Greg Johns on Gratitude, Practice, and Making It Big in America
Mindset · From Student of the Game
Greg Johns on Gratitude, Practice, and Making It Big in America
When people ask Brad Noll who Greg Johns is, he struggles to explain. Greg came from England at 17, lived with the Noll family for two years, and became family. Brad finally settled on the simplest answer: Greg is his brother. Today Greg is Vice President of Sales and Training at Hagerty, the collector car insurance and enthusiast brand that grew from a family business into a publicly traded company.
Brad opens with a line from his mentor Brian Buffini's book The Immigrant Edge, dedicated to every courageous person who packed everything into a suitcase to pursue a dream. Greg's story, Brad says, is full of lessons for anyone who has faced a roadblock and wondered whether to keep going.
A Camp, a Coach, and a Denied Visa
Greg grew up playing football, the English kind, and did not find basketball until about 14. By 15 or 16 he was 6'4". He ended up at a camp he was not even supposed to attend, where one of the visiting American coaches was Brad's father, Doug Noll. Greg's mom talked with Doug about her son's dream of playing in the United States, and soon Greg was headed to the Noll home.
Greg calls his mom one of his heroes. As a single mom, she worked all day and still drove him hours to practice and back. But there was a setback. Doing the paperwork without an exchange program, they traveled to the U.S. embassy in London a few weeks before his flight, and his visa was declined. His mom, his biggest supporter, said maybe it just was not meant to be.
Then Greg called Doug. "What's it worth to go up there one more time and try it? It may change your life," Greg remembers him saying. His extended family came together to help cover the costs, and on the second try, about ten days before his flight, it worked. Brad stops to ask business owners and home buyers a pointed question: are you letting a roadblock become your reason to say it was not meant to be?
“You've got to share your goals and dreams with people. Not only to hold you accountable, but they want to help you. The people that really care about you want to see you succeed.”
Greg Johns
Share Your Goals and Learn to Practice
Greg says that moment taught him to share his goals and dreams. He felt a little guilty accepting help, but his family gave so graciously. Brad challenges listeners to pause, write down one name, and call that person today to share their goals.
When Greg arrived, Brad took one look at his small suitcase and asked if he was staying for two weeks. Greg laughs that Brad also saved him from wearing the wrong jeans to an American high school. The bigger adjustment was practice. In England, he shot around for hours on an outdoor court with no real purpose. In the Noll house, he watched Brad and his sister Abby shoot hundreds of shots at game speed every day and lift weights, too. After his first week of lifting and 150 shots a day, he could barely raise his arms, but he could already see himself getting stronger.
Brad connects it to every business owner running with their hair on fire. "You're not going to know if you can work harder," he says. "You're not going to know if you're practicing the way you need to until you see it modeled somewhere else." Greg pushed Brad, too. Greg did his homework days before it was due, and Brad admits it made him a better student.
Practice in the Real World
Greg was shy when he took his first sales job out of college. So he found the best salesperson on the team, watched his presentations, and went home to practice the principles behind them. Today he rehearses executive presentations in the mirror, watching his expressions and listening to how he speaks. He and his wife even practice tough conversations before having them with their kids. Here is how that mindset translates:
- Find the best performer around you and study what they do.
- Practice the principles, not a copy of someone else's style.
- Rehearse important conversations and presentations before they happen.
- Make a written plan. One summer, Greg lifted four days a week and shot 200 game-speed shots every day but Sunday.
- Keep a Plan B, but make sure you love Plan A more.
That summer plan paid off with a strong start to his senior season, until someone landed on his knee about 15 games in. He needed surgery and missed the postseason. He cried and asked why, but with good people around him, he took the long view: this was preparing him for college. The struggle to get to America had already built his resilience.
The Immigrant Edge and the Power of Gratitude
Brad reads the seven fundamentals from The Immigrant Edge: a voracious openness to learn, a do-whatever-it-takes mindset, a willingness to outwork others, a heartfelt spirit of gratitude, a boldness to invest, a commitment to delay gratification, and an appreciation of where you came from. He believes Greg embodied them long before the book was written.
Greg says gratitude is at the center. Knowing what so many people sacrificed for him, he felt responsible to make the most of it. "I don't ever want to be outworked," he says. He mentions the choice between the pain of discipline and the pain of regret. Brad adds that he often asks what his grandfather, who spent 55 years in real estate, would do with the opportunities Brad has today.
How Does a Basement Business Become a Public Company?
Hagerty began in the 1980s when a husband and wife could not find insurance for their wooden collector boats, so they created it, working out of their basement. Greg loves a story the CEO tells: early on, they left for spring break in Florida with only an answering machine at home. When they checked it, it was already full, so they drove all the way back to Michigan to serve their customers. That commitment to members, Greg says, still runs through the company.
As head of training, Greg brings sports into the workplace. New team members get a clear job description, the daily behaviors that lead to success, lots of role play, and a scoreboard so they know when they are winning. Winning in life has changed for him, too. Once it was about reaching America and moving up. Now it is building lifelong relationships with his wife and kids, and helping others succeed the way so many people helped him. He sends his virtual flowers to the person who started it all: his mom.
▶ Listen to the full episode
Coming to America: Finding What Drives You with Greg Johns, on Student of the Game.
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