Gregory Demetriou: Keeping The Faith Through Small Acts
With so many challenges in life, keeping the faith is one of the main things people turn to for strength and inspiration. By understanding that God is guiding us no matter what, one can do greater and kinder things to others. Reminiscing on his inspiring life with Chad Burmeister and Rich Blakeman is the CEO of LGC Communications, Gregory Demetriou. He shares how putting his life at peril by getting shot while responding to a bank robbery as a detective changed his entire life perspective. Gregory explains how doing little good things every single day inspires him to be a better business leader and an individual overall. He also talks about the challenges he has with running his company and inviting his children back to church.
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Gregory Demetriou: Keeping The Faith Through Small Acts
I have the honor of having Gregory with me. Greg is the CEO of LGC Communications. He's been the CEO for many years. I bet he's got 1 or 2 stories to tell us in this episode. Greg, welcome to the show.
I'll try to do that without an adult beverage.
You've been the CEO for many years. What did you do before that?
I was a New York City detective.
I bet you've uncovered some interesting cases in your life.
I did. I worked undercover for a lot of years, semi-undercover. I wound up in a Manhattan DA squad where I retired from because I got hurt.
That's going to be interesting because the purpose of this show is to help our readers discover how to become the best version of themselves. A lot of that I've found goes back to when you're a kid. When you're a kid, you have an unfiltered view of the world. Your parents haven't yet impacted you. You don't go to church yet. You're a kid. What was your passion when you were young, maybe 5 or 6 years old? What are some of your first memories?
RETURN: How to Draw Your Child Back to the Church.
That's tough because I can't remember last week. I tell everybody, and I mean this to the bottom of my heart I had the best childhood on record. We had a large family, lots of aunts, uncles and cousins around. I can't remember harsh words being spoken. I can remember being treated like everybody’s son. The family I had was a solid American family. My grandparents were from Bayou Country in New Orleans. My father was born in Athens. It was an interesting and wonderful childhood in Brooklyn.
I picture Brooklyn kids playing out by a fire hydrant getting water in the street. Is that an inaccurate assumption or is there truth in there?
Not at all, and the block was the extension of the family. We were in townhouses in Brooklyn, which now sell for multi-millions of dollars. Back in the day, they did not. You walked out on the street and you could be in anybody's house because they were all an extended family. It was idyllic.
It feels like we could get back to that and life would be good.
Yes, it would.
If you think back to those days to what you're doing now with your life, is there a secret connection between you having an amazing family upbringing to what you're doing in life now?
It kept me from going too far off the deep end. I always say that God put me on a long leash but he never let go, which is thank you, Lord. I was not the best kid in the whole world growing up. I was not a quiet boy. I have lots of stories about that, which we'll go into another time.
That's true and my wife gives me a long leash too.
It's a long story. It's one that I wouldn't have missed for the world. I did lots of different things. I went into the police department. I wasn't even eighteen-year-old years old yet. They sent me up to East Harlem to a detective squad where they thought I was supposed to be another detective and they taught me how to be a detective at eighteen years old. It flavored my whole career because that's all I wanted to do. I worked undercover and semi undercover. I went up in a DA squad. I got shot in a bank stick up and I wound up retiring after that.
I went to work with a brother of mine in the securities communications business. Mailing proxy for the old defunct, Paine Webber. When he passed away suddenly his partners closed the business and I was out of work. That's how I got into the mailing business. I bought a small little company. Lorraine and I pulled what money we had. We bought a small company because I had to buy a job. We bought that in 1992. Fast forward to now, we're 25,000 square feet. We have 35 employees. We're a premier integrated marketing company here in our region. It's been a hell of a ride. I forgot that I was a real estate broker in the context of all that.
You rolled through the piece about being shot in a bank heist. We go through physical pain in life and mental pain in life. My son had third-degree burns on his face and hands. He was cooking. It caught fire. He put water on it and it was terrible. The next day, his statement was, “Dad, I'm happy this happened to me so it doesn't have to happen to anyone else in the family.” He had that amazing perspective.
Weeks later, his face is nearly all healed. It's a magical experience. He had something called RECELL where they don't have to do a full skin graft. It’s like a spray paint can of skin graft. Long and short, he asked me, “Dad, what's the most amount of pain you ever had?” I was like, “When I was in a car accident.” You try to think about it. A friend of mine was in the Marines and he said, “I've been shot, stabbed and blown up. The most pain I've ever had is with a kidney stone.”
That is painful, I can attest to that.
Think about a painful memory and how did that impact you later in a positive way?
I look at the day that I got shot. It was August 17th at 11:36 AM in Grand Central Station in Manhattan. It was a beautiful summer day. We didn't do street crime. We were detectives working on an organized crime case. We ran across a uniformed cop who's running north on Park Avenue South. He had his radio up. We joined the chase. I was like, “What do you got?” He says, “I’ve got a bank robber and there he goes.”
Being the youngest and the fastest, I was behind him going into doors at Grand Central. He was ready and I was not. He was there in a combat police stance. He shot me in the chest. He turned around, shot the uniformed cop and killed him. There I am sitting on the floor in Grand Central Station with a bullet hole in my chest, with blood running down between my fingers. I'm waiting to die. The experience is I can remember it like it was now.
First of all, I could see the bullet coming out of the barrel of his gun with the orange flash behind it. Sitting on the floor I remember that it was a calm lake. It’s perfectly calm. I said my apologies to God. I said, “God, I’ve been a bad boy. I tried to make it up. I hope that's good enough.” I sat there and I waited to die. I did not. They rushed me to the Bellevue Hospital along with Thomas Schimenti, he may rest in peace, the cop who died. We were in the same ambulance. I knew he was gone when we got to the emergency room because they stopped working on him. They were working on me.
That was the biggest and most traumatic event that has ever happened to me. It lasts my whole life. I remember it every day. Every year it comes up. August is a tough month for me. I wound up developing PTSD several months later and that was another shake-up of my life. I was fortunate enough that I didn't go to that deep rabbit hole and have suicide ideation. I never got that, but I can understand how guys get there. That's one of my biggest causes now. It’s to help combat some of the suicides we're experiencing from PTSD. That's the most traumatic day of my life other than when my brother died in my arms from water skiing. That's another story.
I kept these ribbons that you put around your hand when you go see your son because when you go see him and you're like, “If he breathed it in the wrong way, he's a goner. If he has opened his eyes, his eyes are gone.” None of that happened. I'm like, “It’s a second chance.” I was in a car accident in Havasu, Arizona. It's 120-degree weather. We got hit head on. A friend of mine got pulled from the top of the convertible 30 feet in the air. He was hurled and he lived. I hit my head on the windshield and that was a painful experience. I was dating my now wife for four years at the time. It caused me to go, “What am I doing? I love this woman. I need to move forward with something.” A lot of times these painful experiences are the calm seas. It’s the calmness. You could see the other side and you're like, “I probably need to do something a little bit differently.”
Keeping The Faith: Always try to find the opportunities that God provides so you can take the blessings He's given and put them to work.
I wasn't that smart. Even after the fact, I was not that smart. It took a long time. I'm a slow learner. It took me a long time to wrap my head around the fact that I was screwing up my own life. I needed to do something different. I have four grown sons now and I have two stepchildren. I wouldn't have any of that if I stayed on the track that I was on. I give credit to the good Lord above who pulled back on that leash and said, “Listen.” I even know the name of my guardian angel. His name is Roy. You can picture a retired linebacker, beat up, helmet askew, tear in his jersey and he's there for me because I kicked his ass my whole life and he's all beat to hell.
That's funny that it's Roy because my friend and I used to go to Vegas, and we'd always joke around about Roy. There we go.
I've had a blessed life.
One of the things at the Living a Better Story Retreat that we did, one gentleman named Eric Dunavant, the CEO of a company called Paradiem. He helps founders and CEOs restructure their lives to make sure that they pass on not only their wealth to their kids and their kids’ kids but also other things. His main message for the group was, and it was funny, “Shut up and pray. Shut up and read the Bible. Shut up and act,” because if you can ask, “God, what do you want for me next?” Read the Bible because there are some contextually interesting stories that were done thousands of years ago that fully represent everything that we go through in this world and do something about what you hear from the top.
You always have to wonder. In my case, I dodged the bullet three times. I should have been dead three times. I was at the doorstep and it didn't happen. Every day I question, “Why did you leave me here? Show me the opportunity. Let me see what you need.” I'm too stupid to figure it out myself. I’ve got to wait for the Holy Spirit to come and say, “Greg, do this.” I've done several things like that for sure.
What would you like to accomplish? This one is a loaded question because it's funny, you need to live in the moment we're in now. A lot of people screwed up by looking too far back looking too far forward, and they need to live. That aside, what would change everything for you? If one thing happened, what would that be?
If I could get all my kids to come back to church. I bought a book called Return, and I didn’t even crack the cover yet. It's about helping figure out how to do that. They're all adults. They're all wonderful men. They're great fathers, good producers, good earners, but yet they don't feel the obligation to be connected to God. They said, “I could pray anytime.” Yes, you can but you need structure. You need instruction. You need people to tell you what that's all about. You need to learn your faith more deeply. I've been fortunate to be able to get to that point so I'm always searching.
I'm always trying to learn and trying to listen. I do a bunch of different things. I have one folder on my desktop called Writing for God. I do a lot of writing and that's where I keep the columns that I write. I have a website. I have all kinds of different things I'm doing. Try to find the opportunities that I can take the blessings that he's given me and put them to work. I don't know if I'm doing it right. Maybe someday we'll find out that I helped somebody but we'll see.
There was a good sermon at Elevation Church where we used to go when we lived in North Carolina. We're in Denver now. He said, “To God, the big problems that are in our lives like being shot, being in a car wreck or having your face in third-degree burns are little problems for him.” I liken it to a speed bump in the road. To God, that's like, “No problem.” To God, also the little things that we do that impact other people are enormous to God. The ripple effect of the stuff that we do even if it feels this little. I'll see something come back several years later where you go, “You framed that letter that I sent you?”
A great instructor for that was St. Therese The Little Flower. Her philosophy was exactly what you said, “The little things matter.” She would do little things for everybody. She didn't have a selfish bone in her body. She did the little things that mattered to people. She was in a convent. If there was an elderly nun, she took her chores. She would be a benefit to other people. In the winter here up in New York, it's snowing like beat the band. There's a guy walking down the street. I drive past them. I turned around and I picked him up. Why? You answer that question.
It’s the little things. When I was walking out of the hospital where my son was at, there were 51 people in a nineteen-bed burn center. There were 51 because of the frostbite. It was minus eight in Colorado. It doesn't get to minus eight. A lot of people who don't have a roof over their heads were put in. They have finger problems and everything else. Many of these folks were standing on the street corner right when you turned to the hospital like six of them. One guy comes up to my car. What's wild is if you look at all children are God's children and you have the level of empathy that I had for my son, I'm like, “If I had that same level of empathy for the guy standing on the street corner, life would be a lot different.” I had $1,200 in my wallet. I gave him $100 and said, “Here, take care of some of these folks.” It seems so easy and yet we make it hard.
Keeping The Faith: It's never an easy task for a CEO to carry someone from their team who cannot keep up their end of the bargain.
We miss the opportunities more than we identify them and act on them. That's the regret. That's the prayer that I have. My car ride to work is about a 6-mile ride. It's about fifteen minutes up here in Long Island. That's my prayer time. Part of my prayer time is saying, “God, show me.”
Let me tell you what we're going to do. As luck would have it, I got the quote from a developer team. Have you ever heard of an app called 75 Hard?
No.
I started hearing about this app. It’s 75 days of working out. Two times a day 45 minutes each. Drink a gallon of water. Read ten pages in a book and follow a diet. There might be 1 or 2 other things. It's an app. You log in. In the morning, it says, “Did you do your 45-minute workout?” Check the box, “Did you drink your water?” I did it for 75 days. It ended on December 31st, 2020. No alcohol was the other one.
That’s a game-changer for me. I only drink sacramental wine.
The last day was the hard part. I was like, “I made it.” It happened to be New Year's and it wasn't planned. I was like, “I'm going to have two Scotches.” My point of that story is that we're going to build an app. We think it's going to be called Living a Better Story, but again when you turn over the keys to God, you never know where the car is going to go. To your kids’ points, I can understand. I don't go to church every Sunday and yet I feel connected. I need more guidance than that.
Why not build an app that's like 75 Hard that goes viral that says, “It's not going to be hard. You don't have to work out twice a day but here, read a Bible verse. It's going to pop up once or twice a day. Pray, it could be two minutes. We're going to give you the structure of the prayer. Do something nice for someone. Maybe in your family and out of your family.” Imagine all the momentum that we can create with millions of people. I don't know if we'll charge for this app, probably not.
That has legs to it. That does. I was listening to what you were going to have and it has legs. I get one every morning now because it's lunchtime and I'm Catholic. It's the gospel for the day. They’re a short little two-paragraph analysis, a mini homily of the reading. I look forward to every morning with my coffee. That popped right out.
It changes your perspective on life, no matter what we're going through.
It keeps you grounded and humble.
What are you tolerating in your business now that you feel you maybe shouldn't be tolerating? With 25,000 feet and 35 employees, what do you tolerate that you maybe shouldn't be tolerating?
We’re carrying some of the people who are less than keeping up their end of the bargain. I'm doing that. I know that I'm doing it and I shouldn't be doing it. That's a terrible thing for a CEO to do, but I know I'm doing it. Why am I doing it? Because I know what their personal situation is.
Our pastor, when we got married, said, “You can do anything for any amount of time as long as you know why.” I always fall back on that one frequently.
It's okay. It's not the end of the world. It's not going to change my life. It may change their life with some little tolerance or acceptance, a little respect and empathy for their situation. I've had people who needed teeth. They had no teeth in their mouth. I gave them money on the side. I said, “Go take care of that.” When I see them smile now, it makes me feel great.
It makes God feel great. Final question, what role does faith play in your journey? We've covered it a little bit.
It keeps me humble and thankful for the blessings I have. It's interesting because on the faith side, in retrospect you know when you screwed up. I'm haunted by somebody that I fired. I was not nearly as forgiving as I should have been. I put the CEO hat on and I excluded everything else. To this day, and this is a few years ago, I regret doing that. I asked for forgiveness for doing that because he was crying. I was so adamant that he had to be fired. It wasn't the end of the world what he did. I was trying to make an example of him and not hold them close. I said, “You screwed up. Let's make sure this doesn't happen again.” I hope God doesn't hold me to the same standard that I have that poor guy too.
The phrase there that comes to my mind is, “Forgive them, they know not what they do.” People, you, me and everybody are raised in the way we were raised, where we were raised by the people were raised by. You had the luckiness of having a nice family and other people don't. When you go places, and you see people that are having a tough life, and you go, “I respect you.” If you do something that is wrong, you probably do that to other employees or people in the network. They do what they think is right.
Do you know what’s funny though, Chad? Being free to have these types of conversations and not worry about, “What are my colleagues going to think?” “He's a Holy Roller.” I'm far from a Holy Roller. I drink, I cuss and I like women. What I am is sincere about who I am. Whenever I've peeled back the curtain a little bit with my business associates, you’re so surprised how people respond. I did an interview with a dear friend of mine. He started out as a client and now he's one of my best friends. We cry together. He had a terrible upbringing.
He was abused and a whole bunch of stuff happened to him. He and I are like this. We're like blood brothers, brothers from another mother. Why? I exposed it to him and he exposed to me the humanity of who we are. We're not only business professionals. We talk about all types of spiritual things much like this conversation. Quite frankly, I met you but I'm putting it out there. Where's this coming from? It’s not coming from me. It's coming from him. He said, “Greg, I gave you this. You need to tell people about it.” I don't hold back.
Greg, I've enjoyed this conversation. I'm sure our readers will as well. I thank you for investing the time, being authentic and sharing your story.
Thank you, Chad. Appreciate it. Stay safe.
Thank you, everybody.
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About Gregory Demetriou
After a highly decorated tenure as a New York City detective, Greg entered the business world in 1992 with the purchase of a small company in Bethpage. Today, he is blessed to run an energetic and forward-thinking company that helps companies consolidate their marketing efforts across all platforms and assures his clients’ messages reach each segment of their audience.
He is a nationally published author on marketing and business topics and an invited columnist in business publications. Greg is consulted by the media as an industry expert and has presented marketing seminars to businesses and organizations for over 28 years.
In 2017 Greg created Ask A CEO Interview Series to highlight the personal and professional journeys of CEOs. The catalog of shows includes over 25 COVID Chronicles with the total approaching 50 episodes. The show is now available in video and podcast versions.
