The Morning Upgrade Podcast Featuring Josh Greene

Welcome to episode #124 of the Morning Upgrade Podcast. In this week’s episode I spoke with Josh Greene, the founder of Groove.

Top Talking Points

• How having good healthy habits helps you work at a higher level.
• The best tip for growing a new business
• The meaning of life is to engage fully in everything you are given.

Resources & Links

Connect With Josh here for an invitation to Groove.

Subscribe to The Morning Upgrade Podcast Today

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Episode Transcript

Announcer

Welcome to the Morning upgrade podcast with Ryan cote, where we feature casual conversations with entrepreneurs about personal development and growth.

Ryan

Hey, Josh, welcome to the Morning upgrade podcast. How’s it going?

Josh

Good morning. Hey, yeah, I’m good, Ryan. Thanks. How are you?

Ryan

I’m doing pretty good. Yep, it’s a man, what a time of this recording. It’s in November. And the weather here in New Jersey has been so nice like in the 70s, which is like, Man for November, that does not happen. So one of the nice walks,

Josh

Yeah, and also the colors at this time of year are so crazy outside and do these early morning walks with my dog Jasper. And just like the reds and the oranges and the yellows, just definitely not my day.

Ryan

You got to take it all in. Alright, so let’s kick Let’s kick this off. Tell everyone you know who you are, what you do for a living, I think give us something that you’re grateful for right now.

Josh

So Josh, and I spent my time building a company with some wonderful humans called growth driven very much by the mission of what’s, how do people help each other win at life. So we’re building a platform that provides people with social accountability in these short, focused sessions that allow people to accomplish their goals, come together, and feel great about moving towards the things they want to be most successful at. So something I’m most grateful for, for life right now. This community, actually, we moved out to the mountains. So we’ve been building a community for ourselves since the summer and Thursday nights, we started doing what we’re calling family dinner, but with just friends that we’re building here. So we have a really regular practice of about 10 friends coming together on a Thursday evening, and I just feel grateful to be surrounded by humans that make me laugh and make me strive to be fun and better in life.

Ryan

Yeah, that’s so true. I mean, I’m not gonna say anything groundbreaking here. But just to confirm what you just said, you know, we just passed Halloween this past Monday, and went to a friend’s house afterwards, you have to walk 16,000 steps to get all the candy. Literally 16,000 went back to the friend’s house, and there were maybe like 10, you know, adults that post the kids. And we just sat around a fire and just had a couple of drinks in his talk. They laughed, and we felt so energized after those kinds of moments. So yeah, 100% community is very important.

Josh

Yeah, well, that sounds like such a nice evening.

Ryan

Everyone sort of has my accountability, because I’m big into masterminds. And that’s it’s all about accountability. So I’d like to get some more tips from you. But first, let’s go to your morning, what do your mornings look like?

Josh

So I think accountability is good for me. I’m actually not, not naturally or at least in this phase of my life. I’m not the most natural jump out of bed morning person, I definitely had a career when I was living in London, where I was out of bed at 530. And had to just sort of like, kick straight into, straight into working out and then getting to the office. But now I know I use my dog to be most accountable. And he’s the guy that gets me out of the, I’m straight out of bed straight outdoors. We live in the forest. And I think that’s the biggest gift for sort of just getting the energy moving in my body. And I really believe that until you get your body moving, it’s really hard to at least engage my brain or my emotions in meaningful ways. So the first thing I do is just straight out the door, straight on a walk through the forest, get the sun, get the movement, have some play time, then I come back, check my emails over breakfast before I head out and I try to have my wife. My wife has a beautiful practice of sitting and reading poetry on our porch from about 7am to 745. While she drinks coffee, she’s a big coffee drinker. I don’t drink coffee, so I don’t get that I don’t get that morning support. We connect a little bit and then I’m in work mode. So I really try to streamline my morning before I jump into work. Work is definitely the focus of my day at the moment and it really is really what nourishes me and energizes me so I feel fortunate for that.

Ryan

Are you literally in the woods?

Josh

Yeah, we’re literally in the woods. It’s like a mile drive up to our house and you there’s no one around.

Ryan

Holy cow. That sounds Yeah.

Josh

It’s really a reorientation from city life. And I find that I feel better and more productive even though the pace of my life feels slower. There’s definitely more outputs from myself for more creative, somewhat energized.

Ryan

isn’t really to say that I was gonna ask a question I don’t normally ask but I’m picking a vibe from you that you’re very, very relaxed and nothing gets to you. And you’re telling me that your wife reads poetry for 45 minutes? I’m like, wow, this is like a very peaceful couple. Has that always been like that for you or have you had to work at it?

Josh

I’ve definitely had to work at it. Thank you for the reflection, I appreciate that. And I’m also not always successful. It’s this environment. And I’m just, I’m just a person that believes that, when you’re really connected well to yourself, and to the people around you and to nature, and you have good healthy habits in your life, it’s easier to operate from an abundant mentality. And from that place, which is, which for me, is like quite connected to how do I feel in my body, and I’ve done a lot of meditation over the past few decades, from that place, you’re able to give a lot more, even if it doesn’t require so much force or push. But when I’m not, I’ve definitely had some intense jobs. So I was, I was an executive, we worked for a while working in Adam Newman, Office of the CEO doing a bunch of things. And I lost my call and realized that I wasn’t being as effective as I could, if I wasn’t surrounded by the right people and had the right environment to help me ground.

Ryan

Yeah. 100%. I mean, it sounds like the environment you have now is definitely gonna be helping you that direction, you know, being in the woods literally surrounded by nature.

Josh

Yeah. And I think it’s, it’s just so wonderful that there’s a possibility that you can build a company from the woods in a way that maybe five years ago, you wouldn’t be able to just our ability to build relationships. And also just think that cultural the cultural possibility that it’s acceptable. And telling myself it’s acceptable to do that. And I commute to New York pretty regularly. But it’s a helpful grounding. Yes.

Ryan

Or what’s the let’s go to business questions. Now, Josh, if there’s anyone listening that I want to talk about, like tips you’ve had or success you’ve had in growing your app. So there’s any, any people listening that have like a software company or an app? What have you found to be successful so far, in growing and growing your app?

Josh

Anything that’s most alive for me to share? Actually, and it might be specific to ask, but I think I think it’s, it’s somewhat universal, you know, at the heart of groove is this is this really powerful behavior, you know, this really powerful social ritual where people come together, as you spoke about, you’re involved in masterminds, those mastermind sessions are really profound, impactful rituals in life, and they’re applicable to most anyone. And I think when you start, when you start any project, and you look at the heart of it, it really, really has far reaching applications often. And especially if you’re a dreamer, and you and you think about a big vision, you want to build something that can touch as many people’s lives as possible. Think in terms of growing things, the biggest thing that I’ve done with my team, and definitely grateful for the team that I work with, and how they’ve sort of sort of us collaboratively supported and influenced each other is instead of looking at the universal applications of what we’re doing, looking at the most specific application of what’s what we’re doing, and finding a group of people that you really feel that you’re adding most value to in their lives. We gave groups to a variety of different people early on, whether you’re in a team, whether you worked remotely, whether you’re in an office, and what we’ve seen over the past six months or so, is that the people’s lives that we transform, are those individuals that really are striving for something more, but not, don’t have a team around them. The people that are the entrepreneurs on their own, whether they’re a coach, whether they’re designer, creative, a developer, they’re the people that we really wanted to help and saw that we were most helpful to. So the biggest thing that we did was, instead of being super generic, we were really specific. And in that specificity, all of the language, all of the ways that we communicate to our potential community members and users became really clear. And that’s when we started to have significantly more traction in users understanding who we are, what we are and other community members sharing it with, with their friends.

Ryan

I think that’s definitely universal for sure. niching down and really understanding your target audience and then speaking to them directly. It’s definitely universal for any business

Josh

And actually doing it in radical ways in ways that make you feel uncomfortable because you’re like, How can I just serve this really small community? Keep cutting away because the more that you cut away, even if it makes you feel like that? There’s not gonna be that many people out there, you can always expand again. But it’s so easy to get distracted and focus, focus. Focus is the key in these early days of building things. So doing that as as radically as possible is definitely, definitely the key in our process and my life.

Ryan

Yeah, it’s funny, you’re saying that because I subscribed to this one newsletter, and one of the it’s like a business marketing newsletter. And then a recent issue he was talking about, it’s gotta be Ryan Lee, and he was talking about niching down. And he was saying you want to keep niching until it hurts, like until you feel like man is too way too specific. He says, keep going, you know, so you get really, really, really specific, in terms of who you’re who you’re speaking to.

Josh

They really, I really resonate with it, I really resonate. And it’s hard. It’s an internal emotional process, you know, but there’s value everywhere for these people. Okay, you’ll get to them this time. But right now, let’s focus on these people.

Ryan

Sometimes I ask my guests for personal growth tips, or like their number one tip, but I think I want to ask about relationships, which like, which is tied definitely to personal development. But since your app, and since you’re using it, your life really is all about community and relationships. What do you do personally, to build relationships? Do you do anything intentional that you can share with us?

Josh

Yeah, there’s a few things that come up as you asked that question. I think the first thing um, this is not, this is not a new insight by any means. But I, I think rounds everything is I really step into relationships with an orientation of giving, leaning into that, as much as possible has always been the most nourishing in my relationships, and the most meaningful relationships and the most fruitful relationships, that as I step in, to anyone that I meet, I really try to see how can I, how can I support the other? How can I connect with others? How can I be helpful, and drive relationships from that place? And the second thing that came up, that was really, really a massive influence from my wife, talking about relationships I learned most from her, she really challenges me to grow often is your your podcast host, so you probably appreciate it a lot, but entering relationships with curiosity, genuinely seeing the other hand being interested in the other. And it’s funny, because that could be a very superficial practice, just having written up questions that you ask people. But actually, for me, it’s much more of an internal practice of how do I, what can I connect to inside myself that is genuinely curious about this other person. And when I speak to someone from that place, I find that there’s much more meaningful connection happening and the other person’s much more seen. And that just allows an acceleration of the quality of relationship to happen in a much more radical way, then it might do if I if I wasn’t connected to myself, in my connection to that other

Ryan

To add to what you said, I think being curious is so important, you know, running this podcast, and 100 plus episodes, I find myself becoming more curious with people, not just my guests, of course, but like, everyone around me, like, at sporting events for my kids on the sidelines of the parents, it’s you know, every person has experiences and interesting things in their life. And I just want to like learn more about them, I find I find I go into like pag podcast host mode sometimes. But to shut that off, because no one wants to be asked like, a billion questions, but you know, like, what is your morning routine look like? You know, but But yeah, I think you’re being curious that I’m glad you said that. I think that’s a really important, important takeaway here. All right, Josh, I got one last question for you. And then we’re gonna wrap up with you sharing your website or whatever else you want to share through your lens. You know, what is the meaning of life?

Josh

It’s nice that you’re wrapping up with the light question.

Ryan

Answer in 30 seconds, because we’re at the 15 minute mark.

Josh

Yeah, I’ll answer it briefly. Because I think for me, it’s quite clear. I think it really sums up but something my dad said to me when I was really young is to really engage fully in everything that you’re given, and to try and leave the world a little bit better than you entered it. And I think that comes from connecting to myself to see where my superpowers lie. And how can I show up most meaningfully and considerately to impact the world in positive ways? Simple person.

Ryan

That’s great. Great advice from dad. Yeah, thank you. Great way to end this podcast. Thanks, Josh. So where should we send people? 

Josh

So, if you want to just send people if you want to find out more about groov try the product. You can head over to our website, which is groov.au like out of office and I heard that I can share a link that will allow you guys to get straight into the app and bypass the waitlist if you want to sign up and experiment with grooving.

Ryan

Excellent. Perfect. We’ll link that up in the show notes. Josh. Thanks for everything you shared today.

Josh

Thanks so much, Ryan.

Announcer

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