The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Entrepreneurial Insights: Surviving and Thriving as a Solopreneur with Greg Woodward

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

Entrepreneurial Insights: Surviving and Thriving as a Solopreneur with Greg Woodward Woodwardstrategies.com About the Guest(s): Gregory Woodward is the founder and CEO of Woodward Strategies, a renowned revenue operations and inside sales advisory located in Washington, DC. As an entrepreneur with a drive for outbound sales and pipeline generation, Greg has led his company to work with numerous private equity and venture capital firms, significantly contributing to several multi-billion dollar exits. Woodward's innovative approaches focus on integrating sales teams and scaling business development rep teams, making him a sought-after expert in his field. Episode Summary: In this engaging episode of The Chris Voss Show, Chris welcomes Gregory Woodward, the visionary behind Woodward Strategies. Over the course of the discussion, Greg delves into his journey as a solopreneur, dissecting the challenges and triumphs involved in building a seven-figure business without external investors or partners. This episode offers a deep dive into the entrepreneurial mindset, exploring the core motivations and strategic insights that drive successful business ventures. As Gregory Woodward reveals his passion for outbound sales and revenue operations, the conversation branches out into discussions about the future implications of artificial intelligence in business. With a critical eye, Greg provides a nuanced perspective on how AI investments are shaping the business landscape, stressing the need for innovative thinking. Through anecdotes and reflections on personal experiences, both Chris and Greg offer valuable lessons on the importance of mindset and strategic autonomy in business. This episode is a compelling listen for aspiring entrepreneurs and business leaders looking to navigate the modern economic terrain. Key Takeaways: The path to becoming a successful solopreneur often involves significant personal and professional challenges, but also offers rewarding freedom from traditional corporate constraints. Having a mindset that embraces risk and persistent learning is crucial for entrepreneurs, especially when the journey involves navigating through uncertain and uncharted territories. Building a successful business from scratch often requires a willingness to endure a period of uncertainty and discomfort, typically longer than most anticipate. Artificial intelligence is a hot topic in the tech world; however, many companies are still exploring its potential rather than fully understanding or implementing it effectively. Establishing a business model that values independence and flexibility can lead to greater satisfaction and success, free from the pressures of external investors or rigid hierarchies. Notable Quotes: "Having anybody else in charge of directing your day-to-day? To me, I consider that like a private hell." "If you look at a business like mine or many solopreneur-type businesses…compare it to a company that just raised $40 million…who's EBITDA do you think is higher?" "The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence…some people should not be entrepreneurs." "The pressure's gonna change when they have to start showing an ROI on their AI investment." "There's a period of time…where you're so far into it you can't see where you came from…that's a lonely place for entrepreneurs."

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Chris Foss won the TikTok, getting all those crazy places on the internet. Today, an amazing young man joining us on the show. We're going to talk to him about his entrepreneurial insights of being a seven-figure solopreneur and achieving total freedom without having investors. partners or a boss. Doesn't everybody want that? I wanted that when I worked at McDonald's when I was in my time. Greg Woodward joins us. He's the founder and CEO of Woodward Strategies, a revenue operations and inside sales advisory firm based in Washington, D.C. As per vendor to several of the largest private equity and venture capital firms, Woodward has been instrumental in the successful turnaround and rapid growth of numerous companies, including most notably,

multi-billion dollar exits. You know, after, that used to be something, now Elon Musk is getting trillion dollars, so you got up your game. Small marbles now. Welcome to the show, Greg. How are you? Thanks for having me. I'm doing well.

Thanks for having me on. Good to have you on as well. Give us your dot-coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? Woodward Strategies.com on LinkedIn and Gregory C. Woodward. Yeah. So give us a 30,000 over you of who you are, what you do, and how you do it. So I've always been an entrepreneur, wasn't a successful one in the beginning, and I'm based in D.C.

So basically what my business is, is we go into roll-ups, private equity roll-ups, and we help integrate the sales teams, and we focus specifically on pipeline generation, ramping and scaling their BDR or their SDR teams, which is like the prospectors, right, the outbound, the outbound component of it. So I'm obsessed with outbound. I've always been sort of obsessed with outbound. came from before that I was a I was a CEO of a venture back company I had investors and all that kind of stuff and I was still doing outbound it's just you do you wind up doing what you're good at or interested in the most I guess so anyway that's how that's how we got here how did you get the entrepreneurial bug what happened to you who hurt you when you were young I don't think I had a choice right I mean it was a bad student so I figured I had to do something different I think that was probably it wow that sounds like me I started my first company 18 and never look back and Yeah. And, but yeah, I got fired for McDonald's for having long hair. And listen, I had a Van Heelan T-shirts, you know, Satan clearly Van Halen. Oh, yeah.

It's like mainstream rock and roll. But I did have like Black Sabbath and Ozzy shirts. So, and I never really started my first company. But once you get that drug, man, that's a hell of a drug, huh? Yeah. I mean, I've always had a fundamental adversion to having a boss. Like having anybody else in charge of. directing your day to day. To me, I consider that like a private hell. So for me, that is the,

that is the worst case scenario. Are you married, Greg? No, I'm just doing Mary jokes. Just doing Mary jokes. I'm single. That's, uh, because I don't work well with the boss. Anyway, uh, very jokes there. Just doing a few. The we have a whole assemblage of callback jokes for 16 years in the show, Greg. I think we're still dragging the original show at this point. Tell us what you do now and how you help companies, who's your customer target? If I'm out there listening on LinkedIn or other resources there, LinkedIn's a good money resource. Who's the customer for you that you appeal to and what do you do for them? Basically, the person that I sell to inside of a company as a chief revenue officer, it's the person who's in charge of the revenue organization, you know,

or sometimes it's the senior vice president of sales. What I do for them is help them get pipeline and get predictable pipeline and once that's you know predictable and there's you know inputs and outputs that you can forecast with and you fix the rest of the problem you know it's like filling up a tank with gas when you fill up the tank with gas you start to see where the holes are the first thing you got to do in a company especially if it's a group of companies that were just acquired is you've got to fill up the tank with gas and find out where the holes are really quickly because every month you're burning yeah yeah that burn rate man you got to watch that burn rate It's brutal.

I've watched so many people in Silicon Valley and startups, they don't pay attention to that burn rate or, you know, they're banking that they're going to have that, you know, that next round. We're going to get that next round. You're like, you know, and then sometimes the economy turns or maybe things turn on that sort of segment of what they're doing, you know, and you kind of get stuck. And, you know, there's a lot of great apps I've seen and programs are different, you know, companies I've seen and probably. products. And some of them are brilliant, but, you know, they run out of funding. It's kind of a sad thing. One of the things I see, though, I'll tell you this, this is something I've been riffing on for a little while here. Having the experience with what you just described, the tech company that has the investors that, you know, has a sort of artificial pressure, not artificial, forced pressure

to deploy capital and hire people and all that kind of stuff. There's some wisdom that I learned and going small to get big, getting real narrow and saying, like, when I started what were strategies, I remember it was eight years ago, nine years ago, I was sitting on the, on the rooftop of my apartment in D.C. And I was telling my fiance then, but my wife now, basically, look, I don't ever want to work for anybody. And I'm not going to. You can't make me. You can't make me. No, I said, I'm going to start a company. It's going to have no investors. I'm going to fund it myself. And it's going to generate at least seven figures in EBITA every year.

I give myself three years to get there. It's not going to have employees unless I want to hire employees. It's not going to need employees. Do that virtual thing. She's like, I don't think you're going to pull that one off. Okay. Well, that's what I did. That's what my company is.

Now, time to time, I'll bring in people in contract and stuff, but I don't have, I don't have employees of them myself. By design. So my whole point there is, if you look at a business like mine or many solo entrepreneur type businesses, consulting businesses. Then you look at their EBITA and you compare it to the EBITA of a company that just raised $40 million in a series B round and has 100 employees. Who's, who's do you think is higher?

And who's not getting fired by the board? He's not getting the idea. Right. That's what happens. These entrepreneurs, they get fired by their own boards because they raise capital and then they have to raise more in a down round and they lose control. Yeah. Really sad.

Better sometimes your CEO ends up at the baseball. game where the cold play concert with the HR girlfriend so that's a riff rap yeah that's why you shouldn't have employees right if that won't happen honestly I'm I'm expecting it to happen more often because I mean no one knew what that company was before that yeah so that was like the best free advertising ever oh yeah yeah it was total national recognition like I'm a surprise I'm surprised there most CEOs aren't going out now in startups and being like I'm here with My sister and we're from Utah.

No, I'm just... They probably will. You know they will. There's always an imposter. Yeah, I'm a polygamous that I'm cheating on five of my wives, not just one. This should get more viral stuff. That'll help the stock price. Yeah, that's what I just plan on doing.

Whenever I go into Silicon Valley and pitch like Mark and Drieson and shit, I just, he opens up the thing there. I forget what they call. He was a pitch deck. And in the first, the second page, that's it. And it just says, we'll get a CEO is willing to get caught cheating on his wife and kids at a game to make this thing popular. Make it all happen. I bet you get $2 billion with that. It might work.

Yeah. Might work. Yeah, you just got to have a good parachute out the back door where they're like, okay, here's some money for that. Good job. Taking that one, you're never going to work again. But here's some cash. Some of the things that you do and get into, you talk about, you know, building this total freedom. It's hard to be a solo entrepreneur, isn't it?

I mean, how hard is this to scale? Nothing's easy. I mean, that's, you know, that's why most people aren't doing it. That's a good point. You want me to say, well, I mean, true answer. It's fucking hard. I want to hear about the bloodletting and the suffrage and the. You're opening up a bigger point, which is worth making, I think.

When people watch conversations like this one that we're having right now, and they're watching it from just a normal place in the sense, like, in their life, they're working for another company, and they've been there for five years, and it's perfectly fine. The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence. So what you have, what you have careful of is you have people that should not be entrepreneurs thinking to themselves that they should be entrepreneurs and they need to do it now. And here's why somebody should not be.

entrepreneur. If the thought of working for someone else feels comfortable to you versus rolling the dice and taking a risk as an entrepreneur, if that's the case, you should not be an entrepreneur. The real entrepreneur is the answer your question, how do you get through it if it's hard? The opposite of it, right, is an absolute private hell. To me, like, working for someone else produces more pain even to think about than the stress that's involved with running a company. Once you get it stabilized and you start to get a reputation, you know, right now I don't have stress. But I did for the first couple years. Sure. Let me ask you this. Why do we as as these people who I'll just jokingly call it, don't play with others. Because we do. But why do you

think it is? My, my version is, well, I'll wait for yours because I don't want to weigh on. it but why do you think it is that we have trouble having someone be our boss I just think it's a I think I just think it's a personality right oh okay we're so we're narcissistic uh maybe it could be that yeah I mean it's the same it's the same reason why I didn't like being in school I remember in high school sometimes I would just get up and leave did you have ADHD disease or oh god yeah yeah yeah which is a gift I mean people it's not a it's like honestly everybody I know that's that's rich and successful has 80 day period I don't know anybody about again squirrel exactly squirrel there's a squirrel no it once you

learn how to harness it it's a gift the way that the education system at least the way it was when I was there I'm sure it's the same now or worse is it's like everybody has to learn one way and if they don't they have a disability in the pharmaceutical company's going to make a shit not of money. You and I are probably very similar, especially the way we came into being entrepreneurs. I mean, school just wasn't possible for me. I mean, I was terrible. I tried really hard and it was terrible. I couldn't learn the way they were teaching. So when I, like, I learned later in life how to how to learn, you know, I can learn. I just have to do it a different way. But the belief systems that we have are basically, and you know, I can tell you know this, that's our operating

system and a lot of that is you know comes from like deep programming from stuff like when you're younger and there's ways that you can kind of crack that i mean a lot of the people that i know that play at a higher level in terms of their output have to have you know basically therapy from time to time to kind of crack open like a new layer i went on zola for a while yeah yeah and lots of vodka that's part of the that's part of the whole routine My doctor prescribed it, that's what I'm saying. But getting real serious about mindset in that sense is vitally important. There's no way in the world I was ever going to get traction without doing that.

One of the things I did is I became a strategist, and it just occurred to me. This is the first time it's occurred to me in 57 years. But I early on became a strategist. I used to love playing games like Risk and Stratigo, and I would play them to an obsessive, you know, I have OCD. But that's a compulsive thing. It'd be like, you know, we play like 100 games a day. And I would, and then I was even more enamored when I got on a computer where I didn't have to have anybody who was tired of losing to me, play against me. And I would try and game the computer and beat it.

And so I really fell in love with strategy early on, but I just had an epiphany just now talking to you. The reason I was doing that was I was trying to survive. I was trying to come up with strategies to get me out of the shit and to survive. what I was going through and wow that's a that's a powerful thing to think about today I'll go talk to my psychiatrist about that and he'll go we're still doing the lobotomy yeah but yeah it's I think you're right on that go ahead I don't mean it well it's if you think about it I'm thinking out loud here I think what would what that did to me was I have a fundamental like like adversion to doing what other people do and I think that's where it comes from I never really thought

about where it comes from. But I think that's probably where it comes from. If everybody's doing something, I don't want to do it. Ah. I don't want to do it. I want to run in the opposite direction. Mm-hmm. Because I think, you ever, like, notice financial advisors are not wealthy people?

Like, why the fuck would you take a financial advice from somebody who's not rich? Yeah. I've tried asking, you know, very good. good accountants that are very nice people that live a very modest life, how to do trust and other sort of things that rich people do, instruments that they use and stuff

and that's out of their head game. I get it. That's how I look at the education system. Yeah. You know? It is made and it's gotten worse than when you and I grow up. It's really hard for boys because boys are so energetic. They've taken away a recess and some are outlets.

But that OCD mind being able to take things apart a million times over and over again. Yeah, it used to be a curse when I was a teenager. I would check the door 20, 20 times at night to make sure I'd locked it and then I'd go back and have some sort of insane conversation with myself. Are you sure it was today? You locked it? I did have the luck of when I reached about 53 and I quit drinking and got healthy. I did have a luck of where it went away. And then part of the sex drive, you know, that guy brain where you're like, chase girls, chase girls, chase girls, that rabbit. And so that kind of started to fade.

And I'm like, oh, this is nice. Yeah. It's nice not to have to think about, girl, girl, girl, girl, you know, and, you know, over thinking about something 50 times. And then I found I was low on testosterone. So I got testosterone treatment two years ago and it's back. So the OCD, the ADHD, and the girls. So testosterone thing is happening to everybody.

Yeah, because there's a lot of estrogenics and chemicals in our drug, and our soap, micoplastics, yeah. But they won't tell you that. I mean, that's what it is. It's something in the environment. It's something in the environment. We've had a few people in the show that have detailed that and written books about it. It's really true.

It's really true. I quit. Anyway, we're getting off topic for what we're here to talk about for you. Fine. People are like, how did this become the paraben wax show? No, it's all good.

It's got to go with the flow. Go to the flow. But, yeah, I bought the non-estrogenics, non-parabin shampoos and soaps. And I used it for a month, and I was like, ah, sounds like bullshit. I don't feel any. different. And then I ran out of them and I went back and used the old soaps. And my hands and

skin felt like they were dipped in in paraben wax and covering in gloves. It took me like six washing each to get it off. And so you're so you're so you're so used to. You don't know the difference. So you do something different. Talk to us about some of the things and offerings you do on your website. What are some things that people can get involved with you over there? And I think you have a podcast too, don't you? Here I see. Yeah. I do podcasts when there's something really interesting and talk about. I don't have a recurring episode structure yet, but I do that when, for instance, when I have a client that became a unicorn, I'll do a podcast with them. No, there you. No, but like, so the companies I work with, they're all B2B tech companies

for the most part. On my website, there's, there's ways to get more information and to do like an assessment of your current operation from an outbound standpoint. And that's, that's how I, that next to referrals is how I acquire most of my new business. Do you want to give a plug-out to the title of the podcast so that people can look it up, check it out. Sure. Woodward Strategy Sessions. Podcast. Podcast. Maybe, I don't know. But it sounds like you got some really cool people to talk to ROI models, sales teams, different things on marketing, marketing, marketing. How to scale a BDR team to $1 million in $200 million. 100 million. I'm sorry. 100 million. Come on. One million. I told you I flunk second grade. Yeah, it's all good.

But no, I had a hard time in school, too. So if I'm out there listening, what do I want to reach out to Greg about what do I want him to do? Do I want to engage in his training programs? You've got a seven-week training program here. We should feature consulting campaign kids. I have a seven-week program for sales teams. That's my main business next to consulting. I also have a program called Fast Track, which I run it for individuals like twice a year.

If it was a business owner listening to this, that would be something that would be worth for them checking out if it's just them. But yeah, I mean, that's pretty much what is. Private equity, venture capital, I'm a preferred vendor to them because they own larger portfolios of companies. And then sometimes it's just directly to the chief revenue officers of the companies direct. All right. And some people can engage in that. They can do one-on-one coaching with you as well? Yeah, they can.

I do that twice a year with individuals. They usually do that when I do like a workshop. or like a webinar series with a strategic partner, and there's a lot of people there. So I'll do that here. I mean, if you go to woodward strategies.com forward slash navigate, follow the prompts.

Navigate and follow the prompts. What do you, you know, we talked, we alluded this a little bit, and I'm always curious about this conversation. For a long time, I owned a mortgage company.

Yep. And 20 years. So 2008, it fixed that problem. Anyway, fix a lot of mortgage company problems in 2008. I would have people who come to me. me. And I remember one, one perfect example was this guy came to me, and it was a very rudimentary-minded

math teacher. He taught math, you know, probably algebra or something smart. He seemed like a really smart guy, but he's very rudimentary in how things work, because two plus two must always equal four, which is good logic, but if you expect that if you do X amount of work in your, in your entrepreneurial business, and you expect to get results, two plus two does not equal four sometimes two plus two equals bankruptcy yeah yeah so I could tell in talking to them in processing this HELOC loan he wanted to take like a 40 or 50,000 dollar helic loan against his house and he wanted to start a business and retire from from being a math teacher and the more I talked to and the more I could be like this guy can't see him his way out of paper bag this isn't

going to be a healthy thing and so you know it's their money but I would give my client's advice because you have to have some sort of fiduciary duty if you care about people people. I don't want to see people destroy their lives, especially when they're at that age. He was, you know, at a 60s. So it's not a good time to be playing games with your retirement. And, and I just, you know, I talked to him and I go, I don't mean to be insulting, but you do not have the mindset for this. Yeah. You know, I've been running companies for 20 years, starting at 18. You know, you or I, we've talked about, you know, kind of the, we got shaped by the end of the blacksmith anvil.

the hard hits. And I go, I don't think you have the moxie for this. And well, I can kind of develop it. I'm like, I don't think so. You, you deal in a very rudimentary brain world. You know, you show up every day. You get your little check. You get your, you know, every Friday, you know, everything's on gear for you. Like, right. There's no, there's no guaranteed check for you or I. There's, yeah, you get, I've checked my mail on Friday and there's no check there. Sometimes it's a pink slip, so. Yeah. And I'm You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. That's the thing. It's signed by me.

You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. That has to be what's normal to you. Oh, yeah. It's an example. The guy you're talking about sounds like an example of the type of person watching a conversation like this that should not act on it. They should just not. You know this. Entrepreneurs know this.

There's a period of time and it's fucking long. It's way longer than people think. Okay. For me, it was like seven years, six years. where you're so far into it, you can't see where you came from, and there's no avenue of retreat. And you're not far enough into it where you can see any outcome that's in any way clear.

And you're in that lonely middle. That's a lonely place to be. And entrepreneurs don't talk about that very much because the way that people see them is, oh, this person had a good idea. Yeah, they work hard for like a year and then boom. Now they're rich. It's not like it doesn't happen.

that way ever so yeah people need to people whether they're 60 or they're 20 they need to understand that now i will say this so this is this is a point i want to make in my opinion and i think this is the one thing i did really i did right early when i was 18 19 20 in there it was very clear to me i wanted to be an entrepreneur and i had a lot of ambition and i made i told myself i said look i'm going to i'm going to it's going to be moonshots between now and 25 i'm like i'm going to live lean, you know, and I'm going to take all the risk. There's no risk not worth taking here. Then I turned that into 30, you know, because all of a sudden I was 25.

Point is, is I think more people should do that. I think they should do that. Starting young really helps. I was talking about this other day on the show. You know, we were 22 when we started our first multimillionaire company, me and my partner, before that I started my own stuff. And, you know, there's a lot of fitness. failures and losses and things you learn from.

But our first big home run, I said to my business partner, we were both 22 at the time and I go, look, we're probably going to be working 18-hour days. This is all sweat equity, driving cars, driving all over the state. This is going to be grindy as fuck.

And, you know, we're two kids living on, you know, top ramen and shit. Yeah. And, but I think we can smack this one in the park and have a future. And I told them, I go, you know, or here's the other option, we can wait till we're 50, get a golden parachute, assuming we are able to climb the corporate ladder. You know, I've been reading Harvard Business Review for most of my life at that point.

So I knew that the, well, it's a worthy goal. There's a lot of risks and fallout that you can happen. It's almost a miracle. And I said, but I got to tell you, I don't think I'm going to have the energy for this at 50. And boy, was I right? Because I'm 50 now. Yeah, 50-ish. And so I think starting young really helped.

And part of it, I think, made it easier for us to get through the shit because we, you know, we didn't have anything. Yeah. And we were just breaking for anything. You didn't have anything to lose. Yeah, we didn't have your retirement to lose, like, the 60-year-old guy example you just gave me. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, that's not the time to gamble. I mean, most many investment guys will tell you that there.

Whenever we discussed that we should tease out to people or help, educate with people on what you do and how you do it. Well, you know, one of the things that I keep getting choked to death with from everybody I talk to is AI. And I want to talk about it a little bit. Let's do. You know, the reality of it is, is here's what I see. And by no means, am I, like, obviously I'm not a marketing or market expert of financial markets.

But I see every company, certainly every company that I interact with running aggressively, right now, aggressively to spend as much money on AI and allocate as much budget for, next year to AI as they possibly can. And that that pressure in a lot of cases is coming from like private equity funds, venture capital funds, investors, shareholders, right? But here's what's, and I don't mean this to sound, I don't mean this to sound negative in any way. Here's what the reality is in my view. Nobody knows what the fuck they're doing. They have no idea how they're going to use AI, what AI actually is going to do for them, what the tools are going to be, what the tools could do.

Nobody. And the people that everybody thinks knows, and they're on top of it, they have their thumb on the pulse. If you get in a room with them, they think you know more about AI than they do, they'll start asking you questions that illustrate very clearly to you, indicate very clearly to you, they don't know anything about it. So everybody's running towards the same thing, and everybody else is assuming that everyone knows what they're doing other than themselves.

And I'm seeing that, it scares the shit out of me because here's what's going to happen. And this is happening now. Q1 comes around, then the pressure is going to change. And again, the pressure is coming from shareholders, who, by the way, know nothing about AI. Nothing. Nobody knows anything about AI. It's like three people. Yeah.

Probably AI knows everything about AI, and that's right. But he's not talking to us. The pressure is going to change when they have to start showing an ROI on that investment. What? An ROI? Oh, yeah. On their AI investment? No.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So then that's where things are going to get a little hairy in 26. I think that's what's coming. But on the upside, here's how I see like if you just look at like a sales team inside of a big company, Microsoft, for instance. How should they harness AI? I think the evolution is going to be really kind of messy in the beginning. They're going to try to automate with it. And they're going to try it. That's what they're doing. They're trying to automate and trying to replace people. I don't think it's going to work. I think what's going to happen is a be a pivot and then they'll start using it for augmentation. So it helps them think better because what's dangerous is if you rely on AI to think for you. Look, I played around with it. I played around with it for like a good solid week. And I felt dumb when I was done. I stopped using the muscle. And it was just, I just, I felt, I felt 20% dumber. So that's what's going to happen. And I think that we'll see a pivot and then people will start using. it to augment their work so they can think better and more efficiently, but they're still

thinking. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. It'll be interesting. You know, there's a lot of, I can't remember if it's Jamie Diamond or somebody, there's somebody who is, I think there's a few different voices that are warning about a, you know, basically the dot-com style crash, too big to fail style crash, you know, same thing with the housing

crisis, you know, one of those things, so much dumb money, the crazy money is being just throwing wholesale at AI. Yeah. It's an example of running in the opposite direction to a degree. I'm not ignoring it and being contrarian about it. Like, I can tell you right now, if you want, if you're a B-to-B company like me and you want to make more money in 26 than you did last year, and just come up with some random AI product and talk about it and use the word AI and people will throw money at you. I mean, being a little facetious, but not really. I mean, it's, I've had, I've had companies say to me, hey, you know, can we, can we just explain an AI emphasis on this so I can get it put through? I mean, I get that, but that's the kind of pressure they're under.

So anyway, I think there's a lot that is going to come to surface over the next year, certainly over the next six months with how this is going to impact the work environment for people. Yeah, it seems to be kind of interesting how it's affected our governance or our government and stuff. the Biden administration was trying to evidently, this is something I got from Mark Andreessen and a few other people I guess and they were talking about how I guess the Biden administration was trying to kind of

contain AI so it didn't become you know a monster and I guess get access to weapons systems I suppose and they wanted three handpicked companies to be the developers for that and of course that doesn't really work well in a capitalist society

and that was kind of the rebellion that were kind of on the weird side of now by Silicon Valley and why you've seen so many people in Silicon Valley go from the left to the right. And I think a lot of it has to do with this fight over who's going to control AI and who's, you know, Mark Zuckerberg, when you look at the billions he piled into the meta technology.

What was that crap he was doing, the fake profiles or whatever? Oh, yeah. You know, with the glasses and stuff, that was a bomb. And so all these guys, they need the next big thing. You know, they're hooked on that drug for the next big thing. And so, you know, they're willing to do whatever it takes to get on this train. Because, yeah, probably you're right about, I mean, I'm in D.C., so I see it.

And I know people in the administration, I mean, there is a shift. I mean, maybe it's just because they're, they're sucking the power teat. I don't know. But $400 million from Zuckerberg went to the Democrats a couple of years ago, and now he's, you know, coming to the White House for dinner. Oh, yeah. I mean, you'll see all the Silicon Valley people live. lapped up at the inauguration going to things and yes sir no sir whatever you want sir but it's a good collaboration because i think i think you do remember the the the

website the nine billion dollar website for i think it was obamacare or something and it didn't even oh yeah it crashed the first thing you know so it's it's sort of like government shouldn't try to be a tech company that's true not not a good idea but uh i i's a little scary Look at the Dutch of solar ordained it to planetur. I'm sure that they'll do something ethical with it. Just no one knows half of what they do. I'm sure it'll end well. Sure, whatever.

Sure. 1984. Well, as we go out, give people a final pitch out to utilize you, reach out to you to find out more about your services, how they can work with you, et cetera, et cetera. If you're a tech company that has outbound sales reps or salespeople that are just doing prospecting, reach out to me.

If you're a business owner and you don't have a team yet, I run a thing twice a year. I'm running it right now called Fast Track. Reach out to me. Woodward Strategies.com. Gregory, you see Woodward on LinkedIn. So it's been wonderful and insightful you have on the show. I'm glad that you confirmed all the things that I thought were right.

We're right. So that helps make it so that I think you're awesome. Well, thank you. The affirmation. The affirmation of the day. Good to know there's other people damaged as I am to become on. That's right. You got to stick together.

Honestly, I didn't know what I, honestly, I didn't know what I would do without ADHD. I don't, maybe I'd just be working at McDonald's still flipping burgers. And there's nothing wrong with that, folks. It's a worthy enterprise.

Everyone's got their place in society. The worst is when people say, you know, oh, I only have a week of vacation. I'm like, what do you, like,

in prison? Are you in prison? Yeah, like, I can't, I can't live that way. And I, most people can and that's great and there's nothing wrong with it you're right but

I to me it's it's surprising to me that the 89 90% of the rest of the people here think that that's okay yeah I remember I had a you know I've been an entrepreneur for 20 plus years at this point and my brother was like hey I was living in California he goes hey can we come stay at your house save some money I got the two kids and the wife and you know it's costly for hotel rooms and can we crash at your house and, you know, go over to Disneyland. And I was like, yeah, sure, man. You're brother. Yeah. And he had all scheduled with me. He goes, I've got this week off. It's cleared at my work. And we're going to come down. So I had activities planned for them to keep them happy and engaged. You know, I don't have any kids or wives. I can't afford the

divorces. But I'm still saving up. I got about $2 million saved. I think that should handle my first thing. Still saving up for your first divorce? We'll save enough for the first of course. And then the second one after that, because you've got to do two really quickly. I've got to catch up to most men my age. That's right. So it's a speed run. And so he calls me as I'm starting to expect them to, you know, start driving down from Utah to come to California.

And he goes, hey, man, my boss says, even though I put in for this time off, they're short-handed, we can't have it. So we're going to put this off for a month or two. And I was just, I remember how shocked I was. And I told him, I go, why do you tell him to take a flying fucking leap? Well, he works at hospitals, right? Yeah. So, you know, if you're bad with one hospital or doctor, you know, words are going to get around. Why did you get fired?

No, I took my doctor told the doctor to my fucking leap. But I was so stunned. I'm like, how can they do that to you? Let's call my attorney. He's like, no, you can't do that in this situation. I'm like, what do you mean you can't do that? I do it all the time. Oh, the other thing, the other thing that's equally troubling to me is, but look, and there's nothing wrong with this.

Most people are this way. That doesn't, just for me, there would be something wrong with it, right? Yeah. Having a capped income, you know, where you're nine hours a day or eight hours a day and then you know exactly how much you're going to make and no more. To me, that, like, that takes the excitement out of it. I mean, if I had to work for another company, I would be in sales just because I can, I can put the ball. wherever I want you know I can I can I can aspire to make more you know what I mean if you see I have friends that are that are like teachers right and but there's

there's really no there's no way to get rich doing that you know yeah I mean it's it's really hard and you know it's it's I mean you either get that guaranteed security I mean you used to have a lot of when I when we had our big sales company in Utah I mean, we had people making $20,000 a month off me, but off themselves for what they were selling. And so they would come to work for us, and we'd give them $2,500 a month's draw, and then usually I'd have to increase that in a month or two. We had a great lead system, so we almost forced you to make a lot of money. And you had to work hard not to. And but a lot of, and this is back in the 90s, but a lot of women back then in Utah, totally changed when I went to California and Vegas, a different crowd.

but they didn't want to do jobs that didn't involve security. Well, is there a guarantee? No. Yeah, yeah. And then the other thing they would bug me about is they go, was there health insurance? And I'm like, no, you're making $20 grand a month. You can afford your own.

Like, I either pay you $20,000 a month. You know, if I went to any way, 20 grand a month guys and went, hey, I've got to reduce your income by a couple thousand a month to pay for health insurance. They told me to take a flying fucking leap. They would. But then they would still complain about me how we didn't have health insurance. You know, it's like, right. Pleasure, yeah.

When you came to me, I offered you a $2,500 month raw, and you were, you were peeing your pants over $2,500. So, give me a break. But, yeah, it's, there really is a mindset. I think over time you can kind of develop it, but there's a certain, that it's such a compulsive nature that we have, that OCD, where we can just take an idea and just eat the shit out

from every different angle. I think it's hard to do. Well, what's difficult is there was no education, there is no education, formal education that I'm aware of, whether it's high school or college, that teaches you how to make money. And before you say, well, business school, that doesn't teach you how to make money. That doesn't. No. Sometimes if you get lucky, you go to a really good one.

One of your professors is a former CEO, and because of their specific interest in a subject, they may give you some pointers, right? But nobody knows how to make money. And the other thing that nobody learns in school, and we keep going back to school because I think this is what, I think this is just a really important thing. I think education's dead, by the way. I think it's going to be disrupted. I think it is being disrupted.

And I think that's a positive thing. But the other thing that they don't teach is mindset. That's the most important thing, way more than skills. In my training programs, mindset. creates more of a result than anything else in people. They don't even touch it in school. Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty obsolete.

It's crazy. To me, that's crazy. It's just insane. I mean, there's so many things they don't teach that they need to teach in school. How to manage your credit report. What credit is? How to balance a checkbook.

You know, how to, you know, how to taxes. How to taxes work, you know. Like all these skills, I, you know, I even joke for years, they should force people that if you want to breathe, and have kids and get married, you need to take two years of college to, number one, get rid of all your traumas and all the shit from child, the sociopathist, then you need to learn how to have

healthy relationships with other healthy human beings and how to raise children properly. You know, you don't let them free roam, you put them in the dog cage, you know, until they need to go poop. I think they call that, you know, and stuff. You know, all those things that CPS keeps telling me, I can't do anymore. But yeah, I, I really think, you know, it's so amazing to me how people are just, like, so flipping about it. Like, I'm going to ruin some poor bastards innocent life by bringing my wreckage of, anyway, I'm just doing jokes, folks. Don't right me. So, well, thank you very much for coming the show.

We really appreciate it. It's been insightful and all that great stuff, Greg. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Thank you. And give us the dot com one last time as we go out. Woodward Strategies.com.

Well, thank you very much for coming the show, Greg. We really appreciate it. you got it. Thanks for honest. Thanks for us for us, Chris Foss. LinkedIn.com, Fortezs Chris Foss. Chris Foss, one of the TikToky and Facebook.com, Fortezs, Chris Foss.

Don't make me pull the car over and come back there, folks, because I will. Don't test me. Anyway, has anyone seen the dog lately? That's a national ampoon vacation joke. You gen Zeres can go look that up. Anyway, thanks for tuning, everyone. Be good to each other.

Stay safe. We'll see you next time. There you go. Not bad for guys.