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RISK TAKER
Welcome to the Risk Taker Podcast—the podcast that celebrates the stories of daring individuals! Join us as we dive into the inspiring stories of successful risk-takers, those extraordinary individuals who fearlessly embraced opportunities and reaped the rewards. Get ready to be motivated, uplifted, and empowered to take your own leap of faith.
RISK TAKER
S3:E21 Slow Down to Speed Up
In this episode of the Risk Taker Podcast, Ebens sits down with Ayize Glenn Gray, Founder & CEO of Moyo Imara Group a real estate developer, AI strategist, and spiritual teacher who’s redefining what it means to build wealth, purpose, and legacy.
From working in Hollywood to taking a leap of faith in Lagos, Nigeria, Glenn shares how every risk, setback, and silent season led to a bigger calling. He opens up about failure, fatherhood, faith, and the inner work required to rebuild from the ground up.
Whether you’re an entrepreneur just getting started or a seasoned dream chaser learning to pivot, this conversation will remind you that sometimes the fastest way forward… is to slow down.
Connect with Ayize Glenn Gray:
Website: www.moyoimaragroup.com
Instagram: @iamayizeglenngray
LinkedIn: Glenn Gray
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Welcome to the Restaker Podcast. I'm your host, Evans, man. I hope you guys are having an amazing day, amazing week, amazing weekend, man. We have one in the books, man. I have my brother here, man. Glenn. How you feeling, my brother?
SPEAKER_02:I'm feeling excited. Um cool and collected and uh ready to get started, man. It's a it's a good opportunity, feeling blessed to be here with you, my brother.
SPEAKER_04:Appreciate it, man. Appreciate it, man. For for for people that don't know you, man, uh, can you give a little bit of background who who is Glenn? Is the the CEO, the entrepreneur, the father, the the leader, the teacher. Can you let people know uh who who are you?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, my name is Glenn Irvin Gray Jr., my birth. And um, there's some folks along my path that also know me as Ayeeze Glenn Gray. Um, Ayize is a name that I picked up along my spiritual journey. Um, it does have a meaning to it, it means let it happen in Zulu. So we could talk a little bit about that as it relates to risk and going for your dreams, right? Um, so but professionally, you know, I work in the real estate space now. Yeah, I tell people real estate is my second career. I did have a career and a life prior to being a full-time real estate entrepreneur and businessman. Um, I worked in the motion picture industry um uh for the good part of my career. Um, I worked in Los Angeles, I worked in New York, where I began my career. And I also worked overseas for one year in Lagos, Nigeria. Oh, nice. Had the opportunity to travel a little bit, and we'll talk a little bit about that, like how that became, you know, how that came about. Um, and other than my my professional background, um, you know, I'm a father of three children. Um I'm I'm I'm a husband, you know, I'm a partner. Um I'm a son of uh with three other siblings, right? Um my oldest daughter, she is a freshman now in college. So I'm moving into a new season, right? A new age as a dad, you know. Um, and um, you know, I serve my community uh, you know, through a fraternal organization. Um, so I like to stay busy in my business, but I also like to stay busy in my family and stay busy in supporting the community. Um, you know, and other than that, you know, I have an area of my life that I don't broadcast too much or I don't market, but I'm a spiritual man, you know. Um there were some parts of my journey that I actually was a spiritual teacher, a spiritual guide, supporting individuals for their development and their unfoldment here, you know, in this earthly plane. So there's a lot people have said, wow, you are a renaissance man. You know, when I first heard it, I was like, wow, that's a big task. But as I looked at the meaning and looked to the word, I said, it makes sense. You know, I am a Renaissance man. You know, for fun, I've taught myself the bass guitar. So I dabble a little bit with the music thing. And I also paint, you know, I'm a uh selling artist, you know. I don't have a website up anymore, but I did have a life. I had exhibits and um I paint in the abstract format with acrylic. So it's really more about my meditative, you know, what I'm seeing, what I'm sensing, what I'm feeling in the interior finds itself expressing on the canvas through paint, through color, through stroke, through movement. So yeah, that's a little bit about this uh tapestry here.
SPEAKER_04:Man, we're gonna we're gonna we this conversation is gonna it's gonna be nice, man. It's gonna it's gonna be it's gonna be something, man. What what so let's get let's get into this, man. What made you what was the the what made you go after your dream? What what was that one risk that you took that changed your whole your whole life? No, your whole life, your entrepreneur journey, man. What was that one risk, man, going after your dream? What what was that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, um, I was kind of thinking about that. And you know, I love your sweatshirt because in life there's always two sides of a coin, right? Right? There's the yin, there's the yang, there's the hot, there's the cold, is the right, and they both have an interplay. So we can talk about risk, but on the other side of risk is the dream chasing. Yes, and it all depends on the perspective. So, what I would say is when I was chasing my dream, I was also taking a risk. But I did not see it as a risk then. When I look back, I go, oh, that was pretty risky, right? It was pretty risky to graduate in 1992 from Clark Atlanta University, create an internship through one conversation from a guest speaker who happened to visit a marketing class and gave his phone number out to the entire class. One individual called, that was me. I was blessed that the individual did not travel back to Lagos. Well, he missed his flight. So, because he missed his flight, I was able to have a long conversation with him because he was still local. This was before WhatsApp and all these bondage and all these ways to have long-distance phone calls. Like I would have to pay to speak to him for a long time in theory from Atlanta, Georgia. Like, right? So that was a blessing. We had a conversation. I told him what my vision was, which was always to travel to Africa and you know, visit, you know, the motherland and you know, just fulfill on this dream that I had, right? This desire. Came up with this idea that had never been proposed before. He took it back to his business constituents in Lagos. I did the task that was put before me. So, right, there's always the risk, and then there's action it has to take. So I took those actions that he described that I needed to take. And, you know, a couple months later, I get a letter, and they created this internship out of the blue, out of the thin air, and I was invited to join them for three months in Lagos in Nigeria. So graduated from college, left my apartment in Atlanta, went back home to New York City, took a full part-time job, right? It was a temporary job, but it was full-time working in the New York City uh school system, doing maintenance, because we had a I had a family member that opened that door for me. I did maintenance all summer. I made enough money to buy a plane ticket, right? So I had two conversations. The conversation with the man before he told me, right? And then the conversation is saying, here's my plane ticket, here's my flight, this is when I arrive, I need somebody to meet me at the airport. Yeah. It's pretty risky, right? You know, I didn't know them from the line on the highway. I didn't, you know, but I was following the dream. And um, but what I do was I bought an open round trip ticket. Because that part of me knew that if I got over there and I liked what I was experiencing and I wanted to experience more, I would want to stay. So I bought an open ticket. It cost a little more. I took some rest, spent some little extra money, cost a little more. I went over there, and lo and behold, I ended up renewing my visa a few other times, and I stayed for one year.
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SPEAKER_04:Wow, man.
SPEAKER_02:Three months, and that experience has shaped me, continues to shape me today, continues to influence some of the projects that are, you know, been working on back on the continent, because now the continent is popular, it's sexy, folks are moving over there. You know, this was 1992, you know, when I went over there. So people could say, yeah, I was a trendsetter, whatever, you know, but that was that was a risk that I took, but I was really chasing the dream.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and and and you mentioned you mentioned something, it's the action, because you might you may have a dream, you may have this thing, this idea, but if you never take action on that dream, it would never come, it'll never come true. So you did the most you did the most important, the most important steps is by taking action. With that action, uh you had a great experience. No. So go to Nigeria to to to visit the motherland, now to have that experience. So I'm glad that that I'm glad that you were able to to do that, no, and that experience shaped you till this day. So that that is awesome, man. That is that is awesome. And you said the keyword, the keyword is the action. You met somebody, now you met somebody, the person tells you, here's the step, here's what you need to do. You figured it out, then you made it happen now by taking action. So I I love I love that, man. And uh and um let me ask you this, like the experience when you got to Niger. How was the coming from America going to Nigeria? How was that? It's two different, it's two different countries. Like, like how was how was it a cultural shock? Like, what was the the thing that you took away that you could still apply today?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. So I tell folks, if I was fortunate to have grown up in New York City and had all these exposure and often interaction on New York City trains and subways and people, and you know, just what it takes to move in New York City from birth to you know, you go off to college, right? So I had all kinds of experiences. So because of that, because I tell folks, Lagos is like New York City or any metropolis in this country on steroids. It's way more people, it's a lot faster, the hustle is strong, everybody's committed to whatever it is they say they're there. They're about, they are about it, they're committed to it. From the from the CEO of the banking to the individual who's walking around the neighborhood, clicking on the box to get your attention so he can shine his shoes. Yeah, he can shine your shoes. Everybody is committed and everybody's on it. And one of the first things that I experienced was uh when I got into the city, so I lived in an area called Ikejah, which is a main kind of active suburb of the main, you know, downtown area, right? And I lived in right in the middle of hustle and the bustle. But in the back of my compound was the neighborhood. So the front was the major street, action all day, all night. The back was pretty quiet, you know, just the neighborhood street. So I'm standing towards the back, looking out the gate, the individuals that I was going to be working for and living in the compound, they were out of town. They were in Liberia filming a documentary. So I went over to do an internship in television and commercial production, right? So that was my undergraduate major communications. So they were in Liberia filming parts of their documentary on the children's soldiers. So no one was around except for the security guards. I'm standing there looking at the back of the fence, and I see this young man walking down the street. And he has he has no shoes on, because that's popular, right? So he's walking down this dusty, dirty room, right? And he has a car battery balanced on his head. Now, usually you see the women with the wrap. Yes. Yep. Then they put the bucket or the bag or whatever. So it creates like a buffer. This young man didn't need the wrap. He had the battery balanced on his head with his hands to his side, walking in lockstep order. Like, I am not concerned that this battery is gonna fall off my head. I know I have it balanced, I'm good. And he was making it happen. And I stood there and I just watched him pass me. And in my mind, I said, All right, Dorothy, Kansas, that's going bye-bye. Everything you thought you knew about life and existence and how people move and live, it's gonna be different. And I just that was the first real interaction, you know, that I had with the people, and I loved it. You know, I had baby naming ceremonies, I worked hard, you know, I had friends and parties and culture experiences, you know, spiritual experiences, the whole rich tapestry. Um, yeah. And so again, it's in me, still live with it, you know, from sun up to sundown, right? You be about your business. And you know, what's the weather today? It's hot. Period. It's hot. I remember I asked that question, you know, what's the temperature? Look to me, temperature hot, oh that's it, it's hot. Yeah, that's it. That's it.
SPEAKER_04:That's it, make it happen. Yeah, funny, funny you say that, man. Um, was it my wife and I we went we went to the uh went to the Bahamas um to visit her family. And this is where she's from. She grew up. And we were in the yeah, so we were in the car with our sister, and um, I guess my wife forgot like where she was at. She was like, she asked a sister, what's what's the weather today? And my sister-in-law look at her like, what what what do you mean what's the weather?
SPEAKER_02:It's hot in the moment, it's raining. It's raining. It's not just like you do not you don't need forecast. What are you experiencing right now? You're experiencing heat. So the weather today is hot. When it's raining, you're experiencing rain, the weather today is rain. But the weather doesn't dictate whether you get up and do what you have to do. Yeah, the only thing that dictates that is sun up. When the sun's up, you're on your grind. When the sun's down, you're home, you're doing the things in your home life. That's it. Sun up to sun down, make it happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But for young man, that was powerful, you know. So um, yeah, so that was my you know, African experience, and um, I'll let you take it from there.
SPEAKER_04:So to throughout your entrepreneur journey, man, because I know some people, some people like we we talk about the the the great stuff now. And we we opened this business, this how this is the impact that we make. This is how like throughout your entrepreneur journey, like what was like the because we have to go through some failure. No, that's one thing that I I love, I love people to let me know about the the sixth sense. Let me know about the success, but let me know what you what you went through to get to where you at now, like throughout your entrepreneur journey, man. Like what's some of the failure that you had that you had gone through that you had to find ways to get back up. Now get back up again. Don't let that failure uh uh put you down. Like, talk about some some of these things.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I'll talk about that because that will dovetail right into how my how this new iteration of my spiritual journey started. And again, when I say new iteration, I mean over 19 years ago. So I've been on this path now, you know, uh what I do to maintain my life and you know, uh my headspace and my heart space for over 19 years now. But I tell you that I started my career in the motion picture industry, and I started in New York as a locations manager, was guided, took a risk with some guidance, moved to Los Angeles, just like I did when I went to Africa, right? Same kind of thing. So it's been a pattern, right? I haven't been afraid to make the move that was necessary to fulfill whatever that dream was following towards.
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SPEAKER_02:Um, you know, had an opportunity to move through that new phase of my career. Um, was blessed to start a company with a prominent investor. Um, you know, so there was the funds there, there was the celebrity that was around this time in my life, and things were rolling, things were good, you know. And um, I made a couple of personal choices that created a disruption in the relationship with me and my business partner, which ended you know our relationship on the business level, right? And then that catapulted me to have to try to maintain this company on my own. There's certain things that I learned about myself and learned about business today, and I would have done things differently as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, right? I was more of a hustler, a transaction guy, right? Didn't understand true business structure, operations, all these other things. So I was at a very myopic view as well, right? So I was forced to have to shut down that business. And not only did I have to shut down that business, I also in turn lost a relationship, right? So I lost a relationship, I lost living, I lost transportation, and I found myself actually homeless for a short period of time. You know, I didn't I didn't have to live in the streets, but I did have to stay with individuals' homes until I was back on my feet again. Um, and one of the first books that I picked up was at my buddy's house. It was called Failing Forward by John Maxwell.
SPEAKER_04:Man, that's that's one of my favorite authors, man. That's one of my favorite authors.
SPEAKER_02:How do you fail and move forward at the same time? Fortunate for me, I have gone a a more of a uh um kind of personal growth and development, right? So I was working with this organization called Landwalk Education, and it was all about how do you become a better person in your life, right? But it really wasn't in the art space, so it wasn't spiritual, it was you know, very you know, tactical, practical, you know, affirmations, thinking, how do you be, that type of thing. So I had that to fall back on, right? And then um through that work, I had an opening to actually support myself at a deeper level, which was through my spirituality. In fact, the work has you create possibilities, and I know to this day, I remember to this day, I created the possibility of being at one and in union with God as a presence in my life. And then it's also the kind of work that says it's one thing to create a possibility, but what are the actions you're gonna take to fulfill on that?
SPEAKER_04:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:And one of those actions led me to go and be in a community of other spiritual seekers that I knew existed, but at that time of my life, I didn't have a relationship with me in religion. I grew up in the church, I'm a child of a minister, so I kind of moved away from that in a rebellious aspect in only parts of my life. But my inner soul was telling me, no, your next step in order to fulfill on this possibility that you say there's action you gotta take. And in that action, I felt myself comfortable, I felt myself ready to experience what it feels like to have the spirit move through you and you recognize that you know there is a divine presence. Doesn't matter what you what you call it, doesn't matter the religions you walk through, there's one, there's a presence, and it's everywhere. And it's been around since existence and will always be, right? So I connected with that, began to study and with that organization, right? So yeah, I lost it all, right? I had to come back from the depths, but I had to, one of the things that I would I remember telling myself was, you know what, I've been on this train, it's been moving real fast, and I got on it young. So all of these Hollywood stories, these in my 20s, this is early. So I was young, having fun, making money, doing movies, the real Hollywood lifestyle. And I was like, this train has been going quickly. And at this stage in my life, I don't even know who's on the train with me. I don't know where the train is going. So when life crashed, I had a chance to get off that train and discover who I am from a different perspective, from the inside out. And that journey led me to over 20 years of pursuing things like yoga and meditation and affirmations and affirmative prayer and working with individuals. It led me to my artistic side where I began to paint and express right that nature that I am. And I still have my practice today, you know, for myself. So that's been my guiding principle, you know, is faith for me is but you know, and uh there's a scripture that talks about it that's it's the belief in things unknown, belief in things unseen. Yep, right, but I also say, you know, there's the belief part, but I always the opposite of that is you don't really have to believe as much as you have to interact and work and use it and and practice it, because you don't have to believe in electricity to turn on the lights, you could believe in electricity and live in the dark if you don't take the action and turn on the light.
SPEAKER_04:Right, yep.
SPEAKER_02:You don't have to believe in gravity to jump off a building and hurt yourself, right? So it's it's not belief is important, but belief to a certain extent should just spur an action. And then in that action, you move from belief to knowing. So I know that I live in a loving, productive, beneficial universe. I know that the presence is because I've experienced it. I don't have to let somebody tell me to believe it, right? I know that what I hold in my mind and what I speak with my mouth, I can create in conjunction with the energy, with conjunction with all these esoteric things that people talk about. And yes, it's been put in many different scriptures, in many different paths for many different people from many different places around this world. But at the end of the day, there's only one thing that's really going on. And just different languaging around it, right? Different dialects around it. And I got to experience that when I lived in Africa as well, experiencing African spirituality, right? Which predated a lot of the stuff that you hear and see in the Western world today. Nothing wrong, but as people evolve, things evolve, right? The way you practice evolved, the way you make a connection evolved. So I used that in my business. I remember um, you know, one of the biggest is one of the other biggest decisions I had to make um in terms of risk was uh uh coming to terms with crash, the great financial crisis. So after I left the film industry, the way I built myself financially and business-wise was I worked in the mortgage industry. I had a partner. So after I healed and did some work, I manifested a new relationship that brought me into the mortgage industry. And so for about three years, I worked in the mortgage industry in Los Angeles. And it was just before the great financial crisis. We all know what happened there.
SPEAKER_04:There, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I didn't realize what I was involved in until I saw that movie, The Big Short, and Too Big to Fail. I'm like, oh, this is what I was involved in. Wow. Wow, loans were being made, folks would make it, you know. But what I what I realized is even when I was doing those transactions, I would have moments when things get stalled, business wasn't unfolding, you know, people wasn't calling back, whatever it was. And a lot of times, what I would do is I would slow down. I have this term, I've heard it in the world before, but I used to have this term slow down to speed up. Slow down to speed up. So I would pull away from the busyness and the action of the day. I would go somewhere, quiet, meditate, go within, and tap in to the universe, to that which is making everything unfold, right? Slow down, heartbeat, actions, and just allow that whatever's trying to happen, let it unfold on its own. I don't need to call from the writer, the processor, yelling at people, cursing people out, where's the forms? When are we going to close? I don't need to do all of that. I don't need to make to do all that. I can just pull away, do my thing, and and and and activate the powers that are here and all around, right? So I would do that constantly. So that's how sometimes, you know, people say, How do you bring spirituality? You know, hey, you know what you know. You have a set of practices that you can actually engage in, right? Operations, right? Very practical, right? Uh, very scientific, too, right? So there's operations that I do, there are things that I know that I can do that cause me to feel a certain way, they get my mind right. And in my mind and in my feeling tone, I affect the physical universe around me. Things get to happen.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, this podcast is an example. So I saw you doing your podcast, and we knew each other. And I was like, you know what? I would love to be on this podcast, man. I talked to this brother doing text messages, but we that it never comes up. So part of me was like, Won't you call him and ask? I was like, No, I'm not gonna call and ask in the physical realm. Yeah, I'm gonna go within, put it into my world, into my interior world, send the message out, and let it unfold. And lo and behold, sometime elapsed. I don't know, it was a few days, a week, it wasn't a long period of time. Yeah, the email from you was like, Oh, hey brother, you wanna be? I said, Here we go. You know, so you know, sometimes it's good to get a reminder that this thing works. Yeah, leather knight says, You can't lose with the stuff I use.
SPEAKER_04:That's true, that's true, man. That's true, man. You you said you said a lot of things that you you said, like a couple stuff that caught my attention. You you did a lot of stuff when you were young. Now you took a lot of risks when you were when you're uh young, while you're in your 20s. That's very important. It's like I that's one advice I give to people that's younger than me, that's they're in their 20s. That's the best time to start, like, that's the best time to start going after your dream because you don't have no kids, no wife, nothing yet, going after your dream. So I love when you say that you you took a lot of risks on your 20s. One thing that you say, you have to work on yourself from that failure, from that business that fell, you have to go work on yourself mentally, spiritually, you have to work on yourself, right? And you have to invest, not just only work on yourself, but invest in yourself by reading book, personal development. That that's big.
SPEAKER_02:No, no, that that's workshops, cultures, and it's not cheap either. It costs money. Yep. Absolutely, but you have to invest, you have to invest, yeah. Um, absolutely, man. Yeah, but I just love again. I always go to your dream chases risk, dream chasers, risk takers. It's just it's all one thing there, yes, sir.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, sir. No, let me ask you this. Now you never being being a father, being a husband, um how is that fulfillment? Like that's one thing that you know, because I'm I'm a I'm a I'm a dad, I'm a husband. How is that fulfillment? Like you're going after your dream now, your goals has has changed because now you have a family, right? Can you speak a little bit on that? Like how that now you have to be not being hustled, but you have to be strategic. You have to you have to put stuff in place to achieve these goals, these dreams now, because you have a family that's depending on you.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. And it started, you know, after the mortgage industry, I transitioned the great financial crisis. I had to make a choice. And that risk that I took, that choice that I made was to chase a different dream. And that dream was this newborn child that was bought into my life. My dream was to pour into her. It has grown to three children now, but in that moment, it was to pour into her and give her everything that I can give her. And not from the physical world, because those things will unfold. It was all my learnings, all my teachings, like the best of me, all my art, my creative expression, like give her a chance to unfold in the best way possible for what her soul has come to do on this planet. And that was the sort of so the risk I took was to leave the leave the working world and become again another anomaly. Today is popular, what I'm about to talk about. But in 2006, a stay-at-home father in an at-type, male-dominated Los Angeles was not popular. I was the only guy out there doing it. And I made a conscious choice to do it, to pour into her. Fortunately, my my wife, you know, she had a stable situation, and I was always I was going from hustle to hustle, right? So it's like, yes, I can hustle to hustle, hustle, and pay somebody to take care of my child. Or I can give that part of me up and pour into her and be around every day. And in the minute, and in the first couple of months, it was difficult because I still had that a time, I still had that hustle, I still had that drive. So the biggest challenge about that choice was surrendering to the choice. And a lot of times we don't know that we haven't surrendered to a particular choice, even if it's the thing that we desire most. Yeah, opening up a school, whatever that business, whatever the idea is. We're holding on to something. So a lot of times growth is not about getting things, it's about letting go of things. Relearning who you are. Relearning. I had to let go of that part of me that wanted to chase deals. And so I took that same energy and I did it differently. So it was it was easy for me to jump on the phone, put together a home study package. It was easy for me to go find things to do during the day for my daughter. So I actually treated her like a business. I treated her education and her development like a business. I used those attributes, right? The skills that I had developed, the attributes that I had formed, right, that I was blessed with, and I poured them into her. And I poured them into me of being a dad, a full-time stay-home dad. And the day I surrendered and gave up chasing, I dived right in 10 toes down. And today, you know, she's a freshman at a highly selective liberal arts college. She was she got accepted into, I think, 17 or 18 other schools, and each one of those schools are somebody's dream. Every school she got accepted to is on somebody's number one list. But fortunate for her, she chose the one that was number one for her.
SPEAKER_03:Right? Yep.
SPEAKER_02:And I've watched her unfold. Behind her has been her brother and her younger sister, and they've all had to be impacted. So for eight years, I started that journey, and for eight years, I was a full-time stay-at-home father. Eight years in Los Angeles. And I got tons of stories about how you do that. For the falls, lesson plans. I even homeschooled, you know, my daughter for one year. You know, I didn't believe in TVs, I believe in and and and the screen is a distraction from who you really are. So the more time you spend consuming, the less time you can spend creating. Creative. That's that's so true. Use your tools that you have now. Well, use these devices as tools, not toys. Yes. Your phone should be a tool, not a toy. Not a toy, yep. For adults, I have to remind myself that now, right? Yeah. Am I in coin land or am I in tool land right now? Right. And I think about talking to young people today. It's like today's a great time to be a creator. When I was coming through the ranks, even though I work in the creative field, I wasn't a true creator, I was more on the business side. So I was creating projects from the business perspective, right? But I always tell folks today the outlets are endless. Yep, it is. I mean, look at what you're doing. I mean, do you know what you're doing to pull off a podcast in 2006 or 92? There was no way you were gonna, you know, do this. No, no, and just put it out there and have it monetized, books that have been published, you know, like all of these things to create. This it's the great time to be alive, the great time to be a creator, a great time to chase your dreams. Yes, right, and yeah, there might be some risk, but then you can mitigate that, right?
SPEAKER_04:Yep, yep, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:The dream part is the visual part, yes, that's the hard part. The risk part is the practical part, yeah. That's when you can mitigate it. If things that you can do, right? I had to learn that. You know, it was very easy for me because I was a shoot, ready, aim kind of guy. Right? Things sometimes worked out, but I was shoot. Like when I said yes to Nigeria, I didn't know what anything. There was no plan. I didn't know how much plan tickets like I didn't do any research, I just followed, right? He gave his formula out, I called. He was like, There's a possibility. He said, put letters of recommendations together, put a reel together. So I took those actions. I did what he asked, right? But I didn't know what it was gonna look like, but I shot that shot, and then I plan again, and then I said, Oh, this is you know, but as I'm mature, as I'm responsible, going back to your question about other people and other lives, I realize that as a ready shoot. So there's a balance now that I try to bring into my life, especially as a real estate developer, somebody who uses who has a fiduciary responsibility to other people's capital, whether it's a personal investor or a bank or whatever institution. So I can't, you know what I mean? I I have to kind of rebalance. So I had to look at myself and and and reorganize the way I see life, you know. And at one point it got tricky for me because I really couldn't, I got too much into the aim ready, and I and I wasn't shooting. Right? And I'm like, oh now I'm stagnant, right? And I realized that I got stagnant, right? So I had to readjust. So life is all about paying attention, readjusting, not getting stuck in one way, and being honest and being truthful about what's going on. And it's one thing about meditation, it allows you to be honest and truthful about what's going on within you, not to judge you, not to hold you down, but to give you feedback on your life, who you are, your interior world. And then you can work on it in the exterior world.
SPEAKER_04:That's true, that's true. How did you become a realistic developer, listen investor? How did you how did you become that? Like what what was what was the key thing that you you made a choice? You know what? This is what I'm gonna be focused on. I'm gonna like what made you uh go in?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so the short answer was I was in the middle of a project. Okay, I was literally building my first home. So I had already flipped houses, but I didn't make that decision. I'm gonna give you my decision. I was I was in the middle of a project, I was standing in front of a home that I was building in Durham, North Carolina, and I saw three young men across the street at the church that was usually vacant when I was working, that was usually empty. This happened to be a Saturday afternoon. There must have been some missionary thing going on, some activity. And there were three young men standing on the steps, and it flashed me back to growing up in New York. But I was one of three at Allen AME Church. Hanging out into church. I was a maintenance young man. I was always around the church cleaning. My two best friends to this day, my three best friends to this day, we met at that church. We spent hours and hours there. I flashed back and I saw myself. I was like, wow, that was me and my boys. And then I thought about my mentor, who was the financial controller of the church and the pastor of the church, who was a businessman, who was a real estate developer, who built up South Jamaica Queens through economic development, building homes, building senior citizens' buildings, building schools, building that stuff. And he allowed us to be involved, to listen to phone calls, to see and to be active and hearing what was going on. He was pouring into me in the time that I didn't even know he was pouring into me. And I stood here with my house behind me, going up, seeing myself, and I was like, whoa, this is a full circle moment. This is amazing. Reverend Flake poured into me. I'm I'm actually developing real estate. I didn't really see it like that. I was just flipping houses, I was just, you know, turning transactions, doing deals. I didn't make that connection. And then I had an investor seeking an investment opportunity with me. And I did research on this individual. And I found out about the industry that I was involved in that I didn't know existed. Through researching him, I realized it was bigger than me. And it was a structure, and it was this really thing called real estate developers, and this is what they do. And even though I was just using my location management skills, my film skills, you know, working and negotiating content, I was using all these soft skills that I had done to make movies, right? Right. And I was just doing it in the real estate space, but I didn't have a connection until I saw the bigger picture. And I was like, wow, I like it. It feels good. I like making the calls, I like doing the zoning, I like all the activities. It's a natural fit for me. I like building something from scratch. That's a film, right? That's an idea. I like working with people, I like negotiating, I like putting deals together. I was like, whoa, this is amazing. I actually found the next chapter of my life. Now, this wasn't my first project. I had flipped other houses, I had wholesale, I had bought a flip business, I had mentors, I had been to workshops, but again, I never made that connection. And it was basically when I moved from Los Angeles to North Carolina, I had to get back in the workforce. So those eight years were complete. And I remember, you know, asking myself, what am what are you gonna do? Right? You know, you're not gonna work in film because that's in New York, that's in LA, right? Yeah, you made up some money there, that's good. And I was like, well, you know, what can I do? I I dabbled with art, thinking I was gonna be like an artist and sell paintings. It wasn't gonna be sustainable, right? Had part-time jobs, you know, I call them band-aid jobs, right? And then I just got deep and just started having soulful conversations about the next chapter. Logistically, hey man, you did mortgages, that was a good time, it was real estate related, but you're not gonna go back to the mortgage world because that was, you know, I was the people guy, my partner was the numbers guy. Yeah, I'm like, all right, well, people, who in real estate deals with people? I'm like, oh, agents. All right, I don't know if I'm gonna be an agent, but I know I gotta get a license. So let me just walk down that path. The next logical step, sometimes taking risks and and and go into this thing that's called the unknown. It's about what's the next step. Yeah, yeah. You eat an elephant one bite at a time, right? That's it. Take the next step, take the next step. What's logical? Well, the logical thing is get a license. It puts me in the conversation, right? I'm driving home from my part-time overnight job, a radio commercial comes on. If you're gonna notice like a theme, radio commercial comes on, talking about coming to this workshop, learn about flipping, learning about real estate, investing, and I turned it off. And I was like, ain't no way. I don't been enough real estate, you know, car, you know, in LA, there's a workshop, there's a conference on every street corner. I don't got it, Tony Robbins, you know, you know, Jack Canfield, you know, think you girl, I mean tons of them, saying it all over. I'm like, I'm not dealing with that. I'm out of that game. And and my voice said, you said that you were open, you were gonna be open to the possibility of getting into this real estate space. Yeah, you just turned off a commercial about real estate just because you you know feel a certain way. Be open, be open. I turned it back on.
SPEAKER_03:I end up following what was next.
SPEAKER_02:Show up to listen to a free seminar, free conversation. I go, I said it's free. I'll go. I go to your typical holiday inn, hotel, banquet room. You sit there, the guy's pitching the room, and what he said made sense. So I'm like, all right, what 20 hours to go to the next step? Whatever it was, that was coffee. Like, all right, let me take the next step. Let me go to this this long version of this conversation. And something happened there. Yes, he's talking about real estate, talking about making money, yeah. Talk about systems, which I believe in, right? Systems make businesses work. McDonald's is McDonald's, not because they make good burgers, it's because they have a great system, yeah, just get fulfilled on. So systems. So I saw systems and then some of the pain points. Like I had I had worked, even though I wasn't officially flipping houses, but in Los Angeles, I had to renovate a couple of units, right? That tenants took out, took me, you know, they were about to take me out. So I had to fix them up, and I learned and I saw the pain about contractors and people not showing up on time. So all these things that they were talking about, I related to the pain. And then he was like, we got systems to alleviate the pain. But above and beyond that, he was mentioning books and features that I had already either read or I knew existed. And I was like, there's something deeper going on here. This is not just about real estate, this is about transformation. This is about mine. This is about, you know, he he mentioned they could grow rich. He mentioned John Maxwell, right? He mentioned Millionaire Mind by T. Harve Ecker. I know T. Var Ecker personally. I'm like, wait a minute, dude. You know, like my spiritual center in LA brought all these cast of characters together, right? So I'm like, this is this is deeper. So short story, made the plunge. My wife, we made the investment, and we learned how to flip houses, do wholesaling, that entry-level type real estate. So prior to me building that house that I had to submission in, I was already active because I was using those systems to start that business. So that's what I decided to do was get into real estate, get my license, not to become a realtor that day, but to be in that space. So even today, I have I hold licenses in multiple states. But those transactions are beneficial, right? Yeah, but it's really about being in the room. Because as a realtor, you gotta renew your license. So that means you gotta take classes. That means you gotta you gotta continue to learn, learn. You never know. So you put yourself in the path of progress. As long as you continue to put yourself in the path of progress, you never know the cast of characters, the spontaneous meetings, like how we met.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, that's very true. Being being being we met at a network event, now at a real estate developer uh network event in Philly, and we just start starting a conversation, and from there we built uh a gen in one relationship. Now it's about it's about getting the room. That's one thing. It's about finding a person that you can connect with. Could find one person that you could connect with, you could build a true relationship, and from that true relationship, you never know where it could lead. Now, it might not lead to a business deal, it might lead to something else. So it doesn't have to be always about money. Now it doesn't have to be a transaction, but that's so that's what I've learned through in my years, like uh building a relationship with a with a person, it's not about money, it's so it's so much things that I can offer, you could offer. There's other stuff that we have value that we can offer to each other, so it doesn't have to be about money, man. So that's that's one thing that that that that I could I could say. Now let me ask you this for entrepreneur. Now who's in the that's for the season, two two questions for you. For seasoned entrepreneur who's been in this journey for five, five, seven years, now they now they have success, they had failure, right? What advice would you give to them now for them to go to the next level? What advice for the seasoned entrepreneur? For the new entrepreneur that wanna take a risk, they have that vision, that idea, but they don't know how to. Now they don't know what they need to do. What advice would you give to the new one and the seasoned entrepreneur? What advice?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and you you might hear similarities to both pieces of advice. Because at the end of the day, whether you're just getting started for a long-term journey, or you've been on that journey and you look at your recreate, you're both essentially beginning something new. So I would say there's a Eastern philosophy, thinking, I'm not sure if it's Zen Buddhism or something, but it's about having the beginner's mind. Right? So you always have a mindset that you are a beginner. You know, in the West, we say you can always learn, right? Yeah, don't think you know everything, right? Be open to learn, be open and available, right? So it's having that approach first and foremost, a beginner's mind. What how can I grow? What is there for me to learn, right? Now, what do I want to do? I want to begin, I'm a brand new entrepreneur, right? Whatever industry it is, right? Or I'm a seasoned entrepreneur looking to grow, looking to get to the next level. Well, you're not at that next level. So essentially, you're just like that person started. You are beginning something new, right? So mindset first, work on the mindset, mindset always first, right? Then have a vision, be very clear on what it is that you want. Whatever that next step is, beginning, next step already there, next step higher. Be clear on that vision. Turn that vision into an intention. Take that intention and make it into an affirmation. So every day you get to say, I am such and such, I am beginning my journey as an entrepreneur to be successful and to help whatever it is. I am gonna grow my business by X amount, I am gonna expand, whatever that is. So it's all mindset-based stuff, so that way you can carry what it is that you're trying to create within yourself, and you don't get outside of yourself thinking the external world is gonna bring you something. The external world will get to participate with what you create from the interior, right? And then you start asking deep fundamental questions. What is the logical step that I need to take? What is it? Is there a license that I need to get? Is there something that I need to learn? Like what is a person who's doing what I want to do that's a little further along than I am? Can I connect with them? Is the relationship that I need, education that I need, financial resource that I need? What are the resources that I'm gonna need to take the very next step? And then I would say, take the step, right? Yep, don't look too far into the future. It's unknown, but that's okay. Right? Take the very next step. And then practically, I would say, use artificial intelligence. There we go. There you go. Because this whole world that we're in today, you have a support system around you that can help you vet ideas, that can help you be more efficient, that can help you operations. Like, you know, it's a resource. And it's a resource that I think a lot of people kind of take for granted because it's it's kind of in the lexicon of a languaging that is popular and oh, everybody's doing it, but it really is meaningful and it really is deep, and it really is the next evolution of productivity, of business, of education, of healthcare. It really is, you know, you know, uh beyond the chat GPTs and all the large language models, the clause complexities of the world, be beyond those three, four companies that everybody knows, there's a lot of other things going on, a lot of other resources, a lot of other tools that you can use, right? So, yeah, you know, and I use that today in order to get to the next level in terms of as an advisor with my consultancy. How can I expand my capacity to serve more people? Right? Yeah, that's really what it is. Your business is about service. I tell my children that have you have an idea, you solve a problem, and you serve the person who has that problem, right? Well, artificial intelligence can help you serve more, serve faster, faster, right? The ditch your time, you get more done, and it's a whole lot of fun having somebody that you can talk to that never gets tired, that's only all the knowledge in the world is available at your fingertips. If you but you gotta learn something, right? You do got to go learn, you gotta learn how to promote, you gotta learn how to ask good questions, you gotta learn how to use this new tool. It goes to the education part, but you gotta be open-minded to know that it's something for you to engage in. So I think the beginning person and the seasoned person, you know, we can because I use those same ideas, right? The difference between a seasoned person and a beginner is they may have a little more look back, they may have a little more reflective material, right, that they can look at and maybe create a different outcome because they have a different perspective, because they've been in the game, they've done some things, they see what has worked, what has not worked. So that's the biggest difference. But truly just taking that next step, moving into chasing the dream and mitigating the risk, becoming a risk taker, right? Because you're chasing, you know, your dream, whether you're beginning day one or you're day 500, about to start again to get to the next level. I think the similarities are there because they're fundamental principles. There's one thing about life. The principles never change. It's like science. Fundamental principles, it's like sports, right? You can do all the moves in the world, but if the team starts messing up, what it's supposed to do, we go back to the fundamentals. Let's go back to dribbling, passing, right? Yeah, back to the basics, it's fundamentals, right? And mindset. You know, as you think, you become. Think and grow rich, as a man thinking. Right? Jesus, one of the great master teachers, and you know, savior for some, a teacher for others, right? His words there was science, right? You can read it in scripture, it's science there, right? And you know, yeah, so it's you know, just get back to it, man. That's what I was saying.
SPEAKER_04:There you go, ladies and gentlemen. There you have it, man. There you have it, man. Glenn, man, thank you so much. If people wanna get it, want to get in touch with you, like where do they find you? No, what platform, what website. I know I'm gonna put all these things in the in the description, but if you can let people know where where would they find you?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yes. You can find me on Instagram. Um trying to grow that platform, you know, for myself. Um, I have two handles. The first one is Glenn, yes to real estate. So Glenn with two ends. Glenn, yes to real estate. More of a personal page, community service, and some business sprinkle thin is I am Ize Glenn Gray. A-Y-I-Z-E-G-L-E-N-N-G-R-A-Y. I am Iized Glenn Gray. Glenn, yes to real estate. You can find me on LinkedIn, you know. Uh, definitely follow me if you got questions. You know, I love to answer questions. Again, Morio Mara Group is my firm, right? We do consulting, we do advising, and we are broken, yes, powered by EXP Realty, which is a whole nother conversation about generating passive residual income and utilizing the work that you can do as an agent, but also grow long-term income that you can pass down to your children. Legacy. We didn't even touch on legacy.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, yeah. We didn't even touch on that. We're gonna do we're gonna do a part two. This is just a video. Yeah, yeah. And this this time it's gonna be live. Now it's gonna be like you and I, we're not gonna go. So, yeah, part two, watch out for part two. Yeah, but ladies and gentlemen, there you have it, man. There you have it, man. Uh, and I will see you guys in the next episode.