Show Transcript

0:00:00 - (Kevin Lowe): It's no doubt that neither you nor me have any control over what happens in our future. Now, yes, I mean, we can influence what happens, but fact of the matter is that it's life and things are going to happen that we don't even realize. They're going to come totally out of left field and catch us by surprise. But in that leaves us with a choice. We can either be negatively affected by that surprise or we can keep course, we can stay positive.

0:00:36 - (Kevin Lowe): We can keep looking for the good, and we can ultimately try to make good out of the bad. For today's guest, Dr. Greg Persley, affectionately known as Dr. G, he is a beautiful example of this. Because Dr. G, he was cruising down life, recently became a chiropractor, had an amazing wife. They had their first child. He had a goal of making a million dollars by the time he turned 30 years old. And then all of a sudden, a bump in the road, a speed bump, something to throw him off course, to send him in a different direction. But instead, no.

0:01:17 - (Kevin Lowe): Instead, it just made his story even more amazing. It made him the person that he is today. It's led him to the career that he has today. And that's the story that's inside of today's episode. If you, my friend, need something to inspire you, to empower you, to remind you that you're not alone in this crazy thing called life, that speed bumps, they happen to all of us. And today's guest, Dr. G, is going to show you that even though you hit that speed bump, you can keep on cruising.

0:01:52 - (Kevin Lowe): Because life. Hoohoo. It's a beautiful thing. Even if it's absolutely insane, my friend. Welcome to episode number 260. This is grit, grace, and inspiration. What's up, my friend? And welcome to grit, grace, and inspiration. I am your host, Kevin Lowe. 20 years ago, I awoke from a life saving surgery only to find that I was left completely blind. And since that day, I've learned a lot about life, a lot about living, and a lot about myself.

0:02:26 - (Kevin Lowe): And here on this podcast, I want to share those insights with you. Because, friend, if you are still searching for your purpose, still trying to understand why or still left searching for that next right path to take, we'll consider this to be your stepping stone to get you from where you are to where you want to be. Do you know the easiest way for you to finally have the life of your dreams? A life of fulfillment, a life that lights you up and makes Monday morning as exciting as Saturday?

0:03:00 - (Kevin Lowe): It's by you getting clear on your life's purpose and designing your life around it so that every day lights you up. But you have to first discover your purpose. I want to help you do that. So I encourage you to right now, text the word discover to 5544. Again, text the word discover to 55 triple four. And I'm going to get you information into how I can help you to once and for all find your purpose so you can have the life you've been wanting to have.

0:03:35 - (Kevin Lowe): Enjoy today's episode.

0:03:42 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Well, impact for me is just helping people change their lives for the better. People are really looking for happiness. They're looking for fulfillment, contentment, love, joy. And most people are misguided on how to get to those things. In fact, I was for a long time and through personal development and reading books and listening to podcasts and YouTube and my own life experiences, I've been able to boil a lot of complex things down to really simple steps.

0:04:09 - (Dr. Greg Persley): And why a million? That's just kind of an arbitrary number that everybody knows. When you tell somebody or ask somebody how much money do they want to make, they go a million dollars. It's just kind of the thing that they pop off in the top of their head. So really we're going to impact way more than that. But if I impact 1000 people and they impact 1000 people, we've impacted a million lives and I've already been doing that. So we're probably over a million at this point. But it's just kind of one of those arbitrary numbers a lot of people pick and they recognize with it. And that's what I was trying to do is just reach people where they're at.

0:04:39 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, I love it. I love it so much. Now, kind of looking at your story in tying in with this whole desire to help people in the way that you do back when you were only 23, you graduated as a chiropractor.

0:04:57 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Yeah. I was fortunate enough as a junior in high school to fall in love with the profession of chiropractic. It just kind of lined out up and so I knew exactly coming out of high school, which is very rare. The older I got, I found out that most people don't know, but I came out of high school knowing exactly what I needed to do to get into grad school and accomplished that. And then graduated at 23.

0:05:20 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Wow. Now what was it about chiropractic in particular? The reason I'm curious because I know when I was in high school that was what idea I had as a career.

0:05:31 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Really interesting. I always was somebody that didn't. I never wanted to take medication like, my parents would be like, here, just take. Even as a kid, I remember being like, no, I don't need that. My body will heal itself, whatever. And so I just naturally aligned with it. And as a junior, we went on an anatomy and physiology tour to the local chiropractic college, which was about an hour away. And we went through a process of just touring the campus and what they did and why they did it and how they did it. And I was like, yeah, this is it. This is what I want.

0:05:58 - (Dr. Greg Persley): So I was very fortunate in knowing exactly that that was what I wanted to do as a career. What I found out later was I actually enjoy business more than chiropractic, but that kind of segued into owning a business and allowed me to experience both.

0:06:15 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, okay, that is very cold now. So you graduate when you're 23. Are you still practicing as a chiropractor?

0:06:24 - (Dr. Greg Persley): I am a little bit, but I was able to take my chiropractic practice and transition it into what's called an integrated regenerative medicine practice. So we have a nurse practitioner who does integrated or regenerative medicine, injections like stem cells and PRP and that sort of thing. We have a chiropractor, we have a rehab, and we have bracing that we use to help offload people's joints, like their low back or their knees or their shoulders.

0:06:50 - (Dr. Greg Persley): And so I knew I wanted to impact more lives, and there's only so many people that I can treat, and I knew that I had treated for 15 years at that point when I transitioned the practice over. And I knew that in order to be able to impact more lives, I needed to teach other people how to do what I was doing. Because I couldn't treat any more people, I was maxed out. And so that's when I turned more into a business owner and learned how to implement systems and implement leadership into the company. So it runs by itself without me.

0:07:25 - (Dr. Greg Persley): And so I say I treat because I do fill in occasionally, but really, the more I've done podcasts and events, I end up treating entrepreneurs and people that are speaking at the events, and word gets around. Oh, you're a chiropractor, dude, I got this thing. Can you help me out? I've been traveling, and so I end up that more than anything.

0:07:42 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, everybody loves to hear that. There's a chiropractor in the room.

0:07:46 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Of course.

0:07:49 - (Kevin Lowe): Amazing. Now, we kind of talked at the beginning of the interview about the idea of impacting 1 million people. Well, you also had a goal that you wanted to be a millionaire by 30.

0:08:03 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Yeah. So I think a lot of people that come out of school, they're like, I'm going to make a lot of money, and I'm going to be a millionaire. And I didn't understand what that meant at 23 years old. So while I was in grad school. So we're going back again. So we've kind of jumped forward and back, but we're going back to when I was 23. I'm 41 now. I had to really think about that, 41 now. But at 23, while I was in grad school, I decided it would be a great idea to get married and have a daughter. And so I thought grad school wasn't hard enough. I was going to go ahead and just get married and have a daughter while I'm here.

0:08:36 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Graduated 23. I'm a chiropractor. I have a wife and a daughter that's a few months old, and I'm like, now what? Now real life hits, like, how are we going to turn this into an actual something that I'm doing? And so I found a practice that was for sale. It was 2 hours away from my family and my wife's family. It was kind of centrally located. It wasn't big city, but it wasn't small farm town. It was kind of in the middle. So I was like, this is perfect. So we went down there and purchased that or acquired it and then started practicing. And then two years later, practice was doing really well, and we had our son.

0:09:12 - (Dr. Greg Persley): And then our son was actually born with dwarfism, which is a very random genetic change. 80% of kids born with dwarfism have no family history. That was us. And so the day he was born, they said, hey, your kid has dwarfism. And we're like, well, what does that mean? And how'd that happen? And what's his future like? And so it turned from all these normal, average thoughts for the future of what's he going to be and what's he going to do? And all that into, well, what does this mean and what's his lifespan going to look like and how does it affect him? And blah, blah, blah, blah. And so it really changed our perspective and really our focus for the rest of our lives.

0:09:50 - (Kevin Lowe): Absolutely. Now talk to me a little bit more about the birth of your son, because I know that's really a big part of your story. I know that he had many health complications, so give me an idea of what was going on.

0:10:04 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Yeah, so, like I said, he was born with dwarfism. And just so people know the type he had is called achondroplasia, which literally is a genetic change where the genetic code, where it's supposed to make the bones grow longer, that code doesn't work, and so, therefore, the bones do not grow long. And if you break down the word achandroplasia, it stands for no bone growth. It means they just don't grow long. So it's a bone softening and shortening syndrome.

0:10:30 - (Dr. Greg Persley): But when he was born, it was like, oh, this is shocking. But, hey, he's here. He's alive, so let's raise him and whatever. Well, when he was about three months old, he started to need oxygen because he was having trouble with his lung capacity. And then when he was six months old, he started developing pneumonias. I mean, he was spending weeks and months in the St. Louis children's Hospital. So we have a three year old daughter, a practice that's relatively new, which is our only income. We have a son that we're trying to figure out what's going on, transferring back and forth to this hospital that's 2 hours away.

0:11:03 - (Dr. Greg Persley): My daughter's being passed around family members. As you can imagine, it was a bit stressful, and all of a sudden, our focus turned from keeping the family really like, what most people focus on, retirement and growth and business and money and experiences and all that stuff. It was all of a sudden really focused on keeping him alive and keeping us together. That was pretty much all we focused on. So, as you know, if you don't put focus on a business, it starts to fail. And so our income started to change. Our business started to slow on top of him trying to figure out what was going on with him. Well, at nine months old, he ended up having a trachean event put in which helped him breathe, and he was required 100% oxygen 100% of the time in order for him to stay alive. Now, that's a lot to take in for people, because that's like, whoa, what's happening? At one year old, he was able to come home just after he was one. And so there's a lot of gratitude that I have for the hospitals and the doctors and his insurance and all of that, because otherwise, he would not be here.

0:12:03 - (Dr. Greg Persley): And my wife, I mean, she kept everybody on course because he wouldn't be here. And so we came home with him. He had a vent, he had a trach, he had oxygen. He had all these monitors. And it was the hardest and most stressful time in our lives. My wife and I, for sure, and my poor daughter was only three or four at the time. And so she's thrown into this world of the most formidable or the most impressionable years of her life are now panic, chaos, anxiety, fear, worry.

0:12:37 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Just not an average, normal kid childhood scenario. So it was just very interesting. And I wrote a book about it called a new kind of normal, which was more of a book for me to get it off my chest of what we were experiencing. So it was more of like a journaling. But I wrote that book over. It was the first three years of Isaac's life and how it affected our family differently and what we went through and all of just very. It was an interesting.

0:13:06 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Now, during that, how, with his medical condition, how long did it take for things to kind of level out in life to get back to whatever we want to call, quote unquote, normal?

0:13:22 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Yeah. What's funny is normal is one of those things that it's just whatever's the average around you. So you could be the most abnormal person, but you put that person in a scenario where everybody is like you and similar to you, then you're normal. And a really great example of that is people with dwarfism. There's a conference called the Little People of America conference. Every year it's a national conference. And so when he was one, we decided we were going to go to that because we were going to try to give him, quote unquote, the most normal life that he could possibly have. And so the first year was in Nashville, which is only a few hours away from our house, so we were able to drive there. It was interesting because the first night there was a dance, and there was a dance every night. But the first night we go to this dance, and you know how most dances, it's know, there's a little bit of awkward know, like, oh, are we going to get on the dance floor? And the guys are over here and the girls are over there and not this place, dude. The music started and that dance floor was full.

0:14:18 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Yeah, it was cool. Now I'm about six foot tall, and I'm out there with our one year old, who's on a trachean event. He's about one and a half at the time, and I'm standing in the middle of this dance floor with him kind of pushing him back and forth and whatever. And I'm six foot tall and everybody there's average height is about four foot. And I felt awkward. I felt out of place and I felt weird. And I realized that's what every single person on this dance floor feels every single day.

0:14:45 - (Kevin Lowe): Yes. Wow. What a powerful, powerful example of that. Yeah. Wow. So for you guys, as far as his medical issues and being able to maybe get to a point, and I don't even know if you did get to a point where you could get back to putting the necessary focus on the business and stuff, how long was that?

0:15:10 - (Dr. Greg Persley): In my mind, I was the only income for our family. And so I turned from responsible business mindset to how can we make money and how can I take care of my family as quick as possible? Now, I didn't do it unethically, but I would try to do things and push them too fast, which doesn't work in business. If you just try to make a quick turnaround, it just doesn't last. And so for years, it was just a lot of frustration on my end of trying to grow something and push something. And I thought if I just worked harder and I just put in more hours and I just stay up later, and that is not the model, that is actually of what actually works.

0:15:54 - (Dr. Greg Persley): And so it really strained me as a person. We leveraged a lot of our assets in order to keep the lights on and there were medical bills that we had to pay and different things like that. And so it really put us in a really much different place, mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, relationship wise. I want to give you an example, and I'm not saying these things to make people feel bad for me, that is not the point. The point is that whoever's listening to this, if you're going through something, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, there is something to look forward to. So just hang in there and keep looking for the positive. But I want to give you the full perspective. So he was on this trachean event. If he disconnected from this vent, you had 15 seconds to get to him or he was going to pass out, he was going to turn blue. That's how little reserve he had in his lungs. So my wife or I pretty much for the first three years, he had that trachean vent. One of us was within 6ft of him at all times.

0:16:51 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow.

0:16:53 - (Dr. Greg Persley): There's people that get married and they're like, oh, well, we just kind of stopped paying attention to dating each other. Well, we didn't date each other because it was like we were surviving, really. And so that became a normal. Now, what I mean by that is, whatever you do repetitively enough, it becomes your habit, it becomes your normal. So my thought processes became fear, anxiety ridden, worried ridden money, financially worried.

0:17:20 - (Dr. Greg Persley): And what's interesting is what I learned through this whole process is every single guru in the history, whether religious or non religious. But every guru in the history of the world that's been documented have agreed on only one thing, and that is you become what you think about. You become what you think about. So here's a question for people that are listening. And for you, Kevin, when you become what you think about, there's really only two thoughts. There's thinking about and focusing on what you want. And there's thinking and focusing on what you don't want. Which one of those do you think most people think about? On a moment to moment? Which one?

0:17:56 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, I would say the negative or what they don't want.

0:17:59 - (Dr. Greg Persley): They think about the thing they don't want. Right. And that's literally what I went through for almost eight years. I was thinking of what I don't want. I don't want to work in this business. I don't want to fail. I don't want to borrow more money. I don't want to whatever it was, all these what I don't want. And that's what most people think of. They think in terms of, I want this better house because I don't want to live in this house. So really what they're thinking is, I don't want this house. I want this better car, because I don't want my car.

0:18:30 - (Dr. Greg Persley): I want more money because I don't want the situation I'm currently in. Does that make sense? Do you see what I mean by that? Yes. If you become what you think about, and you constantly are thinking about what you don't want, then you are going to, in turn, create what you don't want.

0:18:46 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow.

0:18:47 - (Dr. Greg Persley): That is literally how it works. And it's so hard in our society because that's what we're taught. So you have to think about what you do want. Now, here's the hard part. People don't know what they want. They have not spent enough time with themselves to identify and create a clear picture of what they actually want. So what they end up doing is thinking about what they don't want, and that's what they end up creating. And then they're like, how come my life is like this? Well, it's because that's what you're focused on. So through this process, I finally figured out I needed to start creating a vision of what I wanted. And I actually created something called the five a's of actualization, which are basically the five a's, five things that you need to do to realize or create or actualize the future or the life that you want. And the first one is aim.

0:19:36 - (Dr. Greg Persley): You have to create something to aim at a target. And that's where visualization comes in. Spending time with yourself and going, what am I actually aiming for? What do I want my relationships to look like? What do I want my business or career to look like? What do I want my finances to look like? What does my belief, faith, what does that look like? What does my body look like? Or my health? And creating that picture, you have to aim at something, and most people aim at what they don't want, so they create more of what they don't want.

0:20:06 - (Kevin Lowe): That is powerful. That is so powerful. And it is so very true, because you're right. That is what we focus on, is exactly what we don't want all the time.

0:20:18 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Yeah. And so if you're focusing on what you don't want and that's what you're going to create, your life is going to turn into what you focus on or what you think about is what you become, then you are perpetually going to be stuck in that cycle. And the only way to get out of that cycle is to change your beliefs, your thoughts, your emotions, your actions. Those four things. Those are the only four things you have control over.

0:20:38 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Your beliefs, your thoughts, your emotions, your actions.

0:20:41 - (Kevin Lowe): So the question I guess I have for you in relation to your own personal story is, what did you decide to aim at?

0:20:48 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Yeah. So in 2018, I realized that I cannot keep doing what I'm doing the rest of my life. My relationship with my wife was not where I wanted it to be. I mean, we were cohabitating. We really weren't in a strong relationship. My relationship with my kids really wasn't where I wanted it to be because I was so focused on the fear of losing everything in my business, and it was heading kind of in that direction. I was just fighting this losing battle. It was like I was just barely staying up because I kept saying, I don't want to just barely get by. So guess what?

0:21:19 - (Dr. Greg Persley): I was just barely getting by.

0:21:21 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah.

0:21:22 - (Dr. Greg Persley): And so that's what I identified was like, well, what things can I work on that will change the trajectory? And I could point and blame and say, well, my wife needs to change, or my business need to change, or the government needs to change. Or I could point my finger at a lot of things around me, but the only thing I had control over was me. So in 2018, it was the fall of 2018. I decided I was going to work on me. And the first step I took was started reaching out to other successful people that I knew that I'd become friends with. And one of them said, there's this conference in 2019. It's called the growth con. It's with Grant cardone, and you definitely need to go to that. And I'm like, dude, I don't have any money. I don't know what you're talking about.

0:22:02 - (Dr. Greg Persley): There's no extra money for this. Secondly, to tell my wife, this is what I need to do, that was not going to go well. And I was already saying all the reasons I couldn't do it. But then I read one of the books that Grant had written, and I was like, you know what? This feels, right? Like, I totally, I have to go to this thing. And so that was the first target. That was the first aim that I said. I said, I'm going to this with an intention of learning and growing myself.

0:22:28 - (Dr. Greg Persley): And what's interesting is I made that decision and there's this Bible verses about it. And there's other really smart people that have talked about this that I've learned from, but they talk about the universe and how the universe works. And when you finally figure out what you want and you can create a clear picture and you decide I'm doing that and you take action toward it, then the universe will show up and give you the resources you need to make it happen. Jim Carrey talks about a lot about this, about manifesting, and that's exactly what he talks about. It's saying, this is what I desire, this is what I'm heading for. This is the target I have. I'm willing to do the actions if you just show me or put in my path what I need to get there. And having faith that'll happen, that's a huge tool, secret tactic, strategy, whatever you want to call it. But that's the way it works.

0:23:16 - (Dr. Greg Persley): And if you can practice that and become really good at that, that's really what manifesting is. But you have to have a clear vision. That's aim. The second thing in my five a's of actualization is you have to accept change. You have to accept that the things that you've been doing up to this point are not going to get you to where you want to go. You have to be at peace with that. You have to accept it, that who you were is not going to get you to where you want to go. And it's totally fine. And that takes time to really sit with yourself. That's where meditation really comes in, learning about you and being content with where you're at the third a is you have to accentuate the things that you were doing that move you toward your target. Write those things down. That way you can accentuate them. You can continue doing those things and even make them better. Then you have to abandon, this is number four, abandon the things that you were doing that moved you away from that target. And then, number five, you have to apply new action. The only way you're going to apply new action is if you get new information.

0:24:12 - (Dr. Greg Persley): So listening to podcasts like this, reading books, showing up at conferences, experiencing life, that's how you're going to get new information, which is then going to allow you to apply new actions. And so that's what I boiled it down to, is those five a's. And that allowed me to restructure and improve the five major pillars of my life, which I believe are huge pillars in everybody's lives, but they're either business or career. I talk about business because I'm in business or your career. Business relationships.

0:24:40 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Relationships are so vital, especially your relationship with yourself, your belief, or some people call it faith. I don't call it religion. I throw religion out. It's belief or faith. Your health and your finances or your money, those five things. If you can get those five things playing at a high level in your life, man, you are happy, fulfilled, content, love, joyful, all that stuff. And that's really what people are looking for.

0:25:03 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow, that is really powerful. And when you break it down like that, it makes it seem so easy.

0:25:12 - (Dr. Greg Persley): That's one of my superpowers, Kevin, is I take really complex stuff, and I just think about it long enough until I'm like, oh, here's the simple steps to get there.

0:25:20 - (Kevin Lowe): Exactly. Now, one question that I want to ask. So did you end up going to that big conference? Yeah.

0:25:26 - (Dr. Greg Persley): So what happened was I made a decision. I said, I'm going to this conference. I don't know how, but I'm going to figure out, I'm going to make it happen, because I know that deep in my soul, there's that feeling. People call it a gut instinct. That's really what it is. It's like deep down in your soul, you go, I know I meant to go to this thing. I feel it. And anyway, so I made that declaration. I was like, I'm going to this. I don't know how. I don't know how I'm going to find the money, but I'm going. A week later, I got an offer in the mail from discover card. It was a $20,000 0% interest line of credit that I have never seen since and I had never seen before.

0:25:59 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Was it there? Maybe. I don't know. I didn't recognize it. I didn't see the opportunity, but I knew that this was an opportunity for me to use it. So I started calling into the GNE show, which was the grant and Elena show. If you don't know Grant Cardone and Elena Cardone, they've done very well from themselves. But at that time, they were really trying to sell these tickets, because they had 30,000 tickets at Miami Marlin Stadium to sell.

0:26:21 - (Dr. Greg Persley): The weekend of the Super bowl is when they were having this. I called up and negotiated to get a ticket, and I bought a ticket that was the third row from the stage. Wow. That's very important, because that was a moment where I decided I was worth it, because I used to be the guy that would buy the cheapest ticket at the top of the stadium and try to sell my way or finagle my way down to the front through convincing others or through sneaky trying to figure out how to get down there. But it was a different experience, because I felt like I belonged. And so that's when I really started to go, okay, I'm starting to understand.

0:27:00 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Number one, I'm worth it. And everyone listening to this thing, I wish I would have figured that out sooner. Everyone listening to this, you're worth it. You are definitely worth it. Your self worth is so important. And that's one thing you should work on every single day. What you say to yourself, how you talk to yourself when you say the words, I am, you need to follow that up by something positive. Do not speak negative about yourself because your body doesn't know the difference.

0:27:27 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Bruce Lee talked about that a lot, but that was the moment it started to click in my mind that, oh, I am worth it. So I went to this thing, and I'll never forget when I show up, it was a diamond ticket. And the security guard goes, oh, hey, Dr. Persley, let me show you to your seat. And I was like, ooh. And I crossed this velvet know, you open the velvet rope up. And that was the moment it clicked in my mind, like, I belong.

0:27:49 - (Dr. Greg Persley): And so the information was great, the speakers were great. But the people that I got to hang out with down there, the people that were crazy enough to spend this amount of money, what most people would say, a crazy amount of money on this ticket, those were the people I wanted to be around. And I met some absolute killers, man, some ridiculous businessmen that knew so much and was able to develop some relationships from that.

0:28:11 - (Dr. Greg Persley): And so the relationships were worth, well, more in my career than the amount of money it cost to buy that ticket. So that was my story. I'm not telling other people that they need to go in over their heads in order to buy whatever ticket. What I'm saying is it's valuable to get into the right rooms. And if you know the target that you're after, then you can start to connect the dots between the end result that you're looking for and where you are now. And then you can say, oh, here's what I need to do next.

0:28:36 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Here's what I need to do next. Here's what I need to do next. And then you can start taking action on those things. And I'm telling you, if you start taking action and have faith and belief, you can call it the universe, you can call it the light source, you can call it energy source energy, you can call it God, whatever you want to call it, but it doesn't matter. It will show up for you if you show up for it.

0:28:55 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, I love it. So my question is, after taking action, after starting to implement all that you've been teaching us, how did it impact your personal life in 2019?

0:29:10 - (Dr. Greg Persley): At that conference, I purchased four programs. One of them was on leadership, one of was on sales. One of them was on building your life resume, basically figuring out how to put exciting things into your schedule. And then one of them was on how to speak from stage because those were the four I really felt like I needed. And I started implementing those. My income started to go up some. But the real cool part is my relationship started to improve.

0:29:34 - (Dr. Greg Persley): And it took about six months for my wife and I to really get on the same page. But by that September, October, November ish, we really started to click. And I'm glad because the next year was 2020, and that was a whole different thing. But I'm just saying that my relationship with my spouse, my relationship with my kids, I was starting to become more present. I was starting to become more confident. People around me started to see that I was becoming a different person and a better version of myself that I was growing.

0:30:05 - (Dr. Greg Persley): And they would say things like, man, I'm really seeing. You're really improving and growing as a person, as a business, as a leader, which was really nice to hear other people say. But what I didn't realize was one of the biggest mistakes I made in my business and in my career was I always tried to go too fast. I always tried to push too hard. There's good in pushing the envelope and trying to get things speed to market and whatever, but it's not good when you cross over the line into anxiety and worry. And that's what I was always, I was trying to do too much with too little, and you don't want to do that. You want to do enough with enough, is what I like to say. So you do enough to get the job, to do what you need to do with the resources you have. You don't want to try to do too much with too little. And so all those things started to change and I was able to handle the storms that weathered, that came at me. I was able to weather those storms.

0:30:56 - (Dr. Greg Persley): But really what happened was I started to become more aligned with my purpose, which is really, really a cool thing to do. It wasn't perfect, don't get me wrong, there were still bumps in the road, but I was a lot more centered about this is right, this is what I need to do. That's really everything. Are you waking up? And you're fulfilled and content and happy and excited about life. So the reason why I say that one of the biggest mistakes I made was moving too fast was simply because I was always trying to do too much with too little, instead of understanding that it's the consistency over time, so it's correct actions done consistently and done constantly. So do the right actions repetitively over enough time and you'll get the result that you're after.

0:31:41 - (Dr. Greg Persley): And so one thing I wish I would have done more of is just been in that flow in the cadence of my own life, instead of trying to push past that, thinking I could force things to happen, because forcing it never really works.

0:31:56 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, no, for sure. Now, one thing that I'm curious about when we are talking about this timeline is with all of these things shifting within you and it really shifting now your entire life, how was that impacted by the pandemic?

0:32:16 - (Dr. Greg Persley): So the pandemic, I had a chiropractic company. We did a few hundred thousand dollars in revenue in 2019 and 2020. When all that happened, everybody was worried about my staff. They were worried about, are we going to stay open? Are we not going to go open? Whatever I had, the mentality of that was like, no, I'm keeping my doors open unless the National Guard shows up in my front door and tells me I can't come in.

0:32:43 - (Dr. Greg Persley): I'm here to serve people. I'm in a medical clinic. Know, at the time it was a chiropractic clinic, but I looked at it as an opportunity and that is really how I focus on everything now. Everything that I see is an opportunity. Like, how is this serving me in some way, shape or form, or how can I use this? And I don't mean that in a bad way, but when that occurred, we had more time, and I went, I've always wanted to integrate my practice into a medical practice. We have more time now.

0:33:09 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Now we can take the actions to do it. And so I used it as a positive and looked for the opportunity in it. And by that fall, November of 2020, we had a medical integrated practice. And so in 2021, our revenue went from 300,000, 330,000. In 2020, 2021, we went to over 900,000. In 2022, we went to 1.4 million. So it was a culmination over time. I think one of the problems people get into is they expect the results now. And I was there, too, so I'm not immune to this. But now I understand that I need to focus on a vision and I need to take actions every single day to work towards that and get out of the way of the process, of the how.

0:33:55 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Meaning the universe will show up for you. You don't have to force that. All you have to do is keep the vision, keep working toward it, and opportunity will show up if you're looking for it. But if you're looking for all the ways it won't work, guess what you're going to find? You're going to find all the ways it won't work.

0:34:08 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. That's incredible. To be honest. That is absolutely astounding. The growth that your business had, that is just incredible.

0:34:19 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Yeah. And what was cool is it was just learning a new skill. I had to learn how to attract the right people to fulfill a mission and a vision for a company. And before that, I didn't really have a mission and a vision. And in the Bible it talks about, without a vision, men will perish. Well, that's true, because you're bouncing around, you're a free radical. You don't have any guidance, any focus. You're not moving anywhere.

0:34:45 - (Dr. Greg Persley): The more focused you are, it's like a laser. If you have a flashlight, it's kind of dispersed. But if you have all that energy put into a beam now, you have something that's way stronger, that can get you there quicker and more precisely. And that's really what that is. When you talk about focus, it's really what are you thinking about and what ways can you think about to get to there? And that took other people joining. It wasn't me working harder.

0:35:11 - (Dr. Greg Persley): It was, how can I work with other people in order to achieve the mission of this company? And that was one of the best skills I ever learned. So now I spend a majority of my time dreaming about where this company needs to go, and then how can I attract people that are in alignment with them?

0:35:27 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Incredible. I love it. Talk to me about something I read that you have called fix your bs. What is that about?

0:35:38 - (Dr. Greg Persley): So I talk about the five a's of actualization. So that actually came from this book of fix your BS. Now, BS stands for belief systems. It's kind of a play on words.

0:35:47 - (Kevin Lowe): Thanks for clarifying.

0:35:49 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Yeah, I appreciate that. I know where everybody was headed with that. So I talked about this earlier. There's four things you can control that. You can control your beliefs, you can control your thoughts, you can control your emotions, and you can control your actions. Now, the only way you can do that is through practice. You have to practice paying attention to what your beliefs actually are. There's a catchphrase that a lot of people use or a buzzword or buzz phrase, limiting beliefs.

0:36:15 - (Dr. Greg Persley): And people are kind of confused about limiting beliefs, especially the business owners and the people that I work with, and I help them grow their business and stuff. But a limiting belief is simply you believe something and you have blinded yourself to any other possibility which limits you to seeing other opportunities or other potential. Because you are so ingrained in this belief. Well, it's not possible because, well, is that true or is that just a belief?

0:36:41 - (Dr. Greg Persley): I can't. Because is that true or is that just a belief? So the only way to change your beliefs, your subconscious beliefs, the things that are just running automatically in your brain, is to have a thought that you are conscious of and do that repetitively enough times with enough emotion that it gets ingrained into your subconscious, which is called your belief systems. So that's a really simple way of explaining that, because your conscious thought is one of the things you have control over, and you can change your beliefs. Subconscious belief systems, the things that happen automatically. A really great example of that is if anybody has ever bought a new car.

0:37:23 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Before you bought that car, you really didn't see that car anywhere. After you buy the car, you see that car everywhere. Have you experienced that?

0:37:32 - (Kevin Lowe): Yes, of course.

0:37:33 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Okay, so why is that? It's because you had a thought enough times about, in this case, a vehicle with enough emotion of excitement and whatever, anticipation. And, oh, I got this new car that in your subconscious mind, it registered as. This is important, therefore, because it's important, you need to recognize any time that that is around you, that car, anything similar, any year, whatever, that version of that car, and your brain will start picking that up automatically. That's how that works. Now, the same thing can happen with your relationships, with your money, with your business, with your health, and with your beliefs or your faith.

0:38:12 - (Kevin Lowe): Wow. You know what, Dr. G? You are bringing the heat, man. We are going deep. But again, you make it seem so simple where it's kind of like, well, duh. I mean, when he puts it like that, it makes sense.

0:38:26 - (Dr. Greg Persley): I'm glad that it seems simple. It's like this. A lot of people say they want to lose weight. A lot of people say they want to be healthier. Okay? They say that. And we just came off the new year, and there's a lot of people that said, oh, I got a new year's resolution. I'm going to be fit, or whatever. I'm sure you've experienced that. The simple fact is to be healthier and be fit is actually pretty simple. I can give it to you in just a few steps. Drink nothing but water, eat foods that are as natural as possible, do more activity today than you did yesterday, and get plenty of sleep. If you do those four things, you will become more fit and you will become healthier. As far as your weight goes, the question is, why don't we do those things if it's really that simple? It is that simple, by the way. Drink nothing but water, eat foods that are as natural as possible, do more activity today than yesterday, and get plenty of sleep. So if it's that simple, why don't people do it? People don't do it because they either don't believe they're worth it or they have a belief system in their mind of who they are.

0:39:27 - (Dr. Greg Persley): And if they start changing that, then it becomes uncomfortable. And when it becomes uncomfortable, they go back to where they were comfortable, which is the old habits. The old them. You cannot gain anything, improve your life in any way without losing something. If you're going to grow, something else has to go away. Okay. So if you're going to lose weight, if you're going to improve your health, if you're going to improve your weight or just become a healthier weight, then certain habits have to go away.

0:39:55 - (Dr. Greg Persley): It doesn't mean you can't do them ever. It just means you can't do them all the time.

0:39:59 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah. Basically, if you want to change, you got to be willing, though, to make the change.

0:40:06 - (Dr. Greg Persley): That's where the five a's come in.

0:40:07 - (Kevin Lowe): Exactly.

0:40:08 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Five a's in order to actualize, to bring that to reality, you just follow those steps. What's my actual target? And then you have to. The second part is the hardest. You have to accept. Accept the fact that some things are going to have to change some things, you're going to have to give some things away. Accept the fact that you're going to have your own internal beliefs about yourself. You're going to have to overcome.

0:40:26 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Accept the fact that other people are going to tell you it's not possible, that it's not for you, that it's never going to happen. You have to accept all that. You have to accept that up till now, you've done things that got you to where you are. And then once you've accepted that, okay, cool, accept the fact that it's going to take some effort to get change. You don't get something without giving something.

0:40:48 - (Dr. Greg Persley): That's not the way the universe works. So once you get past that acceptance, where you're totally content with it and you've let go, then you can move to number three and you go, okay, so what are the things that I need to do or that I've been doing that move me toward that goal? And what are the things I haven't been doing? And guess what? That fourth step, you'll know right off the bat. I've been drinking too many booze. I've been eating too many chips.

0:41:11 - (Dr. Greg Persley): I've been missing workouts. I have whatever. I'm hanging out with these idiot people that don't get me my goals or that tell me I'm not good enough or don't, whatever. You'll know what they are. Then the fifth one. Apply. You have to apply new actions, apply new information, apply new emotions, apply new thoughts, apply new beliefs. And through that application, guess what? You become a new person.

0:41:36 - (Dr. Greg Persley): You have different habits, different results. But most people aren't willing to do that work. They want it. They want it now. They want the easy way out. They want money now. They want a business now. They want a success now. They want results now. They want their relationship to be fixed now. But there's a reason why there are statements. Pressure turns coal into diamonds. Trial by fire. There's a reason you go into the fire in order to burn away all the fake stuff.

0:42:03 - (Dr. Greg Persley): So you become refined, you become better. And that's what makes you more content. You understand yourself more.

0:42:10 - (Kevin Lowe): Yeah, absolutely. Oh, my gosh, dude, I love it so much. So much. Before I ask you, where can people plug into your world to get a little bit more of you. I want to ask you real quick. For those of us who are curious, how does life look different today than it did back when your little boy was a year old and you guys were struggling and your relationship was struggling, how does that look different today?

0:42:41 - (Kevin Lowe): How is your little boy? How is your daughter, your whole family?

0:42:45 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Well, as far as personally, I would say I'm wealthy now, as opposed to broke then. And I don't just mean financially. I mean in all those areas. Wealth, financially, relationships, business, personal. I feel wealthy. I feel content. I feel present. I'm not anxious about the future. I'm not worried about what's going to happen, because I am just present now. And being present is something that is so hard for people because they're worried about the future or they're thinking about the past. They're either living in the past or living in the future. They're thinking about all the ways they've done wrong or been wronged, or they're thinking about all the things that they're worried about not happening into the future. Well, once again, what you focus on, what you think about is what's going to end up happening for you or to you. That's one thing. But if you look at my wife and I's relationship, we're better than ever.

0:43:36 - (Dr. Greg Persley): We actually want to hang out and spend time with each other. I'm not running home and being like, well, I got to get this work done. And not being present, I'm more present. I'm able just to sit there and my daughter is 18 now, which makes me feel very old, but she's strong and courageous and just a gorgeous human being, a wonderful human being. And my son's almost 16. He's more into sports than I've ever seen anyone in my entire life. And he does anything and everything he can to be part of sports, even though physically he really can't participate like he would want. But he's the most resilient person I've ever met, so he is able to say, well, I can't play, so I'm going to be the best manager I can be or the best bookkeeper I can be or whatever, and he's the most intense person.

0:44:21 - (Dr. Greg Persley): So overall, my life's not perfect by any means. There's still things I wish were better, but I'm creating a vision or a target or an aim. I'm aiming at something in each of those areas, and then I'm going through my five a's and I'm just doing that over and over. And over. Ultimately, my goal is I do two things now. We have a regenerative medicine integrated medical clinic that I'm trying and working towards expanding and growing so we can help more people physically.

0:44:49 - (Dr. Greg Persley): And then with the fix your BS world, people can go, I'll give them a free wealth creation program. They can go to fixyourbs. Net, fixyourbsbs. Net. And there's a free wealth creation tool that you can learn how to create financial wealth in your life. Just the things that I did. But my goal is to help people that own businesses figure out how to do what I did, which is how to put the things that are necessary in your business to where you can have the business serve you instead of you being stuck in the business.

0:45:22 - (Dr. Greg Persley): There's just a few things that you really have to do. I make it really simple, and if you repetitively do those things, you'll create a business that is what you wanted to have in the first place, not what it became to be a thorn in your side, which is where most people are in their business. So they can go to that or they can go to Instagram. They can find me on Instagram at Dr. Greg Parsley Drgregpursley.

0:45:44 - (Dr. Greg Persley): But I'm here to serve. I'm here to help. If people have questions, they can direct message me. They can go to that. Like I said, fix your bs. Net. I'm just here to help as many lives as I possibly can, or they can catch me when I'm speaking. But those two places. Fix yourbs. Net or go to Instagram.

0:46:00 - (Kevin Lowe): Amazing. I will be sure that both of those are inside of the episode show notes for easy access. Dr. G, I want to sincerely thank you for sharing your story of both you and really of your family, of where you guys have come. Plus, I mean, the invaluable insights on life that you have just dropped in our lap today is absolutely phenomenal. I just sincerely thank you for being here on the podcast.

0:46:30 - (Dr. Greg Persley): Well, thanks, Kevin, for having me. And like I said, I hope I impacted some lives. Just remember, to everyone that's listening, nothing changes until you change. You have to take action. You have to apply new actions in order for change to occur. And remember, change is always going to be uncomfortable. That doesn't mean it's wrong. It just means that change is uncomfortable. It's just the way it is.

0:46:52 - (Dr. Greg Persley): So be ready for that and then embrace that uncomfortableness. Get to enjoy it.

0:46:57 - (Kevin Lowe): Absolutely. I love it for you. Listening today. I hope you've taken some notes. If you didn't, baby, I encourage you maybe to rewind it, jot down some more notes, be sure that you are absorbing all that this amazing guy has just given to us today. Because the most important thing for you to do now is for you to act, to do a little implementing of what we've learned so that this podcast can not just be something entertaining, but something absolutely life changing.

0:47:29 - (Kevin Lowe): Until next week. My name is Kevin Lowe and this is grit, grace, and inspiration.