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Greg Bergdorf: From Guitar Riffs to Real Estate Pitches
43 Plays23 days ago
In this episode of The Unfolding Thought Podcast, Eric Pratum talks with Greg Bergdorf—founding guitarist of the Grammy-nominated, gold-record band Zebrahead—about creativity, reinvention, and the mindset behind mastering more than one craft.
Greg reflects on his journey from garage rehearsals and backyard keggers to international tours, and what it was like to walk away from fame to build a new life in real estate. He shares how lessons from music—persistence, collaboration, and curiosity—translate into success in any field, and why hard work still beats talent when the two meet on stage or in business.
From building one of the first fan email lists in the mid-’90s to producing independent films and mentoring new musicians, Greg shows how reinvention isn’t about starting over—it’s about carrying your mindset forward.
Topics Explored:
- Learning persistence and adaptability through music
- How early marketing instincts (fan mailing lists, DIY promo) shaped later business success
- Transitioning from global touring to local business life
- The balance between art, family, and self-identity
- Lessons from producing music and coaching creativity
- Teaching the next generation: work ethic, passion, and patience
Links:
- Greg’s website: https://www.gregbergdorf.com
- The Bourbon Brothers Band: https://bourbonbrothersband.com
- Connect with Greg on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greg_bergdorf
- Zebrahead official site: https://www.zebrahead.com
- Episode with Ryan Hogan: https://unfoldingthought.com/36-ryan-hogan-the-recruiting-industry-is-broken/
For more episodes: https://unfoldingthought.com
Questions or guest ideas: eric@inboundandagile.com
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Transcript
Greg's Musical Journey and Identity
00:00:00
Speaker
Coming up. I didn't touch the guitar for a couple of years, really. After I left the band, I was like, what for? What am I doing?
00:00:11
Speaker
Greg, thank you for joining me. I've really been looking forward to this, and I was really glad that you responded to me when I reached out because I didn't know what to expect.
00:00:23
Speaker
As we jump into it, where does today's recording find you? Oh, well, thanks for having me, Eric. I'm always ah surprised when anybody wants to talk to me in the first place.
00:00:37
Speaker
ah Today actually finds me in my real estate brokerages podcast studio. So I figured, why not do the podcast from here? Awesome. yeah for I guess for those that don't know, I'm Greg.
00:00:52
Speaker
I'm a musician, real estate agent, dad. Man of me hats these days. When someone asks you, what do you do? Or tell me about yourself, describe yourself, something of that nature.
00:01:07
Speaker
What do you say nowadays? usually go with musician. It's, I guess, in my core who I am. You said, I think it was real estate office or real estate company.
00:01:19
Speaker
So real estate plays into, you know, that is something you've been doing for a long time. But the way that I became familiar with you, at least from afar. And I think a lot of people is because you were the founding guitarist of band Zebrahead.
00:01:37
Speaker
And you have, at least as far as I understand it, you sort of you know, got out of that and have been doing a lot of other things since then. But I, I reached out in part because I've continued to follow you. You still play music, though, I think different styles.
00:01:56
Speaker
So when you say, you know, if you were to simplify it down and say you're a musician, do you think of yourself as ah differently as a musician nowadays than let's say when you were touring the world or when you were playing in a garage in a band?
00:02:13
Speaker
I would say i don't view it differently now versus when I was in Zebrahead. like I would still say I'm a professional musician.
00:02:27
Speaker
um i think when I played in a garage, though, I would have thought of it differently as I was still aspiring to... um ah earn a living at making music and playing guitar.
00:02:41
Speaker
So it, it, it felt little, don't want to say amateur, but like, like, like you're, I don't know, playing high school baseball, dreaming of being in the major leagues kind of situation. I could guess that's how it is, how I'd put it from, from, so I guess when zebra head got signed is probably when my perception of, of,
00:03:08
Speaker
me being a musician change. Going back to, you know, sort of playing in a garage, whether you were playing in a garage or some sort of practice space or playing in your bedroom or something, was there something that first drew you to the guitar?
Influences and Guitar Style
00:03:25
Speaker
I just fell in love with the sound of it from a very early age. um my you know I grew up listening to my dad's music, classic rock. um His favorite band is the Beatles, but you know the classic rock station, you know he had Zeppelin albums, King Floyd, Doors, um and all those bands are powerful.
00:03:47
Speaker
guitar heavy, um, as kind of like the, the focal point of instrumentation, um and, and the songwriting. and so, uh, I think that's just what, I just thought it was the coolest sounding thing.
00:04:02
Speaker
When did you start playing and did you start on acoustic, electric? Did you aspire to be, you know, i suppose when you were a kid, Van Halen probably was big.
00:04:14
Speaker
I'm guessing, you know, where did you start? I guess is the question. I think my very first lesson I was, it was October 22nd, if I remember this correctly. And it's like two weeks before my birthday on November 2nd, my dad had gotten me like a on shop from a $20 acoustic nylon string guitar and lessons.
00:04:39
Speaker
Um, and he, you know, he just got me a cheap guitar for my birthday, not knowing if I was going follow through with it or, know, play it or we'll see what happens. I don't want to spend any money until there's some commitment for my kid and,
00:04:53
Speaker
As a parent now, I totally get that. Yes, I can sympathize with that for sure. Like I said, my dad I grew up with my dad's music, and the first bands that I loved that were like, I found them, they were mine, was Van Halen and Metallica, and Eddie's My Musical Hero, 100%.
00:05:12
Speaker
hundred percent i I don't think I'd remotely play like him. There are things that he does that I'd totally rip off, but like in general, I don't think I really sound like him.
00:05:24
Speaker
um but at the same time i loved his way of looking at the instrument which is what somebody else did it how they did it how can I <unk> that make it my own but you know so like take that idea and um, kind of transform it into your own and make it your own thing rather than just straight up copping somebody.
00:05:52
Speaker
Right. And that goes for even like his, um, like he was very good at, at just playing, but he put a lot of things in the guitar itself to change what the instrument is. Like nobody potted pickups before him.
00:06:14
Speaker
Like he was just like, how does this instrument work? What if we change this? Well, I don't like that. I want to do like this. And um I always thought that was interesting to be like, and what why does it have to be like that?
00:06:27
Speaker
The instructions say, did use this pedal like this? Would have found one use it like that.
00:06:35
Speaker
um So I was like the ah inventiveness of it as well. Do you remember when you started to think that guitar or maybe music generally was
Early Band Experiences and Marketing
00:06:49
Speaker
your thing?
00:06:49
Speaker
I don't know if there was like, at 11, 12, I had lots of dreams of ridiculous pipe dreams that kids have.
00:07:00
Speaker
I'm going to be a major league baseball player. I'm going to be a professional golfer. ah so I'm going to be a lawyer, which was far more accessible a thing to be.
00:07:13
Speaker
uh, but Yeah, professional musician um was was always on that list. Yeah. And don't know if I ever thought it was a maybe senior-ish year in high school, like 16, 17.
00:07:34
Speaker
um Before, in my mind, I was um starting to think like, hey, I'm pretty good at this. maybe Maybe there is a chance of this. I'm definitely not going to happen for baseball.
00:07:47
Speaker
ah probably not golf either. So I guess it was the last of the the ah dreams that I had that kind of hung on.
00:07:58
Speaker
Around that time frame or leading up to it, did you play other instruments or other music? Were you playing in school? Were you playing largely solo? You know, what was, how was your music career experience developing up to that time?
00:08:16
Speaker
ah Before I took guitar lessons, ah had piano lessons when I was six to seven, maybe a year or two. It wasn't super long before I was like, don't like piano.
00:08:32
Speaker
Or maybe it was because but i hung out a lot with my cousins and my cousin, she was a much better piano player than me where like, this is stupid. Yeah, no, I never played in like high school or middle school jazz band or anything like that.
00:08:47
Speaker
um I just had... um and My best friend since seventh grade, he played drums and um we were both at a public and junior high and ah we had both come from private elementary schools. So like we didn't know anybody. And was referencing that like we were Beavis and Butthead, like we were hanging out on a wall.
00:09:12
Speaker
like while the other cool kids were playing and they're like, hey so you math class. who What do you do I like ah playing Dungeons and Dragons and play drums. I'm like, I like Dungeons and Dragons too, but I play guitar.
00:09:26
Speaker
We should start a band. And we did.
00:09:31
Speaker
And, uh, we, we would drop giant stage plots. It would be ridiculous. Um, like, uh, like a giant iron maiden wall of amplifiers and, and we had like a, a ghoulish mascot for our, our band, like Eddie Iron Maiden.
00:09:52
Speaker
And, uh, um, We're still friends to this day, 40 years later. um But yeah, we played, like, it was the two of us playing, like, all through high school in bands and We'd write originals.
00:10:12
Speaker
ah We'd play, you know, cover our favorite songs from that that we could play as best we could from, you know, Metallica and Iron Maiden, Van Halen, and, you know, stuff of that, like, i guess, 80s metal and classic rock sort of stuff.
00:10:32
Speaker
And that's, you know, we played backyard high school Kegers and stuff. That's kind of where I started playing. How do you go from, at least in your experience, something like that to, you know, which I think is probably fairly common, at least if you're of a certain age. I don't know what it's like for people coming up in, you know, as aspiring music musicians today. So we might get to that. But How do you go from playing a backyard kegger or playing in the local club or bar scene to, again, in your experience, to then getting signed and and touring and really kind of making that jump where it becomes a a real job or career?
00:11:19
Speaker
i don't think this is how it happens for kids anymore. Yeah. Um, from, i don't even think, do kids even do backyard keggers anymore? if Like, is that a thing? Like, is, is, do scenes out of right? Do scenes out of Dazed and Confused still happen?
00:11:35
Speaker
Based on, perhaps, not just your history, but then also if you were talking to kids nowadays that were aspiring musicians, how much of your experience is relevant, how much of your mindset is relevant. Also, you know, because you've had experiences outside of music and, you know, a career outside of music, I suspect that that gives you a, maybe a broader perspective or at least a different perspective from people who their entire career has been in music.
00:12:11
Speaker
at one level of success or another. And so that's really kind of where I'm ultimately going is planted in what your experience is then what things look like to you today and how you would not just think about music today or a career in music,
00:12:31
Speaker
but how you would talk to someone who's aspiring to that. For us and and my timeline and how it happened back then, we you know, we would go from playing house parties to build kind of a ah fan base um Something that we did back then that not a lot of other bands did was we would have our friends that were girls or our girlfriends walk around with a clipboard and get everybody's emails
00:13:06
Speaker
ah while we were playing. And then the next time we'd play, we'd shoot out an email blast everybody like, hey, we're playing this party. or And then you know if we were playing at a club and needed to sell tickets,
00:13:19
Speaker
Hey, we're playing this club. Come on down. It's seven bucks. And these the other bands on the bills, you know, whatever. And so we were always, um, building and an email list ah of, um, fans, um, to, to try and grow what we were doing.
00:13:40
Speaker
Um, and while that's not the medium for today, think success or growing your fan base happens in a similar style today.
00:13:55
Speaker
It's just, it happens online versus having somebody walk around with a clipboard at a live show. You're probably, um like You're posting videos to YouTube or you're posting songs to SoundCloud and then you kind of redirect them to your socials.
00:14:13
Speaker
Or if you're next level marketing band now, you redirect them to maybe a funnel um to send them into maybe merch or push into your Spotify. depends on where you want to direct them.
00:14:28
Speaker
Um, so the, the idea is the same, but the medium and how you go about getting people interested in your music and following you is that it's modernized, you know, not to spend too much more time, of course, on what, what is ah a little bit of ancient history because a lot has changed.
00:14:56
Speaker
But I'm curious about what time frame were you collecting email addresses? Because, you know, I'm also wondering, you go far enough back and not a lot of people would have had email addresses.
00:15:07
Speaker
was definitely like AOL era, like mid-90s, early, late 90s. um So, yeah, I guess we get, it we... we got signed to Columbia late 96, so it would have been like definitely mid-90s.
00:15:26
Speaker
we were doing that. And when we got when we were um showcasing for record labels, they were like, you guys have what? That's brilliant.
00:15:37
Speaker
would watch that. When I think about music today, and i I'm a musician to the extent that almost nobody wants to listen to me play, but I enjoy sitting down and, and you know, just banging out, ah like comping on the piano. I can really only play chords. I can't do a lot of, you know, melody lines or something, but I can sit down with my son and think it was yesterday.
00:16:04
Speaker
I was working on the riff from Sleep Now in the Fire, from Rage Against the Machine with him. He's about to be 10. He's been playing guitar for two years. It's not particularly complicated, but he's young.
00:16:19
Speaker
And then he goes from that to just trying to get the strumming pattern on Come As You Are, Nirvana. Yeah. Anybody who listens to me is probably not going to want to do so for very long.
00:16:34
Speaker
That's about, you know, my level of being a musician perhaps, but I, it it makes me happy. So I, I, I state that because my understanding of being a musician, you know, where you can, people will pay you for it or the industry or whatever is, it only goes so far.
00:16:55
Speaker
And so I don't want to make too many assumptions, but My understanding of trying to make it as a musician nowadays is, you know, labels don't have much of an interest in signing someone unless they're already sort of an influencer, content creator, whatever. They're already doing their own marketing.
00:17:19
Speaker
and building an audience. And whether that's right or wrong, yeah I think you really just said it, that you were already taking charge of a bit of that.
00:17:30
Speaker
And again, I don't want to spend too much time on ancient history, but was that intentional at the time? Or was it just somebody had an idea and and you guys thought, well, why not?
00:17:40
Speaker
We'll just see. I want to say it was Ben's idea to start the mailing list. And all of us were like, that's brilliant. Let's do it. Okay. Yeah. And then, I think before we figured out, cause we would get their addresses too.
00:17:56
Speaker
And because like he said, and i just remembered this, like, you know what, we got their addresses too and we would send postcards like before there was email in mass if they didn't have an email.
00:18:09
Speaker
um So we did that as well and um I remember when we got, when we first got stickers for the band, we would all get in the car and and drive around on like a Saturday afternoon and just tag like our bus stop benches and stop signs and just
00:18:31
Speaker
zebra head sticker bang you're reminding me i wrote music for and led a small local rock band when i was in college and it was really fun i wouldn't say that we were particularly good by any means but you know we enjoyed it and people come to our shows and all that but I would screen print shirts for the band because we could buy, you know, plain old cotton t-shirts of different colors for a buck or something, maybe 50 cents. And then because I knew how to screen print and I could go to Kinko's and I could print out the things that you needed to print in order to do your own designs and so on.
00:19:10
Speaker
Each shirt was like two or three bucks. And we would throw out anywhere between 10 and 50 shirts per show. And then eventually it got to a point where in this smallish town,
00:19:26
Speaker
We would see bombs walking around wearing our shirts. We'd see, you know, the college kids. And it's not like they were everywhere, but there were enough people that had seen our name or logo or whatever it was that it started to get to be, you know, it would come up that I was the guitarist or wrote music or whatever for this band.
00:19:51
Speaker
And somebody go you're in that band? You know, like there was this, the the first inkling of fame, I guess, I don't know where it felt like people are talking about me and you're just reminding me of that. And we, we were nowhere near successful by any means.
00:20:07
Speaker
That's right. You say that you saw a ah yeah homeless person there, you sure remind me of the story. we were in Japan and it yeah we were we had already had a gold record too. we were there for a festival run. We're playing in in the Chiba Marine Baseball Stadium in Tokyo where the Yakut Swallows play.
00:20:32
Speaker
And it's after the festival. We'd already been to the bars. It's amazing. it's the middle of the night and I'd go downstairs to the bottom of the hotel. That's, it should be a crossing, which is, you know, like the, the times square with the giant screen and the, the eight crosswalks in there, um, in, in the middle of Tokyo.
00:20:53
Speaker
And I'm just outside having a cigarette. Well, I don't smoke you anymore, but having a cigarette then and over the sky goes walking by wearing zebra head shirt.
00:21:06
Speaker
And I was like, Oh, have we made it now? Is this what this means? I do want to come back a little bit, but I'm going to jump ahead. You have, you've been a real estate agent for 12-ish years now?
00:21:19
Speaker
Something like that. Is that right? That sounds pretty close. It was pretty shortly after left Zebrahead. that I got my license because I only had one other job as an adult before Zebrahead.
00:21:32
Speaker
And it was, you know, I started at that other job at 18 19, working in a warehouse for a secondary structural framing metal company. And then I'd moved into inside sales and It was really the only place I had ever had a job before.
Transition to Real Estate
00:21:51
Speaker
And then when I left Zebrahead 20 years later, I was like, who am I? with What am I going to do with my life?
00:22:01
Speaker
I dropped out of college for this, and thinking i would go back to college when i was when this roller coaster would be over, thinking it was going to be over in a couple of years. But the ride...
00:22:12
Speaker
I never envisioned when Zebrahead got signed that I would be the one to call it quits before the the universe would call it quits for me.
00:22:23
Speaker
And so i when I finally left the circus, I was like, i don't really have any qualifications to do anything. What am going to And I looked into going back to college. I was like, whoa.
00:22:37
Speaker
College got really expensive in the last 20 years. ah I don't see myself doing that. Saw an ad for a real estate agent's one.
00:22:47
Speaker
I can probably do that in a week. Part of where, what I was wondering about with real estate is yeah coming from building an email list, you know, whether it was really intentional or it was just an idea. know, it seems like that was a good experiment to, to try out.
00:23:10
Speaker
And, you know, that was, that was an experiment that proved true. Basically it, but it worked. Are there things that like that, that you have applied now in your real estate or, or if, if it's fair of me to put it this way in your business career, whether it's building an email list or building an audience or something else?
00:23:34
Speaker
Well, I guess 52 year old me would say we had a CRM not knowing it was a CRM back then. So yeah, I guess in, in that sense, like building your, your funnel and your prospect pool, whether you're selling records, music, but regardless of the widget, you need to figure out how to sell the widget.
00:23:58
Speaker
And, um, there's a ah pipeline and and a follow up and a, uh, from yeah prospect to client stage of your sales.
00:24:10
Speaker
So it is, ah I suppose it did unknowingly translate if um into business name. I guess when you started out as a real estate agent, was it, were you conscious of that or did you come around to eventually, you know,
00:24:31
Speaker
two years later, five years later, 10 years later, hey, i need to build a list. I need to build and need to fill out my CRM. I'm just wondering if it stuck with you, you know, like you you were aware of that sort of thing because you had experienced it and your in your music.
00:24:50
Speaker
music I don't think i put two and two together on that until I switched from the mom and pop brokerage that I was first at.
00:25:01
Speaker
And it was very team oriented, um, to where I was kind of learning the business and started as just the, uh, ah guy that you drive around with and open doors um so you do the house called it a showing agent um and then as I got comfortable with like certain parts of the team that I was on i would ask the team leader I'm like yo I I think I understand this. It's pretty easy. ah How about we move into like negotiations, contracts, um and then contracts to close. And then you just kind of, i just, I learned every aspect of it that way.
00:25:43
Speaker
And then eventually i when I was done with splitting the pie up, so to speak, on a team. um With the team, somebody else was prospecting, so they would just hand you the client.
00:26:00
Speaker
um When I left that brokerage to go to Century 21, brokerage, my broker here is, doesn't really advocate for teams. He's like, why do you want to share the pie with somebody else? Just be your own agent.
00:26:17
Speaker
But, you know, you got to,
00:26:20
Speaker
You got to be your own. You got to be, got to be an outdoor cat, not an indoor cat is what he always says. Like, you got to go hunt for yourself. And i don't think until I had to go prospect and hunt for myself that I realized, oh, I need some tools to make this happen.
00:26:37
Speaker
That's really interesting because I, coming into this conversation, I had also wondered, what your experience was finding success as a member of a group and how much you might attribute some of that success to right time, right place, or persistence, hard work, you know, having a dream versus you know, this was just the right mix of people in this band, you know, and then which of those things maybe would have helped you be successful in any other field?
Keys to Success
00:27:18
Speaker
And then, you know, talking about being in the mom and pop sort of family environment versus now it sounds like you have a lot more control, but you're also a little bit more separated.
00:27:30
Speaker
yeah, I hadn't ah had not thought so much about the question of where did your success in music come from and what might that look like today in your real estate career?
00:27:47
Speaker
But I suppose let's go back to the beginning. Do you feel like that you could attribute success that you had early in music to Right Time, Right Place, the group you're with, your hard work and dedication or something else?
00:28:01
Speaker
I would say all three of those things played a huge part. um whats What's the catchphrase here is ah luck happens when opportunity and hard work collide. I forget exactly how that goes, but it was definitely a matter of persistence with the original five of us.
00:28:26
Speaker
It was definitely a little lightning in the bottle with the original five of us. And then it was definitely a little bit of right place, right time with Offspring and No Doubt blowing up.
00:28:43
Speaker
right before us and, and bringing a lot of industry eyes to but area that we grew up in, um, to oh help us get noticed, I suppose.
00:28:55
Speaker
Um, so yeah, it's, it's, uh, I would say that but our, our early successes were, um,
00:29:06
Speaker
a lot of drops in the bucket from a lot of different, um, types. Like it, it it was a cumulative effort of just everything, all of those things happening at once.
00:29:18
Speaker
Um, and if you had taken one of those things out, would have happened for us. I don't know. and it's uh i'd it's it it'd be interesting to put that in the time machine and and play that out differently um but uh yeah i would say all three of those things played uh heavy part into ah our or early success on that think that translates to any uh endeavor that somebody wants to take on
00:29:52
Speaker
um success isn't, isn't like a a singular transaction that you make. Like going to make this one phone call to a Fizbo and, you know, right there on the spot, they're going to list their house with me. That's not the way that works.
00:30:08
Speaker
You're not going to go, you're not going to go to the library and talk to a girl at random and get married on the way out. Like it's, there's, you know, there's a lot of,
00:30:22
Speaker
short games, um, that get to you, to your destination, um, uh, of success. It's, it's not a, this there's hardly one thing.
00:30:34
Speaker
There might be one big thing that it might kickstart it or, or get you across the finish line, but it's a it's a constant deposit at the bank of, um, effort and hard work that is going to make you successful in, in whatever industry, whatever,
00:30:51
Speaker
ah you're trying to achieve. The older that I have gotten, the more I have started to recognize the failings on my own journey of not putting in the hard work.
00:31:06
Speaker
And that's not to say that I think that you should always stick with something because plenty of things you're just never going to be world-class at because, you know, you can't run as fast as Usain Bolt or, you know, you don't have as beautiful of a voice as adele or i don't know you know pick any in any specialty but there are some things where for you you actually could be amazing if not world-class you and when i say you i mean listener you know any person out there and in my own journey
00:31:44
Speaker
I look back and I think, well, if I had realized where I was going on a positive or negative sort of trajectory, if I had just been willing to work hard at it, if, if, if, you know, and I'm not saying it in terms of like regrets as much as I look at my children nowadays and I coach a club soccer team and I try and talk to the boys about things like this, that Not everything comes down to just working hard, but it's really hard to succeed if you're not willing to work hard and then get into the right group of people and combine that with right time, right place, and any number of other things.
00:32:28
Speaker
You don't have to be the best at something to be successful at it. Like, is Mick Jagger the best singer?
00:32:40
Speaker
but Not really. But the Rolling Stones are really good. ah Is the Big Mac the best burger? Absolutely not. They sell a lot of those things.
00:32:53
Speaker
and And I see it all the time in sports where there's just a tremendously gifted athlete who's lazy AF. And then there's moderately gifted athlete who is persistent and in in the ah you know watching film, in the weight room, just there all day.
00:33:18
Speaker
And that guy nine times out of ten, is going to beat the lazy, talented guy who's more talented than him. um And I think that translates to to business and and just about anything else in life. Like if the the harder you work at it, like you said, the harder you work, the luckier you're going to be.
00:33:39
Speaker
Do you think that if it hadn't been guitar or music that, you know, you because of the way you were raised, the, you know, just your own personality, do you think that some of those things that about you rather than your environment would have contributed and and the people you're around and all that, do you think those things about you rather than those things would have contributed to you finding success had it not been guitar and music?
00:34:12
Speaker
I think to a certain point, um, I think, because i I love guitar and making music so much more.
00:34:25
Speaker
I love doing just about anything else. Um, it, it makes it easier two um have that drive to um like constantly improve, constantly um learn new things, um constantly figure out like, what am I missing?
00:34:47
Speaker
The example, like the the first two records for me, I was playing parts that I was hearing in my head, but then when I would hear them on the record, like, it doesn't sound the way i want it to sound on the record.
00:35:01
Speaker
And switching from Playmate to MSCB, I did a deep dive on just different amps, different cabinet boxes, different speakers, the mic pres that mic up, the cabinets, like everything in the signal chain that went from my brain and my fingers to the other end of back in there was tape.
00:35:26
Speaker
But to get to the tape and then come back out on the CD, like I just went deep dive on learning everything about the process in the middle and where was the,
00:35:38
Speaker
but where was I losing the translation of what I wanted to hear in my mind? And, um, I think like, I don't know if I would do that for another industry where like, I just loved every bit, everything about the process. Like, Ooh, need 1073. Let's learn about that.
00:35:59
Speaker
I don't know if I was in finance. I'd be like, Hmm, let's see. 1031 exchange. yeah I wonder, though, if if you had found that finance somehow was your thing. Like, let's just imagine that you were a version of Warren Buffett.
00:36:20
Speaker
And, you know, you like you read one of these biographies of him and he was selling things and then buying stocks when he was, I don't know, 12. or whatever the the age was, I wonder if for you, you would have found some success here or there and that would have then helped to fuel your passion.
00:36:43
Speaker
And am i am wondering about that in particular because, you know, the whole thing about, well, follow your passion or something of that nature versus people who might say, it's hard to become passionate about something if you don't work hard enough to get good at it in the first place. Because you have to, you know, you have to see some success before you start to often feel good about the thing.
00:37:13
Speaker
And once you feel good, then there's this reinforcement mechanism that occurs. Kind of spirals from there. Exactly. And so, it you know, we like you referenced the time machine, right? Like to go back and say, well, let's take the guitar away and let's make it that you were selling. I talked to this gentleman, Ryan Hogan.
00:37:35
Speaker
who his entrepreneurial career started in, I think he said third grade, he was selling creepy crawlers. That's a Wayback Machine reference. His story is just so interesting. Can pause on the creepy crawler thought for a second?
00:37:47
Speaker
and So I forget what way it came in, like a candy or something. My five-year-old is last. It was probably Halloween last year, but like there's an egg or something. There was a wacky wall walker in there.
00:38:03
Speaker
And he's like, i don't know. What is this, dad? I'm like, oh, take this out. And we were on the ceiling and it stuck. and it And it hung there.
00:38:14
Speaker
Just like one of those, but like half of it came down. so it was just sitting on the ceiling like that for like a month. my wife was so mad at me. Will you get that big off the ceiling?
00:38:24
Speaker
Like, i can't reach it. Get a broom or something. got It's going to leave stain. don't know what that is. Every day we look at it, me the five-year-old be like, it's still there, Dad. I think you and I have been through plenty of similar experiences.
00:38:39
Speaker
i do it with all three of my children, but in particular with my son, I think it's maybe a male-female dynamic thing where he just finds some things fascinating that I do too, because I can go back to being a nine, 10-year-old, you know, but my wife doesn't always find them nearly as funny.
00:38:59
Speaker
Yeah, I wonder all the time what my wife is thinking. Like, did you know you're getting into? Part of what I was wondering about, you know, work ethic and all of that, and maybe would you have found success is you've done other things and you still...
00:39:20
Speaker
Music is being a musician is who you are. And, you know, but you're not doing that 24 seven exactly, at least not performing, writing music.
00:39:31
Speaker
So do you, do you feel like you have brought a similar work ethic, maybe not the same, but a similar work ethic or passion, if I can put it that way, to the other things you've done in your life, whether it's real estate or being a parent or any other thing. I think you, you, I don't know if, do you produce music now? I believe you've been a producer in the past, right? Like any other thing like that?
00:40:03
Speaker
Uh, yeah. Produce a couple of friends, bands, records. Um, I produce our current, uh, my, my current band, the Bourbon Brothers band stuff. Um,
00:40:15
Speaker
but All of us, the five of us, would get co-producer credits on the Zebrahead Records host Howard Benson. um And then had second engineer credits on everything after Howard II when I had bought my first Pro Tools rig.
00:40:38
Speaker
um So I enjoy producing... Two, when i left Zebra Head, was maybe trying to look into being like a full-time producer.
00:40:55
Speaker
And what I quickly realized was that i enjoy making my own music a lot more than making other people's music.
00:41:09
Speaker
Like, I enjoy helping them make it, but at the same time, I'm like, I really respect Howard a lot more after i produced somebody else's record.
00:41:21
Speaker
Um, cause there were times in the studio when on those first two records where the five of us wouldn't agree on something. And so it would be difficult to move forward.
00:41:34
Speaker
And then Howard would pick a side to just move the ball forward and get the project done. And if he didn't pick your side, whoever's side he didn't pick, that person or those people in the band would be angry at Howard about it.
00:41:51
Speaker
And so being in the head coach versus the quarterback, is kind of a different scenario. And, and as the quarterback, when you don't get the play called that you wanted, you're pissed about it.
00:42:07
Speaker
But at the same time, like,
00:42:12
Speaker
if If you're not, sometimes there's compromise that you don't want to make when you're the artist. But when you're the producer, you kind of have the bigger picture because it's not your name on the spine on the album.
00:42:27
Speaker
And you're like, focus. We have deadlines. Let's go. And to the artist, there's no deadline.
00:42:38
Speaker
It's my way until I get it where I want, which isn't always financially possible. so So you've gone through, you know, some um learning experiences, I guess, going from being the artist to then helping other people produce their music.
00:42:57
Speaker
And so ah really what I'm wondering is that Those things that you've taken with you that apply ah across all the different things that you might do. So let me give you a scenario.
00:43:12
Speaker
So I referenced my son playing guitar. For his age, he's really quite good. There are a ton of kids that are virtuoso, you know, and and that is not him.
00:43:24
Speaker
I never felt that I was virtuoso. And there were i had friends that I always thought were better than me at guitar. um I would even say that Dan, who replaced me in Zebrahead, is a more technically proficient, better guitar player than me.
00:43:41
Speaker
But like I pointed back for, know, guitarist,
00:43:46
Speaker
is Mick Jagger the best singer? Is Keith Richards right the best guitarist? Yes. If you put David Gilmour up against Inve Malmsteen on Who's a bigot Better Guitar Player, like, yeah, Inve is rushingly virtuoso.
00:44:01
Speaker
But David Gilmour plays slow AF, but just some of the coolest lips you might ever hear. So, I mean, like, your son your son could be, like, write the most amazing song ever that's
00:44:17
Speaker
it inspires somebody to pick up a guitar because they can play it versus nobody's there's a handful of people that are going play what Yngwie can play when you learn to play guitar you're like oh man gonna learn this that's all that oh that's finally got you know it's it's accessible well and that's part of what I'm wondering too is um you know,
00:44:43
Speaker
you how how much can you transfer persistence? And I think we've said it already, persistence, hard work, all of these things transfer across almost anything you're going to do. You know, you and I are both parents and I think that there are things that we've learned ah that everybody learns, right? At least hopefully you learn it as you're going through your journey as a parent.
00:45:12
Speaker
And yet there are also a lot of things that we fail to learn. You know, you or I or the next person, you know, dear listener here fails to learn because we didn't have the right mindset. We weren't looking in the right place. We didn't have the right mentor or something of that nature.
00:45:31
Speaker
And so as I talked to my son and he, you know, he's, he's good, but it's not like somebody who would look at him and go, wow, you should be a guitarist.
00:45:45
Speaker
They would just hear him and go, wow, he's pretty good for a nine year old, soon to be 10 year old. But if he loves it, If he can imagine being willing to do the work, you know, because it's going to be hard. I think you know that if you want to be really great at something, you're going to have to do a lot of stuff that's often not fun.
00:46:08
Speaker
You know, hear these like 10,000 hour story things, right? That the top musicians in the New York Philharmonic or whatever it is, the first chair typically practices less than the second chair.
00:46:22
Speaker
And they say that they enjoy their practice much less. It's often because the things that they choose to deliberately, either deliberate about working on, are the things that they're not good at.
00:46:34
Speaker
So in the moment, it's not as enjoyable. but what they get out of it is knowing that if they work hard, they can become the person that they want to be, or they can have, they can be up on stage and everybody's clapping because they were able to play the thing that the second chair wasn't even willing to work hard on.
00:46:55
Speaker
And you know, so my son, talking to him about if no matter how good you are not, if you really love it, then I think it will show up in you being willing to work hard.
00:47:11
Speaker
And I'm guessing that that played in at some point in your music, but then also if it did, has it also shown up in, you know, how you've approached your real estate career or other things that you've done?
00:47:30
Speaker
I think some like universal, um, recipes for success, that's, that's gotta happen. Um, whether it's music, real estate, um, being a doctor, um, you know, being, being a finance bro, being, um, but whatever your endeavor is, um, you're, you're constantly learning, um, and trying to get better from it.
00:47:59
Speaker
Otherwise you're just gonna be static. You're stuck where you're at. And I guess back to like the, yeah your son maybe not being virtuoso, maybe he's not a virtuoso yet.
00:48:12
Speaker
me he it's better right yeah Maybe Maybe lot of times it's not about being the best at something, but being the best version of you at that something.
00:48:24
Speaker
I think that that is, You know something that, ah like I was saying, looking back at your own journey and thinking, oh, I could have worked harder here or made a different decision or whatever.
00:48:35
Speaker
it's Plenty people have heard this. If you've heard me speak before that didn't really learn the value of hard work until probably around 30. And, you know, I wouldn't be where I am. I wouldn't have met my wife. I wouldn't have my children, all of these things.
00:48:53
Speaker
If I had learned the value of hard work when I was 12 20 or whatever it was. But or whatever it was but You know, you, this is sort of related to, you've heard the statement before that, you know, the generals are all always fighting the last war.
00:49:10
Speaker
And so you learn lessons and then often what you learned from your experience, you want to pass on to your children, even though those might not be the challenges or the struggles that they face.
00:49:24
Speaker
And so I don't want to overemphasize it certainly, but there are things i think you said, i think you used the word universal. I think that there are things that it sure seems to me like it is universally valuable to be deliberate about what you spend your time on when you do spend your time on something to work really hard at it, to follow through on your commitments and any you know number of other things.
00:49:51
Speaker
And I suspect that that, that played a role. you I mean, you sort of said it was in the mix. Do you approach either, you know, the Bourbon Brothers band ah activities in a similar manner, the same kind of dedication? Do you approach your real estate career? I think you've, I think I've heard you say before you play like beer league hockey or something. Do you approach other activities in your life with a similar kind of commitment or passion?
00:50:25
Speaker
uh for the business stuff side of bourbon brothers real estate yes clearly hockey no no i just show up hang out with the boys try not to get hurt and then go drink beers in the parking a lot afterwards i'm really curious i think i mentioned it earlier and one way or another but You can take this either direction you want to go either.
00:50:51
Speaker
How do you talk to your own kids or how would you talk to just young people generally today? about like how they should think about finding the things that they love, finding a career, working hard, all those things. we you know We've talked about those things.
00:51:10
Speaker
How do you try to parent your kids or and what advice do you give to people to try and find you know the kind of success that you have had at times? And or, Greg, you can you can handle one or both here.
00:51:27
Speaker
If you were talking to someone that really wanted to chase the dream of music, whether they want to be, you know, the biggest selling artist in the world, though, if anyone here listens to Rick Beato, you know, we're never going to see platinum selling artists again. It's another Atlanta guy.
00:51:50
Speaker
Yep, exactly. And, know, so either generally, you know, thinking about your future, working hard, kids, all of that, and, or you want to go into music based on my experience here is, here's the advice that I would give you. What, what do you, what think? Or what do you say?
00:52:11
Speaker
I'll start with my kids. Whether it's music, because my daughter has um tried to play several instruments and um to which she thought she would like. And then maybe like we talked about earlier, she didn't get that immediate reward of...
00:52:34
Speaker
um being like good at it, like super quick. And so it kind of faded.
00:52:46
Speaker
and but always encourage my kids to buy everything. Just don't know if you like it. Try it. That looks weird, Dad. i don't want to eat it.
00:52:57
Speaker
How are you going to It could be delicious. You can put it in your mouth, too. Go for it. Well, don't know if I'm going to like doing x Y, or Z. Go for it.
00:53:09
Speaker
Try it. Try it twice. Make sure you didn't screw it up the first time and you really are going to like it. um don't you know don't come into things with a bunch of preconditions a bunch of assumptions on how things are going to be before you've tried it yourself and uh you know give it give everything a fair shot and if you don't like it you don't like it that's cool but uh um And until you try it, don't know, you know, you don't know yet.
00:53:46
Speaker
Like, give it your best. Give it your all. It doesn't work out. You don't like it. Or it's not your jam. Like, that's cool, too. Just try something else until you um get there.
00:54:00
Speaker
Or maybe you try it. You're terrible at it, but you really enjoy doing it. That's cool, too. As long as you're having fun, especially at their ages, 14 and 5, like, don't have to be great at it.
00:54:13
Speaker
At the end of the day, like, you're... you're There's no scouts at the T-wall game. There's... Well, there might be college scouts at my daughter's club and swim team, but there probably isn't.
00:54:29
Speaker
And as a long as you're having fun, long as she's having fun at her swim club, like, I don't care where you finish in the race. I want you to finish. i want you to be enjoying yourself and and having fun being a kid.
00:54:44
Speaker
Um, and you know, hanging with your friends and, and having experiences, um that you might miss out on. Otherwise, if you come with a bunch of preconceived notions on how things are going to be um, so I, that's, that's how I am with my kids. And I suppose that's how I am in, my life, maybe maybe to, and to my detriment in my twenties and thirties when I would try anything twice.
00:55:16
Speaker
but Um, you know, it's, uh, um, you know, you don't know if you don't give everything a fair shake and, and go for it. If you don't like it, that's cool.
00:55:28
Speaker
Um, but, um, You'll never know if you've got a bunch of walls up and a bunch of um bunch of ideas of what it is when you don't really know what it is.
00:55:40
Speaker
So I guess that's my my life lesson to my my kids that I want to pass on. For music, don't remember if I read it in an article or if i saw it in a reel, but it was an interview with Willie Nelson.
00:55:53
Speaker
And they were asking him, well, how did you make it And I remember him saying, well, I could tell you how I made it, but to be quite honest, I was the only one that walks through that door and the doors closed and how you're going to make it is going to be different.
00:56:12
Speaker
And ah was ah like, that's an interesting thought, especially like from his generation to my generation and my generation to the next generation. Like so much has changed within the the landscape of the music industry um and technology and and what you can and can't do for yourself.
00:56:34
Speaker
And if you want to be on a major label, what's like expected of you for them even... like look at you to to be on a major label um and do you even want to be on a major label like is that is that the best thing for you um like i have a friend in town who's a entertainment well he's a lawyer of many hats but one of his many hats is entertainment law and um <unk>t know if he still is, but he used to represent this huge YouTube kid called Matty B. And he was like one of the top 10 YouTubers on um the platform, right?
00:57:16
Speaker
And was like, he's he wass like a Justin Bieber at the time. He's a good looking 13 year old white kid from Alpharetta playing drums and rapping. And I was like, yo, how is like Disney not knocking on your door every day or some label?
00:57:35
Speaker
He's like, they are. was like, what, why aren't you on, why isn't he on Disney channel yet then? He's like, he would make less money working at Disney than what his YouTube channel makes.
00:57:46
Speaker
Like, why? I'm like, oh wow. That like, you can be successful. successful just without um some sort of major backing or um a machine behind you these days.
00:58:06
Speaker
That said, you have to be the machine these days if that's where you're at. And success means different things to different people. um You know, some people are going to view success as a music musician as album sold or money made or maybe streams or maybe it's happiness and artistic integrity.
00:58:34
Speaker
Like there's a lot of different versions of what success looks like. This was definitely a reel I saw of John Mayer talking to kids at Berkeley where he went to school.
00:58:49
Speaker
And he was talking to the crowd. He's like, success means everything. It's something different to everyone. I've got friends that sold 2 million records and they thought they were losers and it was a complete flop.
00:59:00
Speaker
I've got other friends who sold 2 million records and they thought they were the biggest thing on the planet. Like all their up childhood dreams came true. And so you can take the same thing to two different people and it it can strike them entirely different on how they viewed their version of success.
00:59:20
Speaker
um But I would say what whatever that version of success is for you as a musician, you need to embrace that as your destination.
00:59:33
Speaker
So you're still deeply involved in music. I think it was maybe before we started recording that you said you're sometimes playing about six times a week. Am I recalling that correctly?
00:59:49
Speaker
On a really busy week. Yeah, we'll we'll be there out there six days. um um This week is a light week. We got three days. Your destination, I think, for some time was something related to music. I don't know if it was, you know become the best version of myself as a guitarist I can be, if it was sell a bigger album, whatever, but it was in that field.
01:00:14
Speaker
When you stepped away from it being full time, did you experience a any feeling of loss?
Leaving Zebrahead and New Directions
01:00:25
Speaker
100%.
01:00:27
Speaker
and But you had other motivating factors. I had thought about leaning Zebrahead for probably two years before actually pulled the trigger on it.
01:00:40
Speaker
And i i still love the guys. I'm of, of the three expats in the band. I'm the only one that still talks to the, you know, the, the band. they actually just rolled to town in Atlanta and was a blast to go hang with them and, and be at the show and, and just see what, what, what it is they're doing without me, I guess.
01:01:03
Speaker
Um, And I still talk to the Ex-Tat guys too. So not to be like playing both sides of the fence, but you know, I'm still friends with everybody, I think. At least that's in my opinion. mean Maybe then're they might see it differently, but I still think of of everybody that I played with in that band is my friend.
01:01:24
Speaker
And I know i I had talked to Justin about it before and and he had kind of mentioned that like, oh, I don't want to... It's like, I'm not looking at my ex-wife's Facebook page to see what she's up to. It's just weird. I don't want to, like, it's awkward.
01:01:42
Speaker
And I guess I think of it more as like, oh, want to see, my kid went off to college. i want to see how they grew up. Versus, you know, it's just a different perspective on it.
01:01:53
Speaker
um But yeah, when I, when I, But it was it was becoming hard for me to be away from home that long. I still loved playing shows. I still loved hanging with friends um in different cities that we had made over the years.
01:02:09
Speaker
still love being in the studio. But... ah Even like to to write in pre-production, like I would have to fly out of Atlanta back to California.
01:02:24
Speaker
And even that was being away from home. So it was like being on tour when I wasn't on tour. So like i I would be away from home more than the other guys um because of me moving to Atlanta.
01:02:40
Speaker
And it it was just a... It was becoming difficult to be a dad. like i it and ah got I got used to, really used to missing anniversaries, birthdays, friends, weddings and in the almost 20 years of touring.
01:02:58
Speaker
But when I had my daughter and i was missing like first steps, first words, it really it was really difficult for me.
01:03:10
Speaker
And then i think you throw in on top, like all of the four ways to deal with, um, unhappiness on tour is not healthy for your soul.
01:03:25
Speaker
oh like, i just made ah decision one that I, it was fine. Um, and then when I left, It's like that scene in Zoolander where he's looking at the puddle after he leaves the be a um wait ah ah um model ah whatever convention. And it's like, who am I?
01:03:52
Speaker
it was really hard for me to, to but my identity was so wrapped into, I'm Greg from Zebrahead. And I didn't know what was next for me. kind of touched on it earlier. i was like, oh when we got signed, I just thought, you know, we'd make an album or two, we'd get dropped, and then id go back to school.
01:04:15
Speaker
And the the ride really never ended. f And the world kind of passed me by. i felt a little rip Van Winkle. Like, I got ah was still just... twenty 25 year old and that got dropped off into this 43 year old body and the world has passed me by where I'm like oh uh now what i do I I'm still a musician though and I didn't know how to handle that um I didn't it if it felt like it's not that I've ever been to war or want to equate it to like something like that but I felt like a limb was gone or something where I'm like what what do i do and uh
01:04:55
Speaker
you I had friends that were telling well, why don't you start another band at home? I'm like, so that I could do what? Play a bunch of rock songs with the endeavor of the destination going back on tour.
01:05:07
Speaker
I just left that. That sounds like a terrible thing that I had to go do and start from zero that I just did when I know the end result isn't going to necessarily make me happy anymore.
01:05:19
Speaker
Like, that's a weird. And, uh, Yeah, you know, I was playing, i still play in a ah beer league, hockey league, yeah and one of the other guys in warmest escaped by him. I'm like, you singing Sinatra under your helmet in warmest? He's, no.
01:05:40
Speaker
ah Yeah, you were. And he's like, okay, maybe that was... Hey, you want to come over and ah jam some standards sometime? Oh yeah, that'd be fun. And I think part of them what made it okay for me to start playing again, because i didn't i'm I didn't touch the guitar for a couple of years really after I left the band, because I i and was like, what for?
01:06:04
Speaker
What am I doing? um It was fun to pick up my guitar again It was fun to play in an entirely new, different genre to where like and like playing guitar was new.
01:06:21
Speaker
It wasn't just like, I'm hanging out with my old friend. and like, oh, there's these all these things that happen in jazz and in standard that just don't happen in rock, really, and unless you're playing like Stevie Dan songs or something.
01:06:39
Speaker
um to um make it new and and interesting again and um something like the artistic um things of monotony for like when you're a rock band you play the same song every night.
01:06:59
Speaker
You can play the same solo every night. It's like this, it's structured the same way. Like it's, you're trying to, you're trying to create it like the record is, recreate it as it was on the record almost identically um every time.
01:07:15
Speaker
Whereas in most jazz bands aren't going to play it the same way twice and intentionally. um It's super fun for me to like, there's, but we play three hour sets usually.
01:07:32
Speaker
There's like three songs that I have that it's a scripted solo. It gets to the point in the solo and can play anything I want and I'm not going play the same thing tomorrow.
01:07:43
Speaker
And that is awesome to me. Like I love that there's no rules like that. Expectations. Yeah. um, we didn't even make set lists.
01:07:55
Speaker
and so We start with fly weenie to the moon and we end with my way. Everything else in between those three hours is like, kind of feel the room out. You know, if the wedding didn't want to dance, cool.
01:08:08
Speaker
If the corporate party wants to us to be background music, cool. We change our pitch of what the next call is going to be like. right, let's do Chuck Baker. Um, so it's, it's, um,
01:08:23
Speaker
fun to uh to be have music be new again to me and have it be new almost every night again to where you're like all right the the song's the same but when it gets to my solo i'm like it's gonna be a minute and a half but i'm just noodling um which is which is uh fun again um so it it was yeah it was definitely like hard for me when I left. Like I didn't know, felt like I lost my identity.
01:08:57
Speaker
um especially where I was like, i was a musician. And after I got my real estate license and and you'd be doing like marketing CE classes or something, my brain would immediately always translate every marketing bit that they would tell me on say, you know, how to run meta ads or something.
01:09:21
Speaker
My brain would always go, oh how would I do that for music? oh well i wouldn't i didn't even have music to market my brain would always think of it as music first before i thought of it in terms of oh how do i expand you know prospecting for real estate like my brain would always always go to music first um so it was yeah it was definitely like uh ah
01:09:47
Speaker
there was definitely a something missing, like, you know, how do I and i move on from this oh before i I, I guess, refound myself and trying to find a balance ah ah of all of it, like being a dad, being a musician, um running a business, and then do all those things at the same time.
01:10:13
Speaker
But we were talking about like earlier having a destination in mind. And i think if I'm hearing you clearly, you got off that road and you had, i think, a destination in a sense in that you had some other priorities, you know, being more present as a father And, you know, you said you got used to missing anniversaries and weddings and whatever else.
01:10:44
Speaker
And so I don't know if I could say it was the same kind of destination or not, but put it simply, you had other priorities. And my guess would be the this would probably play in when you're advising your children or you're advising people generally, hey, if you're going go into music or if you're going to chase that dream, probably getting accustomed to change, you know, or being, maybe even if you're not accustomed to it, being willing to change at times because your priorities will change.
01:11:24
Speaker
And that's going to change how you see yourself, how you define yourself. And i I think I hear underneath this that that was a really difficult struggle.
01:11:35
Speaker
And yet hopefully you have come to a point now after some years where you're comfortable with where you've ended up, at least as of right now. I mean, you're still on a journey, of course.
01:11:48
Speaker
Yeah, honestly, I had never really thought about it in that way. oh Thank you for the ah um another perspective on it. like Yeah, I guess my destination really did change.
01:12:04
Speaker
And um the i guess the course correction um was something that I guess wasn't expecting in life and took me a hot minute to kind of figure out how to make that, um, that, that different path or, um, to get to the different, uh, destination.
01:12:31
Speaker
Um, but yeah, that's, that's, that's a, that's a, uh, cool perspective to, thanks. Greg, I will now bring it around to a close.
01:12:44
Speaker
You've been really generous with your time. i think, let's see.
01:12:50
Speaker
Counting the time before we started recording, you know I've kept you for almost two hours. So thank you for that. The two things that I'll end with are... where would you direct people, whether it's to quote unquote connect as the kids say nowadays, or it's to learn more, it's to find out about investing in property with you or to check out, I think you told me at one point there's something on the horizon or your band you know, where would you direct people? Where do you want them to look to connect or otherwise?
01:13:24
Speaker
And then Do you have any final words of wisdom or things you would want to leave people with? And then we'll wrap it there.
Current Projects and Online Presence
01:13:33
Speaker
If you want to find me, can find me online at gregbergdorf.com. You can find me on Instagram at greg underscore bergdorf.
01:13:43
Speaker
If you want to follow the bourbon brothers, that's bourbonbrothersband.com. And I think there's a few variations of that that we have. Um, uh, do you want to see what the old guys are up too he' to you? So check in on zebra head.com.
01:13:57
Speaker
Um, there is a, uh, link on, uh, gregbergdorf.com. If for real estate, if you're looking for a house in Atlanta, you're here in Atlanta, we'd love to help you out of that.
01:14:10
Speaker
Um, It's a Century 21 agent and we have offices all over the world. So if you're in Indiana or Munich, Germany, and you need a referral for a great agent, I can help you out with that.
01:14:24
Speaker
Or if you're looking to purchase an investment property, maybe 10% ROI while you're ah ah yeah property appreciates in value here in Atlanta, I can help you find that as well.
01:14:37
Speaker
I'm also wrapping up a ah project I'm pretty excited about um where I am doing the sound design and composer for an independent movie.
01:14:49
Speaker
We've been in a few indie film festivals and and um we've won some things. A movie's called Another Day. Um, so keep an eye out for that. We haven't really started the social media PR campaign yet.
01:15:05
Speaker
Um, but, uh, that'll be coming shortly and, and that's a lot of fun too. And, uh, hopefully we'll have a bourbon brothers record out not too long either.
01:15:16
Speaker
are there things that you would want to leave people with? You know, it it could be on anything. It could be related to music, your career, general outlook before we wrap this. We touched a lot on like work ethic, making, making small deposits and, um, being consistent for success.
01:15:36
Speaker
But I think something that gets, I tell my wife this all the time, who is an undeniable baller, um, lawyer, MBA, um and has been working on a startup for the last five years. And sometimes she gets really frustrated with the how fast or the the pace of growth for her startup.
01:16:04
Speaker
And have to remind her all the time, like, babe, enjoy the ride. Like, enjoy the journey. Like, the... it's It's, you know, it's partially about the destination, but if if you're... If it's a miserable...
01:16:20
Speaker
bumpy ride the entire time. Like there's going some turbulence on your flight. Like embrace it. Love it. Like but um embrace the journey. and And, um, so I would tell people that too, like, there's going to good times. there's gonna be bad times while you're working towards your goal and just suck it all in and, and, and enjoy how that process plays out.
01:16:45
Speaker
If you're not enjoying it, it's going to be difficult to be successful at it. I forget how I put it earlier, but I was really happy when you responded. I didn't know what to expect. You know, you've done a lot of things in your life, but I really only knew you from your music and then following, you know, some of the social media and all that. So the fact that we got some time to speak here was awesome. Plus, you know we have a little bit of but just very minor connections having lived in the same area and all that. So thank you for being here, Greg. I appreciate it.
01:17:19
Speaker
ah Thanks for having me.