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In this episode, Chris talks to Greg Taylor- coach, leadership mentor and founder of “Find Your Winning Edge”. He is a proven business leader with a long history of selecting, coaching and developing people to be strong team players and leaders. Greg inspires others to take the necessary steps to enrich and transform their lives!
For more information about “Find Your Winning Edge”:
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Email: [email protected]
Phone: 318-230-6481
www.findyourwinningedge.com
TRANSCRIPT
Chris Nichols :
Hello and welcome to the Talent Tide Podcast- the show that ensures you have the information you need to adapt and evolve your workplace culture as you ride the wave of change in talent management. I’m your host, Chris Nichols, and today we’re going to talk about how to Find Your Winning Edge with Greg Taylor. We’ll discuss the ins and outs of his Take Another Step system and offer listeners a special surprise at the end. Be sure to listen all the way through for the details.
Greg is a proven business leader with a long history of selecting, coaching and developing people to be strong team players and leaders. His proven expertise is focused on creating results-oriented cultures by efficiently implementing effective systems and processes that enable individuals, teams and organizations to reach the next level. Greg’s deepest desire is to inspire others to take another step necessary to enrich and transform their lives professionally, personally and spiritually. He applies these same principles to the people in his life that include his wife, Mickey of 32 years, two sons, and three grandchildren. Greg also manages his youngest son’s career as a wide receiver for the San Francisco 49’ers. And Greg is also a personal friend of mine, so I’m excited to have him on the podcast today.
Greg, thanks again for being on the podcast today. We’ve known each other now for several years, and we’ve had a wide range of of conversation about leadership and how to grow businesses, how to grow personally, how to grow professionally. But why don’t you give our listeners a little bit of background on your career, and how you got into the role that you have today?
Greg Taylor:
Well, first of all, I want to tell you how much, how honored I am to be here today. So, thank you for your time. And we’re gonna have a great discussion today about leadership and how we take another step and how we get other people to take another step. But how did I get here today? I drove here today. No, I’m just kidding. No, I’m a – I was actually born in a coal mining camp in southeastern Kentucky. My grandparents were coal miners. My dad was a coal miner, then became a coach of football – high school football coach, a teacher, then became a principal. I played high school football, played college football at Western Kentucky University, got a degree in finance. And so, I was – I had the old dumb jock syndrome. So, I made a 1.21 semester in college. And my dad and I had a long conversation about that. But, but I knew I had to change because my dream was to play in the NFL. So, I’m in my fourth year of college, that’s not going to work for me. So, I’ve met my wife of 33 years now, I met her, so my value system changed. So, I went from making a 1.2 – make a long story short, I made the Dean’s List my last semester there. So, it doesn’t matter where you’re at, okay, I’m a 1.2. I think I’m a dumb jock. But I can transform that. But I got to look in the mirror and go, “Hey, you’re the problem. You’re the problem, because you don’t think you can learn.” But because once I did say I can learn, because that’s my special sauce for transportation, I can learn. When I read my first book at age 23. I’ve read over 200 books, like I can learn. It’s like the lights came on! And when you when you actually step out of fear into that, what I can do, because my brains been built for growth. So, I got to use my brain. God’s given us the most powerful thing in the universe. And it’s our brain. And once I tapped into that, I made the Dean’s List. I’ve read, I’m reading books, I can learn and that just propelled me forward in my career.
So, I worked at Averitt Express for eight years in leadership training, became the Director of Pricing/Billing, owned my own trucking company for eight years, moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, and worked for like three different entrepreneurs. And I made it back to Nashville, and through a friend of mine bought three icee distributors, one in Atlanta, one in Montgomery and one in Nashville. So, I came back here I ran those three businesses for him. So, we got it up to where we could sell it at a good percentage and now started my leadership coaching business. Because reading the book “Half Time”, I found my purpose in life, and always knew it, but I was trying to be an entrepreneur, but I’m not an entrepreneur. I’m a coach. I’m the wing man. I’m someone who supports the entrepreneur. Because I love people. I tell them when they hire me, in my leadership coaching service, “Hey, I’m just on your staff. You picked up a 33-year veteran on your staff. Use me to do that because I know I can take another step. We just got to figure out how to get your staff to take it another step and it’s tapping into their heart and their spirit.” It’s not giving them rules, not giving them books to read. We got to figure out who they are, why they are the way they are. Let’s help them connect with their inner spirit, into their heart because the heart says does anybody care about me? Let’s do that form. Let’s fill that need. Then we go, let’s connect them to something bigger than what they are because I know when I worked at Averitt Express, I would run through a wall for those people. I mean, there’s just some amazing people because they touched me to say, “Hey, I care about you” through building relationships of trust, then they said, “Hey, I’m going to connect you to something bigger than here.” They had mission statements, vision statements, core values. And this is why we’re here every day. I bought into that. So, they flipped the dumb jock into a businessman. So, it took a lot of lipstick and makeup to cover all that up. So…
Chris:
I love that story, Greg. Again, I think mostly because I come from a similar background, I understand a lot of what you’re saying. One of the questions I have though is, you talk about your time at Averitt Express at the beginning of your career, and you talk about the fact that they have a mission statement, they had a vision statement, they had core values. Every company out there today has those three things, but how they implement and utilize those are differently. And I feel like that is what defines an organization from being average or great. So, what made Averitt great in your opinion, about implementing their mission, vision and core values into you? What did they do different, in your opinion, that you’ve seen across your career, maybe that you’ve seen other companies not do as well?
Greg:
Well, they did more than tell you, they showed you. And they showed you how they… they always talk about talk the talk and walk the walk. Because you can say whatever you want your culture to be. But how do you treat people every day is going to determine what your culture is. And that was a culture where it was uplifting. I mean, if you made mistake, why did you do that? They didn’t call me a bunch of names or say you can’t do that. No. Why did you do that? They let me do a little inside discovery, instead of putting fear in me. Why did you do that? And they corrected little steps. Well, okay, I see what you did wrong. Insert that, mark that out, insert that into that process there. And that’ll work. And you’re… “Oh, yeah, I see that now. I got it.”
So, when there’s a mistake made, there wasn’t fear that came over you to try to lie to them and tell them to… try to cover up what was wrong. I was very bold to go, “Here’s what I did wrong.” I knew they were going to correct me. That is liberating. And if you’re afraid to make mistake, you’re not – you’ll never be as good as you can be. It’s not gonna happen. So, it’s not what you say you’re going to do, it’s what you do every day. It sets a culture, because you’ve got a culture. You may say it’s this, but go ask your people what it is, if you really want to know.
Chris:
I love that answer. You know, if you’re afraid to make a mistake, it is so challenging to move forward. So, with that being said, you talk a lot about being on the end of the spectrum that you had to tone it down a bit, right? Like you were always going so harsh
Greg:
…so, like I should be toning it down now, are you telling me?
Chris:
No, I love your energy, Greg. I can keep up with your energy, but…
Greg:
Yeah, you’ve got the same level of energy.
Chris:
Absolutely. And so, what I find personally and professionally is that I have to make that adjustment to others. I have to come down from my energy level sometimes to meet them where they’re at. So, you mentioned in your career, how important it was for you to understand that people are different than you. Can you talk about what that realization was like and how you came to that realization?
Greg:
Can I…. I’m afraid to tell you how long it took me it took me to figure that out. So, I was probably in my (really my transformation from a volcano to a missile) is probably in my 37 to 42 years old – I really said everybody’s not like me. And I’ve had people tell me that my whole life – the people, these, they’re not like you, Greg, they haven’t been through what you do. They don’t have your personality. They don’t have your experiences. Because my mentor said, you got to figure out who they are. Don’t worry about who you are. Maybe that was my problem. I didn’t know who I was, until I took a step back and said, “Who am I? What’s my personality type? What’s my family, childhood, educational experience? And what are my significant emotional experiences in life?” Because if I go, well, who am I? Then now, that I know who I am? Then I’m comfortable with who I am. Honestly. Because it takes some real tough questions to ask people, “Tell me what you think about me” and they feel free to tell you the truth. It made me cry a couple times, I won’t get into that story. But doing some leadership survey, they blew me out of the water. They were- they were fearful. I can’t do that. I’m here to help them take another step. I’m here to inspire me to do something great. I’m not here to scare somebody. But that made me go, “Wow, I can’t do that.” What my mentor he’s been telling me that for eight years, you can’t have this much energy. You can’t do this. He said, “I love you, but you can’t do what you’re doing right now. It doesn’t work.”
Chris:
So you were that leader that made your employees uncomfortable to make a mistake, is that what I’m hearing?
Greg:
I was probably… No, I was okay with that, I didn’t listen. Demanding. I mean, if they came back with something. I couldn’t handle a negative tone, man, I’d freak out about a negative tone. If someone said they can’t do something, I would just… I mean the volcano would go off. Or they would tell me that I couldn’t do something, the volcano would go off.
Chris:
Because you can do anything, right?
Greg:
I can do anything! Just give me the ball! What do you mean? I can do that – I can do that – it’s like my dad said, “If you’ve got a problem, ask Greg, he can solve it for you.” Because he said I’ve got an answer for everything. He said, “I don’t know what he’s talking about it but sounds good.” But yes, just toning it down. I had to learn I had to go meet people where they are. And I learned that by watching my mentors around me, they met me where I was. They didn’t stand over here and say, “Greg, calm down.” No, they walked down there with me and go, “What are you doing?” And they got, they got intimate with who I am. It gave me a sense of care and concern. And they led me out to become a better person than I currently was. The leadership did that. Not me. The leadership. A leader is a person who inspires another to take a journey that they’re not going to take by themselves. I probably wouldn’t have found who I am without a lot of leadership in my life. People inspired me to take another step. People inspired me to look within myself. People inspired me to look at other people. Now, how can I help them to take another step?
Chris:
So, you talk there about mentorship leadership, which is a constant conversation in today’s workplace? Do you have a formal mentorship program? Is it informal? How do I find a mentor? How do I know if I’m a leader? So, I’d like to transition to that topic, if you don’t mind, Greg, and so…
Greg:
Hey, this is your show, Coach. If you give me much room, I’ll take over, but I won’t do that.
Chris:
I appreciate you letting me stay in the driver’s seat. So, mentorship – those mentors that you had, were those mentors that were given to you and said, “Hey, you need to go mentor Greg.” Or were they people that you gravitated towards, and you call them a mentor now looking back on it. What was that relationship like? How did those form?
Greg:
Man, at that point in time, I didn’t know what I was doing. I’m just saying, I knew how much money I wanted to make. I knew I wanted to be an executive in business. And I didn’t have a – I didn’t have a clue what to do. These people just embraced me. And they showed me the good about me, they showed me the bad about me. And they did that in an encouraging way. They didn’t do it in a belittling way. Then, I found who I was, and then I left them. They gave me so much confidence. That was a little bit of an arrogant part. That’s when I went started my own company. I can do this by myself. Well, that’s another journey. So, what was your question? I’ll get back to the point.
Chris:
How did you how did you secure a mentor? Like you said, looking back on it, you didn’t know if it was formal or not?
Greg:
I don’t know. Well, that’s a good question. How did I do that? I just knew that I was going to do something. And I knew I had people – I needed people to help me. Because playing football, my coaches inspired me. I mean, I remember walking out of locker rooms playing football, like my feet weren’t on the ground. And probably the most liberating thing, my high school football coach, we won a state championship in high school. He said if you want to be a champion, and I wanted to be a champion, being that type A personality, fighting anybody and everybody to win, I gotta win at all costs. If you want to be a champion, when you come back in here after the game, go look in the mirror and ask yourself a question. Did I do everything that I could possibly do on every single play to help my team win? If you can say yes, you’re a champion. Don’t worry about score. You let me worry about the score. He taught me a leadership lesson. Leadership rises and falls on him. Coach Bear Bryant, the greatest college football coach ever, maybe him and Nick are battling out with each other. But he said, “Look, when we lose, I take responsibility for it. When we win, I give all the credit away.” And I heard that when I was I was 12-13 years old. Man, that’s like, that’s stuck with me ever since then. Because the people that inspire me to take another step, are the ones that are willing to stand up say, “Hey Greg, I’ve got your back, go make a play. Don’t be afraid, I’ve got your back. Go by my rules. If you change it, come back and tell me, but go make a play. I trust you that you can do this.”
Chris:
I love that – the comment you made about your coaches setting that standard for you because I had a similar situation growing up myself and growing up playing sports as well. My dad always said to me, “You, you when you leave that floor tonight – you won’t know it, but I want you to make sure that when somebody leaves the gym or the baseball field, that they remember your number that they, that they tell somebody else about watching you play. They may not know your name, but they remember who you were out there. Because you made an impact. And that doesn’t mean that you made an impact in the stat sheet, but they – they saw you.”
Greg:
True. And that’s good. That’s so good.
Chris:
It remains with me today. And he probably doesn’t even know how strong of a – of a quote that was for me, he would always tell me that over and over again. But it stays with me today, even in the workplace, right? And for me, it’s how do I, how do I make sure that I make an impact on anybody that I come across every day, like, I want it to be positive, right?
Greg:
So, you, he put that into you. That’s a legacy put in because a legacy is not something we give to people, it’s something we put into them, meaning by that way we talk to how we make them feel, what they see us do, what they know about us, because that goes into their unconscious mind, which is where 85% of your behavior comes from. So, you just do that, because he put it into you. Just over and over and over because reputation, I’m sorry, repetition is your best friend. Doing the same thing over and over and over hearing the same thing over and over and over and over. You’re going to get it at some point. It’s sort of like when I was 23 years old and I came home one day, and I was talking to my mom and I was actually talking like I had some sense and she started crying. I said, “Mom, what are you crying about?” “You’re talking like you got some sense.” I said, “Well, I don’t know if I’m, I’m just probably doing what you told me to do.” “You never did listen to me.” I said, “Well, apparently my unconscious mind – it was listening to you.”
Chris:
Well, I love this. I love the conversation here about how to take another step, how to how to move forward in your career. But can you talk a little bit about what you’re doing today? I guess first and foremost, you are an executive coach now, you’re a leadership coach. You’re doing these types of things to help other people. But how did you find your Winning Edge? How did you get – how did you get here today? How did you end up in this room with me today to talk about how to move companies forward, how to move people forward, how to move yourself forward spiritually, personally, etc.
Greg:
When you were answering – I was trying to formulate a question. One thing popped into my head that really is probably my special sauce is probably winning through adversity. Just okay, you failed. So what? Now what? Okay, you got beat. So, what, now what? I’m just relentless. Just you got to win. You got to win through adversity, okay? You lost yesterday. So what? My business failed. So what? That really happened to me, my business failed. So what? What am I going to do? Nothing. It took me a while. That was a process I went through to get over that. But I got over that. And my moms and dad would say, “Listen, Greg, when you – when you fail, learn something from it. So, make sure you don’t do that again.” Because in my business failure, I wrote down eight things that I learned. Because I read those things to someone who’s just starting a business – one of my clients is starting their own business, and I was struggling. Golly, do I say this because that’s kind of like a negative tone. But no, I want to inspire someone, “Hey, don’t learn what I learned the hard way, learn it before you start.” So, I read those – we talked about those eight things that I learned and the biggest one was listen to other people. Take advice. People are smarter than you. Get the right people on your bus, let them help you. Because I didn’t want anybody to help me. I’m big bad Greg Taylor. I don’t need anybody to help me. Well, that’s not good. It’s good, in a sense, but it’s not good in another sense. That’s why one of my – in my Take Another Step system and leadership philosophies is leadership is situational. I mean, that takes, that takes a lot of discernment and temperament to walk through all those different scenarios. And if you haven’t been there before, you probably need to ask somebody who’s been there before.
Chris:
Yeah, you bring up a couple of things there that that piece of adversity, right? Like, you talked about it through the eyes of winning, and, it comes across from a sports perspective. But if we if we circle it back to business, and we think about the terminology for those of – for those of our listeners that aren’t the sports fans that you and I are, it’s losing a client, right? It’s understanding what happens when you lose that client and what you – how you respond to losing that client, right? Because there’s a positive way that you can respond and there’s a negative way. And the positive way is to say – is start asking the questions.
Greg:
That’s good.
Chris:
What led us down the path to lose this client? It wasn’t – it wasn’t one thing. It never is. It’s – it’s an escalation of different items. It’s never going to be about cost. Cost might be in that group. But at the end of the day, the relationship at some point was fractured. So, when you go through that adversity, Greg, can you talk about the steps to take to evaluate and analyze a boss and what you do on the back end of that?
Greg:
Yeah, no, no, that’s a good question. Hey, look what you’re doing right? I call it hindsight’s 20/20. But everybody’s got to be okay with hindsight 20/20. You gotta be able to look at the bold, hard facts in an ugly manner. Let’s look at the ugly. Let’s put ugly on the table. A lot of people don’t want to do that. They can’t grow. Sometimes we got to do like a, like a, what do you call it? pruning? You got to prune trees, you got prune some things? Is that essential? Or is it nonessential? I mean that’s big verbiage in today’s world, we got to figure out what’s essential and what’s nonessential? We lost that customer. What -what did that customer…. what were their needs? What did they like, what did they dislike? Who’s our competition? Do we really understand our customer? Well, let’s go talk to ’em, Coach! Let’s go have a conversation. What about – let’s quit the email, stop the texting. And let’s go have a conversation with them. Can you give me feedback here, because I don’t want to make this same mistake again? So, I’m going to embrace the failure – step one, and I’ve got to embrace and say this happened for me, not to me. Because in my business failure, probably 5, or 6,7,8 months it took me to get over it – one day, I just crawled under my desk and I cried for 30 minutes. Because once again, I don’t get beat. Well, you got your butt handed to you, Greg. So, I just curled up in a little ball and cried and got it out. Then, I walked out of there going okay, I did it. It’s my fault. Now what are you gonna learn? I had to buy that thing. I could blame people, or I can go through the rest of my life being miserable. That day, for 30 minutes, I let all that anger out and all that frustration out of me. Now I can put something good in me. Because you got to get ugly out of you. That was ugly. Okay, now what am I gonna learn from it – that’s when I wrote those eight things. And it took me probably two years to write those eight things. It’s just not – it’s not a light switch. We’re humans, we have emotions. You don’t turn this on and off. Golly, that sounded like my wife…. which my wife’s an incredible lady. So, she did put up with a volcano, sometimes it turns into a missile but… but anyway, you got to embrace it, you got to learn from it. And you just got to take another step, you got to get out of the bed, and you got to go at it again. You got to pick up where you left off, you gotta learn from it. So, you gotta – you gotta – did this happen for me or to me? And the greatest thing a guy used to tell me said, “Greg, you’re the author of your book. You’ve got the pen. What do you want the ending to look like?” You’re in charge, not to circumstances, not the economy, not COVID. Not my boss, not my wife, not my kids, not my parents, not my bad circumstances in my life. I’m in charge of my book. I’m the author of my book, and I’m going to write the ending. And I’m in charge. That gives me peace. Because we all deal with adversity every day. But I’ve got the pen to my book, I get to write how that bad thing helps me not hurts me.
Chris:
I love that – embrace the failure. I think that is something that we can all do so much better, professionally and personally. Right, we have to be able to see the negative, we have to see the ugly like you talk about. And until we can do that ourselves and think about (critically) about how we impacted the result, then it’s going to be really hard for us to move forward. So…
Greg:
Yeah, my mama says if you – until you own it, you can’t fix it. So, my mom and I – she whipped me a lot. And I would always blame people and deflect and do all that stuff. Well, this and that. No, you – this is your behavior. Own the behavior. I love you. You’re a great person, I’m trying to change your behavior. My mom taught me how to take the person’s good, the behavior’s bad and separate those two, they’re not the same. Because when you discipline people, I love you, I hate your behavior. I don’t hate you; I hate your behavior. You’re a good person. So how do we change your behavior? Well, I gotta have a relationship with them. And I gotta give them positive and negative consequences that are immediate, and they’re certain. That’s how you change behavior. So that’s probably the greatest thing that she taught me right there. Because when my business failed, I went, “Hmm. Okay, that’s a consequence. That doesn’t make me who I am. I just went through that. So I can take 5020 vision, everything that’s good, bad and ugly, and I can use it and I can catapult my career into what I want it to be because I got the pen, and I’m about to write the end of the story.”
Chris:
Circling way back to the front, you mentioned how you realized that you’re not an entrepreneur like you thought maybe you were, that you like being a part of the process, but not being at the at the top of the process, maybe I misheard you, but…
Greg:
Yeah, an entrepreneur and I, we think differently. Entrepreneurs, they’re always thinking about how to make money. See, that’s a different process. I’m a systems, people processes, and people developer and leader developer. That’s what I think I’ve always thought about. Because one of my reasons I failed a business – making money wasn’t my number one goal. My number one goal was to create the greatest place to work. That’s not entrepreneurial thinking. The entrepreneurs got to think about making money, because if you don’t make money, you can’t help anybody. I love people. But if I would have been focused on making money, I can help people. You can’t help people if you don’t have the resources to help them. See, that’s what everybody in America, we’re getting confused, we got to have money, we’ve got to have resources. And everybody’s got to go earn your keep, it’s okay to make whatever money you’re making. Just be content with it. And strive to take another step that you’re on that journey, because there’s where happiness and peace exists when you’re on that journey. And you know, you’re taking another step. And you know that you’re not where – you’re not where you’re wanting to be, but you’re not where you used to be. And when you look up, and you can look at that, and go, “Damn, look at all the steps I took, Coach!” Because we take one step a day, that’s 365 a year. Then after 20 years, I don’t know how much that is. About 8000, that’s 8000 steps.
Chris:
Right.
Greg:
That – because if you’re focused, you’re committed, and you’re consistent, and you’re intentional with what you’re doing, then you got to reward yourself every day in taking another step. Because it’s not glamorous to take one step. You don’t get your picture in a paper. You don’t get it on social media. It’s called work. It’s called grind. It’s called do things that other people are not willing to do.
Chris:
I think this is a great merger of the thoughts that we have around this podcast. When we talk about the workforce today, managing talent. Companies have to have equal parts of a mindset of how we’re going to generate revenue, and how we’re going to do that. And generating revenue is a mathematical formula. How you do that is based upon the people that you hire, and the processes that you put in place. And there’s so many organizations that we come across that have bad processes, bad systems. They know how they’re supposed to make money. But the problem is the processes and systems that they have in place are fractured. So as a leader, whether it’s a manager, director, VP level, even C level, you have to be able to influence others. So, can you talk a little bit about influence and building a sphere of influence in the workplace?
Greg:
Oh, yeah. I’ll give everybody two books to read that I had to read. Because connecting with people, my mom and dad taught me a lot of great things. But connecting with people, they didn’t teach me that. And networking. So, I had to learn those things. Because everything – you can learn anything, and which I used to sit and just watch my mentor at Averitt Express, watching how he greeted everybody walking in. So, guess what I did, Coach? I don’t know what to do – I’m just going to do what he does. Because I read a book. It’s called The Winners Edge by Denis Waitley. And it said, if you want to be like somebody go do what they do. Wear what they wear, read the books that they read, talk, the way they talk, walk the way they walk. So, I just started walking around looking in these executive offices, I’d see a book, I’d go get that book and read it. If it had a magazine, I’d get that magazine, I’d read them and go…”ain’t got a clue what that is.”
But that’s okay. But I knew in my mind, I’m training my mind. And I know I’m going to get there. I’ve just got to go through the process to get there. See a lot of people are not willing to sit back and count the cost. I asked my son one day, he plays for the (San Francisco) 49’ers, and he’s in his fourth year. His sophomore year going back to (Louisiana Tech), your place that you worked, that’s where we met. I said, “Have you ever thought about playing in the pros.” He said, “Well, I think that’s what everybody does. If you’re in college.” The next day, I said, “No, have you really thought about it? Have you really… Are you willing to engage?” And I said – I went and saw him training at a place here in Nashville. And I said, “You’re a little different. You got some different skill sets. You ever thought about doing it?” He’s like, “Yeah.” “But are you willing to work for it?” I said, “For the next three years, before you answer yes, I want to know are you willing to work harder than everybody else. Are you willing to give up some friends? Are you willing to give up some fun? Are you willing to get with your coach after practice and let him critique you and you work on every step? Stop every wasted motion that you got, you got to work harder than everybody else, then you got three years to do this and you got a half of a half of a half percent chance of making it. There’s no guarantee in life.” I said, “But if you don’t make it, it doesn’t matter. You’re my son. I’m your dad. Let’s move on with life. But look at everything that you learn on that journey. Now what can you do with that? All the doors will open for you because you can handle – you can handle responsibility. Then if you do make it, well Lord have mercy! Nobody really cares either – me and you do, and that’s okay. We’ll take advantage of it and let’s move on. Let’s take another step. Okay, you made it in the NFL. So, what now? Well, now you got to take another step. Those guys get cut every day, probably 25 guys got cut this week. Oh, I thought they had a contract. There’s no contract. What have you done for me lately? You gotta wake up with a mindset every day. I’m taking another step today. You can put fear on that. Or you can put, “Hey, I’m just in life, I’m gonna be the very best version of myself.” That’s my stress point. Am I good enough? I don’t care. Am I working hard enough? I can control that. Okay, I can control being nice to you. Even though I don’t want to I’m still control that. I’m in control. Then, my oldest son, he told me one day – he said, “Dad, I figured out the most powerful thing I have – it’s the freedom of choice.” I said, “Tell me about that.” He said, “My choices got me to where I am. And my choices will get me out of where I am. Where I want to go is based on my choices.” I was like… I started crying. I was like, “Who’s THAT?” I mean, I was like, “Wow, he got it. He’s got it.” He gets to choose his path. Does that mean there’ll be potholes and rain and floods? Yeah, bad things are gonna happen. But it’s okay. You get to choose to do whatever after that. Nobody’s dictating to you what you have to do. You get to choose what to do. That’s what makes this country great.
Chris:
It’s November 4, 2020. So, we are one day removed from our election. And you talked earlier about how, you know, we can’t allow external circumstances to define who we are. And what a day for that, right? I mean, here we are. We’re one day past election day, like I said, and we don’t know who our presidents gonna be. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter.
Greg:
Doesn’t matter.
Chris:
Right? It doesn’t matter, our choice. We live in a great country, where we have a choice, in many instances, how we respond to the negativity in our lives. And I think at this point, it’s great to talk about – let’s transition to how does someone go about finding their own Winning Edge? You talk about how you’ve done it. You did it because you realized what your goals in life were? What if I don’t – what if I don’t know what my goals are? What if… What if I’m sitting here and I’ve been in this same job for the last eight years? And I’m comfortable, but I’d like to take the next step. But I don’t know how to? How does somebody go find their Winning Edge?
Greg:
Well, the first thing that came into my mind is you got to find a good coach or mentor; you can’t do it by yourself. I mean, you can read all these self-help books that you want to read, which is good. I’ve read a bunch of them. Because once I learned, I can read and I can comprehend what I’m reading, then I can do what I’m learning, that I’m getting what I want from what I’m learning, I think I’ll read another book. So, the first thing I would do, leaders are readers. I read my first book at 23, Coach. I didn’t read a lot of books. I didn’t think I could. I don’t know if I got ADHD or not. But I got all the symptoms of it. I mean, I just couldn’t do it. But it has so much value to me now. It motivates me to read because what I get for it, that’s the consequence. I have pain, I have short term pain or reading and staying focused. But my long term is a game for me, I get motivated about that long-term game, because I can help people. The more information I got. The more experience I got, the more stories I got, the more powerful I become and helping people help them take another step; that motivates me. So that motivates me through the pain to get to where I’m trying to get to. Because you got to figure out what where you want to go. But yeah, get a coach, a mentor, your leader at work, or an HR person at work – get someone to help you figure out what that is.
Chris:
You have to ask, right?
Greg:
Ya gotta. Gotta have conversation with people. Yeah.
Chris:
If you don’t have that conversation – if you aren’t willing to have the conversation, no one’s going to have it for you. They might – you might have somebody that really sees something in you. But the majority of the time, you’re going to have to go get whatever it is that you want.
Greg:
I’ll tell you a story about my first place of work. I worked all the time. And everybody -guess what everybody told me. They’re not going to pay you. You’re doing all this wasting your time. Okay, I went, hmmm. That’s not what my mom told me. See, I had great parents. I can hear that voice. It doesn’t matter what they say just stay – just outwork everybody because the only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary. Okay, you’re not going to be successful until you work. So, I was raised to that. There’s no complaining and there’s no excuses. That’s not an option. You got to go out and make your own. You have to go out and put forth the effort to go get what you want and get people to help you. It’s amazing. I mean, I can’t even think about when I drove out of West Kentucky with a college degree in finance with an emphasis in personal financial planning. Chris, I laughed. I said, “What the heck just happened. I didn’t come here.” I never thought I would graduate from college. That wasn’t even my goal. My goal was to play in the NFL. I went to school to play football. I didn’t go to school to go to school. When I drove out there in my 1984 Chevette looking in the rearview mirror, I just laughed for like five minutes. What the heck happened? Well, what happened is I went to class, I showed up, I said, “I can learn.” I read the book, I let people talk to me, I studied with people. I got through the fear of being rejected. And the “I’m not good enough.” I said I can do this. Then I just kept making – then I made the Dean’s List mom and dad go, “We’ve told you all along, you can do this.” But until the person looks in the mirror and says, “I can.” Everything else is on hold. The person’s got to look in the mirror and go, “I can.” And it starts with those two words. Don’t talk about what we’re going to do, let’s talk about what we’re going to do. I’m going to do, what are you going to do? Let’s talk about it. You got to buy it and you got to own it. It’s yours. Take it and run with it.
Chris:
Love it. Love it. So, we’re getting close to time here…
Greg:
Have I (answered) any of your questions yet? Or have I just been…
Chris:
We’ll let the leaders – we’ll let the listeners decide on that – on that question, Greg. But like I said, we’re wrapping up here. We’re getting close to the end. And it’s my turn to let you talk. Oh, wait, I have let you talk this whole time….
Greg:
(laugh)
Chris:
But, if you don’t mind, this is your opportunity to talk about your Take Another Step program. What is that?
Greg:
It’s a – it’s an inspirational leadership workshop. And the premise is a leader is a person – I said this earlier, the premise that I built this off is a leader is a person who inspires another person to take a journey that they’re not going to take by themselves. So, it’s a – it’s a workshop. It’s 10 modules, one hour apiece, and it starts at the beginning, starts beginning with the end in mind. Who’s built negative or positive emotions in you in your life? Let’s find out what that is. Let’s find out what’s in you to be a leader. So, we can tap into that because we – I call it “FLIP THE SCRIPT”. Because if somebody did something bad to you, now let’s use that to make sure you don’t do that to somebody else. Let’s get conscious to that. Just write that down. Let’s talk about that. Then we’re going to write your leadership legacy. Begin with the end in mind, Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People – then we go into core values, then we go into mindset, then we move into 10 things that leadership is and leadership is not. Then we move into the four mindsets that we need, which is: to be your best, seize the day, make a play, and I’m a champion. And this is all about getting people to want to do great things because THEY want to, not because the management wants them to. See the flip? We can tell them to do all this stuff until they’re inspired to do it. They’re probably not going to do it. And to me, it all starts with a relationship.
Leaders would come to me when I was developing leaders and corporations, “I can’t get him to do anything.” I said, “What’s his wife’s name?” “What’s that got to do?” “Got everything to do with it? What’s his dog’s name? Do you know Johnny played a baseball game last night?” And they go, “How do you know that?” “I know him.” You gotta get to know – how many times – you got to get to know these people. They know you don’t care. Because you don’t know them.
Well, they’ll do stuff for you, because yeah, I asked him about Johnny’s ballgame. And he walked by my office, “How’d Johnny do last night?” How about come out of your desk and come off your high horse and walk with your people and get to know them? Get to know their experiences? What do they like? What do they not like? Because if you give of yourself nature tells us they’re gonna give of themselves more. But if you don’t give of yourself, they’re not gonna do anything. I hate to say that. But that’s – that’s just that’s human behavior. We’re, we’re emotional creatures. I’m the biggest emotional people – biggest emotional person that there is. So, I always said I wasn’t emotional. That’s calling the kettle – What’s that? What’s that? So anyway, that’s the kettle calling, whatever I can’t say it…
Chris:
Pot calling the kettle black.
Greg:
There you go. Chris. Thank you see, you see my older brother used to talk for me. So, thank you.
Chris:
Greg this has been great today. I’m going to have to have you back on because there’s so many different topics that we didn’t get today that I’d love to talk with you about in the future. But before we wrap up, why don’t you tell the listeners what that special offering is that I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast today.
Greg:
How you connect with me – you can go to my website: www.FindYourWinningEdge.com and I’ll give you a free consultation – coaching consultation, so you can engage with that service and see if you like that or not. I also do professional speaking services, focusing on leadership and transformation. Then, I have my 10-module Take Another Step system and Inspirational Leadership Workshop.
So, there’s also a new service that I’m providing and it’s called “The Lion’s Den – A Leader’s Journey” because if you’re leader – we’re all sitting in the lions’ den every day and all these lions list things to do and all these priorities are looking at us every day. How do you survive in that lion’s den and how do you prosper in that lion’s den?
So, you can go on my web page & sign up for that webinar. It’s the third Thursday of each month. Sign up for that and come and join us with that and give me a call. My phone number is: 318-230-6481
Chris:
and that is FindYourWinningEdge.com
Greg Taylor:
Bingo!
Chris:
Thank you for joining us today and please remember to subscribe and share our podcast with fellow leaders. You can find us on Spotify, Apple, Google Podcasts or anywhere else that you get your podcasts! Thanks again for joining us and we look forward to the next podcast!
