Transcription of Episode

Lauren Cohen 0:01
Good afternoon, everybody. This is Lauren Cohen. I’m an international lawyer and cross border expert. And I’m also a licensed Realtor. And I am here today hosting my podcast Investing Across Borders, where we teach you how to invest, live, work, and play across borders. And I’m here with a wonderful, very special guest, Greg Reid, Greg and I met about a year and a half ago through two mutual friends and we keep on reconnecting and actually through clubhouse is how I convinced him to join me on this podcast, Greg is the founder of Secret Knock, which I’m going to let him share some information about, and just a very close friend of CEO space, of many of my partners and strategic partners and alliances, and he is in the wonderful City of Carlsbad, just outside of San Diego, California. So Greg, thank you for being here today. Give us just a little brief bio about you and where you came from? And what what brings you here today, what does “being of contribution to others” mean to you?

Greg Reid 1:07
Well, you bring me here today. And it’s really interesting, because you’re right, it is a small, little niche world where, you know, our circles tend to keep, our planets keep aligning for some reason. So the universe is telling us we need to do something. So I kind of like that. And yeah, it’s clubhouse. And yes, we’re also connected on LinkedIn. And yes, we’re also connected on Instagram. And yes, we’re also connected on email in our friends in or associations. You know, what’s interesting, I find so many people get these amazing contacts on their phone, they go to these networking events, and then they wait for the perfect time to reach out. And the best time is now because always looking for collaborations and new, affiliate partners more than ever, and I’m glad you and I have rekindled our friendship and I look forward to seeing what’s coming next.

Lauren Cohen 1:52
You’re so right, I say about the COVID that the two things that I have found to be most relevant, I guess for me, or the silver lining, which I’m always about silver lining are relationship capital, joint ventures, partnerships release. I mean, without relationships, if we were not focused on relationships, I don’t think we would have survived this. That’s first. And the second is just being open, being open minded, bringing value to each other. You know, for me, there’s been amazing stuff that happened because I’m a single mom. And it’s not always easy for me to travel and speak. And now I’ve been able to speak on platforms literally all over the world. So it’s been, I mean, that’s why I was never at one of your events, just because I couldn’t find the time to get there. So it is an amazing thing and how the world is small. And as long as we are good to each other, we’ll end up working together with the good people eventually. So tell us a little bit about what that means for you, “being of contribution to others”. Obviously, there’s a lot of interpretation of that. But what drives you?

Greg Reid 2:54
Well, it’s interesting, I used to always have my tagline, “how can I be of service?” and people would constantly bug me and want me to go work for them for free. And I realized by doing research, the original definition of service was to be in servitude, and to be enslaved. And so I changed it to “how many of you have contribution?” And I’m telling you the energy changed immediately. And people say, hey, do you have a contact over here? Or, you know, how can we do some Alliance, you know, partnerships and things of this nature. So I believe just the simple little change of wording is very impactful in today’s society. And we’re seeing it’s even like, my son is eight years old, and you’re a single mom, a single dad, hey, we should get together like Brady Bunch, right? Because he would come to me and say, you know, my friends say, Hey, I can’t afford that. And my son would say, Hey, Dad, how CAN I afford that? Interesting, right?Just a small slight change yet it’s a completely different paradigm. I know another person who swears and he says the F word a lot. And he added one word on the end of it and changed everything. He’d simply go “eff” and then go “Yeah!” Right. You know, things go wrong, your yelling “eff” and then he says “Yeah” Because there’s always hating. The point, Hill said it best, you know, through every adversity, there’s a greater equal opportunity on the other side of it. And that’s how my friends and I tend to see things of what’s coming next

Lauren Cohen 4:21
100% because I think that, you know, even last night, this is kind of silly, but I was watching the Megan and Harry interview, right. And they were talking about how they felt so isolated from the palace, I guess it’s kind of a little strange. But they were seeing how people don’t really understand or hadn’t really understood what it meant to be isolated until now. Because in some way, we have all had our own form, whatever that form took of isolation. And if we didn’t pivot a little bit, which I want to talk to you about, about Secret Knock and how you pivoted, if we didn’t pivot just a little bit and sometimes it was more than a little bit We would not be able to, you know, flourish and grow and bring that contribution to others. So tell me a little bit about Secret Knock, where did the name come from? WHAT is it? How many countries are you in? That’s a big deal for my audience, because we are in pretty much every country in the world. And what is your plan for it? And how did you pivot? That’s a lot of questions Greg.

Greg Reid 5:22
I guess it is, let me go down the list. And thanks for setting up on a T ball. So yeah, we started an event called Secret Knock about 15 years ago. And we became Forbes Inc entrepreneurs, top business event for business leaders and networking, by not promoting by not talking about it. And by keeping it under wraps, and it’s invite only by cool people. And if you’re watching this, or you’re listening to this, you’re one of those cool people, because you’re already separating yourself from the 95%, who dream of success to the top 5% who actually achieve it. And a lot of people understand my background is I write books. And I have an opportunity to meet and interview the most amazing human beings and tell their stories through literature and major motion pictures. And folks would say how do I meet your friends? So I started this event in my living room. And people said, Do I need a ticket? They go “No we all know when you’re there just doing the secret knock” As a joke, and it went on to become a global phenomenon. And we have people from countries all around the globe join us. And it’s very exclusive, we’re known as the greatest event you cannot attend, unless you’re invited. And once you’re invited, you have to fill out an application to make sure we can be of contribution to you, and that you bring value to our group. And as long as there is, once we bring in your tuition to join us, we still will not tell you where it is or who will be there. You just have to trust us, we just tell you the city, state and date, so you can book your flights. And then right before we leak the location so that the members can join us. And by doing that, for example, last year, we brought president Vicente Fox from Mexico, and he didn’t want Secret Service or things of this nature. The year before we did a private Skype with Edward Snowden while he’s hiding in Russia. And the year before we brought in Tonino Lamborghini, Mr. Lamborghini, from Italy. And by keeping it very, you know, under wraps, you don’t have to have a name tag, you don’t have to have a wristband, you don’t have to be a special person. Once you’re in, you’re in. There’s no VIP everyone is equal, in the same. So we started this event. And I gotta tell you, it’ll literally blow your mind when you come do it. Because your resources, your personal Rolodex will change forever.

Lauren Cohen 7:27
Yeah, I hear you. And I love the fact that it’s by invitation only. And actually, I think when it’s kind of ironic that we connected on clubhouse, which is by invitation only, although a different level of invitation, certainly because pretty much these days, if you have an iPhone, you’re going to get an invitation if you want one. But at the beginning, I don’t know how long you’ve been on there. I’ve been on there about two months. And it was not easy to get an invitation at the beginning. They were hard to come by when somebody offered one to me. I was like oh, okay, I was shocked. I was like, I didn’t know I was that much of an influencer. But okay, so, it’s amazing how much momentum that gets, because it’s not available to everybody. And you have to be invited, you know, and then there’s, you know, an obligation to invite others and reach out and be of value and contribution to others by bringing them in.

Greg Reid 8:23
And let’s talk about that. And there’s a reason behind it. Look, I’ve spent, you know, my entire career of 20 years reaching out and meeting and collaborating with some of the greatest minds of today’s world. And the last thing I’m going to do is have someone come in just because they want to give me some money for, you know, join us and they wear a tinfoil hat and talk to dead aliens in their hat. I can’t let these people have access because it would ruin my relationship. So I’m not sure that we’re all of like mind. And more importantly, like I said earlier, you’re saying is that, that they can be a contribution, add some type of value to one another. So we can all experience, grow and expand our horizons? You know, I got really frustrated going to events where there’s coaches, teachers and mentors non stop. So why don’t I just do an event where you can hang out with someone who actually did it? So if you got an idea for a clothing line, well, here’s Brian Smith go have tacos with him in line. He’s the guy who started Ugg boots, a billion dollar brand, I got an invention. Or here’s Ron Klein, the guy who invented that credit card magnetic strip that everybody uses and change banking. If you got an idea. Imagine just hanging out literally shooting pool with the people who’ve accomplished what everyone else is talking about. And that’s what we put together. So again, I appreciate you setting this up. And for those people that want to come play with us, secretknock.co fill out an application and we look forward to seeing you in September.

Lauren Cohen 9:44
So, Greg, how has your business pivoted? What have you done over this past year, because obviously an event driven business, you have to pivot you have to change. Have you been doing events online? How has it been received? Have you been able to access. I’m asking you too many questions at once over and over. But I’m just excited because it’s an exciting model that you have, and especially just being in the room with these. I’ve done it. I don’t want a coach that hasn’t built a business. What good does that do me? I want a coach that scaled and sold seven businesses or 10 businesses. And that way they can help me with mine. So how have you pivoted to continue to bring value and contribute to that, to the impact for others?

Greg Reid 10:30
Well, we watch the masses, and then we go the other way. So I’ll be very clear. So what, everyone else is going on to these different platforms of the week, I’m focusing on what’s important to me. My avatar, or my perfect person that I’d like to collaborate with. So for example, you mentioned clubhouse, a really cool app on the same notes. It’s kind of interesting. Someone said, what’s it like, I go imagine Reddit and Twitter, but audible version, somebody we’re gonna say anything, doesn’t mean it’s true, doesn’t mean they’re really just everyone can say anything. And I said, what my perfect person pretty much lives on LinkedIn, they don’t live on Facebook, they don’t live on LinkedIn. So what I am doing is focusing on that, in fact, this Friday, we’re doing a first ever Secret Knock live stream just as kind of like a little sample, we’re at 10 minute access to all of our amazing people live stream on LinkedIn, so everyone can touch and feel and get excited for September what’s coming. And so we have everyone from, a former military general, the first female Hispanic general in history, to, iconic celebrities you see on TV all the time, we have John Gray from Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. We even have Eddie Munster, from yours and my generation, you know, coming on to just give us 10 minutes of some words of wisdom. So the whole idea is like, the way that we’re adjusting and adapting is trying new modalities. And we’re also making sure that we’re spending our time and focus towards ones that can serve us best that we know we can serve our audience best. So that’s number one. And then last, but not least, you know, I started switching gears a little bit after being published in 110 books, 45 languages, I got a star here on the walk of fame for writing books. So what happened is I started getting into the publishing side, and I’m helping my friends and other influencers that want to get their books done, from an author standpoint to help them you know, get a leg up. Because, you know, the fact of the matter is, all we need is a great ghostwriter. And editors to take our words and craft in a way that people would want to see them. So we started a publishing company called JVP, Joint Venture Publishing, and it’s been taking off like crazy.

Lauren Cohen 12:34
That sounds great. You know, I’ve written one book well, two. But the book, the main book I wrote was about business immigration, which is not exactly the most exciting thing in the world to do. But it’s not my passion, my passion is impacting people and making a difference through the tools I have. So I need to write another book. So maybe we can talk about that.

Greg Reid 12:57
Yeah, it’s interesting. Let’s see if I got one of these down here. So one of my biggest best selling books was called Positive Impact. And because it’s such a great thing, because that’s what we want to do. And we realize that Yeah, you want to leave an impact. But what about honoring the people that have impacted your life? You know, that it’s coaches and the teachers and the people that pushed us sometimes positively, sometimes the other way, one of my favorite interviews was with a gal named Debbie Fields, she started Mrs. Fields, cookies. And at age 14, her mom would cook her meals, and she didn’t like her mom’s cooking, and she decided to boycott. And the mom says, you better eat, you can’t leave. And Debbie said, No. Midnight rolls around, you can eat that food. She said, Nope. And the mom says, I’ll never cook for you again a day in your life and Debbie Fields said “Excellent, your food’s horrible.” So the next day she takes her babysitting money, goes to the store, buys ingredients, makes dinner, people love it, and a batch of cookies. At age 19 opens up our first franchise, later on, it sells for a half a billion dollars. And I said, Your mom is basically a role model for you. And she goes indirectly. She goes when I started, she told me not to do it. I’m a failure. I’m a loser. I’m a woman and I can’t make it in this business. And then she said something profound that changed my life. She said in this world, to one side, we have something called a cheering section. These are the people few and far between. There’s very limited amount of these that will encourage us and tell us we’ll succeed. To the other side, that giant area there, is the jeering section, those who rain on our parade tells every reason I’ll fail, she said, but it’s up to us as a grown adult to stand in between those two groups and decide which one we listen to.

Lauren Cohen 14:36
Well, I would think that they both have an impact. Certainly because the cheering is like rah rah rah cheer you on but the leering is like Well, I’m going to show you like it’s kind of like it makes you almost do it in spite of whatever they’re jeering about.

Greg Reid 14:53
So some people have that viewpoint. For myself. I don’t believe in that. So I’ll give an example. People sit and go out, my family and friends don’t believe in my dream. Well listen dummy, stop telling your friends, and your family your dreams, it’s on you, you’re the one that chooses to do it. So I’ll give an example. If I walked into your house with a trash bag full of dirty diapers and rotten cheese and started dumping it in your living room, you’re gonna say, Stop, get that out of here, yet for some reason, we’ll open up a range and let them do this. Pass, pass. So as soon as someone starts that jeering stuff, I just sit there and say thank you for your insight, and I move on because I’m not gonna put myself in that position. I surround myself with people that are getting the results that I want. This is the only thing different look, I got a D in English. I can’t spell I can’t read very well. I’m dyslexic, yet I’m a famous international author. Why? Because I work my strengths and I hire my weaknesses.

Lauren Cohen 15:45
I was just gonna say, you know that there’s no I in team and you stay in your lane.

Greg Reid 15:49
Exactly. And that’s it. You know, we have a major motion picture trending on Netflix right now. We were up for an Oscar last year. Yeah, I didn’t hold the camera. No time did casting. I wasn’t in the movie. I just produced it. And so it’s very important to work your strengths, and hire your weaknesses. And when you have that mindset, it’s amazing. Because so many opportunities come and like right now you’re talking about pivoting all this stuff. Like, there’s going to be my words of wisdom, stop pivoting. Everyone stop, just stop. Everything is gonna open up really quick, get ready. Because if you’re not prepared for the tsunami of success thats coming your way, you are going to be in a bad way. Because so many people, as you’re going one direction, they went a whole other way. And now they have to reinvent themselves. Again, it’s going to take another year, right now stop, stop digging and start going the other way. Because a quarterback never throws a football while the wide receiver is standing, they throw it downfield and let him run to it. Right now is the exact time we better start throwing some holes down the field because I promise you things are going to change, things are going to open. And if you’re not ready for that success, you’re going to be left behind.

Lauren Cohen 16:53
So definitely a great way of looking at it. I definitely have to say I agree with you. I think that you we have to be planting and forward thinking. And right now, I think so many of us, a lot of entrepreneurs are just stuck. They’re like, Oh, I survived this. Oh, thank God, I survived this, you know, like, I mean, definitely those of us with children that were homeschooled, that was not fun, I did not have fun with that. However, I feel that the pandemic caused me to create more streams of opportunity for the people that I want to impact, because I realized that they’re coming from all different walks and all different places. And let’s talk a little bit about those different places. So do you find in dealing with your client base, or your attendees or your, your members? How different are they in terms of how you… Did you deal with everybody the same? Do you have a different approach depending on where they’re from? Do you notice a lot of cultural differences? Like how does that look for you?

Greg Reid 18:01
Everything’s the same. So the whole idea is a great leader is not a chameleon. But a great manager is. So for example, a great leader always stands their true north. And then they look for people that fit and resonate and vibrate at that energy level, where a manager has got to adapt, adjust to keep everyone people pleased to keep everyone in line. So as a leader, I stand my ground and make sure that I do not change that direction any time. And again, this is just different conversation, because I hear what you’re saying. It’s just different to me, because that’s not the conversations that are in my world. That’s not the conversations that are my friends. So this whole time we kept going completely opposite. We’re just looking for opportunity, opportunity opportunity. For example, you know, when we got shut down, like everyone, you know, I’m not a genius, and I’m not giving financial counsel I’m just going to share, that the way we talked about it, we sit there and say okay, well, the biggest coffee shop in the world shut down because everyone’s stuck at home now. So their stock went down in half. I’m not a genius, but what I did, I went and bought that stock, and realizing in a few months, things will open up, throw the football downfield. And when they open up where’s the first place you’re gonna go, back to that coffee shop? Oh, double the thing. Now, some people have been doing that, like me and my friends. We’ve been looking for these opportunities. We’re investing in Bitcoin. We’re investing in a theorem. We’re looking for what’s coming next. So we’re actually in a very good position right now. So that we’re prepared to start capitalizing on the future because I’m telling you right now, it’s going to be literally a tsunami of opportunities are going to come our way. This year is gonna be phenomenal starting in summer.

Lauren Cohen 19:44
Yeah, I agree with you. And I think that there are way too many people unfortunately that maybe sometimes because of mental health and whatever other reasons, but that are sitting in their box. Wallowing and fearful of going out of the box and fearful of stepping outside of their home. And they’ve allowed this lockdown or situation to impact them in ways beyond what they needed to. And it’s also about for you, you’re always looking clearly at the glass half full. But that’s not everybody in the world, a lot of people, unfortunately are always looking at the glass half empty, Oh, woe is me, oh, this and that. So I think that, you know, you have a very positive outlook and positive spin that makes a huge difference in the way that you resonate with people.

Greg Reid 20:38
So I resonate, and I look for people that share that same energy. It’s not my job to fix people that are that other way, I’m not a psychologist, I’m not a therapist. I barely graduated high school. I’m just a dude. I write books and make movies and have fun events. That’s my job. And so people that want to write books with me, and music, come to fun events. I’m your guy. But the fact of the matter is, if you don’t like scary movies, don’t go to a scary movie. If you don’t like comedy clubs, don’t go to comedy. So the whole idea is that I look for the people that vibrate at the level that we are and invite them into our family. So the people that are at home listening to this or watching this and saying I’m in that fearful box. It’s awesome. What that means that now this is an opportunity for you to find other positive like minded people that pull you out of it. And then when you’re ready, when you’re ready, then we invite you to come play in our sandbox. On the same note, imagine what it would be like if we started changing our association, where people started telling us or giving ideas of what’s possible. And we started laying out these things going, here’s an opportunity over here, here’s an opportunity over here, all of a sudden, it shifts your brain and you started seeing things from that way. Because look, when the doom and gloom hit, we all went through that thing. Napoleon Hill talked about the causes of failure. And the biggest one was the fear of death. And it was the fear of the unknown, and the fear of pain and all this stuff. I believe the biggest fear is the fear of judgment, the fear of criticism, when other people are thinking, and you know, there’s a bumper sticker says, What would you do if you couldn’t fail? The big question is, what would you do? Stop worrying about what people thought? Would you start that business? Would you ask someone out for a date, would you? What would you do differently? And the only thing I think my friends and I do a little bit outside of the norm is we don’t bother what other people think. Because the fact of the matter is that they’re not thinking about us dealing with their own situation. So I’m dealing in my situation of seeing what’s possible, what’s coming next. And I work towards that. And just real quick, when I wrote my first book, 110 books ago, I was turned down by 268 publishers, agents and printers in a row. And the 269th one said we’ll do it, change the title beginning middle end, I thought, so I worked my strength which of my story and I got a ghostwriter who recrafted it. It went on to become a phenomenon. When I wanted to make a movie for six years, I was turned down rejected by everyone, until finally I found counsel from someone who knew what they’re talking about, added that spin. And again, we made the shortlist for the Oscars, and now we’re trending worldwide on Netflix. Where would things be, these stories, the messages be told, if I would have let someone else talk me out of what I knew to be true?

Lauren Cohen 23:19
1,000% fear of judgment. I mean, I couldn’t agree with you more. I think that, like, I’m sometimes fearful of judgment, I’ll admit it. But at the end of the day, judgment is also very subjective. And, like you’re saying, Greg, you can’t allow somebody else’s determination of whether your book is good or whether your podcast is good or whether your work is good, impact your determination to do what you know is right to do. And that’s what you’re saying here.

Greg Reid 23:55
This is a good conversation. Danielle Laporte wrote this book and it was all about the difference between non attachment and detachment. Detachment means you don’t care, but non attachment is how I live. That means I go all in when I write one of my books, I give it every single thing I got. But as soon as they birth it, if people like it, if they don’t, that’s not my job. That’s not my concern. I’m not attached to the outcome. I’m just doing the very best that I can to make sure that everyone is taken care of and make sure I did the very best and I honored my word. That’s the best I can do to myself, but not attached to whether people accept it or not.

Lauren Cohen 24:29
Love it. Love it. Tell me a little bit about how you teach people how to run masterminds.

Greg Reid 24:40
Well, okay, I own mastermindgroup.com, so Yeah, a little bit. And I founded something called mastermindassociation.com and basically it’s a online portal that people have not usually seen before, where we teach people how to do a Robert’s Rules version of how to run, host, maintain a mastermind group. So you can go into mastermind Association, and actually go through a certification program to teach you exactly how to do it. And I believe you surround yourself with people that you have respect for, not people you have influence over. So it’s a great example, an opportunity to reach out to people you normally wouldn’t, so that you can build your mastermind with people that have expertise outside your own. So you can grow your own sphere of influence by adding the value that you bring from your own experience.

Lauren Cohen 25:27
Excellent. I love it. Greg, how do people reach you and obviously learn about Secret Knock and see if they can qualify to come? Secretknock.com I know, but tell us a little bit more about how to reach you. And by the way, I agree wholeheartedly about LinkedIn. Like, I have a little strategy I’m working on for a certain avatar that’s my kind of ideal target avatar. And the way for me, is through LinkedIn every day of the week. LinkedIn, I think we should be getting commissioned for promoting LinkedIn. But at the end of the day, it’s great, it’s probably one of the best for b2b. Certainly, if you’re trying to get to the small client, then maybe it’s not LinkedIn. But so anyway, tell us how people can reach you please?

Greg Reid 26:15
Well, again, you throw so many different things there. So again, watch the masses and go the other way. So I see everyone’s going to clubhouse I’m going alright, how do I go away from clubhouse? I see everyone’s going over here I go, what is over here? Because usually, that’s where the success lies, where everyone’s running away from this, you know, stock from a coffee chain, I’m going to run toward it, right? And by having that it’s called contrarian investing, contrary and you know, viewpoint that’s where the opportunities will lie, just for whatever that’s worth. Door number two, you can find me anywhere. I mean, Google and go to websites, but the main thing is Instagram, I mean, just go to answer him goes right to me, as you know, directly my dm and the only thing I asked for is specificity. I don’t like talking about the weather, you know what, che for dinner? And he said, there’s a what’s a good business book I should read or do what’s a good connection over here. I’d be glad to get back to you right away. Now, normally when I do these interviews, I always get a drop at least three bombs. And I haven’t done any yet. So before we go, I gotta.

Lauren Cohen 27:11
Absolutely, please do! But before you drop your bombs, I want to ask you a question. Outside of your own books, what is the number one business book you would recommend?

Greg Reid 27:25
The Ultimate Gift by Jim Stovall, unbelievable. It’s one of the greatest books I’ve ever read in my entire existence. It’s just phenomenal.

Lauren Cohen 27:32
I didn’t even have that book. So, I am going to order it.

Greg Reid 27:35
You’re gonna call me and thank me. Jim Stovall, He’s my hero. And after I read his book is one of the only ones I ever read from beginning to end. In fact, I think it’s the only book I’ve ever read beginning to end. And at the end of it, I was sobbing, and I called him up because his number was on the back of the book, and he and I became really good buddies and we’re co-authoring a book together right now.

Lauren Cohen 27:55
Wow, that’s awesome.

Greg Reid 27:57
All right. So here’s my nuggets!

Greg Reid 28:01
One: seek counsel not opinion. Counsels based on you know, wisdom, knowledge experience, people have already paved the way where opinions based on ignorance, lack of knowledge or inexperience. If you go to a family friend and say you’re gonna write a best selling book, they’re going to talk you out of it to protect you. They know I got a D in English, and they’ve never written a best selling book. If I go to Jack Canfield, who wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul, sold a billion copies. He’ll say, before you get started, here’s what you need to know and give you counsel. If we would spend our activities only seeking counsel and ignoring people’s opinion, that’s the day your life would change. Nugget two: This is a doozy. Specificity. When I want to get access to people, I don’t ask them to pick their brain. No one wants a brain pick, no one want to go to dinner with you. They don’t want to have coffee, they don’t want to go to lunch with you. They don’t want to be best friends. So what you want to do is have specificity. So I reach out to people, if it was the founder of NASCAR, and I was writing a book called Stickability, I’d say “I need 12.5 minutes of your time. That’s it I promise. I’ll cover all my own expenses to meet you in California. From the moment then I walked through the door to that motel and I leave, will be 12 and a half minutes, I’ll start a stopwatch. I’m gonna ask you one simple question. What gave you stickability to not quit? Well, the chances of him coming downstairs from his office to the break room is so high with that specificity. But people don’t do that. Same thing, if I get offstage and there’s 10,000 people on a line to see you. They say the nicest things, how can I be a contribution? How can I work with you? How can I be of service? I don’t know You and I don’t have 30 minutes to do a resume check. There’s a long line. Imagine someone coming up saying hey, I loved your presentation, saw you on Instagram, half million followers. I like your memes I make memes for a living. Let me send you one if you like it, maybe you’ll use me. 10 seconds, I know who you are what you do. You got my cell phone and we’re connected. Specificity is the key. I’m telling you everything. And then last but not least, number three: I wish I would have learned this one was a kid. It’s called CPC. CPC I learned from Marc Anthony Bates, Clues Patterns Choices. It’s accountability and responsibility for things that happen. It’s your fault, stop blaming other people. So for example, if I’m going to go out to lunch with a friend, and they’re 20 minutes late, anything could happen, but they’re 20 minutes late. There’s a little clue. If I hang out with my friend going golfing and playing poker, and every time they’re 20 minutes late, that forms a p, which is a pattern. Now, it’s my seat choice, whether I deal with it, yell at them stop hanging out, or to show up 30 minutes early, but it’s not their fault. They’re just late. Stop trying to change people to fit in your own little box. No one wants to be changed. But we’ll see someone with a bad reputation and business, they cheat your best friend, you do business thinking, it’ll be different for me. things go wrong, and you’re mad at the person. You saw the clue. You saw the pattern, you made the choice. It’s like seeing a rattlesnake bite your kid sister, you go to pet it, get bit, and you’re mad at the snake. Looking back, rarely are we angry at relationships that failed or business practices that fell through. We’re just mad that we stayed in too long, because we saw the clue. We saw the patterns, but we made our choices late.

Lauren Cohen 31:06
Oh, those are awesome nuggets. And I really appreciate them. I love it. I’m going to order that book right now The Ultimate Gift. And Greg, I thank you. I look forward to collaborating further with you on many levels with specificity and clues and patterns and choices and we will make good choices together. I’m quite confident of that. Thank you again, have a great rest of your day and stay safe and healthy. This is Lauren Cohen, international lawyer and real estate expert signing off today with Investing Across Borders. The podcast where we teach you how to invest live, work and play across borders. Thanks for joining us today with Greg Reid. Have a wonderful day. Take care everybody