Start With A Win - Interview with entrepreneur Gj Reynolds

Episode Date: June 12, 2019

G.J. Reynolds grew up in a solid home, and after high school, he joined the US Army to gain exposure to the world and direction about where he wanted his life to go. He was a part of the early version of Verizon and then became an entrepreneur eventually getting into real estate with RE/MAX because of their reputation for being the best. He continued his entrepreneurial journey in the area of satellite communications and telecom and he was eventually encouraged to simplify his branding, which he took literally. Simply G is hyper-focused on simple processes contributing to a specific direction or purpose because if you are unfocused then you are off-track and could become complacent. It is imperative to be focused on the right things and to set yourself up for success in these areas by surrounding yourself with people who complement you and will hold you accountable. In addition to having peers who are your accountability partners, G.J. recommends that you also have a coach or mentor who has walked the path ahead of you and can guide you.G.J. is considered an influencer, with over 4 million online followers, but he doesn’t consider this his primary means of leadership. He says that a leader is someone who chooses to have an impact, and he finds fulfillment in impacting others in their journeys, inspiring them to focus on their goals and how to get there. The keys to this relationship are grace, openness, honesty, authenticity, vulnerability, and no judgment. Authenticity, specifically, connects the head to the heart and can open many doors for connecting with people.Recently, G.J. has become involved in building the Women of Faith brand. He says that what he has learned through this experience can be applied to building any brand: it is all about the people, but it does take time. When people catch a glimpse of authenticity and someone being real, they will embrace it, and this connection is what it is all about. Being in touch with the people and conveying a consistent message is the most important part of building anything.Links:https://www.womenoffaith.com/Connect with G:https://simplyg.com https://twitter.com/1SimplyGhttps://www.instagram.com/1simplyg/Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/ https://www.facebook.com/REMAXAdamContoshttps://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContos https://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/ 

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Atop of the 12th floor of the Remax World Headquarters, you're listening to Start With A Win with CEO Adam Kantos. And welcome to Start with a Win. Adam Kantos here, top of the 12th floor at REMAX World Headquarters in beautiful Denver, Colorado. And we have with us a very special calling guest, somebody who is a longtime friend of mine, one of my accountability partners, someone who I've shared a lot of my success ideas with and received a lot of personal brother-to-brother

counseling from in the past. We have G.J. Reynolds. How are you doing, brother? I'm doing great, brother. I'm excited for whatever we want to talk about. I know we can go a lot of different directions, and today is just going to be one of those days where it's all raw. Raw and real. Right on. Well, you've done a lot in business and in life. Why don't you just give us kind us the brief lowdown on yourself.

You've experienced a lot of things and overcome a lot of challenges. Where do you come from, G.J.? Well, I think it starts out I had to leave it to beaver childhood. For those that don't know what leave it to beaver is, then you can go Google that.

My parents are still married, so I came from my mom didn't work until I was a senior in high school. So I had a real strong family foundation to start from. And, you know, then I was like, hey, I'm going to go out into the real world and didn't know what I really wanted to do. And I ended up in the U.S. Army. And then from there, you know, that was really the catalyst of everything I've been able to do since then. And got out and worked for a little company called Verizon. So I got to see a company go from pretty much nothing to what it is today years ago. And I left that and became an entrepreneur.

I wanted to be all that I could be. And I thought the Army might be able to do that. And I actually got into real estate. So that's something y'all might know a little bit about. That's right. And I said, if I'm going to be in real estate, what is the best company to be involved with? And one of my best friends and his parents

were one of the original Remax franchisees in Kansas City. And so I started my entrepreneurial endeavors as a Remax agent and didn't really know what I was doing, but I was around a lot of experts. And REMAX is known to having the best real estate agents, the best brokerages, and the best systems. And so I learned a lot from that and ended up back into satellite communications and telecom.

And so I've been an entrepreneur ever since. I've won some, I've lost some. I've risked it all and lost it all and then had to find a way to get, you know, get back on the horse and ride on up into the sunset. Very cool. So you've actually built your own brand over the years, Simply G. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Well, obviously having the name G.J. is a little rigid.

And being a former military sergeant, you know, there can be some rigidity there. And one of the things that I realized is I was complicating my life, and I kept being told you need to just simplify it and so i i just finally said everybody called me g instead of gj and i was like you know what i just got to keep it simple and and so that's really where it came and it's really an accountability piece for just keeping things simple my wife says there's nothing simple about me uh but what i've learned is the processes have to be simple because if I can follow a simple process, I can teach a simple process and people can implement a simple process. And that's really

how it all came about. That's amazing. I mean, you actually took people literally when they said, keep it simple. And you said, okay, simply G. I love it. And when I first met you, you had, you know, we were an accountability group, a mastermind together several years ago. We were actually accountability partners for quite a few years, you know, calling each other out on getting the things done that we need to get done. And you always had this really cool way of bringing it back to simplicity and focus, you know, and asking the right questions. How do you attribute, you know, that culture of simply G to focus? What comes to mind when we talk about that? Well, ironically, one of my top five strengths is focus.

So I can actually hyper-focus. And the balcony of that is I can be highly focused. The basement is I can be highly focused, and the world can be burning up around me. So I've had to learn how to be focused, and as an entrepreneur, you have to know where you're going. You don't necessarily have to know how to get there. You definitely have to know where you're going. You've got to have that direction, and of course, you've been in the Marine Corps, maybe in the Army, you know, it's a mission. You know, there's the mission. We know that there's a lot of things that are going to happen and it

probably won't happen the way we think it's going to. And so you've got to be able to have that plan and you've got to be able to have that focus. And so I think it comes back to if you're unfocused, then you're off track and or you're, you're off track and, or you're going to be off track or you're going to become complacent. And I think that's been one of the biggest challenges that I see with entrepreneurs, especially ones when they start having success, they become complacent. And, uh, for me, I've, I've been one that's gotten complacent, you know, and I had to refocus. I had to retool.

I've had to reinvent myself, you know, because of different directions. Economies change. The world changes. Obviously, social media changes every second. And so you have to constantly be willing to reinvent yourself. And the number one way is being focused on your purpose and being focused on where you're going. A couple of good nuggets in there. Some really, really good information for our listeners out there that are taking notes on this. I want to

unpack a few of the things that you just threw at me here. one of which is you, you talked about whether or not you could, you know, you, you could be focused on the right things and, you know, being hyper-focused on the wrong things, I guess also, uh, you know, is, is one of the risks that you take when you start going down the wrong direction. Uh, how do you, how do you realize when you're, you're too deep into it and you need to take a step back? Because so many people, they get lost in their direction. They get lost in what they're working on and don't realize that, hey, there's nobody here to slap me upside the head and say, hey, goofball, go try the other way. How do you realize that?

I mean, you've kind of grabbed me by the shoulders in life and shaking me up and go, all right, focus on this. How do you recognize that? And, you know, as a human being and take the right direction to, to build upon your success? Well, that's a loaded question. There's several components, but going back to simplifying it, I believe it goes back to who are you surrounding yourself with? I know on some of your podcasts, you've talked about who you surround yourself with and accountability and are you an agent or are you a business? And so that's also a plug for the podcast. If you haven't listened to all the podcasts, you need to listen to them because Mark and Adam do a great job. But going back to is having the right people around you. And I haven't always done that. I haven't always run myself the right people. And that's

usually led down to being unfocused or leading down a path that was not successful or painful. However, there's learning lessons that happen. So I think if you can learn from it and reapply it, there's a win there. And going back to starting with win, failure can be a win. But going back to the focus, what I have done is when I'm on my game, I have the right people around me, and I have people that offset what I'm done is when I'm on my game, I have the right people around me and I have people that offset what I'm not good at. And so if I am hyper-focused, I need some people sometimes that aren't so focused, but they understand the mission and the vision. They're bought into the

mission and vision. They're bought into me. They're bought into what we're doing as a whole. And they're bought into the purpose of the end game. And I think that's been probably the best thing is having people around me. And then we were accountability partners every Friday at 3 p.m. I mean, it was like clockwork. And sometimes there was accountability to talk about, and I knew you had to focus on, you, I've got to talk to G.J. and he's going to ask me what we talked about last week.

And vice versa. So we had to have that unwritten accountability, like, hey, I don't want to let Adam down. I don't want to let G.J. down. And I think having accountability is key. The other thing is, and I tell people, one of the things that you have to have, you have to have a coach or a mentor or somebody that can help guide you, somebody that's been down the path that you're going or that you choose to go down, and somebody that's going to tell you the truth, somebody that truly cares about you and truly cares about your success and loves you.

And I know both of us have been able to do that. You know, Dave has been that for you. And, you know, I got some of what Dave taught you, it taught me, you know, through you. Oh, yeah. So having those relationships, I think, is the best way to do it because we all have our strengths, we all have our weaknesses. And as you get older, you specialize more what they are and what they aren't. And, of course, when you fail or you have successes, you're going to say what worked here, what didn't work here.

Yeah, I love that. We had, during that time frame, it was fantastic because none of those conversations were challenging. I mean, they were hard to have if you didn't do what you were supposed to do, but you beat yourself up. I mean, all you're doing is admitting your faults or admitting what you didn't do to the other person, they really didn't have to say anything. I mean, you didn't really have to say anything other than, okay, how are you going to get that done now?

When, uh, when I didn't complete what I was accountable for. And it, it's, it, you know, everybody that's listening to this can hear kind of GJ's even tone,

but it's like, you're talking to Clint Eastwood here and, you know, he's, you don't have to sit, you don't have to raise your voice, DJ, or say anything. I'm going, uh, I didn't do it. And I'm thinking, man, I let my buddy down. And it was really, really kind of cool to go through that.

So, you know, I sincerely appreciate you for helping me to get where I've gotten to. And you've shown me the way on so many different things. I want to talk about your branding a little bit more of the, the Simply G piece, because, you know, I've always looked at you as an influencer. You're, you know, you've, you've built some incredible brands and you're part of some incredible brands. I mean, it's, you know, we were talking earlier, you, you influence like 4 million people online. It's, it's crazy how big of, of these brands that you've built. And I remember back, uh, quite a while ago, you know, the early days of, of Twitter and some of those things, I don't even

think Instagram was around yet. Um, but you had, I think tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people on Twitter and I'm going, what's Twitter. And, and you go, you better get I think, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of people on Twitter. And I'm going, what's Twitter? And you go, you better get with it, buddy. So, I mean, how do you, G.J., how do you become an influencer? And how do you build a brand? You know, I know you just basically said be consistent and do things. But tell us from your heart, your mind, what did it take to get to become an influencer in your space?

Well, when I hear you say that, ironically, I don't even feel like I am an influencer. I know leadership is influencing people or influencing people to move in a direction. So I understand the influencing, but the ironic thing is I don't really look at myself as an influencer. I look at somebody, I look at myself as somebody that chooses to have impact. And my whole, my whole life now, you know, I, I, I chase the money, I chase the stuff and, and, you know, it's okay to have money and it's okay to have nice stuff. And, and, and, and, but if that's your master, that that's going to be a challenge because it's never going to be fulfilling. And what I had to learn what fulfills me and what fulfills me most is when I see somebody that I can actually have a conversation with and be real with and see them apply that and they will have success.

And I think that's one of the best things that I've seen with our relationship. And I don't even feel like I did that much for you. What I feel is that we created a trust relationship very quickly and it became very fluid very quickly. And it was all about choosing to help each other, you know, go to the next step. And, and, uh, you know, we've gone through a few steps together and we've gone a few steps backward together. And for those that are listening, I hadn't, I have nothing to do with Remax or, or, and you've had nothing to do with, with my brands other than you were an accountability partner with me and me with you. And really it was creating a truly honest, authentic, open relationship that had grace. And I think that's a key word.

There's a lot of relationships that there's a judgment or there's an expectation. And when there's an expectation, somebody is never going to meet that expectation because a lot of times it's not even set up. And I see with our relationship, we were able to quickly be open and honest and vulnerable. And, you know, you got two guys here, former military, hard charters, go-getters, high achievers. And we don't really allow fear to get in the way. We deal with fear. We know fear is going to be present. We honor it. And we find ways to persevere through that. We were very vulnerable with one another. And I think that's a very key thing, especially for men that are listening, that vulnerability is actually a strength. The key is having it with the right people

in a nonjudgmental setting. And when you have that, people can fall and they're willing to get back up. And your relationship with Dave has been one of those relationships. And the things that I've seen Dave do with other people and the ability for him to truly care about who he is and what he's about and passionate about helping people. That's number one in his thought process. And through that, he built, you know, the number one real estate company in the world. And so going back to your question, I just feel like being in a position of being able to surround yourself

with authentic, caring people, then you're going to create more wins than you do losses. I love that. I mean, just, I guess, you know, one of the biggest words, key takeaways that I'm, I take from, um, how you've developed brands, how our relationship has developed is just, you know, the, I, I guess if I was writing notes down for this particular episode of Start With A Win, it would be authenticity. And the authenticity builds those bridges, human to human, connects the head to the heart. And that's what builds these brands and cultures that everybody participates in in life. The latest brand that you've jumped into that you are, you know, and when you do something,

you, you completely immerse yourself in it and they're amazing brands. You've been in the health industry, uh, built an amazing brand in the health industry, uh, been part of that. But the, the project that you've, uh, endeavored upon and really put your heart into is, is women of faith. And you've got, um, you know, millions of people involved in this. It's just an incredible organization, you know, built an incredible culture there. What comes to mind when you think about how do I get into something like this and continue to help build upon something that's been started, but you see the opportunity to make even better? Well, going back to it, I'm going to answer two questions. One is, you know, but you see the opportunity to make even better. Well, going back to, I'm going to answer two questions there.

One is, you know, because you asked me about the influence, and to me, it's all about the people. And if you look at Remax, Dave, and I've heard tons of interviews, I've heard him personally and stories that he shared and stories you've shared. It's all about the people. And when you make it about the people, then people will move forward. However, it does take time. And most people today are unwilling to spend the time. And so you have to say what is most important.

Well, if the people are number one, then that's a good place to start and that's a good place to get a win, and no pun intended there. And then when you understand what people want and you continue to deliver that, people will move forward. They will move to you. And in today's society, people are looking for authenticity. People are looking for real.

I mean, I've started to go and do Instagram Lives, And I was like, you know, I want to look good. I want to make sure I say the right things. I don't stutter. You know, I want to make sure my hair looks good. And for those that can't see me, I'm bald. So that's a joke. But, you know, it's just being real. And so when you're real with people and you're authentic with people and you show a commitment and caring for people, people will embrace that.

And I feel like that's been one of my God-given gifts is being able to connect with people. And the better that you do that, the more success you will have. And like I said, it does take time. You know, you're not going to go from zero to hero overnight. And I know a lot of people are looking for that. In social media, you can get something to go viral. But what about the next post? It could be crickets.

So it has to be consistent. And people are looking for that consistency. And people are looking for that genuineness. And I think anything that I've been a part of, if I've been able to, when I've won, that's been the catalyst for the success. When I haven't focused on that and keeping it number one, then I haven't had the kind of success. And in some cases, I'd say failures and looking back. That's, I love that. That's so fascinating. The, you know, just taking it back to the people.

I'm sitting here. I have a word cloud that's right next to me here in the studio. It talks about Remax, a business that builds businesses. But so much of this is impact lives, experience, community, things like that. It is about the people. And I love what you said. I mean, the key takeaway that I got from today is if you lose track of the component of why your business exists, and I don't care what business you're in, if you lose track of this component, your business

will slip. And that component is the people. And that's just so many people with the technology today, with the one-click solutions, with an app for that, things like that, they forget about the fact that there's a person on the end of everything. And if you focus on the people, you're authentic, you work to connect with them heart to heart, it will bring your business back around. And you just got to stay after it and understand that you have to have some patience with it. But you're the perfect example of that. I mean, you've built so many amazing brands, and they're all about the people.

So, I mean, thank you so much for sharing that. Well, thank you, and thanks for inspiring me. Now I feel like I got to win. Right on, G.J. All right, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening today. We are so blessed to have G.J. Reynolds with us. Some amazing tips. Remember, authenticity, the people, bringing it back around to touching everybody's heart, to being a human being in your business. Some great takeaways. Thanks a lot. And don't forget, start with a win.

Thank you so much for listening to Start With A Win. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Don't forget to go on iTunes and subscribe, write a review or rate the show. It helps us get the word out and reach more people. You can follow Adam on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. And remember, start with a win.