#101: How To Find Your Purpose And Be Successful with Scott Hansen

Welcome to The Conscious Pivot Podcast with international speaker, business mentor, bestselling author of Pivot, and your host, Adam Markel. The Conscious Pivot shares the stories and wisdom of people who have successfully reinvented some area of their business and personal life. You'll gain powerful insights into how you can fully embrace new opportunities, increase your performance, and master the art and science of innovation and resilience. So please join Adam as he guides you on your conscious pivot.

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Conscious Pivot Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Markel, and I feel incredibly blessed today as I do almost, almost every day. I mean, I want to say every day, but I'd be lying if I said that every morning I felt great. I'm a little tired this morning. Just came back from A bit of a travel stint, did a TEDx talk up in Lake Tahoe, which was beautiful, and then had a speaking gig up in San Francisco to a big group of lawyers, trial attorneys. It was really a trippy experience for me to go back and speak with my old colleagues about, of all things, resilience and self-care. That was wild and wonderful, and I feel grateful for the opportunity to have done that. I feel grateful to be here this morning with all of you. Just for the new day, for this breath, for this opportunity to be. I don't want to take that for granted. I do. I know we all do. I do. And in this moment, I'm prepared to just be happy and be grateful for my life. So I'm thrilled I've got a guest on the show this morning. His name is Scott Hanson. I'm going to read a little bit of his bio in just a second and then get into some really, I think will be both interesting, intriguing, and maybe even, who knows, controversial conversation. I don't know. That comes up for me that— That we might have some fun things to chat about this morning and you guys get to participate in that however you're doing it. I'm looking forward to this conversation. But before we get into that, let me say a little bit about this man's experience and his life. His name is Scott Hanson. He's a certified small business growth expert. I'm a small business— I don't know how to say, I guess a serial entrepreneur since I'm 15 years old. So I'm a fan of small business. It's not that I root against big business, but I really especially find myself rooting for small businesses. It's a very difficult thing, I think, for anybody to follow their dream, to own their own shop and be their own woman, their own man. And so anything we can do to help with that, I'm always in favor of. So he helps business owners outthink, outmarket, and outsell their competition. When working with his clients, not only does Scott help them grow revenue and increase profits, but he's also helping his clients create a business that affords them an amazing quality of life. And I don't think there's anything more important than that, so I'm really in favor of what he does. He prides himself as helping his clients get massive results by following the 5-part profit formula, which we may speak about today, for doubling revenues and increasing profits. His work has been seen in Entrepreneur Magazine, NBC, Fox, CBS, Forbes Inc., and Business Innovators, along with being a guest on over 75 radio shows and podcasts. He's also a nationally recognized speaker, bestselling author, and the host of one of the top business and entrepreneurial podcasts on iTunes, listened to in multiple countries. Six Figure Coach magazine has labeled Scott as one of the top business coaches in the country to follow. So wherever you are, whatever you're doing, whether you're on the treadmill, you're walking, you're consuming this in the car or at your desk, I would say take a few moments, take a few breaths. And get ready to learn some really incredible things. I'm thrilled to have you on the show, Scott. Good morning and welcome.

Thank you so much, Adam. I'm looking forward to this as well. Yeah. Thanks for having me. This will be great.

You have an amazing bio and I know it took many, many years to create all that good stuff that shows up in that bio. What's something that's not in the bio, not in the intro that you would love people to know about you?

I think you started it off really well to say, there's a lot of great things that I was able to do over the last several years, but Anybody that's listening to say, how do I become known as the person in whatever field that they're in? How do I get attention? How do I do things outside the box? I think it's very important is to number one, think a little bit bigger than what you're doing, you're currently doing. Whether that, you know, you touched on earlier saying that you were in a speaking engagement with lawyers. You know, if you want to be the best lawyer in your city or whatever it is that you do, you have to think a little bit differently. And, um, There was a time not that long ago, frankly, where I remember when I wanted to get out of the corporate world and I wanted to become a coach and a speaker and trainer, etc. A mentor of mine actually said, well, how are you going to differentiate yourself from everybody else? And I said, well, I'm pretty good at what I do. And that was my answer. And he kind of looked at me, said, it's gonna have to be a lot more than that with today's technology and everything else. And I really, I took that to heart and I said, how can I become You know, frankly, as good if not better than anybody that's doing it in my space. So that's when you just read off my bio. I strategically started to put things in place to say, well, Scott Hanson isn't saying how great he is, but maybe other third-party entities are doing the same thing. So when someone introduces me like you just did, or at a speaking event, it's not just, you know, business strategist Scott Hanson, come on up. It's What you just said. So anybody that's listening to say, well, I don't know how to get my stuff in ABC or NBC, or I don't know how to write for Entrepreneur, I'd say just pick a lane and have a goal, and you you will absolutely achieve that. I mean, when I first started, someone actually I wanted to become a writer for Entrepreneur Magazine, and I didn't know anybody at Entrepreneur Magazine. But the universe opened up because sure enough, about two months later, someone literally tapped me on the shoulder to say. Hey, would you like to be a contributing writer for Entrepreneur Magazine? And away we went. And then there's other things that I was able to do that allowed me to build up that bio. But it takes— everybody starts at one place called the starting point at one time in their life. And I would just suggest anybody that's watching this or listening to this to say, don't try to be like Adam, don't try to be like me tomorrow. Start putting down an execution plan of what you really want to have happen. And play the game and continue to do what you're doing.

Resilience.

It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about.

And in times of massive change and disruption, the kind of rapid change that we're all experiencing as leaders, as business owners, as entrepreneurs, we have to learn how to not only increase our own resilience but that of our teams. So right now we have a powerful opportunity for you to find out Just how resilient you are. Some years ago, my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilience leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score Yeah. So I'm going to circle back just a little bit to—

Okay.

Those are the things that, again, people have goals. We all have goals. We all have things we want to do. And it's a cool thing when you do concentrate. I was reading in a daily book that I check out, an Emmet Fox book called Around the Year. It's kind of a spiritual book, but it also has a lot that's outside of the spiritual realm, very practical and usable in business. And one of the things he was referencing this morning in the reading I was checking out was about concentration. So clearly, your bio to me is a reflection of how you've concentrated. You focused on certain things. You don't end up contributing to Entrepreneur Inc. or any of these things without deciding at some point, I want that. I'm going to put my focus on that. It was like, just recently did a TEDx talk, was The most challenging thing I've done since I had to study for the bar exam a long time ago. Wow. Yeah, because to do an 18-minute talk, it's very different than the kinds of talks I've given in the past. I'm usually very fluid. I take in information. I have an idea what I want to say. I usually have something laid out. I've got slides or I've got whatever it is, but I allow myself to be guided. This was 18 minutes of monologue that took weeks and weeks to prepare. I didn't want to get up there and wing it. I don't want to be in a position where my message somehow didn't come through exactly the way I wanted it. So, a lot of focus, a lot of concentration. I assume that that has played a big role in the bio, as long as we're starting there. Has that been the case for you?

Well, it's interesting you said that. Yeah, the answer is yes, but if I were to take myself back before that, we might get into this, my story, but there was not that long ago where My past was I was in sort of the corporate sales arena and was pretty good at what I did, but there was always that itch, I call it the nudge, universe, from Buddha, from God, whoever you dig the most, for me all the time. And I didn't know what that meant, but it kept popping up. And I knew people would say, wow, you give great advice, you help a lot of people just naturally, it's naturally what you're good at. But I didn't know what that really meant. I didn't know if there was— if I could become a coach or, you know, work with people or speak on stage or whatever. I just knew that whenever job I would have, I would always be the guy in Barnes& Noble at the time, or Borders Books at the time, searching and hunting for spiritual, you know, alignment and purpose, being what I call being on purpose. And I kept reading, you know, these books, psychology books and business books and success books and The Oprah Winfreys of the world and these people like that. And it said, man, once you find your purpose, you know, that's the key to everything. And God, if I didn't spend years and panic attacks and anxiety attacks and emergency room visits trying to think so hard about how do I, you know, how do I fit in this place called planet Earth and why can't I find my purpose and what's missing? I mean, this was a constant struggle, like daily for years. So when I finally got into this space of coaching and speaking, etc., I said to myself, this is it, buddy. Yeah, you know, I ain't letting go. This is something that you're gonna have to really pull me away from kicking and screaming for a long time to get me out of this thing. So there wasn't this, I graduated from school, I graduated from college, and all of a sudden I became this quote-unquote Yeah.

This is an interesting distinction right here because focus, concentration almost implies that we have to— that things have been a straight line, that people who got their focus or got their concentration like they got their communion or there's some coming-of-age thing. I turned 18 years old in addition to getting my driver's license or whenever people They also got their focus and concentration, and obviously, it's laughable because that's not the case. Right. Yeah. I mean, we all know kids, or at least I grew up with some kids who, hey, I want to be a doctor. And hey, 20 years later, what are they? They're a doctor. Right. I want to be a dentist. I mean, it's like a 7-year-old kid says, I'm going to be a dentist. You think, what the heck? Like, I'm going to be a fireman. I want to be an astronaut. You want to be a dentist? How nice. 30 years later, the kid's a dentist. Right? So, there's no question that there are some people that for whatever reason, whether it's in their DNA, it's in their heart, it's in their mind, they decide early on they want to do something. Who knows why that is? I mean, I know people as well who are doing things that when they're 50 years old, they look back and go, you know why I'm doing this? Because my mom told me, or my dad told me, hey, you'd make a great dentist. And then all of a sudden, 20 years later, and they've been playing out that script in their head for what would they be great at, what would they love to do, and now they're 52 years old and they go, I'm You know what? This sucks. I hate doing this, or this was great. It served me. I mean, all that's good. I was a lawyer. I spent 18 years a lawyer and I woke up in the morning, I put my feet on the floor and I used to have that anxiety that you're referencing because I could feel my life energy kind of slipping away and I could feel that 20 years would go by, 30 years would go by and this is what I'd be doing. This would be my legacy and it wasn't even mine. Well, I mean, I knew why I did it. I was wanting to make a lot of money. I wanted to take guard and protect my family. I wanted to break out of the sort of cycle in my own family of people that just weren't financially all that well off. I wanted to not live in an apartment and have our kids grow up in a house. So, there's no straight line, I think, is what I'm hearing you say.

Yeah.

And your life didn't proceed on any sort of straight line path. Is that right?

This is such an interesting conversation because for years, and I'm not talking about 1 or 2 years, I mean years, I would never want to have this conversation. I would steer as far away as this conversation as possible. Now, I can embrace it because I'm kind of on— when I say the other side, I don't mean necessarily the other side of wealth, but on the other side of purpose, and that when I get up every day, it's something that I do is spectacular that I love to do that I've been searching I'm 45 years old. So, literally, up until about— I was about 38, 39, right? So, late bloomer when it comes to this. I was still searching for sure. And again, I would have steered so far away from this conversation for 20, 25 years that people would ask me, so, what is it that you want to do? And I wouldn't— I'd get frustrated. I wouldn't know. And I'd want to just crawl away and just completely avoid the conversation. To your point, this is something that you said you went through it as well. I think a lot of people going through it, but when you're going through it, you think you're the only person going through it because you see all of your other friends or family members going, wow, they seem to be really happy.

This is really interesting, Scott, because the world that you— you're a little bit younger than me. It sounds like we had a very similar path and finding ourselves in places looking for answers, whether that was, like you say, the Barnes& Noble. Who knows whether there'll be Barnes& Noble around anymore? 10 more years, but now it's cruising the internet or whatever it is. Find some solution, some answer, something that will feel better on the inside. And we don't often, at least I didn't know what was bothering me. If you'd ask me, what's ticking you off? Why are you so angry? And I was, like I said, I was a lawyer, so I was a litigator. I had plenty of outlets for my anger, which is kind of a funny thing. Right. But the truth is I didn't know, and that was part of the pain was the not knowing what's bothering me. I mean, I have a wife that I've been married to now 29 years. I mean, the love of my life, 4 healthy kids, houses, all kinds of things to be grateful for. I was grateful. It wasn't like not appreciative, yet not happy.

Yeah.

And I think there's a lot of people who are in that same place where they have things they're grateful for, it'd be foolish not to be, and it doesn't make sense, but yet still not happy, not fulfilled. Fulfillment I mean, success in money, success in things, success in titles and all that, any form of success without fulfillment doesn't feel like success. It feels like failure. I felt like a failure. It sounds like you were feeling very much off-kilter, off-balance, and not successful despite the fact that you had other things going well in your life. Is that correct?

Yeah. I mean, it's— and again, I call it the itch. I mean, I would have the— in my office, it's kind of a funny story now, but in my office, I would shut my door, you know, during lunch. I would just start to walk around my office and I would just pretend as if I was speaking to a crowd of 500 or 5,000. And I guess if you would have looked in my office, probably people did say, wow, this guy's really intense. He's like fist pumping and he's walking around. He's talking to a client, you know, he's on the phone and making the phone calls to clients and customers or whatever. The reality of it is, is that I was, I guess, not knowing at the time, projecting into the future what that would be and what that would look like. And again, we can joke about it now, but in the moment, when you get up every single day and you have a feeling you're meant to do something different, but like you said, you're searching for answers and you don't know what those answers are. So then it starts to become this dog chasing its tail mentality. And then you start to get frustrated, and then you start to go, wait a second, am I the only person going through this? And what am I doing? Should I be just— should I discontinue to think about these thoughts and just go down this one path and shut your mouth, shut your brain off, and just make the X amount of dollars? There was many, many, many, many, many times when I questioned my, you know, questioned my searching. Does it, does it make sense to just stop and be, like you said, satisfied? Yeah. Or where you're at, and you know I'm fortunate enough to say that I continued the search, and I'm a big believer. And and here's the crazy thing about you know the law of attraction or what you focus on expands or whatever it is terminology that you want to call it. I'm a big believer that when you do that, when you get clearer, you know clear about what you want. Like I said, God or universe or whoever you dig starts to put things or. opportunities in your place.

And

I don't mean to cut you off, but here's the distinction. No, no, thank you. The distinction is you think it's going to be— I always thought it was going to be when I read a book and it was a success book that I was looking for that answer that you're talking about, and I was looking for it in this yellow or red neon sign, like, you should be doing this, circling, highlighting, pointing, you know, whatever. And it doesn't come in that form. How what the formula does come in is little opportunities here and there, and whether you answer the bell and go and pursue that or not is, in my opinion, the difference between the conversation we're having versus a conversation that maybe would have never happened if I didn't start to answer those things. Whether it was an opportunity, hey, I got it, you know, I got this new thing, want to check it out? Taking a risk, you know, that sort of thing. Before you know it, And we might get into this, but I met someone who knew someone who knew someone who kind of directed me to where I'm at today. And if I didn't take that one call and then that one meeting, literally, we wouldn't be speaking today. So it's pretty incredible.

It is, and not predictable either. I mean, that's the thing. If you're attached to certainty, which I'm sort of a recovering certaintyaholic or something, something that inside of me that is more comfortable when I know stuff, when I know what's going to happen next. And I think that's not unusual, but it's counterintuitive because letting go of that attachment to knowing what's going to happen next, what's going to be around the next bend, what your life is going to look like a year from now, what your business will look like a year from now, that is a serious crutch. That is a seriously debilitating mindset. And it keeps us in many ways very much more stuck than it gives us the opportunity to be agile and flexible and to make gains quickly. I want to go back to what you were saying a little bit earlier about the searching, that being in a position where you're looking for answers. I think there's a lot of people who are looking for answers and more now than when you were searching or when I was searching a few years before you, the advent of social media and— The opportunity to see on a daily basis through Instagram, through Facebook, through any number of different things how people are living, your friends, real friends and virtual friends that you have and all that kind of thing, to see how they're living through social media can be a real challenge that I didn't face at the time. When I went into the bookstore or I went on my walks and things like that, I didn't have a lot of references for how other people were living in my face every day. I mean, other than my neighbors and my immediate family, that kind of thing. Any thoughts on how social media has either helped or created even more problems for people that might be in the situation that you were in, whatever that was, 10 years ago or 8 years ago, etc.?

Yeah, what a great question. We could probably be here for hours about this topic because I think it goes from adults All the way down to kids. I mean, unfortunately, it's been proven that kids are being bullied now more through social media than when you and I ever went to school. Because to your point, if you got bullied from the kid at school, that was it. You went home and you didn't get bullied anymore. Now you're— it's a 24/7 thing, which, you know, I don't have kids right now, but I have nieces and nephews and we have these conversations and it's pretty unfortunate. But on our side, sort of the adult side of things, I think it's interesting because there is a saying that I try to live by, which is, don't compare yourself to others. It's not easy to do because if you're on Facebook, if you're on social media and you see people living a certain way, there's a natural inclination to maybe get a little bit jealous or say, wow, I wish I had this, or I wish I had that. But what I've realized in my own career and in my own life is this, and I actually read this in an article not that long ago, and I think it was written by Darren Hardy, who used to publish the set. Yeah. being editor of Success Magazine. And he said something to the effect of— it was like the statistic that he quoted that when you die, the likelihood of you having more than 12 to 15 people at your funeral is pretty slim, which is so alarming. And he said the number one reason why someone will come or not come to your funeral, the number one reason is the weather. So if it's raining, no one's going to be outside, you know, watching over your grave in the funeral process.

Hmm.

And man, I tell you, that hit me so hard because if you're watching this right now or listening to this going, yeah, but I do care what my neighbors think or my family thinks, or I do compare myself, here's the ultimate response to that, which is if you're so worried about how I look or what I say, or if I start that new business, what am I going to be perceived as, or whatever, the reality of it is, is maybe 10 people will show up to your funeral. And of those 10, if it rains, no one's showing up. So quit worrying and quit comparing yourself to other people. I do believe that what you see necessarily is not what you get. So when you see someone with Ferraris and Lamborghinis and big homes, you know, I would just be cautious, like who you're really following and who your mentors are and stuff like that. I would pick 1 or 2 or 3 people at most and try to be mentored by them, but I, I wouldn't spend a ton of time on social media comparing yourself, because the reality of it is— and this is maybe a message that hopefully hits home with people— is for me, I try to compare myself to the best version of my potential self. So when I meet my maker, when it's all said and done, my vision is I'm going to have this vision of Scott Hanson, and that person is going to be the very best version of themselves. And he's going to say either You didn't do a very good job living up to your potential, or nice job, come on into the pearly gates, and I'm happy to get to know you. And I know that sounds a little bit deeper, spiritual or whatever, but that's how my belief is. I don't need to compare myself to other people to know that I'm making progress to being the best version of myself.

Yeah, that's an interesting way to look at it. Some years ago, I remember someone saying— it was a speaker on our stage and He said, the great shame would be to be on your deathbed or be at that point where you realize you're going to transition and to imagine meeting the person that you could have been on the other side.

Yeah.

Getting that knowledge that you could have been, but for what you just didn't believe about yourself or the insecurities you had or the programmed response, I think, for many of us is to compete. We see it in sports. We are taught it from the time that we're very young that that we're sort of in competition with a lot of things and a lot of people for scarce resources of some kind, the win, the job, the money, some other thing. Reprogramming us as human beings to realize that there's more abundance than we actually believe, that we're more connected than we are separate, that there's more about us where we could be helpful to others and others can be helpful to us. versus seeing people as a threat. I mean, these are things we're brought up to believe and they're programmed by a lot of things through the media, through some of our religious affiliations, through our parents and grandparents and things. So I mean, it's a tough road in that regard if you're not a bit more self-aware.

Yeah.

It sounds like to me part of your journey out of whatever you were doing professionally to what you're doing now, which I would love for you to share with us. is really a journey of self, in part of self-awareness. Is that accurate?

Yeah, 100%. I would agree. Yeah, that same comment wouldn't have came from me 10, 12 years ago, for sure. Now, with that said, I played a lot of sports growing up and I am competitive. Ask my wife in ping pong. I'm competitive in just about anything I do.

We got a ping pong table right out here, buddy. Oh, okay. We welcome you.

Come to San Diego. No question, I'm competitive and I do want to win. But I do believe there's the other side of me, which is there is so much abundance. There truly is abundance to be had. And again, I'm not saying you shouldn't want to compete or dominate or crush the competition or all those those words. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. But I also believe that it dots that it straight lines into becoming the biggest, best version of yourself. So what does that mean? Does that mean that is it a dollar sign? Is it a wealth thing? Is it an abundance thing? Is it how many homes you can? Whatever it is to me, I'm never going to tell you you should not think about owning 3 homes or 5 boats. If you want to do that and that's your definition of massive success, go for it. If your definition of success is, you know, I want to spend more quality time with family and you're able to do that through monetary purpose, you know, reasons, then do that too. So I think that there's a lot of different definitions of success and everybody that has— they have to define your own level of success, what that means to you. But I'm also a big believer in every single day trying to be better today than you were yesterday. Because here's the reality, without getting too deep, but I'll get deep for a second. My wife and I have been trying to have children now for a couple years, and it's been a tough road. You start to realize different things when you're going through something like this. You start to realize that children are a blessing, truly. Maybe some people would argue with that, but— Having a child is a blessing. We haven't been able to— been very successful in the last 4 years, so we look at it much differently, right? So that's affected me to say, when someone gets this shot, what I call the tap on the shoulder in this thing called life— you and I got a tap on the shoulder to play. What we do with that thing called life, in my opinion, is where I really Like to impart my wisdom and my background and what I went through in order to help someone else get to the best version of themselves. Because at the end of the day, when it's all said and done, like you alluded to, and you're sitting on that rocking chair thinking about your past life, do you really want to say, well, I, I wish I would have— I wish I would have asked her out, I wish I would have asked him out, I wish I would have tried this, did this, tried this, fell down? Really experience this thing called life in a 360-degree level. And that's kind of how I bring this whole thing back full circle to my life. And my belief is because for many years I was just going through this thing called life, confused, panic attacks, not sure what I wanted to do. And like I said, now if I can try to— if I can impart and motivate or even inspire people to think bigger to play different, to not take this thing called life for granted, then I think that we're doing some great things.

Wow. The pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient.

In fact, It's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about, and it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly.

So, go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. Agreed. Yeah. It's funny. I just saw on my desk what I've got sitting here. So, those of you that are watching, you get a chuckle out of this. And those of you who are listening, I'm holding the ping pong balls though. It's very, very interesting. There's so many synchronicities and moments that we get to see how silly life is on one level and how connected life is in so many ways. Yeah. If we can't laugh and also be able to see the bigger picture, see the bigger picture, be serious about life, be able to put focus and concentration into things that we want, things we think are important, at least at that stage in our on the path that we're on, but also be able to laugh and find the humor in things and not take ourselves so seriously either.

It's hard.

Like waiting for a phone to ring, right, Scott? You can't do that. I mean, the moment you're quite attached or quite that level of focus that I'm waiting for the phone to ring, I'm waiting for that client to call back, I'm waiting for this thing to happen, it doesn't usually. I'm not saying it can't, but it just doesn't usually, right?

Yeah, you bring up a topic that I think is probably one of the toughest topics that I dealt with, and I'm sure millions of other people deal with every day. It's called letting go. So there's one person listening or watching this going, well, yeah, but that's easy for you guys to say, maybe because you've reached a certain area. How can I let go when right now I'm not in the position that I want to be in? So does that mean just kind of hang out and let sort of the universe take over and just kind of blow me around? So there's a different distinction, in my opinion, of what letting go is. When I heard that saying from successful people that I would read about or hear about, or I would say, that's bullshit, man. Letting go? How can I let go when I'm— I know I'm not where I want to be, so I want to continue to work harder, try harder, read more books. There's a different distinction between just letting go and being in control, yet having the opportunity to say, You know, when we were kids, we came home from school and our parents said, how'd you do on the test? And the only thing that they, at least my parents, were hoping for is, did you do your best?

Hmm.

And then if you prepped, if you studied, you took the test, that's when you let go because you cannot affect the outcome once you already took the test, right? Whatever happened happened. But it's in that little space, it's that in that little space is where I think, and I, I fell into this for years, The, yeah, but I want it tomorrow. Yeah, but I'm already 30. I'm 31. I'm 32. Why is this happening? Why isn't this happening fast enough? So there's a level of letting go and then there's a level of, do I let go now? Can I let go now? What does it mean to let go? Does that make sense?

Scott, it's, it's a really interesting— and, and I use the word distinction. I think that's true. It's a, it's a fine point for sure, and I think, or, or even a thin line between being attached to something and And having that attachment actually get in the way, create interference. And I don't necessarily mean interference with the outcome, although it could, I suppose. It's interference on the inside. It changes our demeanor, the way we experience life. I mean, what else is there? But we talk about— I mean, we've had a couple of serious moments in this podcast about the day when we— whatever that's going to be. Well, I'll just say it. I don't personally believe in death. I mean, I believe that the body is no longer, but I don't believe our actual consciousness dies. That's a personal belief. And to me, so where it is that we transition, whatever that looks like in actuality, and I haven't been there and I'm not looking to get there tomorrow either, I don't want to be in a position where I look back at my life and there's lots of evidence of people that have had near-death experiences that have said the same thing. They get a kind of a life review. I don't want to have my life review be that I experienced life on terms that weren't of my choosing.

Right.

We get to choose how we experience it. Like you said, you try hard, you are tenacious, you're persistent, you want something. At a certain point, if that's also got you in anxiousness, if it doesn't feel right to you, then something's probably not right. And it might not be the thing that isn't right, isn't the thing you're doing for a living or the thing you're pursuing. It could be just your approach to it.

Yeah.

Because I was a lawyer for 18 years and I ultimately was quite unhappy and I wrote a— well, ultimately changed my career and changed my career path and then wrote a book called Pivot about that. that reinvention process. But the truth is, and this is what I said to those lawyers the other night, had I known then what I know now, I would have had other options. I didn't need to leave the law necessarily. I'm happy I did, but I didn't have other options because my mindset was where it was at the time.

Right.

I was so— and I think that's a lot of what we all experience is that if we get too attached, If we can't see the bigger picture, if we can't gain that greater perspective so we can loosen up a little bit, be a little bit more easy with things, almost like holding a flower, holding a rose. I mean, you grip it too tightly, it's no longer— you open your hand, it's no longer a rose. You've got to hold it delicately. It's a question of pursuing something and then letting go of it at the same time, at least letting go I thought your analogy, your example was really key. You try something, you do it the best you can, taking a test or whatever it is, you study, you prepare, and then once you've done it, you've got to let go of the outcome and even be able to see it in a way that where regardless of the outcome that you receive, whether you got an A or you got a D or whatever it is, you're still okay.

Right.

You're still going to experience yourself as something that is deserving of love. I think part of what you're talking about is we convince ourselves, or we've been programmed in some way from the time we're young, that when we win, we deserve love. We get an A, we get love from our parents, or we get respect from our classmates or from the teacher, whatever it is. Fast forward, we're 35 years old, and now that A translates into, I got a raise at work. I got a better job. This, that. And I think a lot of those Accomplishments, if you will, end up being the way we equate or at least size ourselves up as deserving or undeserving of love. So you went into the pool. I'll jump in with you. Those are important concepts that are only more important, I believe, as we get older, that those realities become more the focus and less of the focus is, is my house 5,000 feet? Is it 6,500? Is it 2,000? Or any of the other ways in which we measure ourselves competitively against society, against our neighbors, against our brothers, sisters, or whoever it is. So, you know, that's not so much a question as it obviously is an observation, but triggered by what you said. And I appreciate you, Scott, for bringing that up.

Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for jumping in the pool.

Yeah. The book behind you, I mean, it's obviously— is that a life-size book? If we buy your book, Scott, do we have to carry it around?

Yeah.

Do I

need to put it over your head?

I just want to make sure people, you know, folks that are listening to this, they don't know what I'm talking about, but Scott's got a big sort of a poster-sized, seems, cover of the book. Is that, is that your book, Success Hackers?

That is the book and the name of the podcast.

Oh, way cool.

Branding, right? So yeah, the book was Success Hackers. We wrote it a couple years ago, and then the podcast was actually— it came out before then, same name. But yeah, yeah, that's the, the name of the book.

Tell us, tell us about the podcast. Give us a little You know, essence of what that show is, because obviously people consuming this, they consume podcasts. I mean, this is marketing 101 in case you don't know it, right? I'll sometimes ask this question very quickly. I'll ask it to everybody listening if you haven't heard this before, but who do you want to sell coffee to? If you're in the coffee business, who do you want to sell coffee to? And when people answer that question, often they'll say, well, people who need caffeine, right? So people studying for tests, college students, people who drive at night, truck drivers, whatever it is. Those are the folks you sell coffee to. And the answer is obviously, or maybe not so obviously, no, that's not the answer. You sell coffee to people who buy coffee. That's your market for coffee, people who bought coffee yesterday, right? So people listening to this podcast, it's so great because look, we're going to introduce you to another great podcast that you're going to love, and it's called Success Hackers. So tell us a little bit about that, Scott.

Yeah, I've been doing it for maybe 3 years now. I think 130-some-odd guests. I think we got downloaded, we've been downloaded in 18 countries, almost 3/4 of a million downloads now, you know, on iTunes and Stitcher and everything. And it's interesting because I actually started this based, coming full circle of how you opened the conversation, which was, well, how do you want to differentiate yourself from other coaches or other strategists? And a friend of mine was doing a podcast at the time, and, and here's the crazy story about life and about sort of letting go and just kind of following your path and your heart. Hand to God, I didn't even know what a podcast was. My friend said, hey, I got all these listeners and I talk, I get geeked up on coffee and I talk into the microphone and I go crazy. And I'm like, oh my God, that sounds amazing. He goes, yeah, I've been doing it for a few years. It's called a podcast. I go, that's fantastic. What's a podcast? And he goes, you're kidding me, right? I go, no, I have no clue what it was. And this is maybe, I don't know, 3 years ago. So I started to interview successful individuals, thought leaders, etc., locally, and then it branched out into Nationally and then globally, etc. And we've had Shark Tank winners on the show and successful individuals that are making things happen. And kind of like this show, one of the one of the focal points we interview entrepreneurs and business owners, and one of the focal points is what I call the fail forward stage. So what kind of like you're you know you were talking about here today, Adam, which is what is the one moment in your life, the pivot if you will, the moment that you failed forward and 130+ guests later, every single one of them has said, which failure do you want? Yeah, so the interesting thing about the Success Hackers podcast is again finding out their story and finding out where they came from, them sharing a success hack. So we have these experts in these certain verticals that we bring onto the show, but again, learning, learning from their failure. You know, the guy or the gal that's going through what I call their stuff. Keeping it clean, what I call their stuff, that they don't know if they can get to the next day. They needed a little inspiration. They need to know that this person who is super successful at 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 times in their life wanted to give up. And that's really the underlying message with the show is, hey, you know, we bring on these experts that are in these types of industries and these types of fields, etc. But please know that every one of them, every one of them wanted to give up. And for you that's going through your stuff, you know, we give some encouragement to say, hey, listen, for all the listeners here, man, keep going. And I always say the same thing to myself. I say the same thing to my coaching clients. I say the same thing to even the audience when I do my little mini monologue, which is this. Right now, think about the people you serve in your business. Whether that's 1 person, whether that's 100 or 1,000. Think about the people right now you serve today. If you quit tomorrow, you can't even fathom the amount of people that you're supposed to touch that you'll never meet because you stopped. So people can think about, well, yeah, if I stop today, I won't be able to serve those 5 or 10 or 20 or 50 clients. Well, let's think bigger picture. What about the people you're supposed to meet 3 years down the road from now? If you would have said to me, Adam, that I was going to have this podcast and be on shows like yours and be guests and also have my own and write books 4 years, 5 years ago, honestly, I could not see the first step in front of my face. I didn't even know where to go. I didn't know what to do. So anybody that's listening and watching this show and they're going— you're going through your stuff, I'm telling you right now, you can only see this much. But when you take that off and realize that there are people like us that have been where you're at, and just know if you keep putting one foot in front of the other and you keep learning from your mistakes and getting better and better and better, one day you'll be speaking on stage in front of thousands. One day you'll be doing TED Talks. One day you'll be doing podcasts. And if you don't believe in it, just lean on us, me and you, to know that that's possible.

Perspective is a wonderful thing, isn't it, Scott?

Yeah.

I mean, if you think about it, our problems are like, imagine seeing yourself in the mirror. It's clear. You got a good view of yourself and expand out a little bit, maybe 100 feet up. You can see your apartment building. You can see your house. You can see a bunch of things, whatnot, and go 1,000 feet up. You can't even see your house anymore. You can barely see your state. And on and on and on. And 10 miles up, you don't see any of it. And I think that's just based on perspective. We blow our problems up. We make them into something because they're right there in front of us. But in the bigger picture of things, if you will, it's not that they're meaningless. So I don't want to be confused as thinking my problems are meaningless or my life is meaningless. Quite the contrary. It's just that in the greater scheme of things, the greater perspective, However you look at that, they're not worth obsessing about. They're not worth taking down your experience of living, meaning taking it down to the level of being sad or depressed or upset. I mean, depression is a real issue. I mean, the opioid crisis is not a crisis because people are content or not in pain. Right. So there's a lot of people in pain. There's a lot of people who think they're alone in that pain, whether it's pain that emanates from the head or it's in the body physically or wherever it is. Like you said, in terms of what message you want people to know, I certainly want folks to know that, A, you are not alone. B, whether you feel alone or you don't feel alone, the bigger perspective of things is that we are, all of us, in this together. However you look at that, we're all in it together. Sometimes all it requires for us to get that greater perspective is to listen to something. Read a book, listen to a podcast, just take yourself out of your headspace and listen to someone else drone on about their problems or talk about their failures and where was it they pivoted or changed or reinvented something. If you can get one hack, one idea, one distinction, even if you can just take a break from it all so that you can laugh and breathe and be a little bit more able to let go of things, you're in a better place. Yeah. place. And so, I want to say thank you, Scott, for having a program that commits to helping people to do that, to give them greater perspective and bring in experts and guests and folks to facilitate that conversation. So, thank you for doing that.

Yeah.

Last thing I want to ask you has really to do with your own personal rituals. I believe that we are, in many ways, the quality of our lives have to do with the things that we do habitually, but I'm not a big fan of the word habit because I don't want to do things With a lack of consciousness. And I think when I brush my teeth the same way every day with the same hand, that habit is something I don't have to think about. That's great. Rituals are more, to me, a master habit of sorts, a conscious creation of something for a purpose. To meditate is a bit of a ritual. It's not a habit. I don't meditate habitually. I make a point to sit down and I don't even meditate. I can't meditate for crap. Yeah. But I sit down to just get still. Just to see if I can allow my mind to be still for 5 minutes or 10 minutes or something. So what are some of the rituals or a ritual that you have that helps you to be happier and more productive? And right now, as you said, you shared with us earlier, there's a challenge on your side in terms of wanting to start a family and that not happening at the moment. Do you have certain rituals to help you to not be so, let's say, focused on that? Yeah. What does that look like?

Good question. Yeah. And I think this is such an important topic and I'll bring it full circle to say, I believe if you lined up 100 people on a sidewalk right now, how many of you want to have more money or become more successful? 100 hands, probably 98, 99 hands will go up. I believe that everybody wants to have more or pretty much everybody wants to have more, become more, et cetera. So setting goals is very important, but what we're talking about right now is discipline. And having a ritual is arguably, I believe, the reason why people become super, super successful and whatever that means for them, or they get kind of frustrated about their day-to-day activities and then a year or 2 or 5 or 10 years go by and they're kind of where they were 10 years ago. This word discipline and consistency is arguably the two biggest words, in my opinion, when it comes to success. Having a daily, as you say, discipline is extremely important. What I do is I get up and I will sit in quiet and I will just do a little meditation. Then I'll also write, you know, I'll read maybe ten pages of a book, and then maybe I'll write out in a journal as some affirmations. Then I'll have my Bulletproof, what I call my Bulletproof coffee, and I'll get back into the day. And then when I shower, every single time I shower, I'm listening to something like this. I'm listening to a YouTube video. I'm getting inspired and motivated every day. People ask all the time, how do I get motivated? Find someone on YouTube. You probably have an iPad or a cell phone. Put it in your shower when you're getting ready. Do you take a shower? Yes. How long does it take you? 10, 12 minutes? That's all you need. 10, 12 minutes of something that motivates you throughout the day to get you in that right, what Tony Robbins says, right state of mind, so then you can go out and do what you do best. And I'm so glad we bring this up. This is not something that just auto— I thought it would just automatically happen. I do it a few times and all of a sudden I create this habit or discipline. You got to do it every single day. Every single day you have to wake up knowing that these first 10, 20, 30 minutes No matter what happens, I'm doing this. And it's amazing because when I don't do this, and I do fall off this train quite a bit, some, you know, like we all do, when I don't do it, my day doesn't operate nearly as effective or productive as when I do. When I do do it, I don't know how it works. I just know that it does work and my day just feels more on purpose than if I don't. That's what I do or try to do probably 4 to 5 times a week. I work out as well, but the morning ritual, the morning ritual is what I just shared.

Yeah. I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, Go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. Beautiful. Scott, thank you for that. I will concur. Yes, and I agree, and you put it really well. So we're wrapping things up, and we started this podcast with gratitude. I want to end there, and always hesitant to say the word end anyway because it always feels like a beginning when we do sometimes. deliver online content in a webinar or in some other teaching format, we stopped using the slide that says the end. We used to put it in there just for gags and stuff like a movie, but it's really the beginning. I think it's really important that we're constantly beginning because I don't believe in an end. Again, this is just personal belief stuff, but I want to ask a question of our audience and our community, which is, what if you decided— Yeah. To love your life? What have you decided when we're speaking about rituals and you're talking about a daily discipline? What have you decided to love your life no matter what? So tomorrow, as many of you know, and maybe some of you, it's the first time you're listening or watching this, I have a daily ritual, a morning ritual, as Scott was saying, and it has 3 parts. So I'll share it with you now. And the first part is that I wake up. That's my decision right this moment. That I'm going to wake up tomorrow, and it's also a prayer that we all get to do that because there's no guarantee. So my question is, how many of you are willing to wake up tomorrow morning? And I hope every one of you, no matter what you're doing in the moment, no matter what's going on in your life, that your answer to that question is, yes, I want to wake up. And that you realize in that moment where you're waking up, taking that breath, that first conscious breath of the morning, there are people who will be taking their last breath in that same moment. There'll also be babies born and they'll be taking their first breath of life. It is a sacred moment and something that we can feel grateful for. Again, regardless of whether tomorrow involves you having to go to traffic court or divorce court, or I don't know, maybe going on a job interview or something really amazing otherwise is happening, regardless of all that, that breath is enough. To be awake and alive in that moment is enough to be grateful. So that's part 2, is just to sit in a state of gratitude and appreciation for yourself, and then to be able to put your feet on the floor, to be able to stand up and declare something out loud that is an intention. It's a powerful prayer of gratitude. And the words that we use, these 4 words, are, I love my life. I love my life. I love my life. What if you decided to love your life no matter what? It's been a blessing, Scott, to have you on the show. I really enjoyed this conversation. I know our folks will as well. I just want to let everybody know that we're all in it together, and whether you know it or not, you are loved. I will tell you without being able to see you at this moment that I love you. Take care of yourself. Let's take care of each other. Have a beautiful weekend. Thank you. Rest of your day, everybody. And of course, if you haven't yet subscribed, please feel free to do so. We love the reviews on iTunes. Leave a review or go to adammarkel.com/podcast to leave a comment, easier for us to reply back to that as well. And if you want to get involved in a community of people who are pivoting and are interested in the kinds of things we talked about today, feel free to go to pivotfb.com. It'll take you right to the front door of our Start My Pivot Facebook group. Lots of amazing, like-minded, like-hearted people there as well. Just a good place to be. So, ciao everybody! Have a wonderful rest of your day.

Thanks for listening, everyone. We hope you now have the tools and greater insights to navigate your own pivot. Help us inspire others by sharing this episode and leaving your comments over at adammarkel.com/podcasts. For more tips, Strategies and support as you consciously pivot into a new business and lifestyle you love. Join our Pivot Community on Facebook at pivotfb.com.