The Quarterback DadCast
I’m Casey Jacox, the host of the Quarterback Dadcast. As fathers, we want to help prepare our kids—not only to enter the professional world but to thrive in each stage of their lives. Guests of this show include teachers, coaches, professional athletes, consultants, business owners, authors—and stay-at-home dads. Just like you! They share openly about failure, success, laughter, and even sadness so that we can all learn from each other—as we strive to become the best leaders of our homes! You will learn each week, and I am confident you will leave each episode with actionable tasks that you can apply to your life to become that ultimate Quarterback and leader of your household. Together, we will learn from the successes and failures of dads who are doing their best every day. So, sit back, relax and subscribe now to receive each episode weekly on The Quarterback Dadcast.
The Quarterback DadCast
The Power of Music: From Piano Bars to Parenting - Greg Offner
Thank you, Henna Pryor for making today's episode possible!!!
Greg Offner lived a compartmentalized life—corporate sales professional by day, piano bar performer by night. Though successful in both worlds, he felt disconnected from his authentic self, keeping different aspects of his personality in separate "buckets." Then disaster struck: a severe vocal cord injury threatened everything, leaving one vocal cord paralyzed after years of overuse, smoking, and untreated acid reflux.
Greg poured his experience in music, business, and behavioral psychology into a framework for creating emotionally resonant, high-impact workplace experiences. The result became a keynote—and a book—focused on transforming disengaged workplaces into cultures where people thrive.
Today, Greg helps organizations around the globe design Encore Experiences™—workplace moments so meaningful, people can't wait to come back and do it again.
Through fifteen surgical procedures and periods of complete silence (communicating only through a whiteboard while healing), Greg spiraled into depression. The turning point came unexpectedly at a Tony Robbins event when a stranger named Svetlana observed: "You're trying to keep all these different parts of your life in buckets... But what if you didn't have those buckets? What if it was all brought together in one thing and that was you?" Pointing to the stage where Tony was speaking, she said, "I think you'd be doing something like that"—a lightning bolt moment that changed everything.
Today, as a keynote speaker and father to two young daughters (Frankie, 4, and Trixie, 2), Greg brings his whole self to every aspect of life. He shares profound insights about balancing his driven personality with the unpredictability of parenting: "Replace expectations with hopes. Instead of mapping out my day, maybe replace it with 'wouldn't it be nice if...'" This shift creates space for grace when things don't go as planned.
Drawing from his musical background, Greg teaches his daughters to "play your instrument in a way that elevates the performance of the players around you"—a philosophy that extends beyond music to life itself. His remarkable journey reminds us that sometimes our greatest setbacks lead to our most authentic path forward, especially when we stop compartmentalizing and bring all parts of ourselves together.
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Hi, I'm Riley and I'm Ryder and this is my dad show. Hey, everybody, it's Casey Jaycox with the quarterback dad cast. Welcome to season six, and I could not be more excited to have you join me for another year of fantastic episodes and conversations really unscripted and raw and authentic conversations with dads. If you're new to this podcast, really it's simple. It's a podcast where we interview dads, we learn about how they were raised, we learn about the life lessons that were important to them, we learn about the values that are important to them and really we learn about how we can work hard to become a better quarterback or leader of our home. So let's sit back, relax and listen to today's episode on the Quarterback Dadcast.
Speaker 1:Top of the morning, everybody. It's Casey Jaycox with the Quarterback Dadcast. This is a Thursday morning in April. This episode will come out in a month or so, but I want to give much love to my good friend, who I worked with in corporate for years, the one and only Hannah Pryor, the fantastic multi-Ted Talk speaker, Hannah Pryor, for introducing us to our next guest. His name is Greg Offner. He is the author of the Tip Jar Culture. He is a renowned keynote speaker that brings high energy and excitement and inspiration to stages across really the world that empower people. But, with all that said, that's not why we're having him on today. We're having Greg on today to talk about Greg the dad and how he's working hard to become that ultimate quarterback or leader of his households. Without further ado, Mr Offner, welcome to the Quarterback Dadcast.
Speaker 2:Casey, thanks for having me, and Hena, if you're listening, thanks for setting this up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you bet I'm sure Hena's probably in front of the piano right now, just like just tickling the ivory, just thinking about you and me, which actually people? If you can't see us on youtube, I feel like I'm staring at myself. It's like this beautiful bald dude with a sick beard and I don't mean that arrogantly about myself, it just came out bad, but I feel like I'm looking at myself, buddy yeah, we're, listen, we are both wildly attractive men.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know, there's just no denying it, it's just well, he said it, everybody, he said it.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to disagree with him. Okay, so we always start out each episode with gratitude. So tell me, what are you most grateful for as a dad today?
Speaker 2:Man, I'm grateful for time that I got to spend with my girls this morning. So I have two girls. They're four and two years old, and you sort of alluded to this. I think that I am a musician as well as a speaker, and my background is really working in piano bars, and one of the things that I've been embracing is the ability, since I make my own schedule, to have a little more fun in my day, and so I recently purchased this looping device and it's something that just allows you to play with sound and sort of make all these layers, and I knew that it's something my oldest daughter, frankie, would be into, because she's very into music, and so she woke up super early this morning, so I brought it down to the kitchen table, sort of set everything up, and somehow we stumbled upon Old MacDonald and EIEIO and started making these loops of like barn animal noises that we'd make, and we're having so much fun with it.
Speaker 2:And then my younger daughter, trixie, the two-year-old, comes downstairs with her mom, my wife, and she goes what are you doing? And so we're just sitting there at the kitchen table all playing with music, and I'm grateful that I get to share this thing that has allowed me to travel the world. That allows me to express myself, I think, to the world that I get to share that with my girls. That's how I got to start my day. I'm I'm pretty damn grateful for that.
Speaker 1:That's so good. So that's like maximizing time, which is a word that I'm obsessed with, and the number 1,040, which is the number of minutes we get in a day. It's up to us to see how we spend with them, and I love when I hear stories like that. Greg, it's just um, that's cool, that's awesome. I'll tell you, man, what I'm grateful for is something that happened to me yesterday.
Speaker 1:My son's in college. He's playing golf and there was a conference golf tournament that they recently had and he's a freshman. He's played in a few events and he was right in the cut to play. So they take six but only five play. So he was the alternate as a freshman, which was like I just tried to kind of continue to the positive mindset of hey, just do be happy, you're down there and support team, I said, and if your number gets called, you'll go play and you'll do well, but if it's not, be the best teammate possible and never make the team feel like it's about you, because it's not, it's always about the team. And, um, he's really embraced that mindset. The guy's only only 19. But I tell you, man, two of the kids really struggled the first day and Ryder played great in a practice round and the coach came up to him and said, man, I hope I didn't make the wrong decision by keeping him out. And I said, regardless of what he did, you're not going to make him feel bad, take the high road and fast forward. Unfortunately, a couple of guys struggled, but again, ryder was right there to support him and he saw this other kid from a different school play. Amazing. The kid shot like 64, like crazy good for all the golfers out there. But what I'm most grateful, though, dude is. Afterwards he got a bro hug from his assistant coach and the coach just said dude, I don't know, you were beyond impressed. Us, what you just did, did not go and notice. You never once made it about you. You followed every kid out here. You made all of them feel important.
Speaker 1:A couple other kids were decided to like take a, who weren't playing. They put it like, went to the restaurant, just kind of got tired. I said, right, are you were? You went with the whole time. And I said, though, that is what teammates about. I just want to let you know how much we appreciate that, and so I.
Speaker 1:It was almost like a tearjerker moment. Last night I got this text and I told him. I said, dude, writer, whether you shoot fricking 68 under and qualify for tour, I could give two shits. What I value the most is your character. And like, that text alone and that moment alone is going to. You'll remember that for the rest of your life. And that's the stuff that separates cultures, marriages, fricking companies. So I just like bro hugged him I mean I air broke, bro hugged him out from afar. But yeah, just so those are like it just blew, I don't know, warmed my heart last night when I got that. So I thought I'd share that with you today. Share that with you today, that's awesome. Yeah, all right. So we heard about Frankie, we heard about Trixie, but I want to. I want to learn how you and your wife met, but then talk a little bit about both girls and what they're up to.
Speaker 2:Kim and I met at karaoke. I was hosting a buddy who lives in the UK. He's from the UK and had never been to an American football game, to an NFL game. So I brought him to the Eagles Giants game I'm based here in Philadelphia and we tailgated, we had a blast at the game and then afterwards went to the little Xfinity live complex that's in the parking lot of the sports complex there and we're drinking there and just having a day. I mean, this is I think I was in my twenties, maybe maybe just turned 30.
Speaker 2:So, like we're going after it and, um, ran out of stuff to do cause it was a Sunday, and so there was this weird lull between an evening activity I had planned that started at 10 PM and we're kind of going all right. How do we broach this gap between like five and 10? Otherwise we're going to both pass out like we're from exhaustion and the help of a lot of beer in our belly. So we went to this Mexican restaurant and right across the street there was somebody singing uh, like you know, perform or whatever and I was like, oh my God, there's this Irish pub that does karaoke and it kicks off in like an hour. Let's just go over, it'll be awesome. And so we're having some beers there waiting for everything to start.
Speaker 2:We're chatting up this table of girls and, um, karaoke starts and I hear this voice just starts singing. And amid conversation with these girls, I look up. I see this beautiful woman kicking ass, just singing up there doing this queen song somebody to love. So I go up to the karaoke DJ, I give him 20 bucks. I say dude, I'm gonna sing next. Like, put me up there. Okay, get up on stage. I start chatting her up. She's not paying attention, though she doesn't know that I'm talking to her. She's sitting with this table of guys and, uh, one of the guys I found out later, like Elbert, and he's like hey, I think that guy's talking to you. Um, so I sang this song, got down, started chatting her up. I'm like so which one of these guys is your boyfriend? Like you know what's your deal? She's like oh, these guys are all gay. None of them are my boyfriend.
Speaker 3:I was like fantastic, so here's the deal.
Speaker 2:We're going to go grab a bite to eat, and so we exchanged numbers, and that was my last first date.
Speaker 1:Do you remember what song you sang?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I sang a Billy Joel song. Only the Good Die Young.
Speaker 1:Solid, solid choice. Love that. So tell me then about the girls. I know that they're young, but what, what? What are they? What, what, what lights their, uh, their fire?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're, they're, they're still discovering who they are, right, I mean they're toddlers. So, like you know, for Beatrix, uh, we call her Trixie, our youngest. I mean balloons. Balloons light her fire for sure.
Speaker 2:Uh, she's just, she loves life and is a very pleasant, and maybe what I mean is content um child and I, I maybe that's the second child thing, I'm the oldest in my family, so I don't know but she seems content, just sort of being around and finds joy in whatever we're doing, and that's something that really emerged as a, as even an infant. Just, her way of being as an infant was so different than Frankie. Frankie is also a joy to be around and loves life, she's very active, she's got a ton of energy, they're both very verbose, they both have a really strong command of vocabulary, and I think it's because kim and I never shut up. We're just constantly talking, singing, there's always something happening in our household. So our girls are very good communicators, and frankie has embraced singing. Um, she, though, really has this drive type A you might call it if she were an adult to just be the instigator of action, to be, if not the center of attention, right in the mix, driving what's happening, and that you know back to how Trixie was as an infant and how Frankie was.
Speaker 2:As an infant. Frankie was a little more difficult like, had very strong desires and likes and dislikes. Even as an infant, Trixie was just sort of like hey, happy to be here, Cool, we're going wherever and I think they are playing is the word I was going to use but they're learning how to live well together. There's not a whole lot of explosive fights. Some of our friends have kids that you know we're hearing, and it's both girls, so it's not like it's boys, a difference, you know, in the gender. Whatever you know like beating the crap out of each other. It's just like knock down, drag out issues that they're having to separate. Frankie and Trixie are just besties and it's super cool to watch.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. That's awesome. I always like going this direction with my guests is to have them like. I want you to think back to what was life like for Greg Gr and talk about the impact that um the mom and dad had on you, um, and maybe tell a story or two of of of how some of these values that that really um have impacted you and now, as a dad, really shape who you are in life.
Speaker 2:So I had two younger sisters uh, have two younger sisters and I think that um certainly helped shape me embracing my role as a dad and sort of feeling like I know what's coming and what speed bumps are going to happen in the relationship between two girls that grow up together. And growing up in my family was pretty uneventful. I mean my dad worked in construction, my mom was a teacher. About 10 or 12 years old I guess, my dad did start traveling for work and so that definitely changed my perception of I shouldn't say it changed, it shaped my perception of what a family is. And I only see that now because I travel for work and it feels very normal to me. But I also see friends who never travel for work, so they're just constantly home and just constantly around.
Speaker 2:I think my mom, being an educator, supported a love of learning in our household, and certainly my dad. One of my strongest memories of my dad and I growing up was him reading to me. I mean he was adamant that I embrace reading and love reading, embrace reading and and love reading, and he would put character voices and different inflections into the books we read. I mean we would read hardy boy books together. I'm sure we read other stuff, but those are the ones that really stand out. And he would just bring these characters chet and whatever the other guy's name was, harry maybe to to life. And so that carried me, I think, far in the world my mom's installation of the love of learning, my dad's installation of this love of reading, also learning, and it's probably why I became interested in psychology and philosophy. And now I make my living through the spoken word and persuading and writing a book. I mean, I make my living through the spoken word and persuading and writing a book. I mean, um, all of those things clearly shaped who I am.
Speaker 2:And then also, while my mom wasn't musical, she loved music. My dad was a drummer, uh, growing up just sort of like a hobbyist, nothing professional. Up just sort of like a hobbyist, nothing professional, um. But so he was very into music and I, I remember as a young kid, you know, I wanted to listen to green day and he was like, oh, you got to listen to this band, led zeppelin, they're awesome. I was like, oh, it sounds like they're old, like I don't know. And now I love led, you know I didn't realize how cool my dad's taste in music was Um, but that definitely shaped and my cousin Chris uh as well really shaped my love of music.
Speaker 1:What was your um first instrument you loved?
Speaker 2:Hmm, I wanted to be a trumpet player. I think the first instrument that I loved was the drums because I was very, very much like Frankie type A, had to constantly be doing something, had a lot of energy. If I wasn't playing sports I was probably getting into trouble, and so the drums became. This. Physical outlet for me was always in elementary school. I was constantly getting in trouble because I was that kid who would just tap on anything, everything, books at the worst times too, casey. So drums was the first instrument I played. But the first instrument I loved was the trumpet. I heard a cassette by Wynton Marsalis and just thought man, that sounds awesome.
Speaker 2:And my dad I think we do Sundays with Sinatra was this thing on the radio. So we'd come home from church and on the way home it was always Sinatra playing, and so the big band music in the back and trumpets always had this big, sexy lead and presence. And I remember asking my parents, probably around fifth grade, sixth grade, if I could learn to play the trumpet. And we went to the music store and they found out. It grade sixth grade if I could learn to play the trumpet. And we went to the music store and they found out it was, you know, I think, maybe $20 a month to rent and they were like no, no, that was a lot of money to us back then. And so I went to the um, the band mistress, the head of the music program the next day. I was like what's the cheapest instrument I could learn how to play? And she handed me a pair of drumsticks. She said congratulations, you're a drummer. And that sort of started this journey down the road of percussion.
Speaker 2:Now I had taken piano lessons as a kid, but piano was for nerds like dorks right, like Beethoven and Bach and like the oldest, deadest composers that played crap. That was so boring, who would want to do that? But the drums were sexy, like this was cool, and so I started playing the drums and that led to a music scholarship to go to a military school for high school, which was handy because I was also a real pain in my parents' ass and so I definitely needed the military school. The scholarship helped. That experience led to initially declaring myself a music education major in college and percussion was my main instrument. So I was in the marching band in college, which I did not enjoy, and in the practice room it felt kind of lonely because you're in the soundproof room wearing ear protection and playing the drums or practicing marimba or whatever instrument you know you're working on at the time. But as a music student you had to take all these other classes and one of the classes I had to take was studio piano and so as part of that course, one year we had to accompany ourselves while singing to a pop song just to sort of learn these basic chord progressions. And I'll never forget sitting in the practice room.
Speaker 2:A piano practice room was very different, more spacious, didn't need hearing protection and it wasn't soundproof, so you could kind of hear what was going on outside. They could hear you. I'm playing along to this pop song and I'm singing along to this pop song and there was like a little glass window at the about head height top of the door. All of a sudden I see this cute chick like poke her head, like look what's, what's going on. She like waves and smiles, walks away a little bit, a little little bit. Later this other girl like pokes her head in and I'm going all right, no, girls poke their head in when I'm playing the drums like maybe I should shift over to piano again. Maybe piano could be cool and that sort of pushed me back towards piano as an instrument and ultimately led to me starting to work at piano bars after I graduated college wow, that's cool, and why.
Speaker 1:one thing I I love when I was looking at your uh, your website, this that there's a picture you have of of your family playing uh, which just screams memories, um, and like happiness and like energy. And do you remember where that picture's from?
Speaker 2:I do. It's my uncle Jimmy's house up in the Northeast in Philly. He is the one kind of playing the good looking guitar, from what I remember, the sort of cool looking guitar. Uh, I think my dad is the one plucking away on the banjo and his twin brother, I think, is playing an acoustic guitar and they would just kind of sit around and jam and they were all okay. You know, none of them were blowing the doors off the place when they started playing. But to your point, it was this coming together. Uh, my dad is one of I always mess this up seven, maybe eight, I think seven. My dad's one of seven kids and so they, we had these huge family gatherings, even when it was just, you know, my aunts and uncles on his side, they all had two or three kids, so you're talking about like 40 people just for no other reason, on a Saturday having a barbecue, and so there were always people around.
Speaker 2:It was always the thing that brought everyone. You know, maybe the kids are playing basketball out back and you know the moms were out front smoking their cigarettes, drinking their, you know, bartles and James wine coolers, talking shit or whatever, and you know the dads were somewhere watching football or golf and all of a sudden somebody picked up a guitar or started playing something and everybody sort of migrated into that room. And so, as I mentioned earlier, music is a way that I express myself. It's the way that I met my wife. It's it's a thing that I see bringing people together and humanizing people. That's why that's why I use it in my keynotes. I mean, I know we're talking about me as a dad, but since we're talking about music, yes, it's a competitive differentiator from a sales standpoint, but I've never felt particularly drawn to business and in fact I have a very core memory, if you will, of my dad.
Speaker 2:He got promoted from like carpenter to like manager, so he wasn't out in on the job site as a worker, he was there as sort of like the boss, right. So he was wearing a suit now and I remember he used to call it his monkey suit. I'd come home and be like, oh, I got to take off this monkey suit. It was like the first thing he wanted to do is like God, I can't wait to get out of this persona of me and get into the real me, right. But in the mornings he would come downstairs and as he, you know, give me a smooch on the cheek or whatever and walk out the door, he'd go all right, daddy's got to go to yucky work. And I never forgot that he called it that and maybe that's why I'd never really envisioned or been interested in sort of the corporate nine to five type thing or been interested in sort of the corporate nine-to-five type thing.
Speaker 2:And now, as I speak, to many of those folks who work corporate nine-to-five or these days you know, nine-to-nine type jobs, music is a way to humanize, no matter who they are in the organization, the CEO, the janitor, first day on the job 50 years in music speaks to the person in all of us. But I then relate it to the professional side of what we're doing. Yeah, and it's been the thread that's sort of been with me throughout my whole life. I've moved around a lot, I've gone to a bunch of different types of schools, but music has always, you know, to sort of co-opt the line from the song baby grand by ray charles and billy joel, like music's always been there.
Speaker 1:Did you play? So when you went to um, so piano started taking off and, uh, in college, what? When did you start like performing, like doing hey man, I'm actually pretty good at this.
Speaker 2:So I lived with a guy named Justin uh, who's still a buddy of mine and I don't remember why, but I just went out and bought a keyboard, Went out and bought an electric keyboard. Let's go. And I remember Justin came home and I'm sitting there in our living room and he's playing. He's like dude, like how long are you going to play this thing? I was like I don't know are you going to play this thing. I was like I don't know.
Speaker 2:And maybe a week later he goes. Hey, uh, if you're going to play this thing, like, maybe you should play it for a reason, I said, what do you mean? He goes. Well, there's open mic night at this bar. Killed errors, like, let's go, you should do it, All right?
Speaker 2:So when it's open mic night, I prepared, I prepared one song, but I played three songs, and the song that I prepared was Christy Lee by Billy Joel. It's like really high uptempo rock and roll song. And I never forget the minute I started playing and singing, like the whole bar sort of stopped and people turned and looked and I was like, ooh, this is something. It feels good. And lest anyone think that I started off as amazing, that was about the limit of their attention. Like they turned around, looked and then everybody sort of went back to normal, like I didn't hold them, but I saw something, I did something.
Speaker 2:And maybe a week or two, a few weeks later, I got a gig at this place called the spence cafe, and the spence cafe was known for having great bands, and so my sort of pitch to the owner was let me just open for whomever your like late night band is, and we'll do like a two-hour you know piano bar type thing. Right, like, I'll set up, I'll play, and and he goes all right, you're gonna bring people like do you have a mailing list? Or you know, email was kind of becoming a thing. He's like do you have email list? And I was like no, but I'll put up flyers. And so I decided that what I would do is put the logo of this bar, spence cafe, in the middle of the flyer and then I would put Billy Joel.
Speaker 2:I put at the very top appearing tonight Billy Joel, and then Elton John. In big letters and then in really small letters, underneath Billy Joel's name I wrote has no idea this is happening. And in really small letters, under Elton John's name I wrote will definitely not be performing. And then I had my name at the bottom of the flyer and when I showed up for the gig the manager goes dude, what the hell is this? I said I don't know. I thought it was funny. He's like do you know how many calls I've had from people who are pissed off, thinking Elton John or Billy Joel is going to be here? And I was like, yeah, but you got phone calls. Right, that means people saw it. So some people are going to show up and he goes all right, don't ever do that again.
Speaker 1:But I like where your head's at man, and so that was my first real gig.
Speaker 3:Wow, love that. Hello everybody, my name is Craig Coe and I'm the Senior Vice President of Relationship Management for Beeline. For more than 20 years, we've been helping Fortune 1000 companies drive a competitive advantage with their external workforce. In fact, beeline's history of first-to-market innovations has become today's industry standards. I get asked all the time what did Casey do for your organization? And I say this. It's simple. The guy flat out gets it. Relationships matter. His down-to-earth presentation, his real-world experience applied to every area of our business. In fact, his book Win the Relationship and Not the Deal has become required reading for all new members of the global relationship management team. If you'd like to know more about me or about Beeline, please reach out to me on LinkedIn, and if you don't know Casey Jaycox, go to caseyjaycoxcom and learn more about how he can help your organization. Now let's get back to today's episode.
Speaker 1:Okay. So, before we get into, I want to talk about this vocal cord injury, eventually, and I want to talk about what you're doing. But before that, I want to talk about this vocal cord injury eventually, and I want to talk about what you're doing, but before that I want to go back to this journey of music, this journey of getting read, to this journey of being taught from a mom who was a teacher. What were you think about? Family core values that maybe shaped you, maybe through military school, some of those shaped you too, maybe shaped you, maybe, maybe through military school, some of those shaped you too. But what were some like core of you? To think of specific? You know one or two core values that really are like hey, the offender home. This is important to us and these are. These are things I'm going to take into my life as a dad, and maybe you're taking it right now. Tell me what comes to mind.
Speaker 2:My dad had a lot of isms. You know what I mean Like dad isms, like things that he said that one of them was you do good things, good things happen, love that. Another one was you know, people who lie, cheat and steal, people who steal, cheat and lie. People who cheat, lie and steal. And it was sort of his way of saying, like you know, these are three things that you need to avoid, because they aren't just actions, they're things. You become a liar, a cheat, a thief. Those are the. Those are the two that really really stand out to me. Um, my mom wasn't big on the. Maybe it's a mnemonic device, maybe it's a catchphrase, I don't know, but, um, certainly, showing up in a way that helps others would be big. I think that really influenced her desire to teach, and I remember she had this plaque, something that was always in the house. You know, to teach is to touch a life forever.
Speaker 2:And I saw that as we would go to the grocery store or back then you know the video store, the grocery store, or back then you know the video store, the drug store um, she'd run into kids that she taught 10, 15 years ago and they saw mrs offner, hi, how you doing? And just like you know there's those teachers you've had that you see them in somewhere and you avoid like, oh shit, there's mr jones, let's go this way, right? But people flocked to her when they would see her in the store. And so I really do think that my desire, my belief that we're here, if for no other reason than to help the experience of others, and if we do that, then enough of that shines back on us and we've got people looking to help us too.
Speaker 2:I think those are certainly core values and that's definitely something that I try to, will try to impart. They're a little young now. No-transcript, it'll help you in the process, but do something that helps the world. And I find now, with Frankie at four, what I've been saying a lot, maybe one of my catchphrases or isms is you know, the more you listen, the more fun we can have, cause she's just got this drive and when she's going, man, she's going. It's hard to redirect her, and so just trying to like remind her that, hey, if we're not having fun, think about how much you're listening, and maybe there's the disconnect.
Speaker 1:The more you listen, the more fun we have. They take the dog off the leash at the beach. They're back here.
Speaker 2:That's very much a great analogy.
Speaker 1:Um, listening is a skill. Uh, it's funny. I wrote a, wrote a. I hate to self plug here, but you hit on two things that are important to me. One, bringing energy to the room and treating people the way we want to be treated. Old school, you know, seems like common sense, yet most people don't do it. And you're always nice. Nice is never going to get replaced by AI. Being nice is always going to make people feel good and you'll be in your memory and people remember you.
Speaker 1:And then the book I wrote, chapter three, is about the difference between hearing and listening. It's easy to hear things, but if you listen, it means like, even think about music, like you can hear music. But if you listen to music, like it touches your heart, it's like you remember every, you remember where you were, like what it was about, like the memory it created. So I think I love that you're teaching Frankie that. I'm sure Trixie will learn it too. But, yeah, listening is many people want to speak, to speak, and they don't create space for actually people to respond or to listen. So, um, yeah, you definitely hit, hit a chord there with me, pun intended. Um, as you think, uh, as you, as you think through, like your journey of um. You know music and everything you've you've been taught so far. Now, as a guy that travels all over the world, how hard is it to be present at times when you're gone and you're back, and you're gone and you're back. Is that a challenge for you? Oh?
Speaker 2:it's incredibly difficult. It's incredibly difficult. It requires a great deal of intentionality, full stop. Add in now the complexity of I'm not always here, so sometimes I'm coming from somewhere else and you know, for two weeks ago, for example, two weeks ago, I was in three different cities in two days and then flew home across two time zones and my kids were ready to see me. I was ready to see them emotionally, physically I was ready for 12 hours by myself and I think psychologically I needed a few hours by myself too to just create that space, kind of like the commute home. That's something that a lot of us miss when we're working from home now is there is not that physical and temporal disconnection between here's, where I was working and when I was working, here's my home and my family and it. It is something that I want to be better at, actively look for opportunities to be better at, and have an incredibly hard time giving myself grace when I'm not great at it, which isn't helping, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that speaks to a lot of people. Whether you're a freaking travel the world, speaking, or you work from home, it's like being present is one of the hardest things apparent, because these things called phones take our attention and there's a culture of like I gotta do this, I gotta do that. It's like no, no, we don't. Uh, and I don't it's. I mean, I'm definitely a very driven dude and um, but I learned, I learned at like 32, greg, when, like, my son was not even one yet, and I remember coming home at like six, 50, and he's going to bed at seven and I'm like this is not what being a dad's about. And I remember, like going to my boss.
Speaker 1:I'm like I, I, I can't do this't do this, like I, I, and at the time I was like one of our top performers and and they loved it because they loved the revenue, but I didn't love my relationship with my family and so, like, I had to like figure out, and that was one of the hardest things I did, but one of the best things I ever did, because it it gave me that freedom to be like okay, five to seven, I'm leaving.
Speaker 1:I'm leaving a four o'clock, which felt really really weird. In a high, high pressure, you know corporate sales job and I'm I'm going to, I'm going to do that and I'm gonna get home from five to seven, I'm really not going to pay attention to my phone unless it's like massively urgent and I'm gonna spend time with my wife and kids, which was like not the norm. But I think, because I was where I was at, I almost maybe I got a pass. But what it did is it unlocked another level with me that I didn't realize was there, because emotionally now I was so present and then then my drive kicked in Cause. Then, once I'd spent time with my kids, my wife, I'd get back online at night and then like re-get after it for like maybe an hour.
Speaker 2:When you say you got a pass because of where you were at, what do you mean?
Speaker 1:I think if I wasn't a top performer meaning I mean I was our number one rep at this company for years and I was very lucky to be in the spot I was at Definitely some hard work. But I think because where I was at, maybe I'd earned the right to leave earlier my boss gave me. I think that definitely helped. And what was kind of the cool is, after that, other parents after me, um, once they proved that they were going to be here for all. They got the same gift, so that felt good to see happen. Um, but also just create a culture of working moms and dads that wanted to kick ass at work, but we also wanted to kick ass at home. But, um, I just share that as a story with you. But I think that the grace part is hard and some days I wasn't my best.
Speaker 2:And you hit on something there that, just at the risk of sounding like I'm too dialed in as a dad because I don't want to masquerade as something I'm not, I think you know, being in a sales role, we both have that corporate experience, and what I loved about it was there's a number on the board and when I hit that number, mission accomplished. And most of my bosses that I'd had throughout my career were like bro, when you hit that number, I don't care where you are, hit that number. If you do it in the first week of the quarter, great. You do it in the last week of the quarter, great. You do it in the last week of the quarter, it's on, you hit the number. Yeah, many jobs don't have that and I struggle now in in my current work because I set the number. It's my company, I set the number and the way my brain works best is when I can chunk activities and it is very hard for me to disconnect from that number when I've not hit it. And so, in a perfect world, I've got this project I'm working on and I complete it, and then I go to work on this project and then I complete it and then I go to work on this thing and I complete it.
Speaker 2:But parenting, as you know, as many of your listeners all probably know, like it doesn't work that way and it is very frustrating because I'm, you know, still I'll call myself still a new dad. My oldest is four. I'm I'm not in the uh God, what are the stages of grief? I'm not in denial, I don't think, but probably this like regret of I had a really good system that worked for me and I'm still trying to figure out how to create a system that works not just that works, but that works for me. That makes me feel good about how the day progresses and is going. And this maybe unfortunate realization I think I'm having is that because these, my children, are getting older and their needs change, the equation is always changing. Oh yeah, it's just this constant discomfort and disruption that we're learning how to deal with. Maybe we talked about this when we first met, you know, I think that, if for no other reason, human beings at a young age should be introduced to physical fitness, because your kids will beat the crap out of your body, and if you have not prepared, like you're training for a marathon, like you're in trouble, pal, and I think psychologically and from a time management standpoint, it's also that same thing.
Speaker 2:Like you can have a process that I had, a process that worked for me, but what I'm learning is it wasn't really me being good at time management, it was me being militaristically effective with how I blocked time, and that approach doesn't work with kids. At least, I have not been able to make it work yet. And it's a real frustration because while I want to be present and I want to, you know, be at the end of my life and my kids are like, oh, you're such a great dad, you know, like the truth is, like I'm also a human being who has my own selfish goals, needs and desires, and like I want to achieve these things in life too. And trying to meter that, I think, to tie it back to what sparked the idea, it's easier as my own boss. I don't know how I would adapt and adjust if I were working for someone else, but it still feels really messy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I tell you, uh, you, you made me think of something. That one I mean grace, is going to be a theme here. You got to give yourself grace, but when you, we have expectations as parents are the most dangerous thing ever, because if there's not an agreement with the expectation which is, this is like kind of something that spawned in some of the corporate work I do with executives, but I think it's still parenting. It reminds me of when I was a younger dad. I would have expectations because I would say, okay, we're going to have a good day, son and daughter are going to do this, we're going to be home by 1130. We get lunch, one to nap, then I'll be able to watch golf for two hours and be able to kind of recharge, relax, and then we'll wake up. Maybe we'll take a walk. We'll do this. We may have a couple of beers happened.
Speaker 1:And now I'm like, what the shit, you know? Now I'm like, stressed out, I'm like, and finally my wife's like, hey, you're the problem and I love you, but you're the problem, I'm like. Then I felt like my, my ego getting up and I'm like, okay, wait, don't slow the ego down. Like what do you mean? She's like you're setting yourself up to fail because you have these expectations that are this and this view of this reality. That's never going to happen. Now, I love your optimism and I love your positivity, but, like we have kids, that fricking every day is it could be a complete shit show, and then there's days we can be awesome. So it's like it learned. I learned a lot to be flexible and just roll with it, which was not my personality, greg. I was more of a, you know I like. I like structure. I like you know certain things that my dog wants to say. I'm not sure what's going on there, but I don't know if that, if that speaks to you.
Speaker 2:but I was writing down a note because I wanted to be able to listen while you spoke, versus just waiting for my turn. It does resonate and it sort of brings up this question yeah, for me, my lack of accepting how do I phrase this properly? I hold myself to the highest standard of activity, like let's use that example for work right Of activity, and you either do it or you don't. There is no halfway, and maybe that comes from my military school background and there's, I'm sure, a lot that I could pay a psychologist a lot of money to unpack there. But that relentless work ethic, um and I hope I don't sound like I'm trying to pump my own tires here that that work ethic is what allowed me to do and achieve the things that I've done and there's still much more that I'd like to achieve. But it's that, like, these are the things that will happen, and if it means I stay up till 3am, then that, then so be it. That is the consequence of of of me choosing to, you know, goof off for an hour in between thing. One thing too, that's fine. That is no longer the case and that's no longer realistic expectation I've. I've not found, and maybe I'm I'm. What I'm asking is like no, tell me there's light at the end of the tunnel, tell me there's a different way to think about this, but it no longer feels like a realistic expectation as a parent Like anybody who's got toddlers will probably understand this statement.
Speaker 2:Like 7am to 8.30am feels like a 40 hour work week in my household. Like I need a nap just from that by the time they're out the door to school, and then, similarly, between dinnertime and bedtime can be like an energetic marathon, and so going back to work without some sort of illegal stimulant feels really impossible to me, which butts heads with my understanding of who I am as a human being. Because I have got a relentless work ethic. I make shit happen. But now here I am failing to make shit happen, which is where the grace needs to come in. But now that dramatically changes, or would require a dramatic change of my DNA in a way, as a person, and I'm not sure how to sort of square that circle.
Speaker 1:I yeah, I'm not a trained psychologist, I will not even close, but I will say that, like, having a gratitude practice has helped me with that Um and uh. Writing it down and speaking it out loud, often by myself sometimes, and then just speaking truth into who I want to be for the day at least gets my mind going in the right direction of versus like, because the only reason I'm passionate about that, greg, is I actually met somebody where I was a guest on someone else's podcast and she's like a therapist or being trained something, a super smart lady, and she was like she goes, gratitude and anxiety cannot stay in the thought of the brain at the same time. I was like wait, what? And she goes. No, gratitude and anxiety cannot stay in the brain or the brain at the same time. I was like wait, what, what? And she goes. No, gratitude and anxiety cannot stay in the brain or the thought at the same time. So I was like so I researched it and I was like there's actually articles about this and so I I've been testing it recently and when I find I get anxious over no matter what, I go to gratitude, just, and it can be grateful for, like I'm grateful for waking up today. I'm grateful for my breath, like that level of gratitude, because sometimes most people don't slow down to think about that. We just we're just like the Ferris wheeler life's going too fast, they stop and you realize it. And so, um, I just think that that that's worked for me as a you know, a guy that's got a high motor too, and but I don't know if it'll work for you, but at least maybe give it a try. And um, okay, I want to make sure I want to keep us on track here for time, cause I know you probably got a busy schedule. I want to go um, before I dive into this, uh injury that really shaped you and took you off.
Speaker 1:As you and Kim think about the, what you both have learned from music, what you both learned from growing up and your journeys of life, if you had to think about, like you talked about, your dad-isms your dad and mom taught you, you know, do good, good happens, love. That that's how I think about it being a boomerang in life Lie, cheat and steal. We don't want to be those people either. Going to the big house that's not going to be a fun phone call. Hey, trixie's in jail, come pick her up. Uh, what would be like the, the, the two or three, you know a couple of, I mean two or three things that you, you and Kim really want to teach the girls early so that they, they, they think about hey, in the after home. This is what, this is what your teachers are going to know about you girls, tell me what comes to mind.
Speaker 2:That they follow through on commitments, that they support the people around them. I think of a conductor named Roger Nirenberg who one of his sayings is play your instrument in a way that elevates the performance of the other players around you, and I think that that is a. I mean the story you shared about your son Ryder earlier. That's what he did. He played his part on that team in a way that elevated the performance of all the players around him.
Speaker 2:It's great to be number one, but it's better to play in a way that elevates the performance of those around you. And if you can do that as number one, amazing, amazing. I think you know maybe it's not a character thing, but you know certainly the love of music. I mean, we work very hard to instill that in them, and I think it's in a way like learning another language, and so it activates parts of our brain that inspire creativity, that help us, you know, retain memory, um, and think of things differently. So I love that and yeah, I'll just come back to it, cause I mean it is. It is, I think, so necessary, especially with what's going on in the world today, like look for opportunities to add value to the world around you. That'd be my list.
Speaker 1:Those are good. That was actually. I got goosebumps on that on the last one, because because that just takes being. That's a choice we all can choose. Either either you know we either stay on the sidelines and be comfortable, or you get uncomfortable and get in the game and you find a way to impact somebody. It's like there's something as simple as like I. You know, I taught my kids like there's a wrapper on the ground, pick it up.
Speaker 1:I don't care what's not yours right? Maybe that because maybe just helped out a custodian's day? Um, I love, I love the analogy you just talked about, the, uh, the composer or conductor. Composer, you said conductor yeah conductor.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, I'm a closet music guy too, brother. I think I joked you when we first met. Like self-taught guitar for the average person, like oh, you're pretty good, no, I suck, but I can play like four or five chords and like, my always dream was like be able to play guitar just enough, whether it's a little bit of campfire, some beers, and we can like play like songs. And I've we've had, I've had a couple of sessions where, like we you know, you get like two hours of just oh, can you play this? And I'm pulling up the cord, the cord thing, and just kind of watch the. It's like so fun.
Speaker 1:But uh, and piano was one of the ones I've. I still at the ripe old age of 49, I would love to be able to one day play a fricking, and not just jaws or chopsticks, but like a Billy Joel song or like a piano, something that's probably a hard song but like um, so I, um, so I'm envious of you, but maybe you're going to be my spark that says, you know, maybe I'll take piano lessons and I'll report back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's easier than you think really it is can you play walking in memphis, walking to memphis, you could do, yep, four chords. It's pretty, pretty, damn simple. It sounds complicated because it's in a way like an arpeggio that they're playing, but yeah, it's, it's easier than than you think.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm smiling. Everybody coach might've disinspired me, okay. So you, you were a corporate guy once, correct. And then this injury happens, and then it kind of sparked what you're doing now. I'd love for you for what you're feel. You were a corporate guy once, correct. And then this injury happens, and then it kind of sparked what you're doing now. I'd love for you for what you're comfortable with.
Speaker 2:Share the story. Yeah, so yeah. Corporate guy during the day, piano bar guy by night. The piano bar was the thing I loved. The corporate job was the thing that allowed me to go to the piano bar and not really worry about how much money I made, because I did pretty well during the day, but I didn't really love what I was doing during the day.
Speaker 2:Interestingly, both of those professions relied on my voice. As a salesperson, I'm networking, I'm going to breakfasts, lunches, sporting events, whatever constantly talking and communicating, and then at night at the piano bar, singing, communicating all night. Um, the piano bar shifts were five hours long and we would get three, maybe four, 15 minute breaks throughout the night. So you're singing for about three and a half four hours. And I was a dumbass. I was still smoking cigarettes for a really long time. I would have a couple glasses of Jack Daniels while I was playing and didn't really treat my voice the way that a professional musician should, and certainly throughout the day as a salesperson, most regular people don't think about their voice.
Speaker 2:So in 2015, my vocal cords suffered a pretty acute injury and the left vocal cord became paralyzed, so we've got two vocal cords. They sort of bounce together like that. That's how you produce sound. They go really, really quick, and one of mine just sort of gave out, so now the other vocal cord is having to work twice as hard to try to connect with the left one to produce sound. And it didn't sound great. I couldn't sing at all and my spoken voice sort of sounded like a cross between Kevin Costner and Yellowstone and RFK. It just it wasn't great.
Speaker 2:So I went eventually to an ENT, an ear, nose and throat specialist, who spent a day and a half with his team performing procedures and sort of diagnosing, trying to get to the bottom of what was causing these vocal cord issues, and they ultimately discovered that I had severe acid reflux, and the reason that became a problem is when your vocal cords hit together you get these little micro cracks and your mouth is a pretty sterile environment. So those heal overnight for most people, but mine had this acid reflux, so at night those micro cracks were getting bathed in stomach acid, and so it'd be like if you cut your finger with a paper, like got a paper cut on your fingertip and then put it in lemon juice all day and then cut it with a paper clip and then put it in lemon juice all day, just over and over and over. So that was creating these calluses, if you will. They're called nodules on my vocal cords, weighing them down, making it harder for them to move. And then, on top of that, with the smoking and other issues and the misuse of my voice, I had developed polyps and cysts on my vocal cords, further weighing them down and it was just a war zone in there.
Speaker 2:And they said if you do nothing, your other vocal fold is going to become paralyzed. When it does, that's it for your voice. There's no way to coax them back into function. So you will have no speaking voice and our belief is that your singing voice is not going to recover to a point where you could be a professional musician anymore. So our advice is you have surgery, see if we can rehab you to a point where you can get your speaking voice serviceable for your sales job and just let you keep making money and doing your thing, which to me I wish they would have said sir, you've got cancer, because then at least I don't have to worry about doing this job that I'm only mildly interested in. So I'm going. I'm losing the thing I really care about. Yes, I've still got money, so I'm not going to be destitute and homeless, but like, oh God, I couldn't wait to get myself in a place to get out of this work, like I don't like doing this, yeah, so I went in for surgery and it was mostly it was successful.
Speaker 2:But I needed more. Like they just sort of scratched the surface with this one to see how my vocal cord would react, and it react favorably. So I went in for another surgery, and then another, and then another and over the course of seven years I wound up having 15 surgeries, surgical procedures, done on my vocal cords to rebuild and and rehab them, rebuild and and rehab them. Um and around halfway through this process, which entailed me being completely silent for long periods of time. So after they would cut into your vocal cords and remove a cyst or a nodule, you would need to be, I would need to be completely silent for anywhere from four days to, in some cases, two full weeks no talking, no whispering, no communicating, no whistling, no humming, nothing. I would carry a whiteboard around with me and write down things if I needed to tell people and thankfully we could text on our phones so I could text back and forth with Kim or you know whomever, but it was cumbersome, probably around the third or fourth procedure.
Speaker 2:I've got no social life. I'm failing at work because I'm really having a hell of a time trying to be a successful salesperson with a whiteboard. I can't play the piano, I can't communicate my emotions, I'm depressed and I'm waiting for the subway to go to work. One morning and I had this very real just get in front of the car, you don't get in. And I knew enough to know that that wasn't good and I made a sort of mental plan that I was going to go work with a therapist to just get to the bottom of this.
Speaker 2:And in between that thought and the first scheduled therapy visit, I saw a commercial for a Tony Robbins documentary called I Am Not your Guru and I had always been sort of a Tony Robbins detractor, like. I thought he was a charlatan. And a friend tried to give me one of his books back in the early 2000s and I remember reading like the first couple pages and I got to this line where he's like, and as I rode in my helicopter over the school where I was once a janitor, I thought, wow, how things can change and I I viscerally threw the book across the car where I was reading. I was like this is horseshit. And so I thought well, you know, I got some time to kill. I can't talk to anybody. I'm going to watch this documentary and as I watched it I saw real therapeutic interventions being practiced. Like this wasn't just snake oil, this was real psychological interventions.
Speaker 2:I saw Virginia Satir, who's a psychologist, something she calls a parts party. Like I saw all these things applied that I learned about in school and I all of a sudden thought maybe everything I thought about this guy was wrong. So I went online and it turned out his signature event, unleash the Power Within, or UPW, for the initiated UPW was happening in New Jersey in just a couple of months. So I went and bought a ticket and I went and I started off this experience very much like don't high five me, don't try to hug me. I'm just here to audit the class, don't expect me to really get into this type thing. Like I'm too cool, right, I'm just here to observe and by day four I'm hugging people, I'm high fiving strangers in the hallway. You know, like just having a blast. But it's what happened on day two that changed my life.
Speaker 2:The seating arrangements in these events are such that you can sit wherever you want within a designated section, so you don't have a ticket for like seat 304, row 12, right. And so on day two, this woman sat down next to me and throughout the course of the day we're doing a couple like interactions and like group projects, if you will, checks, if you will, and at some point we walk off to go to the concession stand to get some food. Now, we hadn't really talked, talked, we just did some of these things together, right, but she's standing in front of me, standing behind her, she turns around, she goes. So how many of these events have you been to? Now I've still got to be protective and guarded about my voice because I'm in between surgeries and I'm healing, and so I'm trying really not to speak. So I just say I'm in between surgeries and I'm healing, and so I'm trying really not to speak. So I just say that was my first one. What about you? She says this is my 12th event.
Speaker 2:I'm like whoa, these aren't cheap tickets. And so I'm counting up, like how much that is in my brain that she's invested in this. I'm going why? Why do you keep coming back Like is it not working? Like, what's the deal, tell me? And she started to tell me her life story and it was fascinating. I won't get into it now just for the sake of time, but 20 minutes probably elapsed and now we're sitting down eating together and she goes all right. So what's your deal? Like, why are you here? Why'd you decide to come now?
Speaker 2:And, casey, I've always been a firm believer in the power of strangers, that if you are just open and honest with a stranger in the right circumstance and you sort of ask for help, you'll get really good feedback, because they don't care about you, they don't even know you, they have nothing emotionally invested in your response. So you're going to get the unvarnished truth, truth and for whatever reason, I decided that this was a person whom I could trust and was going to just give the unvarnished state of my life to and see what she came up with. And so we're walking along the concourse as I'm explaining all the stuff I'm wrestling with and why I was there and what's going on. And we get to a point in the conversation where I've sort of unloaded everything and she looks at me and she's got this sparkle in her eyes and she goes you don't see it, do you? I said, see, see what she said. You're trying to keep all these different parts of your life in buckets, like this musical part of you. You put it in this bucket and you don't let other people see it only in a certain circumstance. And you got the sales part of your life that you say you don't like but you're pretty good at, and you bucket that there and there's this version of you that shows up. That's not the real version of you as you've explained it to me and on and on and on. And she describes these buckets and I'm going this chick's pretty smart, yeah, like you're, you're, you're nailing this lady. And she goes but what if? What if you didn't have those buckets? What if it was just all brought together in one thing and that was you?
Speaker 2:I get, I get emotional telling this story. I've told the story a lot and I always get moved by it because I could see that she had the idea, she, she had the answer, like I didn't, hadn't arrived at it yet, and so I go yeah, that sounds awesome, but I have no idea what that would be. And she took my shoulder and sort of you know, pivoted me, and now we're standing in the concourse of the Prudential Center in Jersey or wherever this was, whatever arena this was at, and you know how to get into your seating area. You sort of walk through that little tunnel and you can see that from the concourse, so that's what we're looking through. And she points through the tunnel and you can see the stage, the main stage, where Tony was doing his event.
Speaker 2:She goes I think you'd be doing something like that, I think you'd be doing something like that. And I get emotional because I never in a million years would have thought to be interested in or that I even had the skills to become a public speaker, to to do this thing for money. And yet in that moment it was like a lightning bolt strike. Yeah yeah, that's, that's like. Exactly was like a lightning bolt strike. Yeah yeah, that's like exactly what I would love to do.
Speaker 2:And so part of the beauty of this happening at that program is on day one part of Tony's course content is talking about if you really want to achieve change, who you are as a person will have to change. Who would I need to become to be able to be a public speaker? And so I went home, went back to the hotel and started sort of journaling that night and I decided it would be smart to interview people who were speaking and coaching and doing these things to really understand what the job was like before I went and threw this W-2 job, this very nice salary and benefits package, to the curb. So I met with about 40 to 50 speakers, coaches, consultants, and the moment I knew that it was for me was to a person almost every single person I spoke with.
Speaker 2:When I asked them the question hey, what was the or what is the hardest part of this that you just really didn't anticipate when you first started. To a person, they said sales. Like the hardest part of this is getting the gigs. And as I started to hear that more and more, it just reinforced like I'm good at selling stuff I only sort of believe in and care about. I think I would kick ass at selling me. And that was the turning point. And her name is Svetlana. We still talk on Facebook from time to time. Svetlana changed my life. Just that conversation with a stranger completely changed the trajectory of my life.
Speaker 1:Wow, powerful stuff, dude, and I guess what I can't wait to do is to talk to you. Hopefully we'll stay in touch, but I can't wait to talk to you in like five years, it could be 10 years, it could be one year. When you tell the story to Frankie or Trixie, and they're just like wow, and they're just like starstruck, not because dad's on stage, but because you took a risk, you believe in yourself, you bet on you and uh and I think that's why those people can't see me there's a word behind me that says believe, and it's not like a crazy mega church religion thing, it's more about just have belief in yourself. And uh, when you believe, what you do matters. Uh, it's a powerful, powerful mindset, and I learned the power of that word at age 41 from a guy named John Kaplan. Shout out to cap former guests in the podcast. And uh, I love that. You bet on you and I love this. Svetlana bet on you.
Speaker 2:So what did cap share with you that sort of changed your perspective on that word?
Speaker 1:He. So I was learning about the difference between, like value-based selling and selling. And I remember we were, I was a facilitator with like five 600 people and he called me the most unconsciously competent person he ever trained. And I go, that doesn't sound good. And he laughed at me. He goes no, it's, it's good. I'm just going to give you tools to teach what comes easy to you or you didn't realize you're doing. I'm just going to slow you down so you can teach it. It's like okay, and and so we're going through this and I said I just don't want to, I don't want success looks like. I don't want to manipulate it.
Speaker 1:Because, casey, do you believe what you do matters? I go, yeah, he goes. Let me ask you again Do you believe, truly believe, that what you do will help somebody? They just might not know it yet. I go, yeah, a hundred percent, he goes, awesome. Then you are just gave yourself a gift to to not be afraid to ask anything, to say anything, to do anything for anybody, because you believe what you do matters and you know that you would not do anything to just selfishly impact you, but you're doing it to positively impact them. And when I, when I, it was like a fricking lightning bolt and a. When Griswold saw his tree, I was like, oh, that makes sense. And so I think, like with my kids, I always tell them I believe in yourself and dreams are there for a purpose. Don't let anybody, don't let you dream big, because it's easy to say what you won't do, and I think you know for what you're doing.
Speaker 1:I think I didn't know how to start a podcast. I didn't know how to write a book. I didn't. I didn't know, I didn't mean to. I do more coaching than speaking now, but I and I love both, but I didn't mean to do this. But I believe in myself and I think and that word, as much as that's there for my clients. Look at self sheets, there for me to remind me. So, um, all right, well, I could talk to you for two more hours, buddy, but to I try to keep these episodes right right to about an hour or a little bit over. So I want to like now a couple of things. How can people learn more about you If there's a company out there, if there's an executive, there's a meeting planner like, oh, my God, I've never heard of this. Greg Offner, dude. I want to. I want to research it now. I want to figure this out. How can people learn more about you and how can we make sure we send people to get to know you and your work?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the free way is go to my website. Just watch some videos, read some stuff, see how I think you want to invest a couple of bucks. Buy my book, you'll learn a little bit more about me. You'll learn a lot more about how I think, about the problem at work we have when it comes to meaning and belief that what we're doing matters and how we can engineer more of that to create these encore experiences. But start the conversation. Even reach out via, you know, send me a DM on Instagram. Just say hey man, what's up? Heard your episode. Chat with Casey like loved it, hated it, think you're awesome, think you're an idiot, you know whatever. Just start the conversation. I welcome it.
Speaker 1:Hopefully, hopefully, you won't get hate mail from this episode. Okay, Before we go into the lightning round, well, real quick, I'll make sure your Instagram's tagged in the show notes. But if you were to summarize everything we talked about, we had a lot of really cool stuff that dads or moms or grandpas or grandmas or anybody who listened they could take a couple we'll call it two or three actionable themes that they can apply in their own life and maybe, as a dad, they can apply what we've talked about today to become a better quarterback or leader of their home. Greg, tell me what comes to mind.
Speaker 2:Replace expectations with hopes. That's something I took away, that I sort of made a mental note that you know, instead of mapping out my day in the morning, which I do love to do, maybe replace it with this phrase like wouldn't it be nice, Wouldn't it be nice if I got to watch golf for an hour or two? Wouldn't it be nice if we got to do this? Because it would, but I'm not planning on it, and maybe that's healthier for the phase of parenting or the phase of life that I'm in right now. That's healthier for the phase of parenting or the phase of life that I'm in right now. And, at the same time, give myself grace If even those wouldn't it be nice as don't happen and replace the anxiety that I'm feeling in that moment with a little bit of gratitude. And I think the the one of many common threads that we share is, if you have to pick one thing to do today, go out and add value to the world.
Speaker 1:Taking notes everybody. This guy's dropping wisdom bombs on me, on us Uh, I love that and I love that, even like what we've talked about I mean. I mean you're even going to apply in your own life, which is even more inspiring and impactful. All right, it is now time to go into the lightning round, greg, as we wrap up and lightning round is all about me asking random questions. Your job is to answer these questions, ideally as quickly as you can. I'm going to show you the effects of taking too many hits in college not bong hits, but football hits and why I have why I?
Speaker 2:have a screw loose and my job is to try to make you laugh, all right, well, they should accomplish.
Speaker 1:You just did it. So, okay, uh, true or false? Your famous song that you play on most stages is Jaws False. Okay, um, if you were to play one song that you don't know how to play yet, but you would love to learn how to play, tell me what would it be?
Speaker 2:Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin Okay.
Speaker 1:If you could play jazz flute with Ron Burgundy, would you do it?
Speaker 2:One million percent, one million percent.
Speaker 1:Okay, we both laugh. It's a tie.
Speaker 2:If there was to be what would be one genre of music that might surprise Hena that you listen to. I don't think she'd be surprised by anything I listen to, maybe, maybe like a big band.
Speaker 1:Okay, you and Kim are going on vacation. Sorry girls, you're staying home. Where are you going to go?
Speaker 2:If Kim's planning it somewhere with a beach, if I'm planning it Japan.
Speaker 1:Okay, there we go.
Speaker 2:Favorite comedy movie ever is oh man Anchorman's right up there, but I think I got to go Spaceballs.
Speaker 1:Combing the Desert. That's a fantastic movie, frigging. If you've not seen Spaceballs, everybody do it. It's a beauty. Okay, if there was to be a book written about your life, tell me the title. He Did what. I like that. He did what dot dot dot. With a question mark, I can see it. Actually, I just saw that you could create a vision. Now he did what we just announced it, but it's already sold out pre-sale. They can't keep it up. Airports, barnes, Noble, amazon no one's keeping it up. Now, greg, hulu, max and Netflix are fighting for it, and one of them got the script. Now you're the casting director. I need to know who's going to star you in this critically acclaimed hit movie. Oh, it's got to be the Rock. The Rock tickling the ivory was a great visual, so good, okay, and last and most important question Tell me two words that would describe Kim.
Speaker 1:Optimistic and patient, gold. I love those two. Those are wise traits to have in a marriage. Lightning round's over. We both laughed. I think I laughed more on my own jokes, which is most dads do, so I'm going to give you the W?
Speaker 1:Um, it's been an honor meeting you. I'm so grateful that Hannah decided to connect us and I'm so grateful I passed across and I can't wait to, as I come across people they're looking for, uh, a, a, a present dad who's also a musician who can inspire people to to share your story. And try to get you more opportunity to share your story, buddy, because I think it's just cool and you're a really good dude and I'm grateful we met and I hope that others have found this episode impactful and if it has, that's the gift you can give me and my audience is. Share it with another dad, because everybody I do not make money on this podcast. This is for pure enjoyment and fun and, uh, it's rewarding when a mom or dad listens to it and it just slows them down a little bit, and so if we can help another dad slow down to become a better leader of his or her home, uh, please do it.
Speaker 1:So, um, but thank you, man. Thank you for your time and it's been an honor spending time with you. I wish you the best brother.
Speaker 2:Thanks, casey, I really enjoyed this. Thanks for having me on you bet.