There's a Lesson in Here Somewhere
There’s a Lesson in Here Somewhere is a podcast hosted by Jamie Serino and Peter Carucci that features exceptional people that have compelling stories to tell. Whether it’s a unique perspective, an act of kindness, an inspirational achievement, a hardship overcome, or bearing witness to a captivating event, these are stories that must be heard, and from which we can draw important lessons.
There's a Lesson in Here Somewhere
Samsara and its Impact on the Entrepreneur’s Dreams: When You Are the Obstacle in Your Own Way
This episode of There's a Lesson in Here Somewhere features Gregory Mark Hill, a private equity partner and author of the book, "Samsara and Its Impact on the Entrepreneur's Dreams." Gregory discusses the meaning of Samsara, a Sanskrit word that refers to the cycles of suffering when one is attached to the material world. He explains how this concept applies to entrepreneurship and the broader business world, noting that even when professional issues are solved, "if they were suffering on the inside...the businesses I found would ultimately suffer." Gregory shares stories from his work with executives, including a compelling anecdote about a Fortune Ten company, to illustrate how the "self-cherishing ego" and attachments to things like outcomes or preconceived notions can become a roadblock to company and organizational success. He also explores how shifting a leader's mindset can positively impact the entire company.
Gregory’s book is available on Amazon. It’s a true story that shares insights on breaking free from limiting cycles while rediscovering joy, resilience, and purpose. Check it out – we recommend it! https://a.co/d/0sCsvIa
Hello and welcome to. There's a Lesson in here Somewhere. I'm Jamie Serino and I'm Peter Carucci, and we're here today with Gregory Mark Hill, a private equity partner and author of the book Samsara and its impact on the entrepreneur's dreams. Gregory, welcome and thanks for joining us.
Gregory Mark Hill:It's great to be here, jamie. Thank you, peter, nice to be here. Thank you.
Jamie Serino:Yeah, so we've been speaking with Gregory for quite a while now, actually, and there's all sorts of things we could talk about, but the book Samsara is really something and there's a lot to dive into there, so we're looking forward to doing that. First, Gregory, why don't you tell us just a little bit more about yourself?
Gregory Mark Hill:Sure, mainly what I do today is I build companies, and what that means is I consult companies and also working with families both international families and American industrial families that have a lot of capital to put to work and they want to manage and invest that capital themselves. So today I'm really a consultant and an investor, helping founders, owners and executives expand around growth, whether it's domestically here in the US or internationally.
Jamie Serino:Yeah, so it sounds like you're forming these really good relationships with these people, and so then it makes sense. Why then you're thinking about more than just business with them, you're thinking about their lives, and so hence Samsara. So why don't you tell us a little bit more about the book and what made you think to start writing it?
Gregory Mark Hill:Sure. So the title of the book, as you shared, is Samsara and its impact on the entrepreneur's dreams. And Samsara is a 2000 plus year old Sanskrit word. That means suffering, actually cycles of suffering, when one is attached to the material world and I don't mean just cars and houses and Learjets, I'm talking about being attached to your experiences, attached to outcome, attached to the result you want, the financial result you want, attached to the relationships you want.
Gregory Mark Hill:And the funny thing is, when we don't get what we want, when we want where we want it as much as we want, we suffer on the inside. And when I was working with a bunch of 40, 50, 60-year-old range executives, founders, c-suites executives, I found that even when we solve their operating, money-raising, build-better-teams issues, if they were suffering on the inside, like I just shared, because they were attached to the result they wanted, the outcome they wanted well, emotionally, philosophically, on the inside, if they were suffering wherever you are, there you are, you brought that with you into the boardroom, into the meeting room, onto the conference calls, into your families and the businesses I found would ultimately suffer. And so what I found is there was an incredible opportunity here to clear what's in the way, what they didn't even realize, what was in the way and that was the self-cherishing ego which I'd love to jump into more about on this call together.
Jamie Serino:Yeah, and I'd like to jump into that too, um. So it's this idea of you know, like not splitting, this sort of like where people might call work life, or you know, my, my work life, my personal life, who I am versus what I do, and you're saying it's just all one big thing, um, which, which is great. So I imagine, though, you would get a little pushback right when you would bring that up to somebody, especially who is so like goal oriented and maybe numbers oriented, and you start bringing this stuff up about suffering and cycles of suffering. Can you tell us a little bit more about that reaction?
Gregory Mark Hill:Wow, it's really great that you brought up that question. It's excellent because I had that experience right out of the blocks when I finished my time with the teacher, which we can talk about as well. One thing I'd like to add is, in addition to the 40, 50, 60-year-old range founders, executives and sweet suites executives I work with I was actually speaking to the Gen Z population 20-year-olds right in their senior years in college and also right out of grad school in their first or second jobs, and after sharing some of the stories that we're going to talk about today, they asked me if I had a book, a guidebook, and that really became the follow-on and the genesis to push me to say maybe I really should tap into this. So one of my first experiences with self-cherishing ego and the discussion of, let's say, the spiritual and the business professional work-life balance came up right after literally right after my five-plus years with a teacher, and it was with a Fortune 1 company at the time and they had a large issue where they were going overseas to expand and the global chairman had given a directive to his head of research and development strategy to say I need you to tell me what we're going to do in these countries that we're going to expand into now, and he'd never been to that part of the world. And he was given a goal to form a task force team and get over there and give them an answer as to whether they should expand in those territories or not. And so, along the way, he was given a whisper that this guy named Gregory Mark Hill might have an understanding of what to do in that region of the world. But he was so busy it was like meeting the President of the United States.
Gregory Mark Hill:I was only given a 37-minute allotment because he was coming in from the airport. He was coming, I had to meet him at an airport hotel, so literally I had this window and that was it. Can you imagine Very specific. And so I jumped right into it. I said who's the task force team? He says it is the best engineering team you could imagine in the world. I can go to our thousands of engineers and pick anybody I know and everybody I work with. I said great, I said so.
Gregory Mark Hill:Who on the team has been to that region of the world? No one. Who on the team is actually from that region of the world? No one, okay well, who actually speaks the language or who's actually even visited that territory? No one. I said, okay, um, he says I've worked with all these people, I've handpicked them, they're they're really smart, really wonderful. I said, yes, like I can understand that. I said, but have you heard of this concept called the self-cherishing ego? I didn't say do you have chelsea? So it's this concept. And he said, and he literally, he's a very smart guy, educated the top schools brand name on the west coast and the east coast. You can think of who they are. Um, and he scrunched his face and he his arms and he looked over at the gentleman who introduced us, like saying who did you bring to this meeting?
Jamie Serino:Yeah, yeah.
Gregory Mark Hill:Yeah, very smart. And he was thinking and thinking and thinking. And then he said what do you mean by that? And I said well, if you're going to go to the other side of the world and work with super smart folks who understand the government, who understand the politics, who understand the marketplace, who understand the language, the culture, you're going to really want to know that. Don't you want to have some people on your side of the team or somebody who's been there, done deals there, worked there, understands that he's like? And he realized in that moment that he was so focused on getting an answer to the global chairman and he wanted to get it fast that he was just assembling a team of what he knew how to do, versus being strategic and getting the team in place. And, ironically, that's self-cherishing ego. You want to just do what you know as opposed to having the ability to empathize and understand what do I need?
Peter Carucci:and these are smart folks and then, yeah, when it did he, did he cave, did he say yes?
Gregory Mark Hill:so he literally said and. And then he literally said, literally, we're only in 15 minutes into it. And he said what do you charge? And I said first class ticket and $100,000. And I wasn't prepared. Right, I wasn't prepared. I would later find out that the company was making over a billion dollars a day and I should have asked for a million dollars.
Jamie Serino:Sure, the first 37 minutes are free though.
Gregory Mark Hill:But I was still young and I was very happy and it turned out to be an excellent experience. And halfway through he said wow, are you a fortune teller, how did you know all this? And I just I started sharing the and we built up an incredible relationship and then, later on, he would actually share with me what was in the way and I was able to begin to learn how to clear the roadblocks. They didn't need capital, but they needed strategy, and I could see the lessons worked right away, even with a Fortune 1 company.
Peter Carucci:I did some work as well in the music sector with some executives who had a disconnect between themselves and everyone who implements their ideas everyone who implements their ideas and it sounds like this is like finding the right solution for them to clear the roadblock of their vision first and change their mindset. I think and I mean Jamie and I always talk about like it's great when a team communicates from the top down and the bottom up and it doesn't matter what company. It is right. I mean, do you find that working with these, whether it's that person in particular or any executive, that it opens the door for success amongst all the levels in their company?
Gregory Mark Hill:It really does and that's a very keen awareness. It really does and that's a very keen awareness. You have, like this funnel of opportunity that comes in and these ideas and possibilities, and people from every level of the company are sharing their perspective and their thoughts and their experiences and, frankly, the ego shows up in. Frankly, I know better, I'm right. Yeah, I get what you're saying, but I really know better. Even if it's not spoken, that attitude is there and what happens is that literally those become the roadblocks that get in the way.
Gregory Mark Hill:I was working with a startup company. I had like 33 people in the company at a time generating revenue and they were all very smart, very talented technology, hardware, software, networking and the beginnings of AI and they're all yelling and screaming at each other. They had a huge opportunity and a huge problem and they're literally pointing fingers, yelling, and the founder didn't know how to manage all this and he just said, gregory, can you get in here and help me, because it was going to double the value of the business. It was that type of deal, an elephant of a deal. So I just came in there and I said everybody. I said look, we got some really smart minds around the table.
Gregory Mark Hill:I said I know everybody's angry and there's a lot of finger pointing going on here, a lot of yelling. I said let's take all of that and let's table it. We're going to put it over on this table over here and we're going to get back to it. I want to acknowledge everybody's pain and suffering, but let's just put all that on the table here. Let's use these 18 brilliant minds around the table that we got here and let's solve the problem. Let's get to it right now. And the founder and the CEO said thank you, gregory, I actually feel better for you saying that. And literally three, four hours, we got to it. And these brilliant minds around the table, they solved the problem and we got to it and we were able to go back and win that deal. So I said okay, let's go back to the table and let's get to that. You know yelling, screaming, anger and all those words.
Jamie Serino:They're like no, we're good. Yeah, they unloaded all that stuff, that's great. So when you talk about attachment, I think also there are like attachments to ideas and my idea of success or my idea of how things should work, and holding on to that, like similar to what you're saying to you know, I'm probably right, and so can you talk a little bit about that, about when you find that there are these attachments to these sort of preconceived notions, like maybe things that they learned when they were even a kid or going through college or in their 20s or something. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Gregory Mark Hill:Sure, it's very, very important to realize that that specific comment, that question, actually applies to all ages, remotely from school, all the way into college, into grad school, into your careers, even to your grandparent's stage of life. The thing is, problems are always arising. They really do. The challenges of life arise and what we forget is that they're just a series of experiences, a series of situations. Sooner or later, that problem, that challenge two days, two hours, two weeks, two months, two years it does get solved. The thing is, when we get attached to it, we want to be right. Really, it's as simple as that. We want to be right, we think we're right, we think we know better. And whether we're in high school, whether it's my daughter who's a nine-year-old, who's going through her experience in elementary school, or a grad school, or an athlete or an executive, people bring in what I call an already always knowing. They already know, they think they know better. And even though it appears they're listening and they're nodding and they're agreeing, inside they already know. Especially with leaders and entrepreneurs of organizations, it's even more paramount. But, as at the youthful Gen Z and at the high school and the collegiate level, we think we know and we have that emotional attachment that we actually know better. And when people are sharing their experience and wisdom, they can't digest it, they can't take it in and they're already going to do what they already know how to do. And so what happens is what I share with folks is that challenges, problems that arise, they do get solved sooner or later. The question becomes who are we being and choose to be when those problems arise? You can go into the positive or the negative. It's binary Most of us. When problems arise, it's very easy to go into the negative, get angry, get resentful, be upset, annoyed, distracted, play the victim card. It's very hard to step into a positive view, taking a moment to say well, what can I get from this experience? What can I get from it? How can I step into the positive and attract ideas, people, possibilities and opportunities? Because when we step into the negative, we don't realize it doesn't matter how old we are, how much experience we have. We're literally repelling those same ideas, people and opportunities.
Gregory Mark Hill:I'm going to give you a simple example, and this is going to be relatable to everybody. There was a sonar beacon that was put on the east coast of America a while ago and it was literally pinging out. No one could hear it. No human could hear it, but the whales could hear it. No human could hear it, but the whales could hear it. Right, and the pinging was taking the whales and, rather than them, swimming straight up the coast to the mating ground. They would hear the pinging and they'd move out and they would miss the mating ground. Nobody could hear it, but that literal energy was out there repelling the whales and they missed the mating ground and the population came down. So very much, when we are attached to our experience, when we're attached to our way of thinking, when we think we're right, we don't think that anybody knows, but energetically we're literally repelling ideas, people and opportunities away from us because we're attached to what we think is right, want to be right, and we push those possibilities away.
Peter Carucci:You know, gregory. Well, that's awesome. I love that analogy. Matter of fact, we have an old Chasing Sunday song called Gone, which is about whales, yeah, whales, ironically, whoa.
Jamie Serino:Where have they gone? It's bizarre.
Peter Carucci:It's about where have the whales gone, and it's literally you were talking about that. That's pretty crazy that's a good song yeah, it's a good song.
Peter Carucci:I am particularly fascinated by the idea that that if you can shift the leader's mindset, everything else falls into play, and in my life I've either been successful or been part of successes where the strength of leadership really changes an entire environment.
Peter Carucci:I do, however, have friends or acquaintances who are in the business world who don't give a flying hoot, no matter what, they are still going to be right because they're entitled, they're the boss and guess what? I'm going to be right, what you do, it doesn't. They're still either indignant or they're still just refusing to even engage in that mindset. And to them, they still might wind up by the end of the day with a little more, you know, with the goal they wanted, because the business world can be cutthroat and I don't care, we're going to make this and we're going to make money off of off of it, and they're gonna do it by hook or by crook. Um, but have you run into situations where some of this mindset has just not either been respected or appreciated, and I'm just so fascinated by what that looks like well, you bring up a good point, and I come from the world of capital and capital and the entertainment celebrity industry.
Gregory Mark Hill:There's a lot of analogies where people who are movers and shakers and dealmakers, their ego begins to expand the more successful they are and the more capital that they bring in and the more things that happen. And look, on some level, there is this dynamic where that feeds upon itself and people like to be around the rainmaker, the dealmaker, the successful personality, and then they slowly begin to make allowances. Well, you know, that's okay. Oh, normally I wouldn't do this, normally I wouldn't do that, and I write about this in my book, but I basically share for people. They need to create what I call a system, a leveling system, where you have in your mind let's just say you have the. You should be able to quickly write 30, write the 30 or 40 people around you every day, whether it's the dry cleaner, the cook, the chef, the Uber driver or your work colleagues, your friends, your family. You should actually be able to take a list and, in five minutes, write the 30 or 40 people around you and you know what. That's your world, those 30 or 40 people around you right now. That's your world. We don't 40 people around you right now. That's your world. We don't think about it that way, but that is your world, that's your universe. In that universe of people that you're speaking to and working with and connecting with and we are all connected, whether we realize it or not, whether we want to be, we are and the dynamic around the world you want to categorize and think about. Here's a level of people that I call the board of directors or my cabinet members, people that I look up to, I gain wisdom from and I take a lot of useful insight. Then I have the next level, which is your partners or your peers, your colleagues, and then below that is your friends and below that is your acquaintances, and below that are called strangers and you can label whatever you want, but that's a simple categorization of people. Now, when you think about that group of 30 or 40 people, especially when you're working on deals and projects some of those names will change as you work on the next project and the next project, but you'll still have that consistency you want to think about two things what must they do and especially, what must they never do? And then, when you do, when you're able to do that, and this is. I don't share this detail in the book, I share conversations like this when they do something that's incredible, they maintain that level. When they do something that's incredible, they maintain that level.
Gregory Mark Hill:But you need to be able to move people up and down that chain, that totem pole. And it's important to do so because if you have a cabinet member that all of a sudden is taking advantage of you, is using their position and stature to take advantage of the financial situation, an operating situation, then are they really a cabinet member? And what happens is, when you actually move them up and down, it allows you to evaluate not emotionally, but literally evaluate where they are, and it puts you in a different perspective of how you're going to work with them, how you're going to be with them. And then also, you realize you don't actually get attached to where they are. You see what's happening in real time.
Gregory Mark Hill:Now to specifically answer the question but but they made all this money. It's not really fair. How come they can be, hey, this way and get away with that, so to speak? Right, because it happens. It happens in real life. There is another sanskrit word that's called karma, and we've heard this word a lot, but people don't really understand what it means. They said oh, you've got good parking karma. Every time you get in the car, we find a spot with you in it. That's not really what it's supposed to be about. Karma, literally simplified, means action. Me too, every time.
Gregory Mark Hill:It doesn't matter, I don't know means action, me too, but it's not what's wrong yeah, that's okay.
Gregory Mark Hill:So karma means action, but it really means the action of how are you behaving, how are you being, what are you doing? Are you being a good person? Are you not? When times are challenging, who are you stepping into? Being positive or negative? What happens? And the boomerang of energy literally is accelerating faster and faster.
Gregory Mark Hill:And so what you may see is, wow, they got a bigger bonus Boy, they got a bigger title. But the other thing you may not see is, wow, their family life is a mess. Their friendships they don't really have any. Their relationships they thought with people are not what they have. And do they have joy and happiness and wonder? And that in their life? Maybe not, maybe not. And so when you step back and look at the larger picture, you can say, yeah, okay, economically they got a few dollars more than me for now. But the funny thing is you can't take any of that with you. What you can take with you is the things you love, the memories you create with people. You love the things you love to do. Everything else that you don't love to do. That's a distraction, and you don't get to take that with you anywhere, no matter what you believe, and that gives you the calm, peter Jamie, that we need when we're like, okay, I'm in a good place now.
Jamie Serino:Yeah, I'm in a good place now, yeah, and the other thing too there is to encourage people, like another sort of Eastern philosophical tenant, like of Taoism, for example, is to not compare Right, and the minute you start comparing yourself to someone else or something, that's when you start to become disillusioned and you know heading down down a wrong path.
Jamie Serino:Soed, and you know heading down a wrong path. So I think you know, between what you said and looking at the big picture and then maybe even just not comparing yourself to these people, you could, you know, find yourself a little bit more so. But it was this kind of leads to a question that I was thinking of is, you know, as you're working with people and imparting this advice a lot of times, these people are very competitive, which means they are comparing, you know, and they are trying to get ahead of, maybe other people, and they are driven and I think they're like when I've spoken with people like like this that were maybe having difficulties, there was this idea of they had a hard time letting that go because then they felt like they couldn't succeed.
Jamie Serino:They wouldn't have any drive if they let that go, but letting that go meant that they could be achieving everything that you're talking about. So what kind of advice do you give people when they're feeling that like I want to do that, but I don't want to let this go because then I'm going to fail?
Gregory Mark Hill:um, that's a really great question. It comes up a lot. There's two points. So the first thing is, when you compare yourself to others, you literally go into a self-worth mode. Right, I am worth less than so. That's literally. Self-worth is not about worth. It's about you feeling, on a comparative basis, I am worth less than them. So it's important to understand that and as soon as you go into comparison mode, that you didn't get as much as they did, no matter what it is title praise, a capital, a bonus you've actually gone into victim mode and that is literally the self-cherishing ego rearing its head again. Right, it's a victim mode. And in that moment, you have fractionally given away your energy to them. Now, you've given and fed them literally your power to them. Now, in terms of you know I need this and I can't let it go.
Gregory Mark Hill:There's's a story. This is literally do you know how they catch monkeys in the wild? They take a cage and they hang a banana in the center and they put a section of the cage that is just big enough for the monkey to put their hand into the cage and they grab the banana and they're holding on to it really tight. Now the captors come and they're going to grab the monkey. All the monkey has to do to free himself is let go. Guess what happens to that monkey and the banana? He never lets go of that banana and he gets caught every time. They don't need to have darts and tranquilizers, they just need to have a banana in a cage and the monkey never lets go.
Jamie Serino:I got caught in the jungle like that one time.
Gregory Mark Hill:Think about it, when you think about that simple analogy right when we are holding on to what we think we need to get ahead and miss out on the other, you're going to become captured.
Jamie Serino:Perfect. It's really cool.
Peter Carucci:And it's funny too, not to get to wax to 80s film, but Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when they finally get to Holy Grail and Elsa know she's gonna go down that chasm, she's, she dies going down there. And then indiana was doing the same thing, going after that goal. And finally he realizes you know what his father says. You know, let it go, son. He's like yeah, you know, you see that battle play out everywhere. It does you do. That's a really great analogy. So the monkey holding on to that banana of that point, the, the thing you want, the, the goal you have, holding on to it more in this case leads to your failure, not your success.
Jamie Serino:Yes, yeah, and there's an idea there too of when you were talking earlier about, like the, the guy who had to expand into another market. It's you know, what got you here, won't get you there, kind of you know message. Also, you know, trying new things, stepping outside of your comfort zone, um. So I think that's cool too, um. So I wonder if you want to talk about um in the book. You talk about that, the plane ride, and, and then finding the monk and, and, and I realized that that that might be kind of long, but I wonder if you want to kind of do a little summary of that, because it's pretty interesting and sort of leads to how you began to sort of question, like, you know, what are you doing in your life and what has meaning for you?
Gregory Mark Hill:pivotal moment, and so the reason I start the book with the plane can't land right, to just give a little teaser, is because, um, I was actually asked by these, uh, at the start of this conversation was asked, actually asked, by these 40, 56 year olds, super entrepreneurial, smart executives, cc executives if I had a case study on these experiences I could share with them. That was also blending in the spiritual, the work-life balance for them, because they hadn't really experienced anything like that. It was usually how to be a better salesperson, how to be a better leader, all these typical wonderful books, but combining those two together. And when I sat down to go through, well, what was the experience? You know what was the case study? Who was the client? That was that aha, eureka moment and I realized the moment that I experienced that changed everything. Was this plane ride? Frankly, we were.
Gregory Mark Hill:I told my assistant I was flying from Silicon Valley to North Carolina to do due diligence at 7 am on a software leverage buyout and I said don't put me on any puddle jumpers. I said I don't care if I have to land and drive three hours, I'm going to do that. And next thing I know we're landing at Pittsburgh, pennsylvania, it's pouring rain and I look down to our transfer and it's literally a puddle jumper with propeller rings and I'm like I don't want to get on that plane. I don't want to get on that plane and I'm literally looking at the GPS and it says it's going to take seven hours to drive there over mountains. I'm like no sleep. I'm like this is not going to work and it's raining so hard like it is now. And there's this scene from Major League where the grounds crew comes out and puts rubber tape around the propellers.
Peter Carucci:Now I'm literally looking down for the grounds crew to come out and put rubber tape around the propellers on this thing.
Gregory Mark Hill:That's how much I didn't want to get on the plane. Anyway, we get on the plane and we fly to a hurricane. Actually, it was downgraded by five miles an hour to a tropical storm, but it was like King Kong was holding the tail of the plane and was like this right. Well, it's like it was crazy and what had happened was we missed the runway right, and that was a first for me. But it wasn't just missing the runway right, and that was a first for me, but it wasn't just missing the runway. We went back up in the black of night. It's after midnight and the captain doesn't get nothing happen and we're just spinning around up there.
Gregory Mark Hill:For it seemed like forever and the guy next to me literally didn't want to talk to me at the beginning of the flight. Giant guy, he literally starts melting down and making proclamations of doom we're not going to make it, we're going to run out of fuel, all the airports are shut down. I mean, he literally, and I said stop, stop, get a hold of yourself, man. And I said do you believe in God? Because you better start praying or doing something. Because I told myself and I'm not even a super religious guy. I just said I better start praying or doing something.
Gregory Mark Hill:It was crazy. And I looked around the plane and there was eight of us there and I said are these the faces of a plane that may go down? And I was conscious enough to say will go down, because I didn't want to call in any negative energy. So I just looked around again and I could see it the fear, the dread, the sadness, the worry, and I'm like this whoosh goes through my body. I'm like, oh my God, this is it.
Gregory Mark Hill:And I just started thinking, did I live a good life? Have I literally started going through this process? And I said what can I do? You know what can I do? And I'm a take charge kind of guy. I build companies, I do transactions, I help companies grow. I said nobody's speaking, we're not getting information, it's been too much time, maybe we are going to run out of fuel. I mean we're bouncing around, the rain is hitting, lightning thunder. I mean do you think the wings are going to fall off? Right, it is crazy. I said I'm going to run up there and I'm going to land this plane myself.
Peter Carucci:And then I'm like oh, I don't even know how to fly a plane.
Gregory Mark Hill:And in that moment you realize, okay, I don't have any control. Whatever control, I thought I don't have it and I switched my mindset. I said, okay, what can I do to save the people on this plane? And you know what happens. A thought comes in from American Express and it says Dear Mr Hill, you fly more in one year than most people do in a lifetime. You should upgrade to the platinum car. I'm like we're being bounced around like a toothpick in the wind and I'm thinking about American Express. I'm like what's going on here, like what's up with this? And then finally I said, ok, okay, I get it.
Gregory Mark Hill:I live a high energy, high wattage life. I do fly a lot. And I said, okay, here's the deal. I'm going to give up the energy of a year of my life and please use it. And I'm speaking to like god and the universe and everything out there. I'll say please use the energy from a year of my life to bathe and protect this plane so these people can land. That's the only thing I could think of, that's it.
Gregory Mark Hill:And in that moment my body starts to shake up and down and this white light energy comes out of my heart, just pouring out. I kid you not, it's just pouring out. I kid you not, it's just pouring out out of my back I don't even know what's going on and I could see all the white clouds out there, the thunder, the energy is pouring out. My heart goes through the wing, through the plane, through the windows, connects to the clouds and I'm just going with it because we're being bounced around. I'm like, okay, you know. And I look at it and I said, okay, please use that energy to wrap and bathe this plane like a cotton ball. And just around and around and around, until the cotton ball around the plane literally visually, just gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
Gregory Mark Hill:And literally the captain then comes on, these two junior captains, like, okay, everybody buckle your seatbelts, we're going to try again. And I'm thinking, oh my God, he's scared, we're going to try again. Like there's no confidence, you know. And I'm like, oh my God, you know, we're coming around and we're bouncing around, we're trying to land, trying to land, and there's like runway, water, grass, and it just seems like there's a river. I'm thinking we need pontoons. We're bouncing around, we cannot break the barrier. Too much wind, too much rain and finally, boom. We hit the wheel, wells burst in a spark or flame. I thought, oh my god, it's over. And then there's so much rain, water douses it all out and we bounce around, bounce around, bounce around, stop. Finally we make it right. The wheels don't shear off, we don't turn a torpedo, we don't blow up the north carolina airport. Get off the plane. D-plane, by the way, there's no clapping, there's no. No, thank you for flying american eagle, nothing. Everybody's shocked.
Gregory Mark Hill:The captain is the one who pulls out the luggage and he gives it to me, this young guy, and he and he's like he wants to cry and I grab it. I just look at him, I put the satchel over my arm, I head towards the North Carolina airport, I look back and I say, well, I guess, however long we're supposed to live, it's one year less now. But the key to that is, I realize we always think we're in control about everything and we're really not. And it takes a level of awareness and sometimes an experience, like I just had, where we realize we can barely control when we go to bed, what we eat, when we sleep. We think we do, but we're not. And so that's being attached to every moment, every experience every outcome, everything we want. We don't even realize that we're all the time. And when you're, when you're able to step back into that and let that go, then some amazing things happen for you.
Peter Carucci:Yeah.
Jamie Serino:It's a cool story, it's really powerful. So, the idea of samsara, then, can you tell us a little bit about, like you know, how that plays out in a person's life? Like so, these cycles, how would you recognize them, how would you stop them? Or you know, how does a person put samsara into the context of their life?
Gregory Mark Hill:How does a person put samsara into the context of their life? So samsara, as I mentioned, is cycles of suffering and we're attached to it and you choose suffering. We have experiences, we go into our self-cherishing ego and we get attached to the illusions that are out there Money, fame, power, all of these natural things, these dreams that we think we have and we get attached to those outcomes and when we don't get them very simply as they're sharing in the beginning, when we don't get what we want, when we want where we want, we suffer and we actually choose that. We don't even realize that we're choosing it. So I realized I had this moment.
Gregory Mark Hill:I was driving to work and I had a very important meeting. I was really excited about it. It was going to be a big, big fee opportunity and of course I'm running a little bit late, right, when you don't need a meeting, it doesn't matter, you're there early. But of course I'm running a little bit late and I'm on the FDR, about to turn off the exit and this white truck cuts me off right and I'm like whoa, I actually had been doing some breath work and some mantras and in that moment I had this, literally this epiphany. I was like wow, the first thing I want to do is honk the horn, lay on the horn. I'm nervous, I want to yell a few colorful words and maybe a couple of hand gestures as well. And I thought, oh my God, there's three categories of people in this moment. I had like this download. And the first thing is the first part of us. We see that happen. We get cut off by a truck and we want to lay on the horn, scream some hand gestures. There's a second group of us that, well, we're not yelling or honking the horn or screaming, but we're internalizing it and we're saying bad driver, unsafe. I'm a good driver, but he's a bad driver right and um. And then we go to the office and we tell I just got cut off by this guy in the white truck and we tell everybody what just happened and I call that celebrating the problem. Now you're sharing that with everybody. And then there's a third group of us, maybe a smaller group, that we're having such a good day. We're like go ahead, you need to get there faster than I. Or if we knew that they were trying to get there because their wife's having a baby or their grandma's sick, maybe we'd say, oh, go ahead, go ahead. Not all of us, but most would say go ahead. So I'd say, but most of us are in that category. One and two right, we want to lay on the horn, we want to say something.
Gregory Mark Hill:The moment you do that, two things happen. And the first thing is you're literally going into victim mode again. Right, the guy can't even hear you if you're yelling or honking, he doesn't even care, he's oblivious. The second thing that happens in that moment you've literally given away your power to a complete stranger. In that moment, and what happens is we are having those types of experiences. The white truck is literally a white truck, but it also shows up in the form of an email blast, somebody yelling at us. The other guy got promoted, the other guy got a bigger bonus.
Gregory Mark Hill:All these things happen. That white truck is showing up all the time in different forms, and in those moments we are either stepping into our power or we're giving it away. And when you give it away, which is the tendency that most of us have, is at the end of the day we come home and we're tired, as if we've been lifting 50 pound boulders all day long, and the reason is because, fractionally, we have these experiences, you become attached to the outcome of what we want, what we want, and we give away our power and we're exhausted. You are exhausted, mentally exhausted, and the thing is I'm here to share with you that, when you read my book and I share with you, through story after story, the answer to this you can go to work out, you can have a yoga practice, breath work, you can go to temple, ashram, church, it doesn't matter.
Gregory Mark Hill:All those things are great, but I'm here to share with you. You can do something very simple which takes a lot less mental and emotional time and energy. You can literally walk in your backyard, walk in your apartment, walk around the block and take a moment to reflect on the intention of okay, here's an experience, here's a challenge. Who do I want to be? Who am I being? All the problems do get solved Eventually two hours, two days, two weeks, two months. If all the problems eventually get solved, I'm free. I actually don't have to be angry and upset and annoyed or go into a victim mode. Oh my god, I didn't even realize. I'm free and in that moment you've actually stepped into your power I actually had that experience driving home today.
Peter Carucci:What I'm not kidding. Where I was, if you recall, by the way, we're as we're filming this is like a tumultuous, horrible downpour. I was in the middle of a flood on the Sawmill River Parkway. I mean, it was flooded and people are going crazy. And I made the conscious decision after my first reaction was to be a first of that group, you know cursing. And then I had to say to myself wait a minute, I'm on my way home, I'm all chill, there's nothing for me to give my power over to in that situation.
Peter Carucci:And, gregory, you said something interesting before. You said we don't know if they're rushing because they're getting you know what, if someone's giving birth, like you don't know what, what the other, in this case, uh, is going through, and and whether that opens us. Opens that up for us to have a door to compassion? That's one thing, but really it's understanding, because we're all in this together. And it's like if that person's rushing because they're about to have a baby, okay great. Or maybe they're rushing because they're about to have a baby, okay, great. Or maybe they're rushing because they're just rushing and they're crazy and they're just rushing anyway. Who it doesn't really matter. It's how I choose or the person in that car chooses to respond yes, you've actually.
Gregory Mark Hill:That's very enlightened of you. See, the thing is in that you get to choose who you want to be. You get to choose that and in that moment, when you have not given away your power fractionally, when you've actually stepped into your power, what happens? In that moment? Your entire perspective of yourself, the world around you, it changes and in fact, in that moment you've become a magnet, attracting more ideas, possibilities, opportunities into your life health and wellness, no accidents, rather than repelling all that away from you.
Jamie Serino:Yeah, and I, I kind of like what you're saying there again about like your sense of self, because, um, like p, like Peter in your story there, and then you know, and also Gregory in yours, you know, the the initial thing that people think is that that person is out to harm me, Right, and so, like you're saying, you're playing the victim and there is a safety thing there. So, yeah, like your body's going to probably react. You know the fight or flight or freeze thing and and and it's natural to have that reaction. But I always think of I don't know if you remember De La Vega, and he would write these, these little sayings in chalk in downtown Manhattan. There was one that said maybe the world is conspiring in your favor. And it challenges that notion the world is conspiring against me, Maybe it's conspiring in your favor.
Jamie Serino:And when you think about cognitive behavior therapy, it helps you to challenge these preconceived notions and these frameworks that people kind of tend to have, which tends to skew towards negative, because they tend to happen when maybe, um, maybe a minor trauma is happening to you. So then you process it in a way of like someone's going to harm me, you know, or like, even right down to an email that that email is nasty. But maybe if you read it again in a different frame of mind, maybe it's not. Maybe that person is not out to harm you, you know. So I can appreciate what you're saying there. I think it ties to you know, some psychological theory there too.
Peter Carucci:And I, like the idea of this problem is going to work itself out, no matter what anyway. So if you all of a sudden are just aligned with that, what is stressing me out right now means absolutely nothing.
Peter Carucci:So my response to it in a negative way can be horrific, make it 10 times worse. You know, once I was driving on the FDR and a big SUV cut me off and I was trying to get off and I'm going to a show and I have all this equipment in the car and it's a sunny day and I decided I was like I'm not going to let this bother me. And and the woman rolls down her window and I rolled down my window. I go, is everything okay, ma'am? She's cursing and screaming at me. Are you okay, ma'am? She's trying to cut in front of me and I go are you all right? She goes no, I'm not. And I go are you all right? She goes no, I'm not.
Peter Carucci:I was like, oh my God. And she threw. This literally happened two weeks ago. And you know she threw a donut wrapped in cellophane, you know, like a three-package donut, so you're going to eat it, as if to attack. Now Go ahead, man, you know. And then, so the whole fruit of this argument is that, like at the end of my show, sitting there, my guitarists and I are sitting there I say you hungry? He goes yeah, get in there. So he's eating this donut that this woman's anger launched at me. That was prepackaged, by the way, and when you let go, you kind of, you know.
Peter Carucci:I have been on that same exit and I have not acted. I've been worse road number one than anything.
Gregory Mark Hill:Well, you got to experience the sweetness of light there.
Jamie Serino:You got quite a reward for that.
Peter Carucci:I couldn't understand. I was like is everything okay, ma'am? How are you? I don't know. It's like oh, I was just grateful it wasn't a brick.
Jamie Serino:Yeah, seriously, oh, I was just grateful it wasn't a brick, you know? Yeah, seriously. So, Gregory, you do a lot of work with leaders and entrepreneurs and helping them to realize this. Do you have any advice for someone, maybe who's like in the middle? You know? You said you have worked with younger people. They're just starting their career, they like in the middle, you know.
Jamie Serino:Or you said you have worked with younger people. They're just starting their career, they're in the middle and maybe they're realizing, you know, like, some of the things about themselves. But maybe they're in a bit of a toxic environment too. Like I appreciated what you were saying earlier about you know, not giving your power to someone else. You know that board member, knowing who you are so that you don't get taken advantage of. But you know, you sometimes hear about, like you know, toxicity in the workplace and maybe it's an overused term, but, um, you know, I I wonder if you have any advice for someone in terms of like some Sarah, but being kind of, maybe more in the middle of an organization yes, well, in fact, um, my book is several.
Gregory Mark Hill:It's five chapters long and I should say to people, if you can read really fast, you can read one chapter a night, and in days you can read the book. If you're a slower reader, you can read one chapter a week and in five weeks you can read the book, Whether you're a slower reader or a faster reader, five weeks or five days it'll change your life and I believe that in my heart because, for people, whether you're a founder, managing director, partner, CEO, all the way to the mid-level worker, but really all the way down to the assistants and even the interns making photocopies, what I found is that everybody seems to have a practice legal practice, consulting practice, medical practice, healthcare practice, um, gym practice but very few people have a personal practice of their own, and what I mean by that is I'm not talking just about, like breath work, and I'm talking about a personal practice where you reflect, like I was sharing, on the moments of the day, the experiences you had, and you think about who do I want to be, what are my intentions, and in those moments that I've had today, have I stepped into the positive or I stepped into the negative? And when you go through that exercise with intention, then that personal practice is yours and then that actually becomes a spiritual practice. Right, and when you have a personal spiritual practice, I call it of your own. That is literally what fills you up and gives you the energy that is being fractually given away by yourself or being taken away by I I'll call them energy vampires people that think they can take advantage of you, which is out there, it's true. But when people have a personal practice of their own, when they're actually taking a few minutes during that walk around their apartment or walk around the block or taking their shoes off and walking the grass outside and reflecting with intention, who is it that I want to be? Who am I being in that moment?
Gregory Mark Hill:When times are tough, it's great to be nice when everything's going well. It's harder to be nice when things are not going so well. It's easy to be angry or distracted or apathetic. It's not so easy to be who we want to be Magnetic, kind, compassionate, loving, happy when times are challenging. But when you have a personal practice of your own and I call that when you actually do a meditation you actually think about it.
Gregory Mark Hill:When you do that, you're actually meditating. That is meditation. Meditation isn't about sitting on a pillow and, you know, doing ooms for an hour, I mean that is. But you don't have to take that much time and mental and emotional energy. You can literally take a moment which most people don't do before you get home and stomp your feet at the door.
Gregory Mark Hill:Stomp your feet at the door just before you walk in, and what that does is it literally shakes off the energy that bad juju you took in, that debris that you took in, and it also grounds yourself before you step in to meet your friends, your family, and literally connects you back to the present and the presence of who you are. So when you literally just stomp your feet three, four, five times before you walk in the door, wow, you're back to the present, you're awake. And that applies to everybody, whether you're an intern making photocopies, whether you're in secretarial services board, whether you're a mid-level worker. When you have a practice of your own and I'm literally saying three minutes every day, before you go to bed, when you wake up, before you walk into your home, when you do that every day, it becomes your personal what I call spiritual practice and that literally, I promise you it changes your life. It's great. I love that personal practice. I promise you it changes your life.
Jamie Serino:That's great. I love that personal practice, thank you. So, pete, do you want to tell us about your hat?
Peter Carucci:Well, just because this is my son's travel team. Growing up I was one of the coaches and pretty much every episode. Now I've decided I'm going to wear a hat that has some meaning. What I love is that when we were talking earlier, somehow randomly, gregory, you were basically like who I want to grow up to be as a baseball player.
Peter Carucci:right, you played in the farm system or whatever, and all this stuff it's just uncanny that there's a coincidence there and that I used to wear this hat right here in your hometown and that's my favorite restaurant there.
Gregory Mark Hill:Wow.
Peter Carucci:Crazy.
Gregory Mark Hill:Well, I don't believe in coincidences. By the way, I believe everything is aligned. I believe we are all connected, whether we realize it or not, whether we want to be or not.
Jamie Serino:Yes, Look at that. You guys definitely had a connection. You chose the right ad and the right water, so that's great. I was just going to ask, gregory, is there anything that we didn't ask or anything else that you want to share as we wrap up?
Gregory Mark Hill:Yes, I think we covered a lot and this is a great conversation.
Gregory Mark Hill:I'd love to have another chat with you as well.
Gregory Mark Hill:I think the most important thing that I really think about is and I talk about this from time to time is the analogy of the lotus flower and whether you're an athlete, whether you're just beginning your career out of school, whether you're in the mid-level, trying to get to the next level, whether you're a senior leader in the organization, c-suite, founder, owner of the business, there are a lot of challenges we go through, a lot of struggles that we face Injuries as an athlete, challenges in the workplace.
Gregory Mark Hill:Sometimes it's hostile, sometimes it's not Our own personal emotions we bring into our daily family, our daily lives is much like a lotus flower which sits beautiful, pristine, clean, on top of this dirty water and the dirty mud. But in fact, what's interesting is the lotus flower, which grows beautiful and clean, needs that hydration from that dirty water, needs the minerals and nutrients from that mud to grow into the beautiful flower that it is sitting atop all that dirty water and dirty mud. Much like we in our daily lives, whether we're young, whether in our middle of our careers, whether we're senior levels, we need those challenges and struggles. We need the samsara and suffering to go through and experience from it to be able to grow into that beautiful lotus flower at the end of the day.
Gregory Mark Hill:That's what I'd like to share with people.
Jamie Serino:That's a great thought to end on. Thank you for that. That's great. It's been a great conversation and I definitely feel like we could talk for hours, so we'll have to do this again sometime. For sure, I'm going to continue reading the book. I just started it. So everybody, samsara and its impact on the entrepreneur's dreams Check it out. Amazon and Gregory, there was another website where you could get it.
Gregory Mark Hill:There's multiple websites, but obviously Amazon. It's now in England, singapore, uae, australia, canada. It's in Indigo in Canada as well, and so there's a publisher, uh, called book baby. You can buy it directly on book baby as well, especially if you want to buy in. Some are um a hundred or 500 copies. We have a few folks buying a thousand now. Um, you can get it directly from the publisher. So, but Amazon is fairly ubiquitous. Again, it's been great here, jamie. Peter is wonderful to share with you. Thanks for the great questions and the opportunity to share with your audience. Love it Wonderful.
Peter Carucci:Thank you, thank you.
Jamie Serino:And thanks everybody for watching and listening and we will see you next time.
Gregory Mark Hill:See you next time. Bye now.
