Kyle Gray

Check out more of Kyle

The Story Engine Podcast: itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-story-engine-podcast/id1430123429?mt=2

Twitter: /kylethegray

LinkedIn: in/kyle-gray-27055b33

The Story Engine Book: thestoryengine.co/book

Website: thestoryengine.co

https://thestoryengine.co/crossroads-heros-journey-buyers-journey/


https://thestoryengine.co/content-marketing-buyers-journey/


http://sellingwithstory.co/


https://thestoryengine.co/resources


https://thestoryengine.co/selling-with-story-resources

Show Notes

Robert Peterson 0:34
Kyle, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I'm excited to have this conversation and share your story. So with that, I usually that my guests share their entrepreneurial journey and what's led them to the impact they're trying to make in the world now.

Kyle Gray 2:39
Hey, Robert, thank you so much for having me on your show. And I'm so excited to continue the conversation that we've been we've been having. And there's lots of ways that I can answer that question. But based off of what I know about you and what you care about. I would say that interesting opening chapter in my entrepreneurial journey is living in Cusco, Peru. I had been there for several months, working as an intern helping different business owners learn how to like keep their books, you know, just basic little tn does tiny stores are just up in the hills, helping these people with just you know, establish a guinea pig farm or plant fruit trees doing, doing lots of different things. And I heard about people traveling the world, and growing businesses with their laptops. And that sounded so exciting, I love to travel, there was nothing else that really made sense. To me. I like went to college. I remember freshman year, like writing this desperate, you know, essay about how frustrated I was that I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. And the only thing that made sense was being able to travel. And so but so I'm here in Peru, and I'm like, Well, I speak Spanish. And you know I can, I would I would consider myself and maybe the 95th percentile of Americans that if you put me in a random country, and I didn't know where I was, you know, I would be able to survive and be okay, I would perform. So that's that's a skill I can I can vouch for but I didn't think that that would transfer into the entrepreneurial world that I so desperately wanted to enter. So I listen to podcasts for years, waiting for my perfect business idea to come to me, the one that would have no competition that I would be able to launch to immediate success. And of course, it would be you know, the first thing I came up with and I would just, you know, it would be great. And I waited for years. And it never came until I started doing random little entrepreneurial things and just building up my courage and building up my journey. I think my first money I ever made That I would consider Well, I made some entrepreneur money a little bit as a kid. But I built like search engine websites like plaid pants.org. And I would hire, you know, freelancers to write articles for $1 with keywords about plaid pants, or gluten free crackers are random things, that people would come to the websites and click on the ads, I would make a nickel and I remember the first nickel I made. And it changed everything a website that I had built, you know, made a little bit of money. And from there, I began on an endeavor to see what fit for me, I tried lots of different businesses that were particularly embarrassing and dumb, in the very early seasons, but I think that's part of it, you learned a lot, and started really refining and finding out where I did good and what led me up and what I really enjoyed. And I started gravitating towards storytelling and connecting with people and great teaching. And being able to influence ideas with that teaching. I started writing and seeing how my writing, as in the form of blogging, and storytelling for the growth of different businesses, was a really powerful tool and began writing my own books, and using my writing skills to insert myself into different businesses, and with align myself with certain leaders who were doing things that were interesting that I wanted to learn. And slowly, I started seeing how people would speak from the stage and create an experience that would inspire people that would open people up to new ideas, and that would create action. And it reminded me of what it was like to be 19 and playing music on the stage. And having like creating an experience for people by being a singer songwriter, that I knew I had to be a part of that. And so I used my writing skills to insert myself and several different companies, several different leaders who were all offering, you know, $10,000 Here's how you build a great webinar. Here's how you build a great signature talk, here's how you position yourself to be a speaker, and helped and served worked with hundreds and hundreds of hundreds and hundreds of people through these programs, helping position themselves as speakers helping them write great signature talks, and was also building my own business. I had a copywriting business would write talks for people and even had a great team of stay at home moms across the across North America and Europe, who would do web development and copywriting and all these great things for me. And when the when the pandemic happened, I had to right size my team, there was a lot of things a lot of people were scared, nobody knew what was going on. And, and I wasn't the greatest team manager, I did. So I was very good at sales, I was very good at what I the way I served my clients. They loved working with me. But managing the team and my team and the clients, it was crazy, until we had to just cut it down. And this was the time where I really had enough courage to be like, Okay, well, I'm not going to kind of hide myself behind other people's companies anymore. Like, I have this skill set, and I can market and sell this. And so I began my journey as being a very high end, very high touch, presentation and signature talk coach helping many of the people that I've worked with over in health and wellness, in entrepreneurship in leadership, express all of the brilliant ideas that they have in their head in a way that really lands in the hearts of their audiences and inspires the action that they want them to take.

Robert Peterson 9:05
Nice. I like it. There's obviously a lot happening in there. But let's, I know, obviously you're living where you want to live, you're doing what you want to do in and you really did end up discovering that laptop business lifestyle. So let's dig into that idea of designing the life that you want and then creating the business to support it.

Kyle Gray 9:33
Absolutely. I wish I could say that I was methodical and a certain way or that way like, knew when I was doing you know the way I told this story, it seemed like it all made sense. But even to this day, and even you know really literally to this day I like wake up and I'm like I have no idea what's going on. Like I know what I know my values and I know what works and I'm working but at the same time I'm Like is this adding up to something? I have no idea where this is going. Yeah, it's an act of faith. It's a real big, like active lack of faith and a lot of ways. But yeah, being able to have a vision for something that I want, I this is one of the most important processes that I have. And the I can look back on this and know that there are less than a dozen less than 10 Rare shining gem moments in my life, where I knew what I wanted. And I could picture it very clearly what I wanted in my life. And I there was, I was certain that I was going to get it, there was nothing that would stand in my way. One of these moments was actually you mentioned, I'm living where I want right now. I came to the Big Island of Hawaii in November of 2020. And it was expecting to be there for a five day vacation. But this actually reminded me of the times when I was a traveler, and I was living in Thailand, being in the jungles over here. And it reminded me of it like a youthful time when I was just starting out in this crazy world and starting to learn these things, and decided to stay here. And then another really great story from my college years that I think perfectly encapsulates this energy, which will answer this question in a way. I heard about a internship to Brazil, as an undergrad where you would work for an airline, you would do guerilla marketing. So they would fly you to different cities around Brazil, you'd live in Sao Paulo, and then you would work for an airline traveling to different cities, and handing out discounts and vouchers on the street speaking to people. And I heard about this, and I still wanted to go to Brazil after living in South America for a while. And I got an appointment with my with the international internship coordinator at the university. And I sat down next with her and I was like, hey, I want to go to Brazil, I want to go on this trip. And she said, Okay, do you speak Portuguese? And I said, No, but I will by the time I get there. And, you know, I meant it. And there was like, I was like I will and she was like, Okay, well, you know, if you can prove that, then that's one thing. And you need to have, you need to have like a local internship first, because we're not just going to send some random person abroad. You know, if we don't know that we can trust you. And I was like, Okay. And I just so happened to have a friend who was working in a leadership position in a nonprofit, the one that ultimately sent me to Peru at the beginning of this adventure. And told, told him, I needed an internship right away. And so like, literally left the office called got an internship and went back into the office and told them I had an internship. And she was like, well, you're supposed to like, sign up and go through the university things and all of these things, but I was just like, I'm doing this. And it's so rare for a student to be like, here, I'm ready to do stuff, you know, that. It won them over. But that, and that comes from just really knowing what you want. And I wish I knew, I wish I was better at knowing that I wish I could conjure that feeling. And maybe it's just a practice of doing it. But the best way I know how to do this right now is by a process I call smell crafted. And it's just writing out the future that you want to experience in as much detail as possible. And what are you seeing what are you tasting? What are you feeling and writing it like it's in present tense? These are the exact same techniques that I use to help somebody create a powerful origin story to share from the stage. But instead it's creating a story that enrolls and inspires you a vision that you can set yourself in and navigate towards.

Robert Peterson 14:21
I love it. I mean, really, it's creating Napoleon Hill's burning desire, right by and visualizing it in, in the most at think that's a big challenge for people and why so many people don't apply Napoleon's instructions, but really, when he talks about a burning desire, he talks about, you know, creating that pathway, that idea that that result in your mind so clearly, that it has no choice but to happen. Yeah, so I I love that. So I do want to dig back a little bit. And you mentioned Bruce ZIL, and this guerilla marketing opportunity, but you also mentioned the nonprofit you that you got to go work in Peru and do this work. So share a little bit more about that. For me, it's it this is personal this is, you know, I lived in Colombia for 10 years and, and a big part of my plan now in on the business development side is to do exactly what it sounds like you were doing, and helping small business owners believe in a bigger vision, believe in a bigger possibility. I think small business development entrepreneurship is really the solution to so many of the world's challenges because it solves the biggest challenge underneath all of them. And that's poverty. And so helping people run their business, helping people build something bigger than they even think is possible, is really what I want to start helping and places like Peru and Colombia, Brazil, and of course, many countries in Africa are our prime and ripe for this type of work. So I'm intrigued to hear a little bit about this nonprofit and the work you were doing.

Kyle Gray 16:07
Definitely, well, it's something I kind of illustrated on the podcast, I have both good things and criticisms about this, this area of philanthropy. And what you're saying is really interesting to me, my experience was a lot less about transformational ideas, like what you were describing, and more teaching them how to, you know, keep your books and having the income books and the outgoing books, and really, really simple stuff, or don't buy a new refrigerator, if you can buy a used refrigerator. But these things were like could make a tremendous difference, or helping them create a guinea pig farm are planted for you fruit trees, and perhaps something like this would have been would have been more powerful for them, I would be really intrigued to see what cultivating the you know, the mindset and the ideas that we were talking about in the previous question. In these communities. And, and what possibilities like there's, there's, there's a part of me that I'm skeptical in this area, because also my time working in Peru, there was good work done. And I was doing good work a lot of the time and there was a lot of work and energy and money wasted. And just having people come on these week long retreats and do something that made them feel like they made an impact in this world. And they could go home with a clear conscience by painting, you know, a mud hut in the Sacred Valley or something that was a good enough project. And so there was a lot of times where I felt like we were taking more than we were giving or offering these places. And I also felt that one of the biggest dangers of philanthropic leadership is the fallacy that just because you are a good person and trying to do good things, that that means that you should or like that you shouldn't run this like a business and a well tuned organization that for some reason, having a good heart gives you a path to not be Integris in certain ways, which I feel ultimately sapped a lot of the power of this organization to make a big impact.

Robert Peterson 18:40
Well, I appreciate the honesty, I've coming into the business world and, obviously I spent 20 years in ministry, I spent 20 years raising my own support and, and, and understanding the connection between supporters and the work being done, and the value exchange that was happening. And so I have a very strong position about how money should be spent and what should be done. And results, of course, are very important. But depending on expectations, of course, too, because sometimes our expectations for performance for being funded from the US to you know, work actually occurring in a third world country can be very challenging, but I've seen and been invited to galleries and events and all these things that are supporting philanthropic efforts. And then I come to find out that small tiny pieces are going to the charity and a 90% of the money's going into the person that hosted the events pocket and, and so I've been jaded on this side of the events as well. And so I definitely want events that are run with great clarity and great honesty that say, Look, our administrative fees are this and the cost of putting on this fancy dinner is this, and this is what we're going to end up, you know, sending to the charity. And, and this is the result that they'll get on the other end. And so I agree with you wholeheartedly about, you know, just because you're doing something with a good heart, if that's what you're using as your promotion piece, and that's how you're raising your money and getting your volunteers, then you need to have the integrity that you're, you're trying, you're making an effort to get results, as well. And, for me, my heart is clearly getting people results, helping people to change their lives. And that's, that's super important. And so if we're not making that happen, I don't want to I don't want to spend my money or anybody else's money to make those kinds of things happen. I don't want to spend my energy just to travel, I've, I've done plenty of traveling, I want to do travel with a purpose and make sure that the impact that we're having is very, very real. So I love that you're bringing this to the front. And I love that, that it's challenging me to think a little differently about how do we approach this as a business opportunity? How do we approach this to encourage business leaders to participate? Like for me, I even think about the difference. You know, I've stayed in hotels and stayed in people's homes, and I've stayed in places that most Americans wouldn't stay, necessarily. So it's like, alright, if I'm taking a group of business leaders that are all making six figures, are they gonna want to stay in this tiny little hotel that we've stayed in, in the past, it's like, you have some reality checks that we have to do in the process, because we're sure different process with business leaders. And

Kyle Gray 21:43
then if you don't get those people in your company, then the lights aren't getting stay on for very long, and you're not going to be able to do the good work. Exactly. It's like it's, it's, you know, and a lot of these things like it's hard to be good. As you know, what I would even give credit for like, a lot of the people that I've you know, worth mentioning are, I think that everybody has every good intention. They really do have good hearts, they're trying to do good things. And yeah, just like 100 things like what you just described.

Robert Peterson 22:13
to know love that story love loves sharing. But let's dig back to the root of all of this is is really the power of story. Right and the power of your story helping people extract their story. My frustration, recently, at least in the social media space, and other spaces, you know, these people trying to pop up a business and show up on social media. And well, there's two sides buying likes and follows and podcast reviews. And then the other side is you know showing up and creating a story where you look I've got a sports car I rented for the weekend and parked in front of my Airbnb mansion that I rented for 24 hours and taking all my social media photos all at once, you know versus the opportunity for doing something authentic, whether you're broke or not right being able to be your authentic self and how that authentic story really is has more value than something you're trying to make up or something you think people want you to show up as.

Kyle Gray 24:15
Yeah, and really connecting with that it seems like there's a big because of the problems that you described or the negatives that you described. I think people are very sensitive or inflamed around this type of marketing and it's only in this current age that we're in where we are experiencing faster change at rates that we are not biologically equipped to adequately address so here we are. Yeah, like this is this isn't what our bodies are built for the world changing as fast as it is right now. And it particularly in this last decade and In this next coming decade, things are changing so fast. And this is going to involve things of like what you can offer to the world and what you can sell. If you have teams or people working for you, the marketplace is very fluid, you'll lose your team, if you don't inspire them. Or you can, things are going to be changing so fast and the there's more information than ever, people are going to be able to produce even more information, artificial intelligence is going to give so many ideas out there. And the only thing that's safe from the artificial intelligence is what you do in your own life, the only thing that this transformation is going to leave for each of us individually, is to be the heroes of our own lives, and go out and take our own risks, and have experiences and to be able to share our own stories. And why we care, which is what I help people work with and articulate and separate it from all of the genius and all of the training and all of the intelligence that they have. But really bringing these stories forward, which makes us human, which allows us to connect with each other, which is what is in such short supply in those particular videos that we're seeing.

Robert Peterson 26:20
Well, and, the reality is, we are all sucked into this idea of artificial reality. And we have been for a long time we've we've been watching this box on our table in our living room for, you know, my lifetime for certain. And,

Kyle Gray 26:42
oh, I'm immersed in it,

Robert Peterson 26:45
it's full of all of these artificial stories, right? They're fictional tales, that make us feel like we're involved in, you know, hero stories, antihero stories, emergency stories, cop stories, and, and, and all of them are really, so loosely based in reality that, that we've been in this artificial reality space. And, and nobody's you know, jumping up and down saying, create your own adventure. Right? Do your own thing. And there are lots of Americans doing their own thing traveling across country traveling around the world, you know, people like you and I that had been blessed to, to have the ability to land in almost any country in the world and figure it out. Right, we know, we, we have a skill set that isn't isn't as marketable. But if you know if, like Kyle born, we woke up on a Russian sailing vessel, and were dumped into, into whatever port they landed in, we'd at least figure out

Kyle Gray 27:46
how to survive and perform better than the average American I don't, I might be killed. But I would do better than I would last longer. And the

Robert Peterson 27:54
like to believe that I could, I'd like to believe that we could make a movie about this. And I would make it like I've done paperwork in other countries that's got it that that in itself is a project on its own right. And, of course, we won't even talk about learning a second language, because that's a whole nother. And if you've learned two languages, you're just wrong. So or more, I'm not sure.

Kyle Gray 28:20
You mentioned like a blessing. And I think one of the things, you know, like you say not a lot of people are doing this. And I've been reflecting on this a lot. And as wonderful as my life is a lot of the times. I also like Wonder I'm like, Am I crazy? And I think I am. There's I don't know exactly. You know what happened to me, and I'm not sure what happened to you. But I do see a trend that most people that end up creating great things. There's some kind of something that crosses some wires when you're young. And there's some kind of I'm not good enough, that gets planted. And this allows you this I'm not good enough, allows you to endure discomfort, uncertainty, because you've just been punishing yourself the whole time. So you're already used to it. So you can just go through this and you get to a certain point of success. And but the and this is what I will call level one, or like the Mirage, you can use this trauma to get you to a certain level of success which most people would consider and see from the outside as a pretty good degree of success. That's it You have money and these things are happening. But at level one is precisely when the reverse correlation starts this trauma energy now hinders you and holds you back and keeps you you can't just be the work harder grind more guy to get from six figures to seven figures, it could get you to six figures great, or you know, however you want to measure your impact in the world. And so the time wants to be able to look at this story and transform it. Now, this is really where the really interesting magic of the story work that I do happens, because the same stories that we would write are the same techniques that we write, to create an interesting and inspiring story to inspire action in your audience. We use these techniques to influence ourselves. And, we've got to be able to translate this story that's been driving this, I'm not good enough trauma, that's gotten you to a very high degree of success. But now you need to step into a different role, a greater role as a visionary as a leader. And by both translating how you feel about that story, turning it from something that agitates you into something that has you've healed, that you're proud to share. And oftentimes, you know, in the most fun situations, particularly for me, taking that story that was once a source of shame and holding you back to something that you could probably share from the stage and have people be excited to pay you money, because they heard you share this story is the ultimate like transformation in a certain way.

Robert Peterson 31:20
Yes, you're reminding me of a book I just started reading listening to, and it's the hypomanic edge, the link between Well, the link between a little craziness and a lot of success in America.

Kyle Gray 31:35
Oh, I'm definitely a little crazy. Yeah, it's, we just got to we got to figure out how to measure that. That's great. I gotta check this book out to

Robert Peterson 31:45
hypo. Yeah. hypomanic edge in America. It's, it's written about this entrepreneurial rollercoaster, right? This, this idea of even thinking about Steve Jobs, and some of those and, you know, the OCD and other things that people call Crazy, right, a little bit of crazy, but can lead to success, or a lot of it writes a little crazy and a lot of success in tiny little print above the title so but that idea of it does take a little bit of crazy, and we do experience some negative things. And there is an interesting aspect of some of the negative and I think social media has allowed people to overshare some things in their lives and in their sharing sometimes in maybe the wrong timing, right Sharing Center those things. So sharing those traumas before they've resolved them sharing those, the pit of despair before they have a they have a resolution. But a lot of story really is about your mess is your message right? Your what you've gone through what you've taken yourself through really can become your strength, in, in the story you share and in what you sell from the stage, in a lot of cases, and I think our ability to overcome our ability to have that adventure, make our lives that adventure, make ourselves the hero of that adventure. And, and for me, now I'm translating that to I want to make my clients the heroes of their own story, right, the heroes have their own business and elevate them or prepare them and it's interesting because you do it from the idea of helping them prepare a stage story and I'm doing it from the side of helping them prepare how they think about themselves and think about their business. And, and really how they show up on a daily basis. And then you're giving them the tools to say yeah, that's the same story. Now let's get you on a stage and get you an audience that's going to, you know, resonate with that story and say, Man, I love this guy or gal and i MAN i want to buy all their stuff. Right? And the whole place is walking to the back of the room to buy autographed copies of their book that you and I obviously helped them right.

Kyle Gray 34:02
Well, there's certain there's something I want to I want to touch on and that's all right on your you're hinting at something that I've also recently articulated is that stories have a lifecycle. All stories have a lifecycle. There's the two most stories good stories start out and they're in the too soon phase. And this is what you are complaining about. People just kind of dumping out their complaints without having integrated I really understood what's going on. It's too soon. And it doesn't serve you to share in this in this way. But, you know over time, if you can move through this, integrate it and he'll it then you move into what I call the sweet spot. These are stories that you can still like identify with that Part of you that was wound that wound itself, the to suit itself. And you actually use that energetically to connect with everybody else who's feeling that. And because of your connection with them, then we're all here. And I know your pain. And I understand it right now. And we're going to get there. And that's the magic. And that's what we're all about. But there's a third stage, which I can't remember the exact name, it's like too late, or you've moved past these stories. And so I'll give you an example of a client I worked with who, when he hosts amazing events $100,000 events like these Gallas, usually for high ticket coaches and things. And he started out like speaking and selling, but he had a stutter. And so he would always have a talk about how he was so scared to talk to people because he had a stutter, you know, and people would do it. And then he had the story of transformation that now he's not scared of his stutter. And he's speaking on these stages. And that was great story. And he told that story for years. But after a couple of years, and being, you know, successful, like he stopped resonating with this, I also had a woman who would speak to mothers, young mothers with new children. And she was running a business this business for 10 years, until her children were now college age. And she didn't quite resonate or identify with the young mother energy anymore, and wasn't able to like reach them as much. And so this is you, you need to have a new story. At this point, the story that you once told, no longer has any hold on you anymore, and you've moved past it so much that nobody can feel anything anymore. And so we're always, as entrepreneurs, as creators, as humans living our lives, we have a variety of stories that will fit into these different stages of our lifecycle. And being able to understand what stories in what stage can help us then and how it impacts us right now can help us make the choice of like, well, do I need to start telling a new story here? Do I need to wait on this story? Or am I doing exactly the right thing?

Robert Peterson 37:22
That's so so powerful, and helping people to recognize that can be really challenging. You mentioned in the very beginning, or part of your journey, was working for other people helping their programs, working to get people on stages. Share, share with me a little bit about mentorship in your life, and how some of those mentors have molded you into the person that's able to run this entrepreneurial enterprise. And how you would encourage those entrepreneurs listening to find an appropriate mentor,

Kyle Gray 37:58
the my life, the greatest hinges that my life has swung on, the most incredible doors that have opened, have come from somebody who is further along on the path than me seeing some kind of value in me and presenting me with an opportunity. Which happened, I have far too many stories than I could ever express. And yeah, like the gratitude is not something that I can articulate in language. So that's what I that's the first thought I have. And then this is something that is really interesting to me, because I'm starting to feel that I'm just entering the phase where I can provide this. I mean, I have been providing this in a lot of ways. But this particular thing that was impactful for me, I started my entrepreneurial career, what I really feel for real, once I when I graduated, college with my master's degree, I made a few contacts in an entrepreneur space, and this guy was looking for a content marketing apprentice. You're not going to make a lot of money. But he's going to teach you how to do how he's been running content marketing for a high six figure rapidly growing startup. And you're going to learn how to write blog posts for these people. And he, it was a remote job. He lived in Australia. So we recommend living in Thailand. And I told him we I had interviewed him once and I said, Hey, I have $6,000 And I'm planning on moving to Chiang Mai, and I'm going to start a business or you know, or whatever. Um, that was my plan. And two days before I got on the plane to Asia. He hired me to start working for a startup and threw me in the deep end and it was incredibly hard. It was I had gotten a master's degree. I had very good grades. I wrote very good papers. And this was how hard to be able to produce 10 2000 word articles a month, and be graded not by professors, but by Twitter and Google. And it was very challenging, but he provided, you know, he provided feedback. I wasn't, he wasn't the greatest like coach in a sense, but he was a good leader and a good manager. And let me like, threw me into the deep end. And I started learning how to swim, you know, and, and built something out of that. And I think that that's something like just young people need a lot more of just drowning, almost drowning, kind of not, not literally, but maybe even kind of literally. But in their life, I think that's really healthy. And we don't have nearly enough of that. But the space that he provided for that allowed me to really refine a practical tool set that I used to insert myself into many other businesses and create many other opportunities, I was highly motivated, by wanting to learn from other people and learn what they did and how they did what they did, rather than by making money, particularly in my 20s. And, you know, still through a lot of my early 30s, I'm not trying, but I have grown a lot, I have a lot more value. And I'm grateful to be talking to, you know, increasingly influential and brilliant people like yourself, because of 1000 doors that were open because of good mentors. That saw something in me.

Robert Peterson 41:42
Love that. So you mentioned gratitude. So on the personal growth side, how has gratitude served you in this journey?

Kyle Gray 41:55
It's, it's such a thing to come back to. And it's so easy to forget. As somebody who's very, I'm incredibly future oriented, I'm always thinking about the future, I'm thinking about what could be as a strategist, I'm aware, I like, know what strategy I'm using, and I know the 99 ones that I'm not using. And there's a certain tension with that all of the time. I, you know, I strategize my day, I'm, I'm going to be on like a five-hour block of phone calls. And as soon as I finish up, am I going to go to the beach, that might be nice to relax. But I also just got my guitar back. And I would really like to start practicing guitar. And if I go to the beach and not practice guitar today, am I still a good person?

Robert Peterson 42:48
Take the guitar to the beach man do both.

Kyle Gray 42:51
They think it's hard at the beach. But anyway, it illustrates a point and where I'm trying to go with what does this have to do with gratitude is gratitude is the cure for all of this. And I think that in this highly engineered highly technical dopamine pornographers society that we're in, being able to experience gratitude brings you to the peace out in the presence, and, and feeling like, it's also the secret ingredient, bringing it back to that spellcraft that I was talking about. You've got to feel gratitude for that future that you want. You've got it. That's the feeling that you want, you want to feel grateful for it. And that's what will bring it to you. And you've got it, whatever you feel grateful for you will attract more. And I apologize to myself for all of these years that I have known this and haven't practiced it nearly enough. And I think it happens to so many of us. Oh, thank you for the reminder with that question.

Robert Peterson 43:57
Absolutely. Absolutely. I kind of what's the what's the big dream?

Kyle Gray 44:03
The big dream, I'm pretty close. I want to spend my time it's it's kind of unifying and fulfilling that 19 year old rock star dream. I want to spend most of my time creating great music, creating fun YouTube videos, expressing myself and having wonderful conversations with people like you and helping make this world better. By working with people that are interesting, that are inspiring that are things to learn me and get it or that I learn and grow from and being paid to provide that and then with the money I make patronizing my own art and creating my own things and doing whatever I want and I don't care if anybody pays me for it, because I'm already getting paid. And I'm just making my art I

Robert Peterson 44:56
love that. Okay, what With all the success that you've had in business and in life now what's what's your biggest challenge?

Kyle Gray 45:09
Believing that I'm successful at all, and being at peace with that I am always like, intensely wrestling with. Am I done enough? Am I doing this? Right? And where's this going?

Robert Peterson 45:27
Thank you for sharing that. I know that there's others listening that wrestle with similar, similar thoughts. All right, can we end every show with our guests sharing their words of wisdom? So for our entrepreneurial audience listening, what would Kyle's words of wisdom be?

Kyle Gray 45:45
These are three very important words that I repeat to myself all the time. And if we there's many stories that I would have to share about this exercise, but it is, well, I'll say it's except the discomfort. And I learned this in a class in university, it was a Japanese theater class. And he would, the teacher would start us by meditating each day, and we would sit on our knees and meditation on the concrete floor. And he said, eventually, you'll learn to find comfort in this or you will learn to accept the discomfort. And those words have echoed in my mind because I believe that the greatest determiner of living a happy a satisfying a purposeful life, is by being able the is the caliber, or the quantity of discomfort that you can endure in any moment is, is directly proportional to everything that's really valuable in your life.

Robert Peterson 46:57
Kyle, that is so good. Thank you so much for sharing with me today. Thanks for joining me on the show and having this wonderful conversation. I appreciate you taking the time. And I really feel the value that you've added to me and I know that you've added value to my audience. So thank you.

Kyle Gray 47:14
It's been a blast, Robert, thank you.