group, they could do everything we do, but they want somebody to do an outside look. You know, the hardest thing in the world to talk to your spouse about for most people is your finances. Right. And so I, the hardest thing to talk about my wife about is my finances. So you just need a third party to come to a room so that they could be the scapegoat and they'd be like, ha man, that person was horrible. So that's what we work with. We do work with other people, but that's our target market and that's why we've uh , partnered so much with L three. We've been the , uh, sponsor of the podcast for, I can't even remember how long because Thank you. You guys are

Doug Smith: 59:27

Should we do the ad right now?

Greg Furer: 59:28

<laugh> , but you guys do the same work we're doing. Yeah. It's about people are drifting through life. Yes. And they just, they've never sat down and just a simple question of where do you wanna be? And we just, well our clients close your eyes and we say it's 10 years from now, you wake up, what time does the alarm clock say? And we just go through this whole day like, what do you want your life to look like in 10 years? People don't think that way. They've never done that exercise. And so , okay, now we decide what we wanna do, how do , what do we do? And we start at 10 years and we work our way back to three years. We work our way back to one year, then we work our way down 90 day goals. Right? What can we do? What bites of that elephant? Instead of staring at elephant, what bites can we take today to get us to where we wanna be? You might not be where you wanna be or if you are where you wanna be, how do we stay there? So that's what we do to work with clients. It's, it's a absolute privilege and honor to do it. And it's, as you can tell, it's something I'm passionate about. Yeah. And that's why I'm so passionate about personal development because it's the same thing we do. We just, it's one part of personal development that we do. We help people understand our goals, the person that they were called to be and help them get there.

Doug Smith: 1:00:30

Yeah. And this is huge. And , and the whole time, I mean the theme throughout this conversation is community. You need a community around you. And yes, you need a phenomenal spouse. Yes, you need to be in a mastermind group with peers who can challenge you. But the older I get, the more I recognize everyone also needs a coaches and not just a coach, not just a life coach. That there's one, like you need coaches in every area of your life. And what I love about what Greg's saying, it's not just, Hey, just come in . Let's talk about your 401k. No, it's way, way bigger than that. And hopefully you've heard through the wisdom that Greg shared today, it's like he is bringing a wealth. And same with everyone that works for him. 'cause I know his team, they bring such a wealth of information about life and helping you get there and they care about you. Um, and so again, you can have great general conversations and, and mastermind groups and get challenged here and there. But again, if you have a coach in your corner, people who are gonna come through you and walk you through even the tough times, like you need that. And I can't think of a more important area than finance, but 'cause it touches every area of your life. And so again, just knowing Greg, I can't encourage you enough. If you're in need of that or you've never had that, reach out to Barong will include links to everything and just do a call with one of their team members and see what happens.

Greg Furer: 1:01:33

I don't know who needs to hear us out here, but I think the number one thing that stops somebody from hiring financial planner is they think they're not there yet. So we literally just had somebody who's 19 years old, come to our firm and hire us. You do not need to have any money. We actually, we have clients . We don't manage their money. Hmm . We are paid as certified financial planning professionals to build financial plans for as little as $200 a month.

Doug Smith: 1:01:57

Wow.

Greg Furer: 1:01:58

You could come. And so that's the , like most people can afford a cell phone bill. And and why I say this is it's access. I don't wanna work with people that have already been climbed the mountain. Yep . I wanna help you climb the mountain. I wanna partner with you because you deserve it. You need that. Let's get you to that mountain. 'cause if I just, I always say this to some of my other friends in the industry, Hey, I'm glad you're helping rich people get richer. Yeah . I hope you sleep at night because that's just not who I am. Right. Come on. And , and like Chad would come back to me and say something else. But that, but you know, <laugh> , I , I, I , that's who I wanna work with . Yeah . I wanna work with those people that are that emerging leader that just wants help to get there. Let's partner with you. So whether it's bare tongue , I don't care who you use, get a financial plan. Yeah. And I want you to hear this. You don't need to be a millionaire. You don't need to have lots of money. You can hire somebody to build a plan. Just like you could hire a personal coach. Just like you could hire a fitness coach. You could hire a coach for every part of your life. So if you're not where you wanna be, let's help build your goals there.

Doug Smith: 1:02:59

Yeah. And I hope everyone heard Greg's heart, and again, I don't know much about the industry, but my understanding is a lot of financial planners in general, quote unquote don't make money unless you have X amount to put down, et cetera. And so for your willingness to come alongside people where they're at, it's the same thing man . It also sounds like it's just part of your dad's legacy is just like, you wanna bring people along for the journey. Man, you've been blessed to have people who have brought you to where you are today and you wanna do the same thing for others. And that's our exact heart at all three. Um, I'll just leave this open-ended as we close. What do you wanna leave leaders with today? You can go any direction you want. Wow.

Greg Furer: 1:03:31

So, you know, you always do the lightning round questions, right?

Doug Smith: 1:03:34

Oh, do you wanna hit 'em? We have time . We have time.

Greg Furer: 1:03:36

Oh yeah, we could hit those. I was just gonna pull one from the lightning round, but yeah. You wanna do lightning

Doug Smith: 1:03:39

Round? I do wanna do the lightning round because

Greg Furer: 1:03:41

You do you wanna pause and

Doug Smith: 1:03:42

Just as long as they're lightning round for you, let ,

Greg Furer: 1:03:44

Let's So <laugh> , um, we'll do a pause. Yeah.

Doug Smith: 1:03:49

So

Greg Furer: 1:03:49

Why don't you do as we're closing here Yeah. And then , uh, whatever camera you had 'em on. Switch the camera. Alright . So , uh,

Doug Smith: 1:03:55

And then I'll go back and le I I will leave it open-ended and open-ended at the end. So, alright , well hey, with the three or four minutes that we have left, I wanna dive into the lightning ground. Bunch of fun questions I ask every leader at the end of every interview. And the first one is, what is the best advice you've ever received and who gave it to you?

Greg Furer: 1:04:13

So I , I really struggle with this one, right? Because I have been blessed with so much great advice, <laugh> , right? And so I think that the one I'm gonna say, and this is gonna be , uh, it's gonna sound like a cop out , but trust the Lord of your God with all your heart and all your soul . 'cause that's it. Yeah. That advice gave for the Bible. It was a leader, right? It was the Bible. But I think that's the best advice I've ever given. And every other advice hinges from that.

Doug Smith: 1:04:41

If it's not the same answer. If you could put a quote on a billboard for everyone to read what we would say.

Greg Furer: 1:04:45

Yeah. And this is hard for me because there's a lot of things I'd wanna say, but I think it in the context of it's gotta hit on a billboard. So it's just simple as this leaders are readers, man, if you could just read, you have access to all the wealth and knowledge in the entire world. And so leaders are readers. There's so many other quotes that are more important to me. So many other things that hit me. My secondary one, <laugh> , it was really hard for me . You go , I that's what I

Doug Smith: 1:05:07

Knew. You had to sneak

Greg Furer: 1:05:08

Another one . Well I had to say is was day to day intensity. Come on. Week to week consistency. Month to month build championships came from your football coach. Yep . It's one of my favorite seeds of all time. But I just don't think it hits as well on a billboard. 'cause you gotta ride past, 'cause that was my original answer <laugh> . And I'm like, no, that doesn't hit. Leaders are readers. Short, sweet to the point.

Doug Smith: 1:05:28

Kudos the gym . Rankin North Allegheny Football High School coach <laugh> . You know, years ago , uh, you talked about leaders are readers. It was funny, I was doing myself guided tour of Barton's offices here. And you, I never saw this before. You have an entire like poster of, you call it the God I don't even know what you would call it. It's a list of like 10,000 books people need to read.

Greg Furer: 1:05:45

No , it's it's, it's 380 right now. We're gonna add <inaudible> . It is the barung cannon. And you could just google that barung cannon. And so the Bible can , right? So one of the things we do is we try to express our faith. So throughout the history of of the faith, there's been ways where we've taken things that were pagan and made him Christian looked no further than the Christian , uh, Christmas tree, you know, the Celtic Cross as a hole in the middle. So, so you , when you're worshiping the sun, you have to look at the cross, right? So we try to take things in our, our work life so the Bible can and understand how the Bible cans mix . So we actually have a Bible canon and it starts out with our four gospels. And those are to be read. Yeah . The first year you're here and expect it to be read at least annually.

Doug Smith: 1:06:24

So just for time sake, 'cause we could go through the whole three 80, what are two or three books from that

Greg Furer: 1:06:30

Read ? So start the four gospels . So yeah , go for it . The first four. So it has actually started in our mastermind, the whole idea, God, there's a lot of ideas, but we always refer to as the gospel according to Chris Voss <laugh> , right ? So , which has never split the Difference by Chris Voss. Uh , I tended to read that about five to eight times a year. Uh , I've gone through his masterclass multiple times, just did it again a couple weeks ago. So it's, it's, it starts with Traction First by Gino Wickman. Yeah, that's the first gospel you read. That's, that is the most important book for our company. Uh, I can't, the lot of times I've read that will Blow Your Mind. The second one we ask people to read is Think and Grow Rich. Uh , the gentleman who ran a firm I started with said, if you wanna be successful in life, read it 34 times. Or if my wife would say, Mary , somebody's read it 34 times. <laugh> Lord knows how many times he's read it now. I love you , but I'm, I'm way over 30 times on that one. Uh , and I say go back to the original. It's horrible language. It's it , but that's part of it. I wanna go to the source script. The , uh, third one is Seven Habits, which is , uh, Stephen Covey's masterpiece. That was the book that was pounded in my head as a child , uh, has been one of the most formative books in my life. And then you have never split the difference in our gospels. If you wanna read more about it, we have the whole Barton Cannon. But I think the thing is we use the kid and not only to give the order of what our leaders should read, but to also teach our faith. But the key is the Bible's not in Arc canan . And when you ask what's like the book most powerful , the Bible is right , but the Bible transcends all that. The Bible should be read daily, studied at least weekly, right? Yeah . It should be meditated on these other books are supplemental and without the the Bible, all these other books are useless as far as I'm concerned.

Doug Smith: 1:08:03

You could spend time with a lot of great leaders, as you mentioned. We've had a lot of great dinners with leaders even together. Do you have a go-to question that you always ask when you get to spend time with someone? Great.

Greg Furer: 1:08:10

Yeah. And so it's the go-to question is what's the one thing? And then I change it based upon that leader what I wanna learn from them. So like, I was a one mentor, like, you grew this business from 2 million to $20 million. What's if you had to pick one thing that caused it to happen? And so it's not a cop out , it's it's truth. So if it's whatever I wanna extrapolate from that leader because whatever they're an expert in is what I wanna learn. So I always do the one thing, the what it forces them to think through and the answers I get. So it's like whatever you wanna learn from that person. If it's Doug , uh, what's the one thing that made this podcast successful? You know, like what is the one thing, right.

Doug Smith: 1:08:46

Biggest leadership, pet peeve, and only one. 'cause I'm sure you could be here for the next hour. Yeah , yeah .

Greg Furer: 1:08:51

This is easy one for me. It , it's , uh, selfish leaders. Leaders are servants. Mm . And so, like, my team knows this. Like if I go to a building and the leader's parked in the front of the building, I don't even wanna talk to them. <laugh> , if their name's the first thing on their website, I don't wanna talk to them. Uh , a a leader is a servant. And uh , man, I just hate selfish leaders that are doing it for themselves because it , it's all throughout the Bible. Like you actually more is expected of you. Yeah. You have, you have a sacred honor of being a leader in rich in people's lives. So I hate selfish leaders.

Doug Smith: 1:09:21

What's something you've done in your life or experience that you think everyone should do before they die?

Greg Furer: 1:09:26

Oof . There's, there's so many things, but one, I know, I know, right ? <laugh> , that's , that's tough, right? Yeah. I I think it's, it is gonna say a cop out , but experience something great with your child. Mm . So for me it's skiing with my daughter, but pick one activity to your child that you would love to do , um, and make it something you both enjoy, not something you just enjoy. I , I think that that the , the , the moments I've had skiing my daughter are my favorite moments in life. Wow. So I , I've been blessed to do a lot of cool things, but I think that's what is , do something with your child.

Doug Smith: 1:09:57

If you could go back and have Coffee with Greg fear at any age and you would've actually listened to yourself, which I'm sure you wouldn't have <laugh> , uh, what age would that be and what would you tell that version of Greg?

Greg Furer: 1:10:07

Yeah. I think it would be somewhere around 22 to 24. Um, as you know, like I was extremely involved, extremely driven , like the age of 14. And at one point in time I was elected official like 21, do all this stuff. But I , I think the thing I would say is there's that one every year leader I've ever heard is Pocket hays slow down. Like it's gonna take time. That's true. But I think it's a different view , view of this. Your passions will change over time, just like taste buds. So at that time I was, my number one focus from probably age eight to 22 was to become a state senator. I don't, I'm not saying never 'cause passions will change, but in my current lot life I would never do that. It could be offered. I don't want to do that. Um , and so as those things changed is like our clients, our financial plans change. You have to alter the course. And so I go back and like, man, if I could have not taken that trip with my buddies to go do that and take that trip with my daughter, my wife now Wow. How much more impactful would it be? So I'm always about burning the boats, but sometimes you gotta have dry powder to follow and pursue your other passions. I wouldn't have been able to start my company if I didn't save money and have dry powder. And so I wish if I go back in time that I would hold some stuff back for future passions. 'cause your passions will change. Yeah.

Doug Smith: 1:11:26

You mentioned your dad's legacy and the the other notebook, which I love. Uh, one day man, we're all gonna leave this planet. And uh , when you do, what do you want your legacy to be?

Greg Furer: 1:11:34

Yeah, that's as simple as is something that God spoke to be on a spiritual treat . You and I were in is I wanna be a father of leaders. Hmm . And so I want have generational impact. I want to have the leaders that I develop develop other leaders that develop other leaders. That develop other leaders. So there's a great Kerry job song called The Blessing and I used to actually hate it and now it's one of my favorite worship songs the same. And I hate it because the Priestly blessing from numbers is one of my favorite parts of the Bible. Al was like, she's butchering it, right. <laugh>. But there's this point in there and it's one of my favorite worship songs. She goes, may this blessing be on your children. Yes. And their children. Yeah . And their children. And their children. She just starts to go sometimes I'm just like, and their children. It's a big part of what we try to do is we try to work with every one of our client's children and their children and their children and their children. And so I want a legacy for my child, but that's not my focus because if I do this, the legacy will be there for my child. I want leaders that grow and develop other leaders that grow and develop other leaders because the impact we can have on this world would be exponential.

Doug Smith: 1:12:37

Yeah. Well, and again, I just wanna say thank you. I don't know if I'd consider you a father, but , uh, you've certainly been a brother and a friend and uh , man , my leadership is so much better in my personal life and in my work life because of your friendship. And so I'd like to say that I'm part of that legacy already. And uh , man, thank you for investing in L three leadership through the conference, through the podcast, and everyone that we're able to re we're gonna have 300 leaders in the room in two weeks. Every single one of those that gets touched, like you have a part to play and their legacy and I'm just one person that you're influencing out of. I can't even imagine how many. So just thank you.

Greg Furer: 1:13:08

L three's had that legacy. We wouldn't have my daughter if it wasn for L three.

Doug Smith: 1:13:14

Maybe we'll just end right there. Anything else you wanna leave Leaders Wish ?

Greg Furer: 1:13:17

No, I think that I can't go there <laugh> , but that's true. But I , I think just if I had to say one thing to leaders, right, just do it. Stop thinking. Just do it.

Doug Smith: 1:13:30

Greg. Fear it was an honor. We'll have to do this again man. We'll have like 10 parts. This was awesome.

Greg Furer: 1:13:34

<laugh> . Thanks. Appreciate you brother.

Doug Smith: 1:13:36

Hey, leader. And thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Greg. I hope that you enjoyed it as much as I did and you can find ways to connect with him and links to everything we discussed in the show notes. I also wanna thank our sponsor End Dosha Marketing Solutions. They're the producers of this podcast and if you are looking for help with your organization's marketing, I cannot recommend them enough, check them out@enddosha.com, that's A-N-D-O-C-I a.com . And as always, leader, I like to end every episode of the quote. And today I'll quote Harvey Fire Stone who said this, he said, the growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership and I could not agree more. Well , that's gonna wrap up today's podcast. As always, leader to remember, don't quit. Keep leading the world desperately needs your leadership. I'll talk to you next episode.