About Us
Who is Greg?
I’m Greg Sobecki. I get to serve your son/daughter as a guest teacher at HCHS & DGNHS, and I absolutely love what I do! Along with my daughter, Liliana, who graduated from HCHS in 2019, and my son Eli who graduated in 2021, we are the co-founders of Greatness Is Not Normal.
Let me start by thanking your son or daughter, one of the wonderful students whose openness & enthusiastic engagement inspired me to launch this business. I absolutely love how they hold me accountable and encourage me. Your son/daughter signed a petition to start a club at HCHS called Building Blocks for Life to develop the life skills they need to get the most out of their college experience, and to learn how to build a world class network to launch their careers. Imagine if you had such a service before launching your career?
First, a bit about my background. I spent decades developing high performance sales teams, achieving amazing results. I learned quickly that the single most important attribute of my career was having the ability to collaborate with others. I surrounded myself with talented and insightful people, and quickly rose to success. Looking back, I see hundreds of people’s careers stagnate due to their inability to connect with others. This skill is missing from most people, but it can be taught through mentorship.
On 2/9/22, I was given the opportunity to do something I always wanted to do, teach. With the opportunity to work with the HCHS students, and my own kids, I quickly realized that most students want to be successful, but they don’t know yet what that is or how to ensure it. They talk about going to a great school and “figuring it out along the way”. You may have done the same, I know I did.
So how can someone mentor a student that hasn’t decided if they want to be a doctor or a librarian? I believe the key to answering that question lies with each student, individually. Helping each student figure out who they are, what they want, and how to get it is as unique as they are. The key lies in who they are becoming, and why…
I am proposing to be a professional mentor to your son/daughter. My core ideology includes:
• Helping students envision and create the life they love, giving them the opportunity to joyfully thrive.
• Teaching students to identify dysfunctional beliefs, and how to reframe them to solve the right problem, to achieve optimal results.
• Building meaningful connections 12x12 (including parents) to launch their careers.
How am I different?
⁃ I believe to do the right thing; you must first be the right person.
⁃ I believe that greatness is not normal… and neither are your kids.
⁃ I am NOT a therapist or a counselor. I am an authentic parent & substitute teacher who cares. I’ve been called a coach, mentor, advocate, leader & connector.
So why am I doing this? I know from personal experience that if I had someone invest in me in high school, and had support like this, my life would be totally different. I would have been able to avoid the negative lessons, but still had the positive input that has made me who I am today.
What We Do
Greatness is not Normal is an academic life planning coaching company focused on getting students ready for the transition to college and then onto their careers. Working individually with each student, we do a personal assessment to determine where they are, and where they want to be. More importantly we help them figure out who they are, and who they are becoming.
To do this effectively, I teach students to ask the right questions, in the right way, to the right people, at the right time. The ultimate question is why… “What’s in it for you?” But to be able to ask that question effectively, they must know that you care. When they know that you care, and they share with her why, that’s where the magic happens.
I have done this with my own children and am doing it now with the students at HCHS. It works best when started in HS, and continues to strengthen through college. Students want to learn how to be successful, but they cannot get that from a math or English class.