Taking Inspiration to Action: Police, Officer, Author & Entrepreneur Gene Reid

How do we turn inspiration into action? Gene Reid is a former police officer turned author and PhD candidate who joins JT to share a full circle moment that transcends mere dialogue and embodies the power of motivation.

Gene attended an event hosted by Consequence of Habit, featuring guest speaker Nick Lavery, and was pushed to make a change. Nick's talk served as a catalyst for Gene's own journey of self-discovery and action and led him to start his own business, Reed Solutions. Gene shares lessons learned about prioritizing family, managing anxiety, and getting help from others to achieve big goals.

Hear how Gene's journey from law enforcement to entrepreneurship was impacted - and ultimately formed - by habit formation, personal growth, emotional intelligence, discipline and vision.

• Transcription

  JT 0:00

  Back to the podcasts. I this is this is probably the fifth time that I've had the opportunity to do this in person. So anytime I get these opportunity i The conversations always seem to flow better not not to take anything away from the ones I've done, you know, virtually but this is a long winded way of me saying I'm excited to have you here. Today I am sitting down with Jean Reeve Reed solutions. You've had a long list yet like what you do. It's it's impressive.

  Gene Reid 0:31

  Thank you, police officer,

  JT 0:32

  author, the founder of reach solutions, performance coach, a lot to dive into PhD

  Gene Reid 0:42

  triathlete jujitsu. Keep it going.

  JT 0:47

  Guys a renaissance man it honestly. And it is impressive. Usually when I start diving into somebody's backstory a little bit. It's done quicker than I with yours. Yours is the long list. So I want to start off with I know a lot of police officers. Right. And I don't know a lot of them that have continued on right. And this isn't a take away from anyone. It's it as a as a profession. But But since becoming a police officer, where were you as far as education wise, when you started and where are you now?

  Gene Reid 1:26

  Yeah, that's a great way to start. So I did not have a bachelor's degree when I started. I started on my bachelor's degree when I was in our detective unit. A terrible time to start. Yeah, but my mother always stressed to me, Hey, you gotta go get your education. Go Go get your your education. Well, to go back a little bit. I was in college. I was in college. And at the age of 18, I applied to be a police officer down at the shore in Wildwood, New Jersey. Anybody who's looking to get involved in policing, I highly recommend that it was some of the most fun times I ever had. Well, then I really got the bug. Right. So then I was there for two years. I'm 1920 years old. I was like, This is what I want to do. I just want to do this thing. So I was my third year in college. And I just started applying to all these different State Police Organizations. Yeah, well, Maryland state police picked me up. And I was 20. And my mom was like, I really want you to finish your degree. And my dad was saying the same thing too. But me because just being a silly young man, I was like, Nope, I'm gonna go do this thing. So I go to Maryland State Police there for a couple years fantastic organization. They're super squared away. I want to leaving just because I met my wife and I now wife, who lives in New Jersey, that's where we live. Now. She's a school teacher. And New Jersey has this weird thing where you can't live outside of the state if you're a teacher. So that was our first big compromise in our marriage. got hired by Newcastle county police and really went through those first few years still, like not even think about education. And then really had a conversation with a current chief of police in New Jersey, and a couple other guys and they're like, dude, listen, we think you're highly intelligent. You're not going to go anywhere. Unless you get your education. Yeah, you got a lot of potential, you're missing a big part of it. And I kind of waited. I mean, I was 2526 years old before I really went back to school and started doing that. But that's when I started and I never stopped. Once I started. I did the bachelor's degree finished that up when got the master's in education. And then I had a couple of teachers reach out to me when I was in the master's program. And they're basically like, Hey, man, you're you're kind of talented, this writing thing you should consider go on the page, you're out. And I've always had that personality of, well, what's the highest level of the thing that we can do? And they said as a PhD, so I was like, Okay, that's it. I'm gonna go do the thing.

  JT 3:52

  And when When did you finish that up? About a year and a half ago? Okay. Yeah. And how old are you now? 3434. So I school, a lot of dedication, and then add in all the other things, and that's where I want to get to you and I met at the speaking engagement that we did. It was phenomenal. Oh, thank you very much. It really was yeah, i that means a lot. It was. I think as you know, that was our first one in Yeah, a lot of work that goes into those things, a lot of nights not sleeping, but and

  Gene Reid 4:24

  I don't want to get you off your train of thought but and I was kind of holding us to tell you till now but the reason I started read solutions was because of that event. Shut up. I'm not not being serious. When your main speaker Yeah, a lot when he was speaking library, right. Nick Lavery. I'm Nick Lavery. He basically said and put it out there like, Hey, what's your next year gonna look like? What's this gonna be? And I always had this in the back of my mind. I'm being dead serious now. Like, and I was like, Dude, this is the time. Like there's a reason that I'm here. There's a reason that the universal line for somebody to tell me that out this consequence of habit and come to this event, and that's what that's what did it that really put me over the edge? It's beautiful. I have been hanging in the background like, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this. Seeing him on stage being at that event. I'm telling you that was my like, all right now it's game time, you got to do it. I

  JT 5:15

  tell people that because I talked about Nick and I say, you know, they seem and on the surface level, he's just, he's just a massive person. Right?

  Gene Reid 5:24

  I didn't realize how giant of a man Yeah, it's, it's incredible. He

  JT 5:28

  walked in. I was like, I mean, I didn't know. I mean, I've talked to him. You know, over over video calls. He's been a guest on here. And he walked in, I was like, God, man. But I said this afterwards, I don't care if you sold insurance, scooped ice cream at Dairy Queen, a fellow Greenbrae. Man, you just walked away from that thing, willing to do something right to make these positive changes and termite proof in the pudding? Man, here we are absolutely cool, awesome, man, that makes that really honestly, that just made my day. I'm gonna reach out to Nick after this and share this part. So when it comes to habits, to be able to do the things that you've done, you've developed an operating system that's clearly worked for you. And it's something I don't know if you consider this as like price of admission, because now you're sharing this with with the world. Where did that system come from? Is it something that just kind of inherently came you naturally it was something you really had to own over a period of time. So

  Gene Reid 6:32

  I can tell you exactly what happened. My dad, when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I've only now started to put names to these things. I've always been doing it. So my dad, we were in our garage. It was me, my dad, my sister. And my sister was two years older than me. And I was like 11 or 12 years old. And he introduced me to push ups and sit ups. That's it. And he was basically like, hey, how many can you do? And my sister and I, you know, of course, I'm competitive naturally. So I wanted to beat her. And then he basically told me like, dude, do you know that if you just do some push ups a little bit every day, like you'll be able to do more next week. And it was something that clicked in my little head that time. I immediately got the hook for physical fitness. My body started changing. I started I was a basketball baseball player growing up. But immediately I started separating myself. I was never great athlete. But I was better than the average just from the physical fitness stuff. Yeah. So then I just started applying it to kind of everything, right? Just academics, and then police work. And then once I started getting involved in triathlons, which I'll share a story about that as well. But that's where it started. And then, so I'm going through school, PhD, stress management and resiliency. Now learning the terminology behind these things and being like, Oh, this is what the thing that my dad taught me, you know, and I don't even know if he knew what he was doing at the time. This was just something that he kind of honed in on. But the biggest thing, the biggest earth shattering thing for me was this concept of a paradigm where, and for those listening, if you don't know a paradigm is a set of habits and behaviors that's totally unique to you. And it's created or retirements created through your whole entire life. And you sitting wherever you are right now listening to this, you have a certain paradigm that dictates exactly the the amount of money you make the job, you have your relationships, your physical fitness level, all that stuff. And then I really started to dive into the world of like Earl Nightingale and Bob Proctor and all these guys who talk about these things. And then they're more philosophical when I really started kind of pairing up the science with it. What this thing where people try to start on these new habits. I don't know, if you listen to one of my episodes, I've listed them all so yeah, okay, so the science of self development, the pockets that I have, what the research tells us with habits is, it's an average of 66 days that it takes somebody for create and maintain a new habit. That's kind of a long time. But if you actually look at the research is actually this. It's a span between 18 and 254 days, which is misleading for people. Because if you go into this thinking, like, I'm going to do this new habit, I'll stick with it for two months, you might not you might be the person where it takes 200 days, right? So and then I really started kind of learning about that. And there's this concept that it's a thing that happens to everybody. And everybody can relate to this, when you start out on a new habit. At some point. It might be two weeks and three weeks in a month, you're going to get this pulling sensation to go back to your old ways. And you know what that is your paradigm. Now you can put a name to it. Once I started putting all these little pieces of the puzzle together. Creating new habits and doing new things just became so easy, because I could now put a name to Okay, well now my month into this thing and it's kind of like I want to go back to my old ways. That's just the paradigm. I just needed to stick this out for a little bit longer and I'll get through it.

  JT 9:59

  Yeah, you know, I listened to that episode. And I, I wasn't familiar with the word paradigm to be honest. I mean, I've heard of like, you know, a shift in paradigm things like that. But I, as far as terminology, I just had this conversation yesterday with somebody and was like, I compared to needle beaten in, in a record right after it's just us, it falls into there. And then kind of like you said, we have this operating system. And when we try to change things, I don't know if you've read dopamine nation by Dr. Anna Lemke. It's fantastic. But it's, it's that acceptance of, hey, this is going to be uncomfortable, I'm going to get to that point where my paradigm is kicking in, and it's going to want to bring me back there. And that's okay. Right. Accepting that being okay with sitting through that? Because, unfortunately, that's, that's where the change is, right? That's where the Yeah, that's the rub. And the big

  Gene Reid 10:54

  thing you see, you need three things, right. And the, we kind of already talked about two of them, right? You need the time, you have to just go into something, knowing that it's going to take time, it's not going to happen overnight. And here's actually like, this is what I get excited about. You can tell I'm talking about this now. But the fascinating thing to me is, and here we are when we're like three weeks into January, right? What's the what's the main thing that everybody always wants to do at the beginning of the year, we'll lose weight, right. And most of the time, when somebody sets out a new habit, they intuitively know what they need to do, right. And I use the example losing weight because most people can relate to that. How do you lose weight while you eat a little bit less food and you exercise a little more, or you keep eating the same amount of food and exercise a lot more? It's one of those two things. So what do people do? They start out on this journey, they do that thing and they lose weight, they have success in the thing. So they're doing the new habit, they're having success. But most people still, that's not enough, they will still go back to the old ways. And what they're missing is that desire, you have to have a strong desire to get through that 66 days or 180 days, whatever it is. That's what's fascinating to me. Yeah,

  JT 12:03

  yeah, I was I was one of our ambassadors. That in case he was doing a 24 hour race, running race last weekend, so it's cold, right? And he's like six or eight hours into and I stopped by to visit him, and it was gonna kill him spawn. And I've, I have no 24 hour, but I've done some longer distance things. And we were talking about the the highs and lows, and I'm sure you can, you can speak of it in an Ironman Triathlon, there's parts where you feel, I can't, I can't go any further. And then within not a very long period of time, you might feel like you're in cloud nine, right? So it's almost this thing of not taking your emotions too seriously. Right? going, Okay, I feel this way. But this will pass and I have this, this goal or this thing, this version of me that I really want to want to be so I'm going to sit this one out. I was talking to somebody yesterday, I think in our society, it's become much harder to sit with that feeling of uncomfortableness, because we've become so conditioned to feel good. So often. And I think that the word that this gentleman uses, we're in need of a revolution of of freewill, right, because we become addicted to this. This dopamine is constant feed of it. Does that does? Does that resonate with you? Do you have any thoughts on that and kind of how it plays in to either your story or something you're trying to put out to the world?

  Gene Reid 13:40

  Yeah, it's always I think people are always seeking comfort. But I think that's, I mean, it's called homeostasis, right? Like, our bodies are always just trying to like, be at this nice level. And especially in today's day and age you you're gonna have to force yourself. At some point, if you want to start down this road of self development, you're gonna have to force yourself to do things. You know, it's interesting. So there's actually research out there. I'll tell you the answer to it. But when I give presentations, I usually quiz the audience. The mechanism to force yourself to do things that you don't like to do is a natural, like, it's not a muscle, but it's a you can think of it like a muscle on your brain, you have to train that thing and and it will deteriorate. And if you don't do things that are uncomfortable, it gets a lot harder to do things that are uncomfortable, but the more you do it, the better you get at it. The number one way you can train that mechanism is by not hitting the snooze button in the morning. Yeah, if you are a snooze button person, right people that hit the snooze button in the morning, try it. Tomorrow morning, don't hit the snooze button and watch. And I think it's because you don't have all your mental faculties in the morning and it's just so easy to just hit that thing, even if it's 234 minutes. But I'm telling you and the research shows, that is a great way to train that mechanism. When the alarm goes off. I get out of bed when the alarm goes off. I get out of bed and you just do it over and over. I want to go back to the Ironman suffer quick because what happened with my Ironman kind of journey, I've only done one full Ironman. But I got involved in triathlons because I was always an athlete growing up. And then once I became involved in police work, I wasn't playing sports anymore. And I kind of lost like, I really enjoyed the competitiveness of sports, and didn't have anything. This was before I got involved in jujitsu. And I was a good enough athlete to where I could just go out and do a sprint triathlon and Olympic distance one. So I did a few of those. And then I did, I got cocky, and I signed up for a half Ironman, and this was in Maryland, it's called Eagle Man, I don't know if you're familiar with or not. It's notoriously very hot. And I didn't know what I was doing. And I barely finished that race. And that's like a gross understatement. It was, it was just heat exhaustion, severe dehydration, I basically walked the entire half marathon portion of that, and my wife at the time, while she's still my wife, but we were married, that she was very concerned for my well being. So I crossed the finish line, I made it, I did the thing. And the first thing I thought was, I'm never doing that ever again. That was really stupid. I allowed that emotion to kind of take over, when really looking back, I should have thought to myself, well, what can we learn from this? You're a good athlete, like, why did you fail so miserably at this, and I finished but in my head, it was still a failure. So a few days goes by, and I signed up for the full Ironman within less than a year. Because I was like, no, no, I'm gonna go back to that same course and do it twice. And I went and did it. And I felt great the entire time. I hired a coach, we talked about this before the show started. It was that at that time, I stopped asking myself like, how am I going to do this, instead, I asked who can help me do this, I don't need to figure this out all on my own. I don't know how to train for an Ironman. That's pretty obvious. So I got a hold of one of my buddies who, you know, that's kind of his specialty. He trained me in it, and I had a great time. It wasn't the fastest time in the world. I think I did it in 13 and a half, 14 hours, maybe something like that.

  JT 17:18

  It almost goes back to to the lesson your dad taught you. Right? Like if I just do these a couple more push ups, like you know, and over time it grows and you build the process. And I think that's a really important thing because a lot of times right about now there's a lot of people with their with their New Year's resolutions, and they're failing at this point. James clear, there's all kinds of people say it's, it's, it's not even a lack of a well, or motivation. It's just you didn't the processes weren't in place. I mean, you were I'm sure extremely motivated for that half marathon that half triathlon or a half Ironman Triathlon. But, but the process wasn't in place leading up to that. What has been your experience of, of having these achievements, but also at the same time as a police officer? Is it something that you've been able to incorporate into your fellow police officers? Is there been like, yeah, like, genes and other species, he's going to do what he's going to do. I'm only asking that because I know the community. We can eat our own at times, which are, what has it been to have this career, and then also this pretty amazing side hustle that seems to be really gaining traction? Yeah,

  Gene Reid 18:34

  I don't force myself or my methodologies on anybody. And I use a quote from Earl Nightingale, if you haven't heard of Earl Nightingale, he is one of the godfathers of self development back in the 40s, and 50s. But something Earl would always say is, before any of his speeches or sermons or anything, he would say, I'm not here to tell you how to live your life. That's none of my business. It's nobody else's business. That's your business. All I'm here to do is share with you decades upon decades of research, both scientific and philosophical, and you can do whatever you want with that information. And that's kind of how I do things. I don't put myself out if I allow people to, obviously come to me and ask me questions, and we can talk about that kind of stuff. But I never forced my ways on people anymore. There's a clear distinction there. I used to, I used to get upset with people and be like, Why are you not crashing the world? What is your problem? Like? Why are you not doing this? And guess what, that never worked? What was the crossroads?

  JT 19:35

  Where that was, like, all of a sudden, like, Hey, this is I'm pissing in the wind here. They're going to they have to decide they're going to make a change. That's not my purpose here on life. Somebody has to be willing to do it. Was there one specific incident was it was it just over a period of time, you know, running the same experiment over and over?

  Gene Reid 19:56

  I think it was just an appeal to tell me to shut the hell out. Sometimes, sometimes that's what we need, right? Yeah, kinda like dude, just shut up. But once I stopped doing that, and that's kind of why I started read solutions, this coaching and training company, you're gonna have to seek me out, I put information out there. But I am not begging anybody to sign up for my trainings. We had a conversation right before this started, I am looking to sign a deal with the state of Virginia to go start working with them, which is great. But this is not like a beg borrow and steal thing. They heard about me through some other people, they came to me. And, you know, I have a certain set of things that I want to that was also something I learned about the whole the business side of things. I am very specific and what I'm good at. Here's what I'm good at talking about emotional intelligence as it applies to leadership, resilience and stress management and self development and anything outside of there. It's not my thing. Yeah, I'm not and I'm not going to be desperate. I'm not going to have a famine mentality. Where all talk to you about anything. Nope. I know what I'm good at. And this is what I'm going to talk about. But yeah, forcing things down people's throats, that's not going to work, it will never work. It won't work in your relationship. That won't work with your kids. That won't work in your profession. It doesn't work.

  JT 21:13

  It 100% I mean, I, I started coo ah, after I quit drinking, one of the first things, you know, there was not right away. It was a good year. So, and it started as a podcast and something you learn in that world of people trying to quit something is this is a suggestion. What do you do with it is on you? You know, I'm, I'm older than you. And I used to watch GI Joe. And at the end, they would always end it with the knowing is half the battle. And I'm like What the freak that? And then you get older like you absolutely. And I think that's one of someone asked me what is the hardest thing? Or what one of the biggest lessons you've learned in habit formation. They said you've you've read a lot of books, you've you've I think we're at like 150 interviews talking about habits. And I said, Well, there's a ton of knowledge out there. People have gone through this, just like you needed a coach who knew what they were doing about Ironman triathlons, people have experienced and done things, you know, we're not that unique. The hardest part, though, is to, you know, you may know it, but how do you implement it into your life? And I mean, you know, that goes for everybody, right? There's no one. What point in your life? Did you say, I know, this is what my strength is. So much so that I'm confident to to put this out to the world to create something out of nothing really is see where this thing goes? Yeah,

  Gene Reid 22:49

  I can't give you the exact time. But I had somebody worked me through this kind of little thought experiment. And I'll do it with you today. You don't have to actually do it out loud. But the thought experiment was JT, let's say this is the last time you and I speak for the next year. And I reject that because we're gonna, we are friends. We'll be friends afterwards. But let's just say hypothetically, this is the last time we speak. Now a year goes by, and I see you at one of your speaking events, right? And you come up to me and you go, Dude, I just had the most incredible year of my entire life, like you wouldn't imagine. The question is, what does that look like for you? What is that, and what the next step in this is write it down. You have to get like, and when I say write it down, I mean, take 234 hours, if not more, and get super granular on what you want exactly your life to be. Because what I have found, and I used to do this, too. And I think I just got lucky, I think I got away with it. But I think people a lot of people suffer from they just wake up in the morning, they have a general idea of what they want to do. But they're not really making decisions specific to this path. And what happens is really successful people and unsuccessful people arguably make the same amount of decisions every day. It's just where are those decisions taking you? So what this exercise does, you write it down. My wife and I did this, my wife and I sat down independently. I wrote down mine's about five pages long. Yeah. And it goes in very specific detail. Some examples are when I wake up in the morning, I am an impeccable physical condition, free from disease, and I'm proud of everything I've accomplished. And then it goes on to how much money I have in the bank. what my job is how my relationship is with my children, and you get really into the emotions of it. And I know that sounds like some woowoo stuff.

  JT 24:45

  Now this show is all woowoo this show gets real. So go go go

  Gene Reid 24:49

  with it. So my wife and I both did that separately. We then came together. And then we shared that. Luckily our visions were very much aligned. So we're fortunate on that. At, but then what that forces you to do is any decision you make, from from that day on once you have that thing nailed down, you just said, if somebody approaches you for a business opportunity, or somebody puts you at a party and they want to give you a drink, all you have to do is ask yourself, How does this align with my vision? And if the answer is it doesn't know, then you know what the right answer is?

  JT 25:20

  It Well, right. It's living intentionally. And it's something I haven't hadn't done for a good portion of my life. And I it's, you know, we talked about the dichotomy of control on here and understanding and things you can try, you can control and things you can't, but then having those that that Northstar to understand where you're going. And then being constantly reminded about that, because it's easy to put that, you know, especially if you don't write it down, if it's just in your head, there's a good chance that thing that's going to be gone. It's gonna

  Gene Reid 25:53

  waver all over the place. And I think I'm tying the exercise of writing it down is it's done that way for a reason, because you think you know what you want. But if I really sit down and say, like, no, write it down, like write this down, it really forces you to think. And when I was asked to do this, especially for the business side of things, I had to get really granular into, well, how many days a month? Are you willing to go to a speaking event? How many days like right now, I'm telling you, I don't do more than two podcasts in a week. I will not be away from my family more than three times in the month. I know those numbers. So when opportunities come like I'm doing your podcast today, I'm doing Dr. Travis Yates, his podcasts on Rogan. Number three, he hasn't reached out to me yet, but I might deviate from my vision. But I know those are my numbers. Yeah. And it makes it so easy to where I could just reschedule with somebody like I don't have any time this month, I've

  JT 26:49

  been learning that the same no thing has always been kind of difficult. I grew up as a people pleaser. And I've learned a lot. I had a phone call with a friend of mine, Jeff Harris yesterday. And he's like that he is a I mean, the man we joke around, that he can be a bit of a robot. But that's, that's the way he is. And the more successful people I've been around, the more I see that as a common trait, right? They have, they have boundaries of what they're going to do and what they're not going to do. And they stick to them. And it's again, it comes back to this operating system. I literally had a conversation with a guy, Nicky runs team Foster, great nonprofit out of out of Philly. And I said, Man, I've had some some opportunities presented to ce o h and and I'm still learning to not jump at the next shiny thing. And you need to have those guiding principles, you need to understand where you want to go. So you don't do that. Right. It's an operating system. Otherwise, you're just gonna end up spinning your wheels. This isn't even a question. This is just me on a soapbox, but let's get back to genes. I'm sorry, read solutions. And what was the catalyst to pull the trigger on this thing? Because you told me beforehand, and it got me. I mean, I literally had chills. So just just tell us that story.

  Gene Reid 28:19

  Yeah. So I will actually, Kevin duel was the one who, yeah, shout out to Kevin. Kevin told me about the speaking event that you were going to have. And I think I had so we put it out for department, right? So we had three or four guys there. And actually some other guys that I do jujitsu when they came. I think there was group of six or seven

  JT 28:38

  is hilarious. You guys came in strong on. Yeah. And

  Gene Reid 28:41

  so we're there for the whole event. And again, for your first event. I was impressed because I've never done anything like that. That's not to say that I won't explore that one day, but the speaking lineup, the different topics he had covered. And then you had your big keynote speaker, Nick Lavery. I mean, you had all the pieces of the puzzle there. I still can't believe how big of a human he is. He's massive. I didn't know who he was before. And then I stood up during a break at one point in time and there he was in the back of the room. I was like, Oh, that obviously that's him. That's the guy that's got him there. Right. So Nick Lavery is up there talking on stage is incredible dynamic speaker. Right. And I was totally drawn into he obviously has that presentation totally dialed down. But he is putting it on you kind of what I talked about, like he's not forcing any information on anybody. Yeah. You're just saying like, Hey, here's what you could be capable of, and are you going to do it? And that's all I needed to hear. I was like, I had an immediate thought in my head. Like he's talking to me. I think he's making eye contact with me right now. This is what he's talking about. And that's all I needed. And then I formed my LLC, very shortly after that, got the paperwork done, started putting the business plan together, and boom, got it done. Beautiful,

  JT 29:50

  you know, you know, before he went on there's the green room there. And I'm not in the greenroom, but I can see in there, and we talked about his stage presence and how great it is. And I could see him practicing. And if you listen to this, Nick, I hope I'm not pulling the curtains back. But but he seemed, I don't know if I don't know if maybe a combination of nerves and focus. As if not, not that it would be his first time, but he was taking this just as serious as if he was at Madison Square Garden, you know what I mean? And that, to me meant a lot. Well, one personally, right. And then to it was an example of a professional and I reached out to him afterwards, I said, Nick, the talk was amazing. Everyone, like, has reached out to me and said and said, so I see. But personally, this is, and I forget, you said something profound and deep. And yeah, he doesn't know any, anything else. But that was one of my biggest takeaways from from seeing his preparation, what he was doing leading up to it, even though I'm sure it's almost like pulling a string on his back, he's done it enough times. But I took a lot away from just seeing seeing that that level of professionalism. Yeah,

  Gene Reid 31:18

  before you said the word professional. That's exactly what I was thinking. And it kind of goes back to a lot of what we're talking about, when it comes down to self development. And you asked me like, how does this incorporate into the law enforcement world and stuff like that, I just think if you're truly going to be a professional, there's no other option than to self develop, there's no other option to figure yourself out, figure out what your vision is, and constantly be on this road to self development, building these new habits, understanding what paradigms are all that I think, and Nixie. If fantastic example that. I don't know how many people were in attendance, but you're right, that presentation was the same presentation he's gonna get for an audience of two, or 10,000.

  JT 31:57

  Yeah, we weren't, it's not a first of all, it's not a huge venue. There weren't that many people there. You're very kind in what you said, as far as the speakers. But one of the biggest takeaways from that is maybe less speakers next time. And I was very appreciative. You guys that came in and stayed the entire time. I was like, Man, that's meant a lot. But you mentioned the word emotional intelligence. Can you define that, at least what it means to you? Because I think I've been hearing it more and more recently, and I think that there's, there's, I think we're just kind of like, it's the tip of the iceberg on on a lot of things when it comes into into the, you could say self development, but it could just be me just getting by in life, like living with a little bit of purpose and not being dragged by every new emotion that's coming your way. So I'll let you kind of take the floor. What did you do?

  Gene Reid 33:00

  Absolutely. I came across this concept of motional intelligence a few years ago. But again, just like you and I kind of got introduced to it, then it really started getting down. Emotional Intelligence, for me provides a framework for your life. And that's why I have and that's why I wrote a book about it. I was so invested in I was like, this is the thing this is I related to it so much. So my book, and it's my book is more towards police. Because just because that was my own niche group, I really want to do my first book for it's called police leadership redefine the EQ advantage. But emotional intelligence is broken down into four different categories. It's really the culmination is relationship management. That's like the end goal, right? That's what you're striving to do. And anybody in a leadership position, or even in your personal relationships, your value is really like how well can you manage relationships? Yeah, how well do you get along with your wife? How long do you get along with your husband, if you're a leader, the people that are under your span of control, like that will tell a lot about how well you're doing? Yeah. And that all starts with self awareness. That's the first pillar to emotional intelligence, then it's self management. So managing your emotions. And the final thing is social awareness. And then all those together, build up relationship management. But the first pillar self awareness, I could teach a course, an entire three day course just on that. And that's really the big ticket item with emotional intelligence is taking a second. And whenever something happens, just saying to yourself, What is this emotion? I'm feeling? Yeah, why am I feeling this? That's weird. And then the next thing and self management, listen, there's no emotions are wrong, right. If you feel an emotion, it's fine. It's yeah, it's just it is what it is. The thing that could be wrong is how you respond to that. So if you're angry about something, that's okay. There's a reason you feel angry. Nothing wrong with that. But it may not be appropriate to yell and scream because of that anger. And that's a very important thing that a lot of you People have trouble harnessing that. And listen, all these things happen in a split second in real time. Yeah, I'm gonna tell you a funny story. And this is the this is how you apply. This is emotional intelligence. I have two kids, a four year old and a two year old. My daughter's name is Leila and my son's name is Luke a year ago. Leila is three years old. My wife is making dinner in the kitchen. So it's me, Leila and Luke watching Paw Patrol. Because at the time, Paw Patrol was very big in our family. I don't know if that was in your family or not. But okay, so it's time for dinner. Abby calls over Hey, guys ready for dinner? Okay, I get the remote. I outstretched my arm to depress the button to turn the TV off. My son starts walking towards the kitchen, my daughter gets up off the couch looks at me and says, drop it fucker. As a three year old. This is emotional intelligence. Yeah. First, I had to be self aware. I first thought to myself, how did she? Where does she? Where could she possibly learn that I don't say that I really don't use that word, I use the F word. But in that context, I had to then be aware of that. Then my wife hear that am I the only one who heard that special swab drill. Next thing is self management. I want to laugh so hard, I want to laugh. I want to laugh. But I know as a parent, I'm like, I've heard stories that you can't laugh. Because if you laugh, it's just gonna ruin the whole thing. And then I also had to manage how I'm going to respond to the situation, right? Then their social awareness, I have my son, my little 18 month old, he has frozen in time, because he doesn't really understand what just happened. But he knows something something has happened. And now everybody is watching how dad is going to respond to this situation. Which brings us to relationship management, how I respond to the situation is forever going to change my relationship with my daughter, my son and my wife. So I look at my daughter, I say get your ass in your seat, right? Probably not the best thing to say that time. But all of that is emotional intelligence. It applies to everything. But that little scenario that I just laid out, you can apply that. That's why I love emotional intelligence so much.

  JT 37:08

  We talk about stoicism on here a lot. You know, one of the things they teach is it's not really what happens to you, but it's your reaction to it. And that really kind of falls in line. This is this isn't a one up here. But this this happened. You met my son upstairs a couple of minutes. This is years ago, my oldest graduated from from college in Virginia. And we were down there. And we're in the college the like the the bookstore, the clothing store, or trying different things on my son who was young at the time he holds like a hat up or shirt or something. He says, Hey, try this on. I'm good goes. Come on. Don't be a pussy. And we're a store full of Fievel. Right. And we laugh about this all the time. And it was it was the same thing for like a split second We in law enforcement were they use the word like OODA loop, right? Like this was my duty. Like, I didn't know what just happened, like my whole university stopped and like, what? What did you say? He had no idea what he's saying. Right? But that I mean, the tension like he knew, I just said something are not supposed to say. I think I said you don't say that. Like that's and I didn't have to say much more because he knew. And then I walked away in his sterically laughed for like the next 15 minutes or so. But it's still it's still something

  Gene Reid 38:41

  I think a lot of parents probably have a very similar. I know it's funny, like when that happened to me. And all those things that I talked about probably happened over the course of 1.2 seconds. Yeah. Oh, these things are happening very, very quickly. But for those wondering, it's my wife who says that to our dog, sometimes the dog is doing something wrong. I don't say that. But I'm actually allegedly, yes. But that can be applied to so many different situations. I actually tell another story, not to keep telling stories, but we're doing here. Yeah. When I was a newly promoted sergeant, two months on the road, I vividly remember this. I it was a it was pissing rain out one day. And at the time, I had about eight or nine guys working in my area. One of the guys gets into a pursuit. This was the first pursuit that I would be more or less in control of, and I was terrified to be totally honest with you. I was like oh my god, this is when things go bad. I've seen people get discipline like sergeants not responding enough on the radio and all these kind of things so I was very kind of spotlight. Totally on spotlight. Everybody's listening on the radio right they know this thing's going on and this a younger officer it's pouring rain out as a stolen their vehicle and they believe that to be operated by juveniles. So me being the new Sergeant like alright, I'm going I'll let them go for a little bit. Yeah, things sound pretty good on the radio, he sounds calm. Well, then things did not sound calm and things got super chaotic. And I'm like, okay, so I get on the radio break. And I like took a deep breath. I'm like, I'm going to sound like a man on the radio, I don't want to sound. So I just said, had that human unit terminate the pursuit, radio silence, nothing. So like three or four seconds goes by, I get back on the radio and say, can you just confirm that that unit is going to terminate the pursuit, please? Next transmission is total chaos on the radio. They just crashed at this location, blah, blah. And I'm like, Oh, this is it. I'm gonna get fired. Emotional intelligence. I had to be aware. I had my lieutenant immediately call me on the phone. I didn't answer it. Because I would just was not even I gotta go drive to this scene. Now I gotta see what's going on. So it's a pie accident, which in police turns personal injury. So somebody's hurt. I'm like, Are you fucking good? Yeah. So I get there. And this is before actually knew about emotional intelligence or like how to really processes. But I had to manage my emotion. There was a crowd of officers there now watching the new Sergeant walk up to the scene, this is going to forever change. I could react one way or the other. This is going to forever change how they see me. I walk up to his passenger side window, he shook up I'm like, Hey, man, are you okay? Yeah. And he's like, sir, I'm so sorry. I'm like, stop, stop. It's fine. Are you? Are you okay? And that was it. And my relationship with him was phenomenal. After that. We never, you know, he was very honest. After he's like, Dude, I didn't hear it. And I'm like, you know, what, you probably didn't hear it's raining out. This is one of your first pursuits. Like, you know, there's a lot of things going on, I get it. And we talked about it a counseling thing, but emotional intelligence.

  JT 41:44

  Yeah. And I think it's super important. Because of the human experience. You know, you talk about high stress situations, one of the things that first things ago was our, you know, we have auditory exclusion when you don't hear things. Emotional intelligence, and maybe correct me if I'm wrong, but in the world of law enforcement. Have you gotten traction in talking to leadership about this? Because there are so many things with that fall under that, that benefit? A department it mean, if you just start off with, like asking that guy, are you okay? Because you care about the people that work for you. Then there's the monetary side of things where you go, when I have officers that are emotional, and you have a higher level of emotional intelligence. We have less lawsuits, right? That mean, like, at the end of the day, the county pays less the state of the federal government pays less, because we have people that are able to control, you know, their emotions during that time. So is that a conversation you've had the opportunity to have with leadership within the law enforcement world? Yeah,

  Gene Reid 43:02

  I have. Absolutely, actually. So. So I've been writing articles for police one for a little bit. Now. They actually reached out to me, another thing I didn't ask for this, they reached out to me to do a 10 part video series for them on leadership. Well, I'm telling you right now, five of those videos are going to be on emotional intelligence. Now, here's the problem with I want to change the word emotional intelligence. I want to figure out another way to say it, because the pushback that I get is the word emotional when you start talking about emotions with first responders and cops, it's an immediate what kind of whoop bullshit are we talking about? And really, it's not it's yes, you have to be aware of your emotions. But man, does this put you in a advantageous position for everything that you just said? You get people who are more squared away people can make better decisions? Well, let's start talking about money. You know, I mean, less lawsuits, less complaints, all that kind of stuff. And to be totally honest, you know, I'm a little bit on tech, like, I'm a millennial. But trying to talk about emotions with senior leadership is tough. Sometimes you I mean, it's tough.

  JT 44:08

  It drives me crazy, right? Because it's, it's this idea of sucking it up. There's a place for and it's in the heat of the moment. Yes. There's times to push motions way to compartmentalize things to whatever the mission is to keep moving forward. But that has a shelf life, right. At some point. You have to start dealing with some of these things. The fire department I honestly think and you correct me if I'm wrong, but and I'm not talking about local here or I've been fortunate enough to talk to people from all over the country. They've been better. They've been better like it for whatever reason, maybe because they're they're not gun toters. They don't have to feel this machismo as much. Or it's just because they're, you know, they're also doing the paramedic thing. They're dealing with so much death and Some of the departments I spoke to they put a color to it, right? So they say, Hey, where are you at today? And they get, um, I had an orange, which, you know, either out of the four colors, that's the 13, before red, and the department that leadership says, Okay, this is somebody who's on the verge of really needing some help, let's let and we have a mitigation plan, we have something and it's a non punitive one. So they they do a good job with that. But I think, especially some of the older communities, they community, some of the leadership that's still follows that old style of hey, like to let's just suck it up. It's not serving them. It's not serving their department, it's not serving their, their budget. So I yeah, I just for see this really getting traction moving forward. And then as far as the individuals go, the officers when you can make that connection to Hey, look at your lifestyle now. And what are you doing to cope with the everyday stresses of your job?

  Gene Reid 46:14

  Yeah, that's, that's a great point, you have to that's the other thing, like this whole topic of self development. If you are a first responder, you are accumulating more stress than the average person in your cortisol levels are all out of whack. Listen, if you don't take very proactive measures to mitigate that, you're done. After about seven years, yeah, you're gonna be, let's say, you start when you're 21, after seven years, or 28, you might as well be 50. Unless you take it very seriously. And you take some mitigating things, and it's not easy. It's not. But you don't have to figure it all out yourself. You I mean, you get along with, you make partnerships with people when you build networks, and you figure these things out. But back to like the more senior leadership stuff. That's why it's really though incumbent upon, like part of self development is trying to get yourself into those upper ranks. Yeah. Because, yeah, the next generation, like listening, nobody gonna do it for you. So if you think that it's things need to be a certain way, well, then you should put yourself in a position to change those things. And I just talked about this on my last episode, this concept of like the spotlight effect, the spotlight effect is where you are the center of your own universe. The problem, the spotlight effect is when you think you're the center of everybody else's universe. So let's say you're, you're a patrol officer, and you're experiencing this problem. Like, let's say, you're just really getting rundown, and you're and you're the, it's thin staffing every night, and nobody's doing well. And you're all kind of talking about it amongst each other. And you think it's just so obvious of a problem. But nobody else knows about it. Yeah. Unless you actually verbalize it to somebody else to your supervision and they carry that message. Nobody knows about it. It's just like when you're in a relationship, right? If my wife is doing something that I really don't like, and I don't tell him, I don't tell her that and then I just steal about it. I think about it. I'll just get annoyed. That's all me. She How could she possibly know what I'm thinking? It doesn't work that way. That's the spotlight effect. Yeah,

  JT 48:15

  I was actually why I brought that word out of the spotlight when you talked about being the sergeant and the in the pursuit, right. Because you now you're on the radio. In the podcast, you're talking about you, you talked about public speaking, right? fumbling over your words, and yours is it recording. And you say well, I if I fumble over mine, I'm gonna stop and I can just redo this but people on stage when you're when you're speaking, and you fumble your words that you think like the world's ending, but everyone is going to notice this thing. And at the end of the day, you're you're not that important. Like, you don't really care that much. Yeah, and even if they do, it's for a split second and it's probably used to clown you and then it's then you're just gonna move on. So I always joke around like, well, least I gave you I brought some joy to the world in my, my screw ups or whatever, wherever they are. It's easy to say that, but in the moment when you're feeling it. It's like you can't just say I'm not going to feel this right? anymore. Yep. What do you do when you've been in those moments where like, it just feels like this, you know, I've got it's, it's called what it is. It's anxiety. It's, you've put yourself out there in it with with resolutions. You're going to be speaking in front of people. What goes through your mind when you've got those feelings of butterflies pressure, anxiety, all those things?

  Gene Reid 49:42

  Here's what I do. Number one, I prepare as much as I possibly can to mitigate any possible issues. Right. So when I am given a presentation next Wednesday, it's a it's a two hour presentation that I'm giving. I have given that Presentation like 40 times now in my bedroom? Yeah, yeah, I mean, I just keep doing it over and over and over again. So where even if something you have to have some like mental agility, right, where something happens, you don't really think was gonna happen. I'm good man, I can roll through it, but also in that same thing. That's why it's important to do really difficult things. So let's just take jujitsu, for example. If you partake in jujitsu, and you do that in the morning, arguably, that's going to be the most challenging thing you do for the entire day. So everything else just pales in comparison to that. There's this new fad going on with like the cold lunches, right, getting into an ice bath and stuff, same concept. You can do that with anything. Like if you start your mornings off, I just started another marathon running program. If you start your morning off with a 789 mile run, arguably, the rest of the day is gonna be pretty chill. So, but also just putting a name to things, right, that's works really well for me, when I can put a name to a paradigm, right? I know what that is. Oh, that's that pulling sensation. Oh, that's a thing. Okay. The spotlight effect. I know. Because it also it will happen. I will mess up my words. Every time I give a presentation. It doesn't matter how many times I get in that episode when I talked about it. I think I messed my words up. 789 times. Right. Yeah, kind of fumbled over I never that's what I mean. Like, I remember it. But yeah, I know. Oh, that's that thing. That's the spotlight effect. You just gotta keep on going. It's why

  JT 51:25

  to stop editing my own podcast is it's it's, it's brutal, right? Like you can you can, I found myself trying to like punch other stuff in like, you know where I'm from? I do. And I did

  Gene Reid 51:37

  that. So I used to, before the science of self development podcasts. I had a podcast called The Handbook. I had about 1215 episodes, something like that. That was before I started my PhD. Once I started my PhD, we had our second kid, something had to go right. So I gave that up. But I did my own editing for that. And I was neurotic. I was totally neurotic with every little I don't even know. Um, yeah, like everything I was trying to like, well, I'll edit that out and edit this out. And it just got, I got better with it. And just kind of said, it is what it is. Because then I started listening to really high level podcasts, and they're all doing it and it's fine. And because it's human, it's human. That's exactly I was just gonna say, Fine. It would actually probably be weird. If you listened to a bog us and there was no arms and ahhs and it was just very short clips and all this kind of stuff. You'd be like, that's weird.

  JT 52:26

  Yeah, it's just being authentic and being okay with that, right. All right, I'm gonna I'm gonna press Yan, you've obviously had amazing, you know, have amazing habits have great process? processes in place. What? What's your Achilles? Heel me? And what's been the theme of maybe a habit that that has taken some time to get over something you weren't happy with? And then how did you kind of overcome that? Relationship

  Gene Reid 52:52

  Management? For sure. Yeah, just me. My wife and I have a great relationship. But that's not by accident. Yeah, that's something that really takes a lot of time. And I like to do so many things. And my mind is just nonstop. You know, it's funny, I didn't start drinking coffee till a couple years ago. And then I got introduced to coffee. And I was like, What am I missing out? Oh, my God. This is like cocaine. Yeah, I don't know what cocaine is. But. So honestly, not being selfish. I have had a tendency over the years to be selfish. I really have. And it takes a lot for me to sit down at the dinner table, and have dinner with the family. Because in my mind, I'm thinking, I had this presentation, I had this phone call shoot, I got this meeting with Virginia coming up tomorrow, I really want to prep for that. I got these police one videos I needed to do. And really just kind of like taking a step back and being like, no, it's really important like for Leila and Luke, and Abby for me to be here. And just relax. And listen, that's still something that I struggle with. And I do it. I do it because it's important. This. Listen, this is gonna sound funny to my kids. I love my kids. They're great. Everybody says that about their kids. But my kids were never these like cuddly, snuggly kids never. They're like Get away from me. And I don't know where that came from. Because my wife and I are both very loving

  JT 54:15

  one's gonna mouth like a sailor. So I'm not surprised so, so recently,

  Gene Reid 54:19

  Leila. Every day when I come home, that is there, like 20 minutes, they get to watch whatever show they want. And she wants to cuddle with me on the couch. Like she wants to lay with me on the couch. Like now I'm like, I'll never miss that. Like do that. I don't care what's going on. Like that's I'm doing that thing. Could I be doing all these other things and getting other things quote, unquote, accomplished? Sure. But my level of selfishness is definitely has been a challenge over the years and listen, it has served me well. It really has. I mean, it's kind of like a double edged sword. It served me well in so many situations. Like when I was a detective, this was before I had kids. You You know, I was, I was definitely not the best detective in our department by any means. There's so many guys who were better than me. But I was always willing to come in on every call out, I'm always going to come in like you, if you send a pay down, I'm coming in. Yeah. And that strain my relationship with Abby, you know, I mean, before we had kids, and I was selfish about that, but guess what, it put me in a better spot to get promoted sergeant. I mean, then I could do other things. So really, that's kind of my Achilles heel is I do have so many things going on. But really making sure and again, that vision exercise really made this very clear for me, that my family is the number one thing and that doesn't mean that that has to be that way. For everybody else. It doesn't. I'm just telling you, for me how I spend time my family is really like a key part of that vision. And just real quick, with making a website. Right? I have we keep talking about sometimes you have to ask yourself, like, Stop, ask yourself how to do this. And who can do this for me? Yeah. So I got this offer. I have a website. It's called Read Solutions, LLC. And I'll be very open. I made it myself. I'm not really that happy with it. I then had this offer come in from police one. It's a big deal. They're arguably the biggest police magazines in the country. And they want me to do a video series. And you know, a part of that is going to be every time an email comes out. Every time a social media post goes up, they're going to have a link on there. It says, Hey, book, Gene read to come speak your next event here. So now I'm thinking to myself, Okay, I need to make sure my website is tight. Yeah, like this needs to be like a professional thing. So that night, I am up in my bedroom trying to like make the website better. But I'm not. This isn't my thing. It's not what I do. I missed my snuggle time with Leila. Yeah, I missed dinner. Because I've so in the zone, I was in like psycho mode. I was totally psycho. And then the very next day, I heard somebody do my website for me, because I was like, you know, what, doesn't align with my vision. I tried it. And now I need to recognize this. It's all part of emotional intelligence, but recognizing my vision, okay, this is actually what's important.

  JT 57:06

  You made a good point that, that may not be for everyone. And that's okay. Like, that's, I'm, I'm gonna screw this up. But it's like, whatever you're investing your time in, you're not investing it somewhere else, right? And you need to look at that and say, Does this align with my guiding principles and the person I want to be? And it's very easy. I mean, I connect with that to get caught up. Specially in creating something through your own hard work. You're not doing this as part of a department, right? This isn't as as the police officer, no, this is something you're creating. And it's very exciting to see that gain traction. So I connect with that, like I get, I get what you're saying. How's your sleep? Does it affected you? No,

  Gene Reid 57:57

  I sleep great, dude, I'm gonna be totally honest with you and knock on wood. I've always been a great sleeper, but there's some secrets to it. I consistently wake up at the same time every day. And now with that being said, a lot of first responders like well, he doesn't work shift work right now. You're right. I don't I work Monday through Friday, nine to five and he got me you know what, okay. But um, no coffee after 11am. I'm very sensitive to caffeine. I think a lot of people underestimate their sensitivity to caffeine. Yeah. And don't realize the impact that that's having on your sleep. And then reading before bedtime, but now I've, I've always Oh, and honestly didn't know alcohol. So I had, I worked with some people in our department on getting a grant and we got 100 Garmin watches for the men and women on the street, right? Garmin is phenomenal. I used to wear them during the triathlon days and stuff. But sleep monitoring was big on that. Well, when that program happened, I was still drinking from time to time. I've never been a big drinker. But if I had any alcohol, and that's just sleep up. I mean, I'm talking one beer within eight hours going to bed. And my sleep score was like a 30 when normally it's a 8788 somewhere around there. So that was a big one for me like dude, alcohol, anything for me? Yeah, some people can do it. And that's cool, man, like, and I don't have a problem with alcohol. But I know that it impacts my sleep. And I am not good. Without sleep. I just have too many things going on. Yeah, I have this, you know, high powered brain thing going on. I'm trying to do so many things. But now I sleep. I sleep pretty well. That's good. That's good.

  JT 59:38

  So if somebody wants to book you, right? They they've heard this podcast, they love it. They want to get in touch with you. Touch with you. How do they do it? With that said we're going to have the we're going to have the links in the show notes. But if you could tell us how do they reach you whether it be on social media website, you know, whatever.

  Gene Reid 59:56

  Yeah, sure. Here's what I'm gonna say. So one of the things I specialize in two things no ramping performance coaching, this is one on one coaching with me. And it's aggressive, and you may not be a good fit for me, I'm just being honest, I have turned people down. And it's not because I don't like you. It's just that I have a certain methodology that I use to make sure that your vision is on track. And then we're going to work to get to your goals. And the fact of the matter is, it doesn't align with everybody. And that's okay. Yes. Like we've been saying, Yeah, I may not be the person for you. With that being said, Read solutions, it's our ei D solutions, llc.com. You can fill out a form on there, or you can go on LinkedIn, that's really my favorite kind of a messaging platform. If you just type in gene Reed, PhD, you'll find me on there. Man, what a great thing LinkedIn is, it really is the amount of every time I put an article out on police one, or anytime something happens, people message me all the time on there. It's just this great thing where a gene read PhD areas, direct message done. Those are my two big things. The other thing is if you want to book me for a speaking engagement at your police department, or actually I, I just had to come in for banks. So financial identities are now reaching out to me, which is great. Whatever your organization is, same thing, you go on the website, or through LinkedIn. And again, I'm telling you right now, my specialties are emotional intelligence for leaders, stress management, and resilience and personal growth. If you don't want one of those three things, I'm not your guy. Yeah, it's all good. But I really do want to stress the performance coaching. I have a couple clients right now, and it goes great, but it's very intensive. So if you are looking for that, then I'm the guy for you. But we'll figure that out. There's a whole process to get to get vetted. So

  JT 1:01:43

  awesome. Well, listen, is there anything else you want, make sure we cover on here. Now

  Gene Reid 1:01:47

  I really do want to stress this vision exercise. Again, I'm glad you guys are all for the woowoo stuff. I love me some woowoo stuff, but sit down and write it out. Stop thinking in your head about all these things you want to do. Sit down, write it out. If you have a significant other or spouse compare notes. Because you might have this great vision, they might have a vision that's totally different. That's not going to work. It's just not. I'm just telling you now just from experience, write it down and then start forming your actionable plans on how to get there. And don't think you need to do everything yourself. Not everything costs money, but start networking with people, right. If you're not good, just identify what you're good at the things you aren't good at, outsource it. Find people who are good at it. You don't need to learn how to do everything. Just ask and find people who can and that's all awesome advice,

  JT 1:02:39

  man. Listen, I'm excited to see where it goes. Like you said we're gonna keep in touch. It's not gonna be a year but I don't know, man. I foresee some big things happen for real solutions. Thanks for coming on. Make sure you guys check out his podcast again. We'll have links to that in the show notes.

  Gene Reid 1:02:57

  Appreciate it. Appreciate it, man. Thanks, brother. Awesome.