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TRAINING
On one trip in the late ’80s, back when Greg was a “good-looking” 340 pounds, he sat next to a woman, who, he said,
had “the hugest hair I’d ever seen.” She took the only available seat—right next to his—and proceeded to set her
hair on fire in a failed attempt to light a cigarette. After they contained the fire, the lady—now wearing the towels the
stewardess’s used to put it out as a hat—the woman sat back and lit a cigarette.
One of Greg’s first seminars on time management, at a beauty salon (where the same philosophical Greg who earlier in
his career deduced that “one should never cook bacon naked”) discovered, “there is a natural law that freshly cut hair
clings to your suit when you are nervous” and that people occasionally ask questions not included on training videos. A
woman asked him to expand on the concept of needing to leave your comfort zone to reach a goal. “uhhhh eeeyeah,”
Greg improvised. “To reach a goal you really, really, really need to leave your comfort zone.” As tough as it got at times,
Greg said he wouldn’t change a thing in those nine years.
“I discovered that even though it sometimes isn’t popular and gets daunting at times, living your passion is the only way
to go,” Greg said.
When you combine passion with personal will, there is no limit to what you can accomplish. His daughter Carly taught
him his greatest lesson on personal will as a new-born baby delivered at 22 weeks of gestation. At the time of her birth
in 1991, a baby this premature had never survived. The doctor told them there was not a high probability of success and
it would probably not come out well. He recommended that they opt to not resuscitate unless there was a heartbeat.
Without hesitation, Greg told them to resuscitate. They brought out pamphlets, one of which was called, “When hello
means goodbye.” It was a very tough time.
“This was an event in my life that I clearly had no control over,” Greg said. “It was based on Carly’s will and the grace of
God. She made it through that first critical 24-hour period and the next and the next and the next. Then, on the seventh
day her respirator slipped and her stomach popped. Bad deal. Can you imagine? Her stomach couldn’t have been
bigger than my fingertip. They had to sew it together. The doctors said it was like trying to sew cottage cheese together.
I know it was because of her will to live that she survived that experience.
“The thoughts we have, our aspirations and dreams, the things we would like to do for others. Our hopes and our fears.
Every time you meet someone, it is an opportunity. And so many times we throw them away. I believe if we elevate our
passions, identify those things that we really value, and start to bring our passion and performance in line with those,
incredible things can happen. I really believe that if we elevate our will to be committed to those things that we are
passionate about and live the life we want to live, marvelous things will happen.
“Live each day as if it were your last. You know if you say that every day, one day you’ll be right. So I have to
ask myself if this was my last day, would I be doing what I’m doing right now? Yes. I believe everything that
has happened in my life has got me where I am right now. Let’s elevate our love, elevate our will, elevate our
passion and we can and will make a difference in the lives of millions and millions of people.”
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