In this Episode
- [04:06]Greg Reid recounts the story of his first book, “The Millionaire Mentor,” which was rejected by 268 publishers before being accepted.
- [08:38]Greg describes his vision for the Herman’s Farm project, a heritage spot in San Diego, and his plans to preserve its history.
- [09:07]Greg explains his approach to hosting live events, including Secret Knock, Prosperity Camp, and Secret Knock Women.
- [12:34]Greg discusses the potential of AI in book writing and the importance of maintaining the human touch in his work.
- [15:17]Greg introduces the concept of Web 3 and its potential to transform the internet, moving from a read-only format to a more interactive and personalized experience.
- [22:06]Greg recounts the story of his film project, “Wish Man,” based on the life of Frank Shankwitz, the founder of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
- [26:15]Greg shares a childhood story of his entrepreneurial spirit, mowing lawns and hiring other kids to do the work, leading to his first business.
Greg, it’s so great to have you on the show.
Here we go. We finally got the cool kids together.
Let’s first discuss your prolific book writing. How do you do that? Because it is long and painful, at least for me, to make a book, to birth a book. How do you do this?
I’m going to tell you something that’s kind of interesting. Since we’re here in my office, I get to share something that most people don’t get to see. I’ve been published in 157 books, in 45 languages. That was a star in the Walk of Fame. But I’m actually dyslexic. I can’t spell. Really write for Jack. If you play me in Words with Friends, you’ll win every time.
The secret is to work on our strengths and then hire for our weaknesses. I have the most amazing ghost writers in the world that take my words, my voice, so to speak, as an author, and then they transform it in a way people are going to read it. By doing it, we’ve impacted the lives of millions.
Do you use the same ghostwriters each time? Or do you have a whole team or a crew?
I have four of them. I stopped writing my own books. Last year, I did my final salon song. It’s called personal development. I think I have a copy around here somewhere. What happened is I became a publisher, so now the same people who have won me all this stuff, people can hire and just use them for themselves. I realized for myself that if you can surround yourself with people who excel at something that we work at, and we combine forces, we can do a great thing. My Ghostwriters are great. I say, “A boy wants a bike, gets off his ass, mows the lawn, makes money, and he’s got a bike.” They come back. It was a glorious Sunday afternoon. A young, bright-eyed lad caught the entrepreneurial drink and made me look much smarter than I truly am.
That’s awesome. When did your first book come out? And how did that come about?
It was called The Millionaire Mentor. When you write a book, you do something called a query letter that says who you are and what your message is. Why an expert who’s gonna read your book? I was turned down by 268 publishers, agents, and printers in a row because it sucked. I’m dyslexic. Was like “dog, boat, Beaver, car”-made no sense. I finally called one of the top publishers in New York and said, “Look, I know you’re not going to do it. We’re good. Put your gun down. I go, but be honest, what am I missing?” They go, “Man, your writing stinks, but the message is good. You need a ghostwriter.”
Focus on the possibilities of what can be — because that's what you invite, and that's the energy. Share on XTogether, that’s what went on to do the first title. It was 25 years ago. What was nice is that one quote from that book was shared 37 million times last year. It’s all about goal setting. People listening to this, you probably seen it on coffee mugs, T-shirts, bumper stickers. Just didn’t know it was my quote. It says a dream written down with a date becomes a goal. A goal broken into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action makes your dreams come true. It’s a very famous quote, sure, 37 million times from a book turned down 268 times in a row, and the moral is to never let another person or yourself talk you out of what you know to be true.
I’ve heard that quote. I love that quote. What is your dream, but your biggest legacy goal that you’ve got that is maybe on its way, or maybe it’s already completed? Feel free to say, I’m not going to tell you, because, in Jewish wisdom, they say that essentially, you’ve got to keep your hand close to your chest.
Good things come to those who wait, but only the things left behind by those who hustled ahead of you.
Here’s the thing in personal development. I do a whole chapter on this one. What’s the thing about our industry is that there’s a yin and yang to everything. I do a whole chapter, and I say there’s a contradiction in almost everything. One quote could say, “Good things come to those who wait.” The next quote says, “Good things come to those who wait, but only the things left behind by those who hustled ahead of you.” The glass is half full. The glass is half empty. It’s really interesting, because one person might have that exact proverb with what you’re mentioning, and then the next one says, “You got to spring, you got to scream your praises from the rooftop so the universe can hear you that you want it.” It’s really an interesting piece of verbiage. How do you look at it?
Let me answer your question in two ways. One, we got a secret knot coming up in March. It’s on its 20th anniversary. Extraordinarily excited about it. We’ve got all the greatest legends that have ever come over 20 years, all coming out for three days to spend time with us, which is phenomenal. We have everyone from astronauts who walked in space to the woman from NASA who just discovered life on Mars. We’ve got the founder of E! Entertainment, Larry, all the way down to the founder of Ugg boots.
We get to hang out with all of our friends. That’s exciting. But the biggest thing is, I’m doing a land deal. This is the greatest thing. A billionaire came to our event, and I said, “How do you make a billion dollars in land?” He said, “Time plus land is wealth.” I said, “What do you mean?” He says, “Well, all I do is look for a town that’s growing exponentially at three 5% a year. I look for Broadway Main Street, and I draw a line out eight miles, and I buy the dirt. I rent the dirt to farmers. They pay the lease. It’s free land, and I get vegetables for years as the town continues to grow at 25%, eventually it ends up on my plot. Since I own the biggest amount of land, I resell it to the big box stores for 800 times what I pay.” I said, “Genius.”
Every night I would Google land for sale in San Diego, and it would always pop up the wildest things, way out in the desert, out nowhere. One day, it popped up right along the coast, or along the ocean, the lagoon here in San Diego. I went in. There are 80 people; they’re going to start a bidding war. I noticed there was a sign, and it said that they applied for permits many years ago. I pulled them, and I realized I wanted to preserve the history of this property, so I wrote a cover letter.
You get a network with positive, like-minded people who’ve accomplished, but most people can only dream of.
Remember when you’re a kid, your grandpa told you to do it, and I said, “Sell this landing, and I will give you my word. I will live that legacy, and I will continue that mission.” They called me the next day and said, “Do you swear that you’ll do that?” I said, “Yes,” they sold me three and a half acres of land in the greatest ZIP Code of Southern California against the open space lagoon for next to nothing. Now we’re in the process of going through all the permits and planning, and we should start building this year.
What’s it going to look like once you’re finished?
I compound a gift to my son so that he can give it to his son and continue the history as we go forward. Is a place called Herman’s Farm, and it was the oldest cattle ranch in lima bean farm in Southern California. This family is the people who created a living Hayne, which is from Rancho Santa Fe down in San Diego. It’s really a neat little heritage spot to keep the legacy alive. That’s what I’m excited about.
That’s awesome. What does a compound mean to you?
If you surround yourself with people who excel at what we do, and we combine forces, we can do great things. Share on XFamily estate, a really nice residence with the adu. We can start doing some live events and things like that, which we do again for people who are new to me. I host live events. We do three big events a year. One’s called Secret Knock. It’s basically an invite only gathering where all the people I’ve met along my journey, I get to introduce them to you. There are no lanyards allowed. There are no business cards allowed. It’s just everyone’s normal. You get a network with positive, like-minded people who’ve accomplished, but most people can only dream of.
Secret Knock is kind of like fluff cotton candy. It’s you who should, meaning you should buy Bitcoin, just as an example. In the summertime, I do something called prosperity camp, where it’s how to, so that’s where it’s more intimate. We roll up our sleeves and say, Hey, let’s pop up a computer. Let’s show you exactly how you open up a crypto account. This is how it works. Secret Knock, as you should know, is fun. Laser beams and smoke machines, kind of like The Wizard of Oz, and then meat and potatoes are called the Prosperity Camp.
You also have a third event.
Then my former wife, of all things, runs, Secret Knock, women, unbelievable. I got the greatest ex-wife in the world. I know that sounds crazy, but she is amazing. She’s a great co-parent to our son. Her husband and I are really close friends. We all have Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners together. It’s really California livestock, yes, so to speak.
That’s awesome. Did it start out that way, or did you have to work towards that now? No, there’s this thing called conscious uncoupling, where you don’t go to war with lawyers and all that. How did that come about? What’s the secret?
You can get hurt because you’re being truthful, but it’s hard to get mad at somebody who’s telling the truth.
Well, I’ll tell you, I’m the only guy that I know in all of California who has been married and divorced three times, and I’ve never had a lawyer. We’ve never had a challenge. The common denominator is, it’s because I’m a sober guy, 38 years sober, I don’t drink, smoke, use, and when the concept is rigorous honesty, and if you don’t lie, cheat, steal, and you just open communication like we’re having right now, it’s hard to get mad. You can get hurt because you’re being truthful, but it’s hard to get mad at somebody who’s telling the truth. When you have that type of open communication relationship, amazing things can happen.
Have you written a book about that kind of uncoupling and rigorous honesty and all that, and how to maintain relationships without burning bridges when the love ends, or the spark ends?
Never have, but people have written books about us. It’s been kind of an interesting little journey. As I said, I’m done writing books, I’m out, I’m retired, so now I’m helping other people tell their stories, and that’s more enjoyable for me right now. We’ve been doing some really great products, so that’s been pretty cool.
What do you think about this whole AI thing and book writing, and where do you see this heading? Because a book can create a personalized story of a manifesto, a fiction, or a non-fiction, it doesn’t matter. It could be done in minutes, and it can be personalized to exactly what you need to hear how you learn, what kind of stories you’d relate to, and can be done in minutes. It’s going to get even more awesome in the coming just a few years. What happens to us authors?
Never let another person — or yourself — talk you out of what you know to be true. Share on XA lot of people are running away from that, going, “It’s kind of like a horse and buggy watching cars come down the road.” It is coming no matter what. On the same note, I’m doing everything humanly possible to hold on to the human touch. That’s why we have four amazing ghostwriters. I’m going to stay on that approach for as long as I possibly can. Our approach is to sit down with someone and say, “Tell us your story,” and then we take one golden nugget and write the first chapter. Send it to them. They review it once.
We get a foundation. Every time we meet with them. Every two weeks, we keep adding to it. We write it in real time. That way, if you give chapter five and say, “Gosh, I wish I had said that it’s only ink.” You’re about chapter two, you put a paragraph, you tie it together. This is the way that we’re going to be doing it. However, to answer your question, AI is an amazing tool. I’m a huge fan, so I do believe you can do that. There are also legalities of what you own for copyright and not, and I highly recommend you do a little rabbit hole search in that, because you’ll find that the majority of stuff that’s written is not copyrightable when it is written by AI.
When you publish a book through a major publishing company, they make you sign a release saying that it is not AI, and if it is, it has to be disclosed what has been done, so much so that when you put in your book, if I sit there and write a chapter based on the power and influence of drinking water, and then I use AI to flush out a bunch of the information, I physically have got to give both sides of it, of what I wrote and what AI came out with, so they know the difference between the two. It’s going to be an interesting thing to watch moving forward.
What do you think AI is best at? And where do you think the risks are for us as society or humanity?
I always look at the positive. I’m a positive solution-sourcing guy because every time a calculator came up when we were kids, people asked, “How are they going to ruin kids in math?” No, they did not. They said, “If cell phones are going to lie, everyone’s right.” Did not. They said the television would be on. No, it’s not. I’m taking the same perspective: 100% of everything that pulled me was going to kill me; it didn’t. I’m going to have a positive attitude about what’s coming next.
Rather than run from something, I’m gonna actually embrace it.
I think AI is gonna be an amazing tool. You’ve been watching Musk, and you’ve been looking at Diamatis and all these people saying, “In the next 15 years, we’re gonna probably be more than one to one for robots and people.” Rather than run from something, I’m gonna actually embrace it. I also see that there’s a great opportunity. All right, I haven’t shared this with anyone, so you guys will, you’ll be the first group that I’ve done is I’m working with very interesting project, and I know this is so brand new, but here’s the deal, I’m first gonna go back for people that are new to this stuff, and educate people on the internet.
Web one was something called read-only. You have AOL and say, “Local pizza parlor.” It would print out on MapQuest your local pizza options. You’d tape it to your rear-view mirror, and it was pretty cool back in the day. If you remember, Web 2.0 is kind of where we’re at now. They sit there and say, “Local pizza,” whoever paid the most for something called SEO. It’s manipulated. That’s where it tells you to go. Web three is where we are going. Web three is where we’re going. It’s like a quarterback never throws a football; when a wide receiver is standing, they throw it downfield. Let you run to it.
This is what’s coming, folks. Web three is if you ask ChatGPT, and put in something called the prompt and say, “Hey, what’s about your local pizza?” It will give you, based on the most positive reviews, where you might suggest going. One bias, and that is where things are going on the Web. Two, if you own a domain name like .com, .net, or .info, you’re only renting it. The way it is through ICANN is that if you don’t pay that yearly fee, you can lose everything that’s attached to it.
Everything will be tokenized, from your mortgage to your car insurance, everything. Web three will be the vehicle through which you use to tokenize everything.
Web three domains. Once you own one, it’s yours forever. What that means is that your crypto account, for example, I could send to your name, dot, whatever the web three address is, goes directly into your account. Everything’s gonna be tokenized. You’re watching diamonds, you’re watching these. Everything will be tokenized, from your mortgage to your car insurance, everything. Web three will be the vehicle through which you use to tokenize everything.
Do we agree? I’d say even your birth certificate, all your personal data, your medical records, everything that will be on the blockchain in a way that you can control it, and not just hope that some governmental body is going to retain it with integrity.
We say all these things will lead to now, and I may share with you. In the AI world, there’s one word that, if you’re on Grok, if you’re on chat, if you’re on Gemini, you do the same thing every time. It’s a number word in all of AI, and it’s called prompting. I own the top-level Domain dot prompt, so like a.com.net, I actually own dot prompt, and we are now going for the I can certification in two months. We have applied for trademarks worldwide, and I am going to make this the leading domain for all AI worldwide. We know that the future right now, if you go to Gemini, any of these things, if you get an author page or author channel, and all these search things, what they did is they went through and they pulled from the internet. But the way of the future of SEO will be changed in a job. It is just that thing I believe is going to go more wayside than anything. But again, I think it’s just the future of it and the people that we’re talking to and connected to. It’s pretty amazing what’s coming.
It is awesome. You kind of avoided this. I want to pin you down on it. What are you not fearful of? But what are you reticent about or concerned about, from an AI perspective, that might go sideways for us as humanity?
Everyone can watch the Orwell stuff and go down that rabbit hole all day long. But again, I’m not going to focus on that. I’m going to focus on the possibilities of what can be, because that’s what I invite, and that’s the energy. If anyone’s ever read any of my books with Bob Proctor and me, we wrote the Think and Grow Rich series, and we focus on success in something greater. It’s what the possibilities of what can be that are the biggest challenges; there’s what I can do to fix that, but the only thing I can control is my mindset and how I adapt and deal with it when it comes my way.
That’s great. If you see something you don’t like happening in other governments or amid strife and conflict, you can change your vibration and create a different reality. Because if you imagine this world is kind of like a simulation or an illusion that is a reflection of your inner world, that outer world is a reflection of your inner world. I don’t know if this resonates for you, but you can change not just your little community, but your whole world.
One of the things about sobriety is that they had this serenity. Prayer says, “God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” That’s where I live my life. For the majority of these types of questions I cannot control, there’s not much for me to worry about, but I do make sure that the things I can, I am aware of. I make sure that I don’t have tracking devices on my phone. I make sure that things, all the common sense type things, on the same note, I’m done man, and I’m tired of all these spam freaking emails that come in a day, and I think Web 3.0 will eliminate a lot of these things, I really, truly do. I’m fired up on what’s coming next.
The possibilities of what can be are the biggest challenge; there’s what I can do to fix it, but the only thing I can control is my mindset and how I adapt and deal with it when it comes my way.
Me too, one of my clients, he has a new book out called Privacy Crisis, where he walks through how to protect your privacy on your various devices and online services and all that sort of stuff, so that you’re not getting tracked, you’re not getting spammed and scammed and so forth. The AI-assisted scammers are so sophisticated because they’re able to fake people’s voices and sound much more eloquent, not have typos in their emails and look super official and everything. You have to be a super sleuth to navigate these waters these days, and it’s gonna get even more difficult.
I agree, and it’s frustrating. Think about it, the single day we wake up, and there are 30 people attempting to steal from us on our phone, and then there are all throughout the day, people trying to think, so we’re so numb to it. Unfortunately, that’s how messed up things are again, and that’s why I don’t want to focus on that, because we already are aware of it. What I’m working on is building a new platform for dot prompt in the future, combining. I want to be the bridge between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 to help eliminate a lot of that. People would want to be on our infrastructure, so we can start eliminating that.
Let’s change tracks for a minute, because I’m really curious. How did you end up with a star on the Hall of Fame, or whatever it’s called, on the Walk of Fame? What is it called, the Hollywood Walk of Fame? I think that’s what it’s called, six stars away from Elvis.
It’s in Las Vegas, right in front of the Paris Hotel in Bellagio, right out on the main strip in Vegas. I’m six away from Elvis. I’m a few away from the founder of the Make-A-Wish Foundation and some amazing people. Years ago, I had a gentleman come to our secret architect, Frank Shankwitz. He founded a nonprofit called Make-A-Wish, and I asked him what his wish was. He says, “No one ever asked me.” He said, “What I want to grant the wish of the founder of Make-A-Wish. What do you want?” He says, “Well, I just want my story to be told so my grandkids will know I did something.” He signed over his life rights, and I said, Well, Frank, I’m gonna make this into a major feature film.
Just know, I’ve never made a movie before, and it took six years of trials and tribulations, but when it came out, we made the ballad for the Oscars. We’re still trending worldwide right now, called Wish man, and the story is that everyone can be a hero. You do not need to be a celebrity to give a pair of socks to a homeless person or stop a boy from fighting. Everyone can do a simple act of kindness to have a ripple effect, and when it had great success, we nominated him for a star on the Walk of Fame. They gave it to him, and in return, they asked him to give me one too. How cool is that? That is awesome.
What a great story, what a great mission that you had there. I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve seen the trailer. I have also looked it up on Rotten Tomatoes before, and 88%, that’s pretty darn good.
Congratulations. It’s a damn good movie, especially for a guy. I gotta tell you how I did it though. I think it was through somebody, a mutual friend, whom I believe you might even know. His name is Jules Horowitz, the guy who started Showtime television in Hollywood. I had a meeting with him, and I was getting nowhere. I was just running in quicksand. I couldn’t understand why. I asked him the same thing I asked with my book, “What am I missing? What am I not getting?” He said, “There’s a trick to Hollywood.” I go, “What is it?” He says, “In Hollywood, a yes means no. A No means no. A maybe is all you’re looking for. I go where I’m from. A Yes means it goes in Hollywood, a yes means no.” I go, “Give me an example.” He says, “They go, baby, we’re gonna make you a star. We’re gonna give you something because that’s their way of telling you no, a no is a no, but a maybe.” When they say, “Hey, that’s a good idea. Let’s set up a meeting with the studio and see if we can use what you’re looking for.” As soon as he told me the hack, seven months later, we made the film.
How did you get funded for it? That’s no small venture, like millions of dollars usually it takes to make a film.
We did, friends, family, everything we possibly could pull it together. Fortunately, the movie came out at the height of COVID. It was really ashamed, because we had a full theatrical nationwide set. We had everything, but they shut down. The entire world. But it was nice because it was on Netflix for a year and a half, so it got a bunch of scenery. But the way it works is that once you sell the rights for them to stream it, you get one lump fee. Even though 10s and 10s of millions of people watched it, we didn’t get paid that way, so our investors, unfortunately, did not have a huge windfall. However, we really did impact the lives of many, many people, and especially Frank, who got his story told.
What did he tell you after that movie came out?
It was great, I drove him to the airport. It was Hollywood. We did it at the Roman theater, the whole bit, and it’s just a big ordeal. I remember I drove him to the LA Airport, and he’s a six-foot-five cowboy John Wayne looking guy, and he got out of my car, and he started walking towards the entrance of the airport, and he got about 1015 feet, and he stopped, and he turned around, he says, “Roll down your window.” He turned around, put on his cowboy hat, and he said, “Wish granted.” Turned away and walked away. It was probably the most powerful moment of my life.
What’s a memorable moment from your childhood that you want to share with our viewers or listeners?
Childhood was interesting. I’ve always been a scrappy guy, and I was always told what I can’t do. Again, I’m dyslexic, kids are rowdy, kind of a problem kid, but I always stay out of trouble. I remember one time I wanted to get something, and it’s the same story I was telling earlier about the millionaire mentor, where I wanted to bike, but I didn’t have enough money to do it. I couldn’t get a job.
What I did is I went door to door, and I got the neighbors to pay me $10 to mow their lawn, and then I hired all the other kids in the neighborhood for five bucks to mow the lawn for me as an entrepreneur, and I got in trouble, yelled at grounded because I was taking advantage of these kids, and now I’m winning awards around the world for doing just that.
Isn’t it what entrepreneurship is supposed to be, what you did, and you’re getting grounded for it?
That’s funny. What’s really interesting is that now that I’m a father of a 13-year-old son, his name’s Colt, an amazing young man, and you learn a lot about life through your kids. I was doing a podcast, and a woman asked me a question. She was, do you give your son money to do things he does not like to do around the house, like take out the trash and mow the lawn, make his bed? Said, Absolutely, I’m going to teach my kid the power and respect of capital.
She said, “That’s a shame. I expected more. You’re ruining your child forever.” I’m a student’s mindset. I said, “Teach me.” She goes, “Think about it. Your child, from the earliest of thought and memory, the only way to get paid money is to do the thing he hates.” I sat him down and said, “Colt, I go, man, you are so good at making digital assets, videos and images. I go, I got a bunch of Instagram and TikTok followers.” I go, “From now on, I’m going to hire you to do those things for your allowance. How about you just take out the trash and make the bed, and we’ll call it giving back to the family for just having the lifestyle you live.” We go with contribution, and by changing that paradigm, that mindset. Now, when his new tennis shoes come out on the market, he comes and says, “Hey, Dad, how many TikToks do you need for the new kicks?” Now he’s working and striving at what he excels at, and he started teaching other kids around the neighborhood to do the same.
What a great way to incentivize your kid. I love that. If our listener or viewer wants to learn more from you, they can check out your books, your events, your media appearances and all that at Gregreid.com. Thank you so much, Greg. Thank you, listener and viewer, and please go out there. Make it a great week. Share your light, and we’ll catch you in the next episode. I’m your host. Stephan Spencer, signing off.
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