Networking Unleashed: Building Profitable Connections. An Interview with David Greer and Michael A Forman
- mforman521
- Jul 7
- 16 min read
📍 📍 📍 Welcome back to Networking Unleashed, building Profitable Connections. I'm your host, Michael Forman, speaker strategist, and firm believer that the right connection can change the course of a life or a business. Today's episode is more about than more about. More than just networking. It's about resilience.
It's about starting over. It's about the power of relationships, not just to grow a business, but to rebuild a life. My guest today is an entrepreneur whose journey through addiction and into recovery, has shaped the bold, authentic, and purpose-driven approach to networking. Their story is proof that no matter where you've been, you can always build forward one meaningful connection at a time.
Whether you're in recovery, yourself, supporting someone who is, or just looking ahead to lead with more authenticity and courage in your business relationships. This conversation will meet you right where you are. David, how are you today and could you tell us a little bit about yourself? Michael, thanks for having me.
I am doing fantastic today. And for your listeners, I'm a 40 plus year entrepreneur and 10 years ago after working with a brilliant coach, I decided I wanted to offer to entrepreneurs the things that coach Kevin had offered to me. So I became an entrepreneurial coach and a facilitator. And I'm in recovery from alcoholism and I made the decision a few years ago just three or four to become public about that.
And so I now specialize in helping entrepreneurs who are challenged with alcoholism or addiction. Okay. That's great. And con congratulations because I know how difficult it is and you've made it this far, so I congratulations are in order. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. You're welcome.
Okay, so let's start. How has your journey through recovery influenced your approach to networking as an entrepreneur? My recovery is through one of the best known 12 step programs, which is really, the fellowship of those programs is the essence of networking. Although you might not realize it when you go in, like when I walked into my first meeting, I was scared outta my mind.
I was probably five or six years before I really admitted that, and I was just really warmly welcomed. And really welcomed into that group. I later joined it as my home group. And one of the things, so I've heard you inter in other interviews on your podcast talk about how important it is to have great listening skills when you're networking and 12 step meetings to me.
More than almost any other experience I've had in my life is honoring the person who's speaking. In Paul step recovery meetings, there's typically it could be going around the room and people are sharing. There could be an invited speaker, but what I've noticed is when the person is speaking about their experience, strength, and hope, and their journey before, during, and after recovery, you generally can hear a pin drop in the room.
And it's just this respect that the, that everyone has for the person who's speaking. And so that's one of the things I really think is super important in networking is, it's not about getting my point of view across, it's really listening to someone else listening what they do finding. And then, step 12 in recovery is about being of service.
So the only way I get to stay sober is to share my experience, stroke and hope with other people who are suffering in the hope that they'll get something from what I, my experience that will help them. And my belief in networking is that we we get the most out of networking when we're being of service to the other people that are there.
And rather than it being all about me, it's all about the other people and asking them what they're stuck on and seeing if there's a way that I can help them, which they won't always be. But if nothing else, I can at least be a good listener and honor what they've shared. By reflecting it back or giving perspective on it.
So those are some of the ways that my experience in recovery is very overlapped with how and why and the way that I network, I. That's great. And I don't want to equate what you've gone through to just networking, 'cause I feel that's so small in comparison.
But the one thing that I see that is the same is that you approach it with a servant's heart. Yes. And 'cause you're looking to give not to receive. So if you can take that feeling, that knowledge and just bring it into your networking or deals, then you should be fine. But having the servant's heart is the really, the number one way of networking.
And I, again, I don't want to compare it to what you went through because there is no comparison. Okay. So what strategies do you use to build authentic connections in business while maintaining your sobriety? One of the ways is being, coming on podcasts like yours and really sharing my journey.
Okay. For 20 years I was a daily drinker and I was in complete denial. I. About my alcoholism and I was a high performing alcoholic, so you know, I drank 'cause it was rocket fuel so I could get more stuff done. I drank, so the lows weren't quite so low. I drank 'cause to make the highs higher.
Really at the end of the day I drank 'cause I was an alcoholic. And so I share the story of coming into recovery, which. Actually happens through networking as it happens. So I went to an event with a guy, Verne Harnish, has a couple books called The Rockefeller Habits and Scaling Up, and he's created something called the One Page Strategic Plan.
There's a lot of entrepreneurs who really find this framework very useful and I'd heard about it, but I didn't really know the details. And I took an entrepreneur that I was working with and decided to learn more and went to an all day session that Verne was giving here in Vancouver, Canada. And at the break he said, Hey, there are two scaling up coaches at the back of the room.
And I went and started talking to them. I talked to both of them and one of them made me more uncomfortable than I'd been in four or five years. And he made me really realize that I was completely unfulfilled in this phase of my career. And I won't get into all the details, but.
I literally had tears in the corner of my eyes at a networking event with like a hundred business people, which is and I'm not necessarily advocating that as a networking strategy, in, in this what I heard was what I needed to hear. I think that's the important thing to take away from that experience.
Yeah. And I took Kevin's card and. I had it next to my phone and probably once a week I thought about calling him and reaching out, and every time I did the phone weighed maybe 10,000 pounds. Like I wasn't ready to take that step. And then after about three weeks, Kevin called me and said, Hey, do you remember me from the Vern Harnish event?
And I said, yes. I didn't say, I haven't thought about much else in the last three weeks, but yeah, I was, I, and this is a great example of where, Kevin saw something and then he had systems in place so that he made sure to eventually follow up with me. And I ended up hiring Kevin as my coach.
And he's my kind of guy. It's like I'm all in or all out. There's no in between. With Kevin at that time for one-on-one coaching, his initial coaching session was two eight hour days. So that's all in, that's all in. So we worked on my career and we worked on cleaning all the kind of clutter off the table until after 18 months.
I built such a strong trust relationship with him that he was the first person I admitted I had a drinking problem to. And in his personal life, he had encountered people who had long-term sobriety and were part of 12 step recovery, and they'd educated him about how it works. So he had the tools necessary to tell me, suggest what to do.
And he, I committed to, that was a Tuesday January 27th, 2009. And I committed Tim to go to a meeting by that Friday and being the overachiever that I am I looked online that afternoon and saw that when I was gonna be driving home from a networking event at eight o'clock, there was gonna be a meeting, a quarter of a block off the road I was driving down.
That started at eight 30 and that was my first meeting. And the one I just mentioned was the one where I got really welcome to and actually made what's called a home group, which is a group I commit to going to every week. And I will I was there last Tuesday night, so I've been there going there for 16 years.
That's really great. And thank you for sharing that with us. How did you navigate disclosing your recovery in professional settings?
So let's back up the story a little bit. After Kevin, he'd stopped one-on-one coaching and I switched coaches to actually, to his coach, a woman by the name of N O'Connor based in Atlanta. And then after we worked together, and I told her about my recovery in that from the get go.
But as we worked together over the years. She kept reflecting back to me how every time we talked about my recovery and my experiences in 12 step recovery, how pure my energy was and also any question she asked me I had answers for. And she just kept prodding me a little bit to go public. That took a little while. Probably took a couple years of, and it's not like she brought it up every coaching call. It's just, from time to time she, something would come up around my recovery, I'd talk about it. She said, wow, like it is just, your energy is so pure around this. And then again, all in or all out.
So once I made the decision to out myself publicly and let people know. I shot some videos, I put them on YouTube, I promoted them on social media, and I just I'm, if I'm in a networking event and I introduce myself, I say, hi, I am David Greer. I'm a, just like I did at the start of this this interview today.
Hi, I am coach David Greer. I'm a 40 plus year entrepreneur business coach and facilitator, and I work. With entrepreneurs who generally own founders who have businesses with 10 to 200 employees. And I specialize in working with entrepreneurs who are challenged one way or another with alcoholism and or addiction.
And it's that like simple, it is just, it's part of that very, quick summary of who and what I am and who I try to help. Yeah. You had to go through what you went through for you to have that clarity. Yes. So you can actually go out and talk to people, but everything relies on something else.
And you always, but you got to the point where you are clear. You had that clarity when you spoke, when you speak, because you. Are so well in tune with what you went through and that you're trying to help somebody else from going through. It's nothing but, but a great thing. That's all. Thank you.
Let's go to challenges. What unique challenges do entrepreneurs in recovery, phase one networking, and how do you overcome them? I do a fair amount of coaching around this particular area. Especially because like CEOs, business owners generally when get invited to anything in the business community there's always sponsors who wanna sponsor the bar 'cause they want to get access to these people.
So booze is usually free. Yeah. And I coach around things like. Always have a drink in your hand, like a glass of water is fine, but you don't want someone else like offering to get you a drink because, especially someone who's not comfortable in being public about their sobriety, which, and you don't owe an explanation to anyone, but you also don't want to get into a big No, I really don't want, a beer.
Yeah. And so you can head off at the pass. Some of those questions by always having a drink in your hand. Another thing that is critically important I believe, is that you need to have an exit strategy before you get there. So if you get triggered, and I have had this happen in networking events where, like you don't know when you'll bitch be triggered.
I can go to 10 networking events and it's perfectly fine, and then one, but something. Something that triggers my, subconscious brain. And I'm feeling really uncomfortable, so I have to have an exit strategy and I particularly have to work out with my spouse. If we're going to a networking or some kind of social event or a charity gala or something like, okay, dear, I'm gonna let you know if I get triggered.
I'm gonna leave now. Are you coming with me? If not, we need to have separate transportation. Like you need to talk this through and have a plan ahead of time. 'cause maybe she'll stay and you'll leave. And then you also have to have a little story that she's gonna tell people. But you need to do this for your protection.
So this is really important that you, if you know there's drinking going to be involved and most networking, many networking events, especially in the afternoon and the evening, there is how are you gonna protect yourself? Okay. You answered my next question, so I'm going to just. Skip over it.
And can you share an example of a pivotal connection that significantly impacted your business or recovery? I, that's why I shared meeting coach Kevin, right? I, getting sober is the single biggest achievement in my life. And my belief is that the universe put coach Kevin in my path so I could get sober and right.
And I go to this event with no notion at all of Kevin and the other coach were just networking, meeting entrepreneurs, talking to them, being of same thing, being of service and and obviously looking for business. But, they were doing a lot of coaching in the back of the room and it was a pivotal encounter that led.
To the single biggest achievement of my life. So it, it's unquestionably, my most important person that I've met through networking. Okay. Okay. How has networking contributed to your personal growth in recovery?
Some. I network for a number of reasons. Like I was thinking about this before I came on the podcast today. Like for one thing, I only, now I'm at a stage where I generally only go to networking events if I think they're gonna be fun or they're going to have a piece of learning. And there's something in addition to the networking forms part of a bigger event.
And sorry, I've lost the question. I know where I am in the answer, but you have to remind me of the question. How has networking contributed to your personal growth in recovery? Yeah. And I look for those things that are gonna challenge my personal or professional growth. I also, like on the personal side I found a conference that happens every January in Mexico, which is run by people from AA and Al-Anon.
It's called Sobriety Under the Sun Tracks about 800 people and the speakers that they have, it's not exactly a networking event, but it is 'cause you're there with, the thing is, my tribe is recovering people. And especially recovering people who used false step recovery as their method for getting and staying sober and living life on life's terms.
And I've learned a tremendous amount by the leadership and or by the speakers there, not just in recovery, but their example in life and like what they have done in life subsequent to getting sober and how they have served their communities in different ways. So it inspires me. Not just in my personal life, but also in my business life.
And then a lot of this personal growth that I've needed to do in order to grow in recovery has then let me show up much better as a coach. So this personal growth work, while it's not, directly learning a new. Technical skill or what AI is useful for those can be useful too. But getting to know myself better because now I can get myself out of the way more when I'm on coaching calls, I.
And, granted that your personal growth can help you while you are coaching, so you can help other people, but your personal growth with just about everything else that you have a new appreciation for because you know that you're sober, but you can contribute so much more. And that's what a big thing is.
Yeah and I'm a lot more empathetic I've been to probably 2,512 step meetings now. And like the number of stories I've heard and like the inspiration of what people have managed to overcome and being able to hear those stories and be inspired by them has also then formed my own ability to inspire others, to help others, to inspire others. So again, it's, when people hire me as a coach, they often say we're only gonna talk about business issues. And I go I'll never talk to you about anything you don't want to talk about. Now, six months in. Almost guaranteed there'll be some personal or life issue that enters into our Sure coaching discussion because this notion that we can compartmentalize our, compartmentalize ourselves into these, finite, rooms.
There's my career room, there's my personal resiliency room, there's my relationship room is just completely bogus. So my, my belief very deeply. Especially as a coach is that, and as an entrepreneur is whenever we grow in business personally, relationships, that growth spills over into every other aspect of our life.
I agree a hundred percent. There's no way that you can. You can't separate all the different things of your life, of your business life because it's so intertwined. There's a saying, an entrepreneur, but there's another, there's a solopreneur. I'm a solopreneur because I'm by myself and I go out and I speak and everything else.
But there's a work life balance that I have to keep with my wife, with my family, with my job with. They all have to work together, otherwise they don't work at all, and that's what I think you tried to explain. Let me go on advice. What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs in recovery who are looking to expand their network?
If 12 step recovery works for you, I'd highly recommend that that obviously expands your sober community and, people in recovery tend to help other people in recovery. So it might, I've had some career opportunities that were a result of networking through. It's all step recover.
There's that aspect. And then, my general advice is you need to know your tribe. So whether that's other recovering entrepreneurs or it's like other entrepreneurs at your level, like there's some peer networking groups here in Vancouver. And some of them I think do a great job of matching entrepreneurs.
So they get entrepreneurs to meet monthly who are roughly at the same stage status, like not way bigger or further, or way lower. I think whether you're in recovery or not and you're an entrepreneur, it's who is your tribe? I really encourage entrepreneurs to not do it alone to find others, whether it's a mentor, whether it's a coach, but also to find your peers in your community who you can network and spend some time with.
And, it's not necessarily you listen to another entrepreneur and do what they did. Oftentimes it's listening to another entrepreneur and realizing the struggles you have others have and that it's not, yeah it's not just me. And it's true the people that I coach are entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, that are up to a certain level.
But I have a coach, I have a mentor, and because I need to go further. So regardless of where you are on that ladder, you need somebody, yet you can help people, yes. So that's the way that I see it. So let's bring this whole thing. Full circle. And how do you see the intersection of entrepreneurship and recovery shaping future network practices?
Wow. I'm not certain I have an answer to that. I I've really struggled to find other coaches like me, business coaches who specialize in recovery. So if you're one of those and you're listening, I'd love for you to get in touch. And, there's also, I know of one sober recover, recovering entrepreneur community that I've found.
And I think that's a really interesting idea because I think that as recovering alcoholics, I talked about like some of these networking problems. There's also problems in closing big deals where alcohol is usually involved and now you don't drink. So that. Because of the role of an entrepreneur, I think it, it's very helpful if you're working, if and can network with other entrepreneurs who are also in recovery.
So I encourage you to find those. But again, not many people are being public, so it's a challenge to figure out. Most people just don't wanna be public about their recovery. So it's, I don't really have an answer to that, but I'd like to see more of it. That's okay. Listen, David, how can somebody get hold of you if somebody wanted to be coached by you or just sit down and talk to you about anything, how can they get hold of you?
So I, two part answers. So the first part is I want all your listeners to know that I have an offer. I offer one hour free coaching to anyone who wants it. If you're stuck on something, it doesn't business. Alcohol related, it doesn't matter. Reach out to me and I'm happy to spend an hour with you.
Now, how do you reach out to me, coach dj greer.com. That's coach D as in David, J as in james greer.com. Top left corner of every single webpage on my website has my phone number and my email address. So use one of those and reach out to me or use the contact form if that feels better for you. Perfect.
David, I can tell you're a great guest and you gave information. I hope all my listeners got just as much information and I really appreciated you coming on. Thanks, Michael. I really appreciated being here today.
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Michael is a business networking expert specializing in enhancing professionals' networking and communication skills to drive profitability. As a leading authority in this field, he is highly sought after for his dynamic presentations and workshops. His extensive experience has consistently led to significant improvements in corporate profitability by empowering individuals and organizations to connect more effectively and efficiently.
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