He Told His Coach the Truth — It Changed Everything
David Greer (business coach, author, entrepreneur) · Episode 8
Beat Imposter Syndrome
David Greer is a Vancouver-based business coach and author who built a high-performing career while secretly battling alcohol addiction for over 20 years — and who, 16 years into sobriety, now coaches entrepreneurs navigating addiction alongside high performance. His central insight is that the fears driving workaholism, people-pleasing, and addiction are often identical: "I'm not good enough." The episode argues that genuine change — in any domain — requires finding one trusted person you cannot lie to, and telling them the truth.
I've never seen anyone get sober unless they want it for themselves.
The most kind thing you can do is hold people accountable — because then they have an opportunity to learn and grow.
Having a coach is one of the most selfish things I do. It is 100% for me.
I can fix a lot of things. I cannot fix apathy.
Key Stories
- Going to different liquor stores on different days: David describes rotating liquor stores midweek so the staff wouldn’t recognize him — a vivid illustration of how denial and shame operate even when the behavior is fully visible to the person doing it.
- The playground moment: A Saturday afternoon where he manufactured an excuse to leave the park with his kids at 6 p.m. — not because they needed to go home, but because he needed access to alcohol. The moment he identifies as the clearest evidence that addiction had taken over his true self.
- Telling his coach the truth on a Tuesday: After 18 months of working through every other issue with coach Kevin Lawrence, David arrived at the one thing they’d been circling. He committed to attending a meeting by Friday — and went that same evening, walking into a 12-step room for the first time.
- Kevin at the sobriety cake: Sixteen years later, Kevin attended David’s annual sobriety anniversary celebration, and the two revisited the original Tuesday conversation — a full-circle moment David still finds difficult to articulate.
Techniques & Frameworks
- The self/career/life triad: Coach Kevin Lawrence’s model for high performers — career and finances, life and relationships, and self. Most driven people systematically neglect the third. Protecting “self” time is an act of sustainability, not selfishness.
- The pendulum of selflessness and selfishness: Being completely self-less leads to burnout; the pendulum must swing back toward self-care to have anything left to give others. David’s sobriety recovery was the ultimate swing back toward self.
- Mentor vs. coach: If a coach isn’t affordable, find a mentor. The key is finding someone whose scar tissue you can learn from — someone who has driven into the potholes you haven’t hit yet and is willing to share the map.
- Lulu Lemon’s “pre-promotion” model: Employees at Lulu Lemon effectively work in their next role for a year before receiving the title — evidence is built into the system before the promotion is granted.