Ep. 38 The Stern Truth: Leading with Passion with David Greaves

Grab a pen and piece of paper. You’ll want to get all the golden nuggets from this episode.

It is my pleasure to have my good friend, David Greaves, on this episode of the Stern Truth. We have known each other for nearly 50 years and have seen each other go on some amazing journeys.

David and I were in the lawn care business together at one point. Throughout his journey in business, David found his way to his current position as the Executive Director of Friends of JNF Canada.

He had an epiphany about working with the Jewish community instead of for himself. It came to him in an unlikely place, while he was coming out of a bobsled (making it to two world championships, I might add!). 

It’s not always roses and sunshine when it comes to leadership. David lets us in on his struggles throughout school and his life. Not wanting to be left behind, he took that as motivation, and those struggles ultimately shaped who he is.

Passion, teamwork, vision, leadership, family, respect, and your team. It's clear these are what make everything worthwhile for David. 

Want to have David speak at an event? Email him at David@theunlikelyolympian.com 

The ONtrepreneur Growth Academy starts October 8th. Interested in attending? Email me at marshall@marshallstern.net.

Subscribe to The Stern Truth Business Unfiltered so you never miss an episode and receive a FREE GIFT: http://www.thesterntruth.com/

Join my Business Inner Circle Community for free here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thebusinessinnercirclegroup

Book your complimentary business blindspot assessment with me here: https://attractwell.com/MarshallStern/landing/breakthrough-session

I encourage you to reach out with feedback, topic suggestions, and share your own entrepreneurial challenges.

Get in touch in the comments or head to...
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marshallstern/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarshallDStern
Email: marshall@marshallstern.net

Transcript

[00:00:00] Marshall Stern: All right. Welcome back. I am very excited about today's episode. It's a special episode with a good friend of mine, a childhood, really a friend of mine, David Greaves, which you're going to hear from just a minute. And he's going to talk about leading with passion. Grab a piece of paper and pen. 

[00:00:18] You're going to get lots of golden nuggets from this, what I'm telling you. So if you like what you hear and if you have earned a company or you know of someone who might want to have David come and speak to their organization or their company, I'm going to just put his contact information in the show notes because David is an amazing speaker and an amazing leader.

[00:00:37] Also, before we get into today's episode, I would be remiss not to mention October the eighth. We are launching the ONtrepreneur Growth Academy. If you're not quite where you are in your business, you find yourself stuck doing everything yourself, I invite you to reach out. 

[00:00:53] Send me an email. We can have a quick chat and see if this program, this group program is for you. ONtrepreneur Growth Academy, beginning October the eighth.

[00:01:03] You don't want to miss it. On with the show. Enjoy.

[00:01:12] Hi, I'm Marshall Stern and I've spent over 35 years leading and growing multiple small businesses. I know firsthand the struggles of entrepreneurship, feeling isolated, lonely, overwhelmed, and feeling like you have to do it all by yourself. I've been through multiple recessions, and I have felt the highs and the lows.

[00:01:31] I've been there, and I get it. This podcast is here to change that every week. I will bring you straight talking advice, real world strategies, and honest conversations about what it takes to succeed in business without the fluff, the gimmicks, or the sugar-coated. If you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and start making real progress, then you are in the right place. 

[00:01:55] This is the Stern Truth.

[00:01:59] All right. Welcome back everyone to another episode of the Stern Truth Business Unfiltered. And my friends, I am, I'm really speechless today, but I'm not going to be speechless. I'm just excited because I'm sitting here with a good friend of mine, David Graves. How are you? I'm 

[00:02:16] David Greaves: I’m good. And I'm also speechless.

[00:02:18] Marshall Stern: You're speechless. 

[00:02:19] David Greaves: One of us is going to have to say something. 

[00:02:21] Marshall Stern: It'll be a very quiet episode.

[00:02:24] We've known each other. I would probably say, I was thinking of this the other day, 46, 48 years or something like that. 

[00:02:34] David Greaves: Well, 12 years old. 

[00:02:35] Marshall Stern: 12 years old. Yeah. I want to hear everything about - I want our listeners to hear everything about you and what you've done.

[00:02:42] Because you've been on an amazing journey and reinvented yourself and done like. People are going to be blown away from what you have accomplished and what you're doing. But it really all starts where, David – let's talk about the truth, the Stern Truth. 

[00:02:55] Where did your visionary and your career begin? Let's talk about the truth.

[00:03:01] David Greaves: Okay. Well, I was once told by someone that you shouldn't start a sentence with, I'll be honest. Like, how else, how else should I be? Right? But in this case, I'll be honest, because I'm sitting face to face with you, so to speak. The reality is my first experience in the entrepreneurial world was in fact working for you, in your – I don't even know if there was a name of the business, but it was a lawn-cutting business.

[00:03:35] Marshall Stern: Blade Lawn Care, Blade Lawn Care. “If we can't cut it, nobody can.” That was the tagline. 

[00:03:40] David Greaves: That's, I don't even remember all that. The highlight for me was I got to use the Stern truck even when I wasn't working, on weekends, et cetera. But I worked for you. And, you know, I remember, honestly remember thinking, this is the way to do it.

[00:03:59] Find a way to work for yourself. Right. If you get the job done in four hours, great. You got a couple extra hours to have a Slurpee or something and enjoy the sun. But, and it was a, there was a sense of freedom, which I often mention to my fiancé and to other friends, like, when I walk into a place and I see somebody working in an office, with all due respect, I can't do that.

[00:04:25] I can't be in one place. I need to be, you know – this is a bad analogy, but they say a shark has to always be moving and I'm by no means a shark, but if a shark stops swimming, they will die. They need - and I kind of feel like if I was unable to get out, to even go for a coffee with a client or, just have a short day because I need some other things.

[00:04:51] My mother's in a nursing home, so I have the freedom to do a lot of things, even though I'm not an entrepreneur right now in the same sense. I run a local office and, and we're successful and I have the opportunity to go out and meet people. Part of my job is to, is to be out there.

[00:05:12] And so I learned that in my very, in my – not my first job ever, but when I worked for you, I remembered that feeling, looking forward to going to work because it was something that I was doing on my own schedule. I'm not sure how good an employee I was. I don't know if you recall, but I'll leave that commentary to you.

[00:05:33] But I loved it, and you were very generous to me, obviously letting me use the company vehicle, throughout the course of that summer. So,

[00:05:43] Marshall Stern: Well, I was just simply like the Stern Truth is I was lazy. I didn't want to do it, so I just thought, okay, you take it, you deal with it. There's your cut. 

[00:05:50] David Greaves: Well, you hired the second laziest person, you know, and so.

[00:05:54] Marshall Stern: We were a good team.

[00:05:55] Yeah, we were a good team. I got to go out to the lake and put my feet up and enjoy the summer. 

[00:06:01] David Greaves: Love it. 

[00:06:01] Marshall Stern: There were other personal reasons behind that, but, so I wasn't sure – I talked beforehand and I want you to explain, I want you to start at the end, not the end. It's just the beginning for us.

[00:06:14] But where you are now, but then I want us to go back because I think the journey is like absolutely phenomenal and it's a journey of – I don't want to lead the witness here. What are you doing now? What is your current role?

[00:06:26] David Greaves: Well, my current role is I'm the executive director of, what will soon be known as the Friends of JNF Canada, which is a new organization. Up until really today, almost, I have been the executive director of JNF Canada. 

[00:06:37] So, and that I'm a fundraiser. My objective, every year, is to raise dollars to support infrastructure projects in Israel. And they range from planting trees, which is something that this organization has been around with, around for more than a hundred years.

[00:07:13] And also we have in recent years, in the last decade or so, built and been involved in building incredible infrastructure, hospital wings, community centers, schools for special needs, and water reservoirs. Just anything to do with the infrastructure on the ground to support the people, whether they're, they're whatever where, whatever background, because Israel is a melting pot, as you know.

[00:07:43] 2 million Arabs, 7 million Jews, and within that many Christians and Jews and the Baha'i Faith. So everyone in Israel properly benefits from the work that JNF does. It's also one of the longest standing non-governmental organizations and one of the founding institutions of the state of – even before the state was around, like 50 years before the state was established.

[00:08:10] So I run the local office here in Winnipeg and I also now – I'm grateful and it's kind of how we reconnected again. I know I'm the Executive Director as well, for Vancouver and the Pacific Region. So I find myself in Vancouver every month for a few days doing the same work, but in that locale.

[00:08:30] Marshall Stern: So we're going to pause that for a moment. Tell me about the Olympics. 

[00:08:36] David Greaves: Okay. So, if I'm going to tell you about the Olympics, I'll, I got to start from the beginning. 

[00:08:43] Marshall Stern: Please do. 

[00:08:44] David Greaves: And I'll take us there. Take us to the Olympics, quickly. The short story about the beginning of the, of this program was, I was invited to participate in 2002 with two guys that I knew who were looking to establish the Israeli bobsled team. And yes, we've heard it all before and we've been compared to it many times. The Jamaican bobsled team, my answer to any questions about that is. The world knows about bobsled now only because of the Jamaican.

[00:09:19] Not only because there are parts of the world where this is like the number one sport, but they popularize the sport. And so when other countries, non-traditional winter sports countries, Israel being one of them, wanted to enter the arena, so to speak, it wasn't as odd and awkward as it might've been before the ‘88 Olympics when the Jamaicans were there.

[00:09:45] And of course, the movie from that “Cool Runnings.” So, we didn't qualify for the Olympics. Our goal was to make the Olympics, in, 2006. That was in Torino. But we made it to two world championships and we really had an incredible journey. Three Jewish North Americans, dual citizens with Israel competing in Germany and Austria in the in the World Cup, not knowing what kind of reception we'd get in certain parts of the world with the Israeli flag, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:10:18] It was really life changing and it actually changed the trajectory of my life. I was working for Bell Canada, MTS, a local telephone company. I was working in the emerging technologies and I was out there. You know, you sell something for a hundred thousand dollars, you ring the bell in the office, collapse, and, but it was, it, I was right around the time of Jerry McGuire as well.

[00:10:40] The movie Jerry McGuire. And I say that I had my Jerry McGuire moment after I got out of a bobsled and I thought to myself. I can't work for who I work for anymore. I need to work for the community. I need to work for the Jewish community in particular. And that led me to working for the Jewish Federation, the Jewish Foundation. 

[00:11:01] And then a five-year stint as a consultant and now where I am today at JNF. But the journey was incredible. It culminated again just to get us to the Olympic Games. It culminated with, over the time that I retired before 2006, through to 2018. So about 12 years I was working with bobsled and skeleton athletes.

[00:11:27] And for those of your viewers who don't know, skeleton is on your tummy, head first on the same icy track as a bobsled. So if you think bobsleds crazy, the real meshuganas in the speed sports on ice are the guys on skeleton, sleds or the women. Because we've had women as well successful in the program.

[00:11:49] So the dream was to make it to the Olympic Games, and that was always the dream. And finally, in 2018, one of the athletes that I worked with and continued to work with, qualified for the Olympic Games in 2018 in South Korea. So from this guy who sat in the back of a bobsled in 2002. Not knowing if we could even make it down the track, as they like to say, shiny side down, you know, on the blades, not upside down, where we spent a lot of time as well.

[00:12:21] To walking in the opening ceremonies, with Team Israel as part of Team Israel with my athlete and others. You know, I've, you talk about some unique journeys that this is something that I'm incredibly proud of. And we've built a very respectable program. It's not just community club here. 

[00:12:41] We are – it’s international relations, right? We are working with many other countries. Collaborating with sharing, coaching. It's really become this really special thing that I'm really proud to say I helped, create and have really been managing it. The last, well now we're in 2025, so it's been 23 years since I started this.

[00:13:09] And we have an Olympic games coming up in a few months where I have a number of athletes that are legitimate contenders in skeleton and bobsled now, and that we hope will qualify. 

[00:13:22] Marshall Stern: So I think I have to change my story to, one of my first employees is an Olympian. I helped my first employee become an Olympian. That's my story. 

[00:13:33] David Greaves: Now I got to correct you. You're only an Olympian if you're an athlete who competes. Even if you go as – that's where the term unlikely Olympian came from, because I don't – I've been told, you know, my, who I've worked for the athletes say, no, I don't care what you say, you're an Olympian.

[00:13:51] I said, well, you can call me an Olympian, but Olympians get to put OLY after their name. I can't do that. And I respectfully can't do that because I didn't get to the start line. But that doesn't matter to me. Right. Just want to make sure I, you know, that I'm not calling myself an Olympian.

[00:14:09] At best, I'm an unlikely Olympian. 

[00:14:11] Marshall Stern: An unlikely Olympian. But you were in the opening ceremonies.

[00:14:14] David Greaves: And that was my dream. 

[00:14:16] Marshall Stern: And that leads us to, I mean, this is all about a vision, right? Leadership is all about having a vision. And my vision way back in 1985 was to sit at the beach with my feet up and have you take care of the business for me.

[00:14:33] I achieved that vision, but seriously, where did this tell me the Stern Truth? Now on the road to realizing that vision, achieving that vision, there was, must have been some dark times, challenging times. I don't know 

[00:14:49] David Greaves: if we can get it all in 15, 20 minutes, but I'll give you the short version.

[00:14:53] I struggled my whole life, you know, people know me as a outgoing, you know, not an introvert, certainly, and I'm still not that. But I do enjoy introverted moments, probably more than not. My father once said something to me when I was either late high school years or early, early university age years, and I struggled with school.

[00:15:18] So I struggled in and out with school high all the way back to elementary school, like, undiagnosed, I'm certain that I've had and have still to this day learning disabilities, ADHD, certainly dyslexic, things that were really not as well identified or diagnosed as they are now. So I struggled.

[00:15:39] And I'm actually angry a little bit about the struggle I had as a kid growing up as a student, because really what I was doing when I was being an idiot in class, or as my mother likes to say, my grade six teacher used to say, he's a wonderful kid, but if he could just run around the school yard a couple times before he came into class, well that was their solution to things.

[00:16:02] And you know, I'm not holding anything against anyone. But I'm angry that I didn't have the resources that my kids have now. But thank God they have those resources and any kids. And so I struggled and, my father said to me and not knowing I was struggling, he said, you know, you have really great friends, right?

[00:16:24] And that, you know, just keep close to the good people in your life. Not that I was – I never dabbled in the dark side of life. I didn't smoke, I didn't do drugs. I had an occasional beer. I don't drink that much at all or ever. But you know, when I look back at the people, the friends and their families.

[00:16:47] My parents split up when I was 13, you know, so that family unit I got from other friends, right? Mom and dad and brothers and sisters sitting around the table or at the cottage. Like, I got those experiences and I, and  I guess it motivated me and it inspired me to stay on a good track, even though I didn't know where I was headed.

[00:17:08] Even though, I still struggled at times with look at so and so doing this. They're getting these jobs. I didn't have a university education. And so where could I go? And I had to really, I really had to carve out a path. and I was embarrassed too. So I didn't necessarily want to say, I need help because I didn't do this and this.

[00:17:37] I had to find a way to do it myself. And so that was motivation for me. My friends were motivation to me. Because they all got, most of them got degrees. They went to university, they became lawyers, doctors, pharmaceutical reps, took over businesses, whatever it happens to be. And we're all still very close and you're part of that circle.

[00:17:59] But it was, it was through my friends and their families, my family's wonderful, amazing family. My mom and my dad, and my extended family. It was because I spent more time as we did it growing up with our friends. Right? More out of the friend. Especially when you were old enough to be living.

[00:18:20] Now you're not living at home anymore. And if you were lucky enough to have parents that were together, you might go home every Friday night for Shabbat dinner or Friday night dinner. And, I didn't have that and many of us didn't. So, it was really looking at my situation and not wanting to be left behind.

[00:18:40] There's a lyric in a James Taylor tune, which is right near when the song is tailing off, and I think it's “Carolina on my mind,” and it's something about, “don't forget me when I'm gone” or something like that. I don't remember. But that, like, that's something I heard 40 years ago in my headphones, and I still think about that, that lyric not wanting to be forgotten.

[00:19:02] Not that I'm trying to make a splash, but I, you know, I just, my mother's the same way. She wants to be remembered by her grandkids and, I didn't want to be left behind. So I found, had to find ways to get myself out of whatever red I was in. And that was, you know, self preservation and all that sort of helped me, in my future life, as an entrepreneur, as an employee of a large organization, as the president of the Israeli Bobsled program.

[00:19:35] I mean, these are things that I shouldn't be doing based on the career, based on the path I chose from 16 to 25, I should not be doing what I'm doing. And it was because I was motivated, I didn't want to be left behind. And probably most importantly, I was, in the wake of some really great people and, that helped motivate me and pull me through.

[00:20:05] Marshall Stern: What comes to mind when you were telling your story was defying the odds, right? 

[00:20:13] David Greaves: Yeah. 

[00:20:13] Marshall Stern: And if we can go back to high school, I don't know if we did this, I didn't graduate, I switched schools in grade 12. Or we were in different schools for grade 12, I think grade 11 and 12. But if we go back to our high school yearbooks, you know, and they have like – I don't know if you did it at Kelvin – like where this person's going to be.

[00:20:32] No one was going to say, oh, David Greaves is going to be walking the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. He's going to be heading up this huge Jewish organization necessarily. I don't think they would be saying that stuff about me, like, the same thing. And I didn't go to university. Oh, I did one semester at University of Manitoba and that was it.

[00:20:53] David Greaves: Yeah. 

[00:20:53] Marshall Stern: I remember walking to the calculus and they said, if you got less than 70% in grade 12 math, get up and leave. And I got up and left, so by 10 minutes at, in calculus 101 or whatever. But you created your journey. You – but it was also with the people around you. From what you're saying, right, your support system, your, your family, your friends.

[00:21:16] Let's fast forward to what you're doing now. What year did you take over with JNF? 

[00:21:23] David Greaves: I took over, I took this position in January, like two months before COVID January 2020, and then two months later, the world shut down and we moved. I just barely learned the job and I was working from home, as was the rest of the team here, for almost two years.

[00:21:45] Couple false starts when we thought things were getting better. But ultimately it was almost two years that we were working from home. I started with the Jewish community. As I said, I had my Jerry McGuire moment when I realized it was community that was inspiring to me. 

[00:22:00] Little teensy, tiny pilot light that I always had inside of me, this Jewish flame, so to speak. Because I was always proud of my tradition. Not religious, but just the people of Israel, a nation as we call it. But it exploded into like a five alarm fire. As soon as I started to compete and have the star of David or the flag of Israel on my sled or on my back, that inspired me to say, I got to leave where I am and I got to start doing stuff for the community.

[00:22:38] And so in 2004, after many years of working in the corporate world, I got a job at the Jewish Federation and I took a big pay cut and I took all kinds of things and I just chalked it up to finally I'm at school. This is my education, right? I'm 30 something years old, but I found out what I'm passionate about.

[00:22:59] And so my pay cut was my contribution to my education. 

[00:23:05] Marshall Stern: Right. 

[00:23:05] David Greaves: So back to what your original question was. I started here January in 2020. It’ll be six years this coming January, which I can't believe two of those years, COVID years. and also I've been trusted with another region, right?

[00:23:23] So, so I'm grateful to my boss and the leadership of JNF as well to look at me and say, we're really pleased with what you've done in Winnipeg. we've got a hole to fill in Vancouver and the West. Can you help? And so, although I spend most of my time in Winnipeg, and I've got a really great team here and in Vancouver, it allows me to sort of not have to be in Vancouver.

[00:23:52] You know, more than just a few days a month during the slowish times, and when it picks up a bit, you know, obviously a bit more hours. But, yeah, it started in January of 2020 and I worked in my beginning years as a Jewish communal professional, the Jewish Federation, my current boss, the CEO, was the CEO of the Jewish Federation in Calgary.

[00:24:16] So he and I knew each other from the Jewish Federation world. We worked a bit together on some projects, even though I was in Winnipeg and he was in Calgary. And when I learned about the opportunity and realized who the CEO was. 

[00:24:31] It was a natural fit, you know. 

[00:24:33] Marshall Stern: So before I get to the big question, people might be listening if they're still listening.

[00:24:38] Hopefully they're still listening. I hope so. And they're going, well, okay, so I have a business. What does this have to do with me? What does this whole talk have to do with me? And I probably should have said that at the beginning, and I might say that in the pre intro. Because I want people to listen through this, and I want people to maybe go back and listen to this again, or watch this again.

[00:24:58] Within everything, your journey with how you explained your journey. And even my comment about defining the odds, because it's not defining the odds of what really, so I take back to the yearbook comment because it's defining the odds of what we thought of ourselves. Right? The doubts that you had in your early twenties or coming out of high school.

[00:25:18] David Greaves: Yeah. 

[00:25:18] Marshall Stern: So it's the defying the odds that you put on yourself. 

[00:25:21] That's where it always, it all comes down to. So for business owners who are in it right now and are struggling to make it, you can make it. If you have a vision, you surround yourself with the right team and you do the work. And you're passionate about what you do.

[00:25:37] And that's everything that I've heard, everything you've said to this point, it comes down to, and correct me if I'm wrong, or add to it, please. Passion, teamwork, vision, and leadership.  

[00:25:50] David Greaves: So I wrote down five words before we started, passion, leadership, family respect, and team. So three of the things you just mentioned around the list, I learned this about myself.

[00:26:05] Early on, working the community was, and I'm a fundraiser and not everyone likes to ask people for money and one of the things that I did, and we talked about the education I got, you know, becoming a professional in the community, was what does the community, like, what are we funding?

[00:26:26] Right? And as soon as I understood that there are people in our community, and these are communities all over North America, I mean Jewish communities or other communities too, but with respect to the Jewish community, there's a support system in place and it's in place through the organization.

[00:26:44] That I started my career at, which was the Jewish Federation. And what I mean by that is the money that's raised primarily, some of it goes to Israel, but primarily it's to support the local Jewish infrastructure, whether it's child and family, whether it's the day schools, whether it's summer camp, whether it's the JCC Community Center.

[00:27:06] And when I learned sitting through that initial process, it's called the allocations process, where all the agencies once a year come and make their pitch for their budget, what they hope to get from the Jewish community, from their annual fundraising. I had no idea the, the amount of impact that the community had on my life, just listening to all these different institutions.

[00:27:34] When I realized I wouldn't have gone to Hebrew school, my brother and I, if my family wasn't able to get a subsidy, I wouldn't have been able to go to summer camp. If my family couldn't get a subsidy, and there's two sides to that, it's one my parents had to really ask for it, which isn't an easy thing to do, but the community made it easy.

[00:27:56] And the other side of it was, I didn't learn about this until so much later in life. So to passion, back to that first point, once I learned what, how I benefited from the community and that my job is now to raise funds for these same organizations to help other families, like the families that I, the family I came from, it became easy.

[00:28:25] Right. It became easy for me to ask someone for a dollar, $10,000, a hundred thousand dollars, whatever the number happened to be, and everything in between, because I understood the impact that it was going to have. And it was, that was the biggest revelation for me. And it was early on when I started working with the community and I said, if you have, if you have a challenge asking a friend for a dollar.

[00:28:50] You are not asking that friend for the dollar. And this relates, this is fundraising, but this relates to any business owner. What is it? What's the service that you provide? Don't think about it as a job, but think about it as the impact that you are going to have on someone else, whether it's changing a tire minus 40 in Winnipeg.

[00:29:12] That guy who's coming to do that, I pay for that, but that guy who's coming to do that. He's changing my life at that moment, right? And if we look at all these little moments and understand that it doesn't matter what we do for a living, that the work that we do, whether we're a support staff, whether we're an executive director, whether we're a fundraiser, whether we're a receptionist, you are doing something that is going to have a, hopefully a positive impact on the people that are receiving that service.

[00:29:43] And that then leads to leadership. I have this quote in my brain yesterday. I've learned more about how not to be as a boss from my previous bosses than how to be right. I've made mental notes after seeing and hearing or being treated a certain way. By a boss or seeing somebody treat, being someone else, being treated a certain way and said, I'll never be like that.

[00:30:12] Right. So there's an empathy component, in the leadership as well. And I want my team, and I never call them my staff when I'm thanking them in an event or whatever. They're my colleagues, they're Jewish community professionals. They're not my staff. They don't make my bed, they don't make my dinner.

[00:30:31] They don't clean my apartment or my condo or whatever. They are professionals and we are colleagues, so that just, they like coming into work because we are, and here's the other piece, we're family. And, if you run, you can't always do this depending on the size of your business. And someone might be listening to this and saying, this guy doesn't speak to me at all.

[00:30:53] I don't know what the heck he's saying, but what I was lacking in my life. Just from way back in the early days was family was just that family feeling. I've often said I hate long weekends because that's one day more away from the office and the people I love to work with, and it may sound pathetic, but I like being in the office.

[00:31:14] I like being with my colleagues. I like, especially over COVID. You know, those month, those weekly zooms were like, especially, it was contact to the outside world. It was family. And then just as I said, respect. And I've just sort of alluded to that in that everyone I work with is my colleague. And, if you, if you respect people and I hear people treat their employees horrendously, and if you're not going to respect the people that work for you, your colleagues, your team, then how do you expect to be respected?

[00:31:53] And, I'm not perfect. I've made many mistakes in my life and I will live with those mistakes, but I am on a constant journey to be better, better for my family, for my kids, for my, my team that I work with, for the people in Israel that I build projects for. and for my friends so that they know they can count on me as a friend as well.

[00:32:15] It sounds kind of hokey and Pollyanna-ish and, but that's how I've lived my life. I've lived my life visioning sunshine. Even on cloudy days, I've envisioned sunshine and that has a physical, chemical reaction to me that I feel. 

[00:32:32] Marshall Stern: Okay. So this is going to be a little bit longer of a podcast. We're just going to a few more minutes people, so just hang in there because – 

[00:32:40] David Greaves: I got all day

[00:32:40] Marshall Stern: But you said something, you said even during those cloudy days. So October 7th happens. And the Jewish community – well, on October 7th, the world was in shock. And in the mourning, October 8th. It was different. I'm not getting into the whole politics and all of that.

[00:33:03] But you are now a leader of an extremely important organization. How did you over the past and everything that's happened over the past two years continue to get up every day and to lead this organization? I'll leave it at that. That's my question. 

[00:33:21] David Greaves: Well, in order to lead you have to be in the right space.

[00:33:25] You have to be in the right mind. And I don't think there's anyone in the Jewish world, I guess there are some maybe, who don't feel as I do or as we do. But, there isn't anyone that I know that I interact with that wasn't impacted in such a way that you're no longer right-minded. Right. A lot of October 7th was in the southern part of Israel where I have worked with my team and our donors, for a number of years to build some really important schools and community centers for youth in Sderot, which is one of the largest cities in the south. 

[00:34:11] Like literally on the fence with Gaza. And I've been there a couple times since, and we've talked with the mayor and other people in the community. It's hard to believe what they experienced. And so I'll be, I’ll, again, I'll be honest, because, you know, people are not always so forthcoming, for right reasons and obvious reasons of both their mental health.

[00:34:37] But, I had to seek help because, and I was just talking to someone today and almost every day that every time I turn on my phone, I see another snippet, another memory, another reminder of what happened. and as the leader of an organization whose primary objective is to build Israel, and then you see Israel burning, so to speak, and literally too.

[00:35:12] It's been very difficult. I've reached out to Jewish Child and Family Service. It's JCF Family Services. There's a Jewish version of that. They service the whole community, but you know, there's a large predominant constituency that's Jewish. And I offered to our board, our local. Some of us are Israelis on my board.

[00:35:34] Some of us have had more direct impact. By October 7th, I wanted to first offer whatever I could to help, to help people find a lifeline if they needed it. Right. And that made me feel better. It got me sort of climbing back under the hole knowing that there is a community here that is prepared to help us if we need it.

[00:35:59] Certainly we weren't impacted as directly as those that suffered, but if you're human and if you work in the region, you need to be right-minded in order to persevere if you're angry and if you're resentful. And if you are vengeful, those are all negative, emotions and components to our personality that if that, if you get veered off the track, and that's why I reached out for my own personal health is I wanted to make sure, I don't know how much I can handle, like when does the switch get flicked and I become someone I don't recognize anymore, emotionally mental health wise.

[00:36:41] So I wanted to make sure I had, you know, I hate to say the word like this, but it was, I'm only using it from my own context. I wanted to make sure I had training wheels on it. Because I didn't know if I was going to be able to take and continue to take what I'm feeling, how I'm hurting, how my community is hurting, how my friends are hurting.

[00:37:00] I didn't know how many times over and over something else is going to remind me. And then I'm going to tip over on the bike. So I wanted to make sure I had the training wheels in place to help me lead, to continue to lead and lots of dialogue. 

[00:37:16] Marshall Stern: So again, for those listening, we're talking about a horrible event and what's happened since. And to a nation and to the people of the nation. 

[00:37:27] David Greaves: And the western world 

[00:37:28] Marshall Stern: And the western world. Well, I – yeah. And that's where another episode - yeah. That might get a little political though. But we're not talking about that. 

[00:37:35] I want people who are listening to this to really think about it, everything you've heard today and how this could apply to you in your life. Because as business owners and entrepreneurs we're constantly having to navigate and lead, and a lot of us forget about that. There's going to be turmoil, there's going to be in our businesses or in our personal lives. Look within – David, you know, look, within 18 months I lost my sister and my mother.

[00:38:03] David Greaves: Yeah. 

[00:38:04] Marshall Stern: I still had a family to raise. I still had a two businesses to run. I was still involved. Now I was on year 10 on the board of directors of nonprofit organization, and I still had responsibilities I had to navigate. I had to lead through that, through those difficult times, and we all do. Some are obviously more or bigger, but each of them for ourselves are our own, and they're big for us.

[00:38:29] So if you are going through these dark times in your business or your life, there is help out there, right? I hope this episode's helping a little bit because there is, maybe there's the optimist in me there, but I truly believe this because I've been through the ups and downs in my businesses in life, personally, family. 

[00:38:51] Over the years. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Some tunnels are a little bit longer, some lights might seem dimmer. Again, going back to everything David said, if you surround yourself around community a team, if you just lead with passion and you remember the vision and you remember, here's the one big thing, because for you, David, and I'm talking way too much, and you could have – some people, October 7th happened, all the stuff – could have become overwhelming to you.

[00:39:21] You had the, you know, the emotional, how it hits you. Like all of us, you could have easily said, I can't do this. But you didn't, you made a choice. 

[00:39:31] David Greaves: Well, yes. And there were moments when I was overwhelmed. and everything that you just said, whether it's your business or your personal life, certainly if you're a leader of a business, your personal life plays a big role into how you operate, right?

[00:39:47] It's impossible for it not to. You have a fight at home, you come to work, who knows what kind of mood you're going to be in or how you might interact with the staff, or a colleague, or a customer. and just to what you said as well, training wheels and for a lack of a better word, I use that word, but that also means, you know, even just today I had to do something that came up and, I asked my two IC, who I rely heavily on in the office.

[00:40:18] I said, can you, can you handle this one? Can you just take this off my plate? You got to be able to sometimes step back. Right. And ask for help. and that's a tough thing to do, especially if you're a leader, right? If you're, if you're seen as the leader and you are the boss of an organization or a business, you're the one who's supposed to be giving the help and the guidance.

[00:40:43] So it's not, it's a little bit backwards in some cases when you, as the leader, is asking for help, but that's just the way it's supposed to be. You're not, you need to have training with and family and whether you have family, however your family is made up of. I have made sure that my colleagues are family.

[00:41:04] My athletes are family. And so when I'm, you know, desperate for an outlet, I have a few places I can go and everyone has that. I really believe it. There are people that are alone in the world and maybe don't see it. And maybe that's part of the challenge is finding your training with finding your psychiatrist, your therapist, your good friend, someone who you know, has gone through hardships as well to help guide you.

[00:41:38] And, goes back to what my father said. You know, surround yourself. This was, it was prophetic because it was in my early twenties and that's how I've survived. I've survived by surrounding myself with great people and by not being afraid to ask for help. And that's the, I think that's one of the key elements of leadership is being able to ask for help surround yourself with a team that can help you get to the end goal, that can help you get to your Olympic games, that can help you walk through those doors and behind your nation's flag, even though you're not going to be at the start line.

[00:42:18] Even though you're not the athlete, your team will help you get to the opening ceremonies and to bring it full circle, to that experience I had. Yeah, none of that would've happened if I was doing it by myself. 

[00:42:32] Marshall Stern: I love that, and I thank you for that and for me to bring it full circle as we close out this episode.

[00:42:38] I asked for help back in 1985, 43 freaking years ago. I asked for help. No, but seriously. because not many people know this. I asked for help from my good friend David, because, and you probably don't know this part. Okay. And I kind of joked about it at the beginning. So I had the lawn care business.

[00:42:58] I was doing some stuff at the lake, and I was at the time – and I was doing some stuff. Most of it was in the city. Every time I'd go to the lake, my aunt was there who was dying of cancer, and my mom was about to get married and move to Calgary and everything. And no one was there during the week and I felt bad leaving, and I wanted to spend one last summer with her, and I didn't really know at the time.

[00:43:21] I just lost the passion of the business and I needed a break. I need, I knew I needed to be somewhere, I needed to be there, so I needed help. So I reached out to my good friend David, as the good leader that I was asking for help on my team. You took over and I was able to spend, you know, the remaining whatever, six months before she passed a few months later.

[00:43:44] With her every single day. So I thank you. I thank you for that. because you took care of my clients and the reviews. We didn't have Google reviews back then. If we did, they would've been the best

[00:43:54] David Greaves: You provided something that I needed as well, so it's mutually beneficial.

[00:43:59] And I didn't know that story about, and I know who your aunt was and she was wonderful and to know that I was able to help you do what you wanted to do with that time in her life too, makes me – I'm going to put you back on if I ever need to get another job, I'm going to put that as my first job on my list.

[00:44:20] Marshall Stern: I'll give you a good reference. You showed up on time. No, you were great. Thank you for sharing your stories, your journey with us and, what I always ask this in my audience. And I really want you guys to just - don't just share this. There's someone out there who needs to hear this, but comment and more than that, more than subscribe, like, share and all that stuff.

[00:44:44] Although sharing is very important because I want the message out there about leadership. I want you to take some time and write down one or two golden nuggets. My late father used to say, if you could, and I always say this in the podcast, if you can go to back then there was none of this. There's like seminars, a book, if you could read a book or let's do a cassette tape.

[00:45:03] Or go to a seminar, just take one golden nugget from that. It's been worth your time, worth your time, your money that you've invested, and so I'd be curious as to what your golden nugget. You the listener. One, one. Just gimme one at least golden nugget and send an email to marshall@marshallstern.net or just comment in the YouTube video or the podcast if you can find it there.

[00:45:28] And I'd love to hear the feedback. And David, I'm sure you would love to hear the feedback too. 

[00:45:32] David Greaves: Sure, I'd, I'd love it as well. Thank you. 

[00:45:34] Marshall Stern: Okay, so thank you so much. 

[00:45:39] David Greaves: It's over. Oh, no, it's over. 

[00:45:40] Marshall Stern: You said, I don't know if I could talk in more than 15 minutes. Well, we did. Might have to have you back one of these days to continue the talk. 

[00:45:48] But thank you. Appreciate it my friend. Don't go anywhere you guys. I'll see you again next week on another episode of the Stern Truth Business Unfiltered.

[00:46:00] Thank you so much for tuning in to the Stern Truth. If you found today's episode helpful, we would love to hear from you. Please like, share and leave us a review. Also, if you'd like to be a guest in the upcoming episode or join us in one of our Moment Accountability Group sessions, simply email me to marshall@marshallstern.net.

[00:46:20] That's marshall@marshallstern.net. And don't forget to hit the subscribe button, so never miss an episode. Until next time, keep pushing forward and leading with confidence.