THE IMPERFECT SHOW NOTES

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Gregory R. Gilmore  00:00

You have to find a way to get your emotional, vibrational, whatever state, to a higher level, happiness or joy. And they said, think of a place that brings you to happiness or joy. Focus on that. And I’m sitting here, standing there on the 23rd floor, overlooking first street beach in Miami Beach, phenomenal apartment and super unhappy.

Achim Nowak  00:26

Welcome to the MY FOURTH ACT PODCAST. I’m your host, Achim Nowak, and I have conversations with exceptional humans who have created bold and unexpected lives. If you like what you hear, please subscribe on any major podcast platform so you won’t miss a single one of my inspiring guests, and please consider posting an appreciative review. Let’s get started. I am so happy to welcome Greg Gilmore to the MY FOURTH ACT PODCAST. Greg is a transformational life coach, a clinical hypnotherapist and rapid transformation therapy RTT for short, practitioner. In addition to his own practice, Greg also serves as an RTT trainer from Rosa pair, the founder of RTT, where he supports and guides other aspiring RTT practitioners. Gregory is passionate about helping individuals get unstuck and reclaim their passion and confidence, and I know that he has done that for himself. His memoir, King of the sky will be released in q1 of 2025 Hello, Greg, hello,

Gregory R. Gilmore  01:48

Achim. Thank you for having me. Hey, it’s

Achim Nowak  01:51

a pleasure. Again. In full disclosure, listeners, Greg and I know each other socially from Miami, and I know he has a really compelling story, and does really compelling work with the clients he supports, and he does work that would benefit all of us. I want to dig in one thing that always interests me, like who you are now and what you do is probably not what you’re thinking about when you’re a young kid or teenager. So when you were a young kid and teenager and you thought about your future, what did you think you would do with your life?

Gregory R. Gilmore  02:29

That’s interesting, because as I think about that, there were two things that I did that I liked. One was around art drawing. I specifically was really into drawing lore plans, which sounds really crazy to me at this point, but like so there’s that piece, and then there was another piece. My sister was a nurse. I was really interested in science, and there’s another part of me that want to do something in medicine. As a kid, I spent a lot of time. I grew up out in the country, in Indiana, spend a lot of time just with animals, with my dogs, we had cattle, doing that kind of thing. And my passion was about drawing. But later on, it became teenager. I focused on the medical side of things.

Achim Nowak  03:16

You’ve done a whole bunch of work in medical sales and different roles, some rather senior roles. So that’s in the connection. But how does one go from being a teenager who thinks the medical field to I’m going to have a career in medical sales, like,

Gregory R. Gilmore  03:33

how do we get there? Well, so now we’re starting to get into some limiting beliefs on some level, right? Like that could have been, and it was always in the back of my mind to move towards being a physician. And I don’t know what happened. Either I didn’t have the confidence that I could do it, or I just didn’t want to be in school that long. Whatever it was, I decided to study chemistry to work towards becoming a pharmaceutical drug discovery researcher. That was what I remember putting on my entrance essay in college. Bring me Greg, that’s right. And I found out in college that, you know what? This isn’t for me, being stuck in a lab all day, you know, thinking about something that might not actually work out in the long run. Sometimes the answer is no when it comes to finding a new compound or doing those kinds of things. But I did love the science, and so it just made sense to move into first it was pharmaceutical sales, and then later that transitioned over to medical sales. It

Achim Nowak  04:42

has a nice flow to it, which makes sense. I happen to be rather familiar with medical sales, the pharma world and all of that. So let me just test something my sense of that, and I’ve worked with people in pretty significant roles that I. It can be financially rewarding, it can be a hard grind. It can be a really stressful. It can involve being on the road a lot, which sounds glamorous, but after a while, can be hard. So these are my associations with that. Am I right? Am I wrong? How does this match your experience? So, yeah,

Gregory R. Gilmore  05:21

definitely can be financially rewarding. And I made the transition from pharmaceuticals to specifically cardiac rhythm management, or pacemakers, implantable defibrillators and devices for cardiac resynchronization therapy, after about four years, and that was a big change, but I also did not want to have that like travel all the time life. And what’s cool about the device sales world is you really don’t travel that much, especially when you have because the territories were condensed. I was here in Miami calling on a few accounts most of my career, but just

Achim Nowak  05:58

sitting by some Hotel Swimming Pool, making phone calls and kicking, kicking by with clients, was that the life

Gregory R. Gilmore  06:04

No. So that’s the other thing, that life is very on call. So, and especially when I started, it was pager, literally a pager and a phone or a pay phone, depending on what was available at the time. I mean, I’m dating myself here. But in any case, you are out on the road, or you are out every day at the hospital, you’re in surgery, you’re getting paid to see patients on the floor. You’re getting covering checks in doctor’s offices. So it’s high energy. There’s a part of us then gets sort of addicted to that, to like, you know, gotta go, gotta go, gotta go. And it keeps us busy. In this case, I was being rewarded for a couple of things. One was to be busy, and the other was to make people happy, to be a people pleaser. Guess what? We’ll find out later that those two things really, really played into some other issues. Yeah, that would parent later.

Achim Nowak  07:08

Well, let’s because you are a self described addict. I’m curious. What are some things that you were doing that led you to believe, like, Oh, I’m out of control, or my life is out of control. I am an addict. Like, at what point does like, fun and high adrenaline become? I think I’m an addict.

Gregory R. Gilmore  07:30

I wouldn’t say I ever felt like I had some addiction that I could not overcome, right? Like I felt like, Hey, I didn’t have the words for it at the time necessarily. I didn’t say, Oh, I’m just trying to escape something that didn’t feel comfortable to me, and that’s how I look at addiction now. But all of the negative things that happened to me, without exception, really have had to do with alcohol or drugs. So I

Achim Nowak  07:56

wanted to challenge you to be specific, you were consuming too much alcohol. Rugs, way too much, way too Yeah,

Gregory R. Gilmore  08:05

alcohol becomes in our society, alcohol is part of it, and we would be going to dinner. It can. It doesn’t have to be, but it has become, I was taking people out to dinner. We were going and doing these kinds of wonderful things. Back in the day, there was always alcohol. Here, we get up early in the morning, the next morning, and go right back to it. And that just became a bit of a lifestyle. It caused problems in relationships. It caused problems. They weren’t non existent. I could have been certainly more productive. Never mind the amount of money that goes to that. Then when drugs, you know, first cocaine, and then later on, things like party drugs, like meth, become part of my life. It was, it became more and more clear and pushed me to isolate. And that really, I think, as I say, that when I found myself in a state of isolation, I realized this was a problem in

Achim Nowak  08:59

12 step language. People talk about having bottom and I know you’re not a 12 stepper, so we’ll talk about that. But is there a moment in your life when you go, like, a single moment where you went, Oh, this just can’t go on, like a moment when you can’t show up for work, you have to cancel meetings. You’re supposed to eat up in the morning, but your body feels like crap, and you cannot they I’m talking about,

Gregory R. Gilmore  09:24

yeah, and certainly some of those things happen. I mean, I remember missing a train one day, and that was certainly related, and I was late to a meeting. I had to catch a really early train. So that was easily explainable. There were some other things that would happen, but for me, it was that isolation after I left my career here in CRM in cardiac rhythm management, I wasn’t a great last event, and I was like, It’s time for me to move on and do something different. I couldn’t seem to start that next thing, I wanted to start a business with a friend of mine that was in in. Some in design. Actually, it was custom furniture, and I just couldn’t push go on it. So I kept dragging it out to the point that I had ended up two, three years later, completely isolated. I had people around me that were supporting that isolation on some level. They were also user using. They were keeping me company. But one day, one of my friends and I went to Bal harbor shop and, like great audience,

Achim Nowak  10:31

so that’s a high end scale plays just outside of Miami proper, like a fancy, fancy shopping mall.

Gregory R. Gilmore  10:40

Yes, I’d spent a lot of time there and a lot of money there in the past. Go to lunch, do all kinds of was great, and it’s beautiful. We went, and I could not feel more out of place when I was there that day. Yeah, I felt like a complete fish out of water. And the realization hit me, I am no longer even employable. I couldn’t get a job if I tried, because I wouldn’t even be able to go to an interview.

Achim Nowak  11:09

I appreciate that clarity.

Gregory R. Gilmore  11:11

That was a real slap in the face. I was like, Oh my God, you know, what have I done?

Achim Nowak  11:19

Now? I mentioned the most dominant way of looking at addiction is saying it’s a disease. You know, that’s the 12 step framework. That’s what happens a lot of recovery centers that people who don’t believe in that, but they tend to be a minority how, and you’re very clear that you don’t think looking at addiction as a disease is helpful. Would you just break that down for us a

Gregory R. Gilmore  11:45

little bit? So I think, as with other diseases too, on some level, having that diagnosis is maybe useful for direction, but can also, and too often, an addiction can make someone feel as though they’re a victim of something, you know, something that I have this thing, and because of that thing, I can’t, you know, ever be able to do X, Y or Z, right in our TT, Marissa talks about the idea that there are three things that all of our issues are based on. And one is, the first one is, you don’t think you’re enough. The second one is, you feel different, and therefore can’t connect. And the third one is, and I think it’s applicable here, is that there’s something that I want, but I don’t think that it’s available to me when we label ourselves as an addict, then becoming not one almost gets taken off the table.

Achim Nowak  12:46

So how? And I’m sure there are many stories and the question I just asked, So I invite you to be concise, but I’m going so how did Greg become sober? Oh, yeah, how did you find sobriety? Especially since you went not in the traditional model that most people we know follow,

Gregory R. Gilmore  13:07

yeah. So for me, it was, I say I ran out of drugs on purpose. I had started backtrack just a minute in that I had started listening to fan of Abraham Hicks for law of attraction, and I was listening to one of their YouTube videos, they were saying, you have to move forward. You have to find a way to get your emotional, vibrational, whatever state, to a higher level, happiness or joy. And they said, think of a place that brings you to happiness or joy. Focus on that. And I’m sitting here, standing there on the 23rd floor, overlooking first street beach in Miami Beach, phenomenal apartment, and super unhappy. And I looked out there and I said, it’s not a place. It’s and then I heard them say, I’m not even sure they actually said this, but they said, or say something to yourself, what need to be. And I was so weak, so I started saying, I am strong, and I felt like almost a connection, almost instantly, in that affirmation, within six months, I’d put all my stuff in storage, and I had taken care of a few things, health wise, went on and Eat, Pray, Love, journey. I had no idea where that was going to take me, but I had to. I just moved on. I just left. I knew that if I took away the ease of access, that I wouldn’t seek it, and I kind of made that promise to myself that I wouldn’t seek it out. First

Achim Nowak  14:34

of all, congratulations. That sounds wonderful. I just want to play with what you said a little bit right now, because I know a lot of recovered or recovering addicts who have said what you just said, Well, I’m just going to stay away from the temptation and not go there and do that. And at some point, if life gets really hard or stressful for every that’s the comfort zone and you go back to it, you’ve affirmed that you’re not going to do it. You decided you. You know, your brain knows it’s not good for you, but, I mean, that’s where traditional relapses happen, right? What are your thoughts around?

Gregory R. Gilmore  15:08

Yeah, cuz you didn’t, but people do relapse. No, we did. I did, actually, that’s the white knuckle, but there’s more, right? So that was step one. Was taking myself and going and saying, You know what? Something has to change, and I’ve been saying I am strong. All of a sudden, one day, I see Marissa peer pop up on a Mind Valley YouTube video that’s no longer available. I

Achim Nowak  15:31

mentioned at the beginning that you work with Marissa peer, your she influenced you greatly and how you serve the world. I’m not assuming that every listener knows who she is. So give us a brief snapshot of Marisa here at her work, and then continue your story. Yeah,

Gregory R. Gilmore  15:45

absolutely. Marissa. Here was a first more than 35 years she had a practice in hypnotherapy. She had become well known in the UK and to some extent in the US, and then she decided to take what she had learned, what she had done, and the process that she used with her clients, and create rapid, transformational therapy out of that, or RTT, and it’s really a process using hypnosis that moves people forward. And so, you know, Marissa is rolling out there. What she does is talk to people about different ways to talk to yourself, use your mind in a better way, tell yourself a better story. So I see she’s also a Mind Valley contributor. And so Mind Valley the platform for personal growth and education. And I saw that video, and Marissa was saying, all of your issues are based on one thing, and that is, you don’t think you’re enough. So when you’re in your shower, tell yourself first thing in the morning, say I’m enough, and I knew for a fact that I’d been saying I am strong had moved me forward. There was no doubt in it, and I hadn’t really cognized or recognized that was an affirmation in retrospect that seems silly, that the government didn’t recognize that, but now I hear this woman saying, Say I’m enough. And I thought, wow, she seems to know what she’s talking about. And she says this. I know that this works, so I added it in. And then the other piece, one of the other, and I think transformative, obviously, pieces is that I happen to be able to attend an event where she was speaking a few months later, she did an RTT session for the whole group, and in that session, like we’re talking about almost 1000 people in a ballroom, right? So you know, leading you through in that session, I discovered, on my own, this is how powerful this is that, oh, I have a belief that it’s not okay to be me. Well, that’s not helpful. You know, it’s certainly not going to make it easy for me to be seen, to be out into the to put myself back out into the world. And it made sense as to why I was using alcohol and drugs to feel better.

Achim Nowak  18:00

Where my brain was going as you were talking such my test is because you started with a wonderful affirmation, I am strong, and you really connected with Marissa saying, Well, I am enough. And what I’m thinking is if, even if I’m affirming, I am strong, the level below is if I still think I’m not enough. There’s a tension between those two, potentially, right? So I am strong. It’s a powerful affirmation. But if there’s a deeper belief that I’m not enough, my I am strong is already sabotaged in a way, if you will.

Gregory R. Gilmore  18:32

Yeah, absolutely. And what you’re referring to is a mismatch belief, or conflicting belief, you know, we can say the easy, obvious one is to say, Oh, I have a million dollars in my bank account, and your mind says, No, you don’t. It’s not going to believe that story. So we have to find something what’s so beautiful about things like, I am strong, it doesn’t have a value, right? Either does I am enough? Either it is I am worthy. You know, those are things that your mind can get around and say, Yeah, okay, I can go with that. I’m enough. Yeah, sure.

Achim Nowak  19:07

I just since we’re playing with beliefs, we’re playing with affirmations, I believe in everything we’re talking about here. Now, one of my profound life changing experience was hypnotherapy when I was 22 I’m not going to tell the story, but it was life changing. So I have my own experience of how transformative that was for me. I’d love for you to connect what we just said to another doc, because I’m in my world. I’m surrounded by a lot of people who are affirming that they’re going to have a business, whether they make a million dollars a year, and let’s call it an attention and they affirm as if it’s so. And for a few of them, that happens. For many of them, it does not. Is there a mismatch there? What is the mismatch when people go but I believe in everything that Greg is saying, and I have very specific. The goals, and I believe in the law of attraction, but shoot, it hasn’t happened. Yeah, as a transformational coach, what’s your take on that?

Gregory R. Gilmore  20:09

So the thing that we need to find out is, what’s the belief that’s holding you back? And that was like, oh, so for me, it was a triple layered beliefs that I found out through multiple sessions. And it was, I need to be invisible to be safe. Was at the top, in the middle, was that one, it’s not okay to be me. And underlying it all was a belief that I got when I was like one year old when I was sick, that I’m a disappointment. I had this belief that we can then pull out, we can transform, we can heal. And you know, that’s the work that’s done in trauma, is to first feel safe, to identify what the situation is and become present with it, and then to allow, then yourself, to process that and move forward in a new way, allow the emotions to go through. And so the cool thing about what I’m able to do is do, I still sometimes hesitate to be seen, but I know that that silly belief that I got when I was a teenager, because I didn’t want to be caught, you know, didn’t want to be found out to be that I’m gay, that’s not helpful. But yes, so like, people aren’t seeing the results, because there’s probably another belief underneath it, and we also sometimes do it a little. We try to future pace. We’ll say, I, you know, like we might say, Oh, I buy this time in the future. I’m going to become I’m going to have a million dollars. Let’s say the mind’s like, Oh, I’ve got 12 months to do that. Okay? I’ll take my time. It only understands right now I’m becoming wealthy right now. Is more exciting. Your mind’s like, oh, we are. I gotta find a way to do that.

Achim Nowak  21:43

What you just said is so helpful. I happen to believe, you know, and you and I are somewhat related fields of work, that not everybody is supposed to make a million dollars. You know, not everybody will. Then the question would be, is that intention helpful to the sort of life I want to create, or is that important? Or am I adopting somebody else’s story of success? Because then I’ll feel better about myself when I have a million dollars and I is it motivated by me still not feeling like I’m enough, and if I make a million, everybody will love me. I mean, you still won’t feel like you’re enough,

Gregory R. Gilmore  22:21

because there’s an attachment. Yeah, right, and that, I think that brings us into that. Next thing is, when you say, I’m becoming wealthy right now, yeah, there’s no attachment. You’re not putting a number on it. You’re not saying it has to be this way. And to me, that’s the other piece of my success in recovery, being recovered is that I brought in spirituality on a deeper level and and that’s actually, you know, how I met you. Was reading the way of mastery, and

Achim Nowak  22:52

we met regardless, since we met in this spiritual book club, and we met right in someone’s home, and we read a book for several years. So

Gregory R. Gilmore  23:02

three years, I think, to read that book.

Achim Nowak  23:06

Well, it was a good excuse to have a public and socialize and be with great company. Great excuse, exactly. Now I want to get to your book. You have a book coming out called King of the sky. I’ll give you my my first reaction was, but this is just Achim brain is, Oh, King of the sky. That must be. He’s referring to God, and his connection to God, this is my first thought that maybe it may not be, that may be a connection you want or not. So what does KING OF THE SKY mean to you?

Gregory R. Gilmore  23:39

So that’s what I love about the title. I got this title when I was in the middle of my the addiction. What happened was one of my friends came to my apartment after being at a party. He was telling me about it, and he said, they know who you are. And I was like, why do they know me? He goes, Yeah. As a matter of fact, they call you king of the sky. And I’m like, my heart sank, because I knew what these people, these guys, were doing. I knew that they were selling drugs, they were manipulating people. They were doing some things that didn’t happen in my world. Yeah. And I thought, Oh, my God, they think I am what I think they are. And it just stopped me cold. And I realized I have a choice. I can be the king of the sky quote, the person living on the 23rd floor of a luxury high rise in Miami that’s using drugs and whatever you think’s going on here. Or I can be the other king of the sky. I can connect to God on a deeper level. And the subtitle is. Is choosing to listen to God, nice as a path to sobriety, happiness and purpose.

Achim Nowak  25:07

Oh, that’s a gorgeous subtitle. Thank you. And I

Gregory R. Gilmore  25:10

struggle with that choosing to listen. And in the last chapter, I realized, oh, choosing to listen. I got that from A Course in Miracles. Few choose to listen. All are called, but few choose to listen. But

Achim Nowak  25:23

I love that you put shoes in the title, because it’s a choice life we create moment by moment. Is a choice how we react to circumstances. Is a choice how we interpret things that happen. Is a choice.

Gregory R. Gilmore  25:39

So perfect, yes, my belief is that so much of what can help us heal is to bring awareness to these things. And we’re looking for, especially with things like addictions, we’re looking for to extend the time between the thought, the emotion and the action very clear, yeah. And awareness does that for us, become present with the awareness and be like, wait a second, why am I not doing this thing that I want to do? Oh, that’s that silly belief, yeah? And I use silly on purpose, because it’s not shame, blame or guilt inducing. And it just says, oh, that’s that belief I got when I was five or 10 or whatever. It

Achim Nowak  26:26

was not helpful as you look to the future, you know, you have a book coming out and but beyond the book, when you think of and you’re younger than I am. But part of getting a lure is that we get to choose what we do, more of what we do, less of all those things. So if you’re Greg, think about the life of the next few years, what are some things you’d like to do more of experience more of maybe experience less of.

Gregory R. Gilmore  26:54

I’m still doing following that path. I’m of expansion when it comes to personal growth, but the last several years, because this month, it’s been six years since I drove out of Miami. I don’t count days, but it just happens to be six years. And I want to continue that. And recently, in that piece of continuing to choose to listen, I recently started in that realm. I recently started the first step in the pre reqs for becoming a unity licensed Unity minister. You know, that’s another story, but that happened by the cooperative components of the universe putting me in the right place at the right time. The piece that I haven’t been paying attention to or haven’t been. I’ve been, I say one of my mentors in coaching is John Kim. He wrote a book single on purpose, and when I saw that title, I go, that’s what I’ve been. I’ve been single on purpose. I would really like to experience now moving into as a new version of me, as this current version of me into a relationship, other relationships too. Relationships don’t just have to be with partner or whatever span that and get back to some things like traveling. Someday I hope to be like you.

Achim Nowak  28:14

Well, it’s yeah and live in I’m a firm I’m a firm believer that once the vision is clear in my case, and then, oh, let me live in Portugal for a while. The mechanics are not that hard, you know. And the vision is not always about something like a move, but whatever it is, I’m a manifester. We’re going to use the language of this person, but it starts with it, trusting the vision and committing to tactical execution. And I fully believe that if, if it gets too hard and execution, it’s not God’s will for me, then it’s my ego wanting something but God doesn’t want it for me, then my job is to pay attention everything in Portugal, this move, my poor partner, everything happened faster than we thought. So it’s clear it was supposed to happen. My partner is still catching up with it. But so those are the the external signals that when the energy the universe supports us and what we’re doing right. If you had a chance to, you talk a little bit about the upbringing and but now as a transformation coach, RTT practitioner, Hypnotherapist. If you had a chance to whisper in young Gregory’s ears, the young boy teenager and give him some guidance for life based on what you know, man, not to change what has happened. But what would you want him to know?

Gregory R. Gilmore  29:39

I think the biggest thing I would want him to know is, you know, so none of us are taught that we’re giving up our identity in an effort to gain connection on some level when we’re doing it. And that’s the thing I’d really want to somehow impart is just don’t give up who you are, not for money. Me not for, you know, the love of the community or parents or people that you know. I mean, my parents do support me, and they have always, you know, they’ve been, it’s a journey, right? But, but I come from a place where being gay wasn’t really an easy thing to do. Let him know that he can do this. He is strong, he is enough, and he is worthy of everything that he wants.

Achim Nowak  30:24

Amen. It’s a beautiful message. So where, where would you like to direct our listeners who want to learn more about the work you do as a transformational coach, RBT practitioner. When do you think your book will be out? Where can people find it? So just give us some guidance before we wrap up.

Gregory R. Gilmore  30:43

So my website, Gregory R gilmore.com will be have access to all of that. In addition, King of the sky book.com will be a place where, you know, pre orders will soon be available, as well as it will be coming out in January of 2025, and available wherever, wherever you like to buy books, beautiful.

Achim Nowak  31:10

Thank you so much for the gift of this conversation and the gift of you. I’m so glad we recorded this. Greg, thank you.

Gregory R. Gilmore  31:17

Such a pleasure. Such a pleasure. Achim,

Achim Nowak  31:20

bye for now. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of The my fourth act podcast. If you like what you have heard, please like us and leave a review on your preferred podcast platform. And if you would like to engage more deeply in fourth act conversations, check out the mastermind page at Achim nowak.com it’s where fourth actors like you engage in riveting conversation with other fourth actors. See you there and bye for now you.