Going From High School DROPOUT to MILLIONAIRE | Stephen Scoggins | The 2%

Most people don't actually do the work to uncover the root of where the limiting belief comes from. I knew my leadership wasn't great. No one trained me how to use finances. No one trained me how to lead people. No one trained me how to scale anything. And I was terrified my people were going to find out. By that time, I was a. We were a top line $15 million company, which is a big deal for a homeless kid. All of that stuff came from the limiting belief of. I don't want you to find out how scared to death I am that I'm not enough.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the 2%, where we have amazing conversations with peak performers from all walks of life to help decode excellence so that you can hopefully pick up some strategies, tools, tips and techniques that you can use to close that gap between your current and best life. And I am super thrilled to have as a guest on the show today.

Thank you.

Stephen Scoggins. Welcome. Stephen.

What is up, my brother, man? Dude, it's so good to see you again. I loved our show that we did, and I've been like itching to get back on camera with you, man. For sure.

Yeah, likewise. Yeah, we had a great conversation, what, like two months ago or something and.

Absolutely. And you know, I'm still, I'm still. I've got the. Your book here. It's become a. It's become actual reading for my team.

Oh, nice. All right, well, that's certainly a recommendation. And you've done quite a lot right as well. You're founder and CEO of over six companies.

Tell us a bit about those companies.

Yeah, so all the companies that I have range from existing flagship businesses that have been in business for over 20 plus years to early startups. I'm a serial entrepreneur, so I can't help myself. When I get bored, I just create a new business. Well, not really, but, you know, it kind of feels that way some days. And, you know, it's been an interesting journey. Obviously started with very humble beginnings. My earliest onset was actually being homeless and kind of have managed to kind of go from that to owning six businesses, generating well over nine figures in revenue, top line. And so I'm a person of faith, so let's just say God's been good to me and as I've been trying to figure my own life out and stuff like that. So hopefully I can add some value today.

Awesome. So I actually wasn't aware of the homeless piece. I mean, that's interesting. That's not something you hear every day. You typically homeless and nearly nine figures in revenue. Help us connect the dots there. What happened there?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it's funny. Growing up, my parents were two broken people who decided to try to create a whole relationship. And as you and I both know, that just doesn't work. Right. They both kind of leaned into their limiting beliefs and limiting factors, and they stayed there far too long. As a result, as I was growing up, I went to go live with my grandmother while they were chasing their own struggle places, if you will. At nine years old, I had a GI Joe in one hand and transform in the other, and my grandmother sat me down and told me she had cancer and she needed me to help around the house. As a result, I began learning how to basically cook food. Anything that you could boil, water. So macaroni and cheese, hot dogs, ramen noodles, oatmeal, pretty much anything that milk and water could do, she taught me how to do. So I'd pull a little chair up to the stove, and I'd make, you know, essentially a meal for myself and my grandmother at the time, you know, and my little brother, who was three years younger than me. So I was nine, he was six. And that was my first taste of you got to grow up fast, you got to grow up fast, you got to grow up fast kind of thing, you know. Unfortunately, my grandmother passed away around 11 years old. My father came back into my life. I immediately went into the construction industry, where I met my first amazing mentor, a guy by the name of Steve Mark. And one of the first things he ever asked me, after he watched me kind of work on my dad's job sites and stuff like that, I guess he saw something in me that I didn't really see in myself, which I think is important. He asked me, so what's the difference in a rich man and a poor man? And, you know, I was probably a teenager by that time. I was like, well, duh, money man. What are you talking about? He's like, absolutely not. Almost, like, offended. Like, you know, almost like he could slap me in the back of the head or he wanted to thump me or something. And he said, no, it's the way they think. And then he said, do you want to think like me or do you want to think like your father?

Now, my dad's a good guy. Even now, he's a great guy. But when it came to business, savvy, economics, financial matters, he just wasn't gifted, had never been properly trained. And as a result, my family upbringing was always Spend more than you have, borrow more than you ever attend to repay, and kind of live life on the edges, which I think a lot of folks do, because unfortunately, they don't know any better because they don't really teach life skills in school. And, you know, I kind of learned along the way. Steve put me in business for myself. And I went from, you know, not making any money as a teenager to by the time I was making. I was 19 years old, I was making well into the six figures. But I had never been taught how to train or use money. So I bought all the stupid crap to show off to people that probably didn't really care I existed to begin with. And I went through that whole thing. And, you know, within about a year's time, I was introduced to someone who I refer to as the Great Humbling, which was a girl. And she proceeded to basically take everything that I owned. And through depression and anxiety and some other stuff, I unfortunately lost everything that I had owned, everything I worked so hard for, and became homeless. And I was probably in that predicament for probably 60 to 90 days. It's. It's kind of like. It's like a blur. It's almost like a bad dream kind of thing in my life. You know, I slept in barred friend's car. I would crash on couches where I could. I would crash outside if I had to. And, you know, some days were difficult to find food. Unfortunately, I never got to the. I was never in that. That season long enough where it became my reality permanently. Instead, what it did was challenge me to think differently. And a lot of the things that Steve taught me along the way when I was a teenager, that he would, you know, he would point flipping real estate, business evaluation, like stuff you wouldn't normally teach a teenager. Right? That stuff started to kind of click. It started to come back almost like little bits and pieces. And then that. That one comment about thinking differently popped back up in my head. And between that and the suffering that was already in place, I said I had enough is enough. And my father got me back on the framing crew. I was doing a general day labor. Essentially, I had an ultimate moment where I got to see Steve after, you know, kind of hiding from him. As he would drive around the community, I would kind of go hide behind the house. And so I overheard people who took over for me complaining about how Steve was mistreating them and not paying them on time and all this kind of garbage, which was totally fabricated.

In the construction industry. I'm not sure you may Be familiar with this, because I know you have a lot of business ventures that you've had in the construction industry. You have this draw scenario. So let's say there's $10,000 is the top line that you can actually draw against. If you were 50% done, you could draw out 50, you could draw $5,000. So that's kind of a draw schedule. These guys were 70% drawn on a 30% complete project. Wow. Okay, so Steven even already given them a lot of grace. Right. So as he's going through that, I see all this. It's very clear to see how far behind they are. They're ultimately talking about how much money they've already drawn out. And I began getting like incredibly angry on the inside, like really fired up. Like, how dare they treat him like that? And then something in my spirit, as I'm walking back across the yard to the other house that we were working on, said, well, didn't you do the same thing? And it caused me to like stumble and be like, holy cow, like, man. But that gave me the fire that I needed. So when Steve came back around the street, these guys had already taken off for the day because this is Friday at 2 o'. Clock. And I'm not sure about the UK, but over here in America's, it used to be that at 2 o' clock people would knock off early to have a early weekend, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Most of those people would be broke by Monday. But, you know, that was my life. I grew up in that environment. And I went to Steve for the first time and he rolled his window down and I said, you know, hello. And he said, well, how's your head now? Because he knew I'd suffer from depression and some other, you know, some even I had just avoided suicide like maybe three weeks earlier and kind of get my, get my life together. I said, well, it's getting better. And I said, you know, basically, well, what can I do you for? Which is country boy talk for, tell me what's on your mind, right? So what can I do you for? Kind of thing, right? And I began to kind of say, well, you know, I overheard this and this and that and, you know, and I said, can I take back over for him? He goes, well, what? You don't have tools, you don't have people, you darn sure don't have enough cash for payroll. You don't have insurance. Like, boy, you ain't even got a tool belt on. And at the time I was wearing this nail apron thing, which is like two, two like pouches with the word load written across the front, right. So my little pouches here. And I said, you know what, Just give me a chance, I'll figure it out. First time I had ever taken a deep leap off a ledge, not having any kind of safety net, not having any kind of answers, not having anything to fall back on. I was just like, if you just give me a chance.

And it's kind of funny because now I can look back and see that it wasn't just that I needed to earn a higher level of income and like put myself back in stability and stuff like that. That was definitely present. But more importantly, I wanted to prove to him that he hadn't wasted his investment in me.

Right?

And that didn't dawn on me till like five or ten years later. But he said, well, I'll tell you what, I won't promise you, I'll put you back in business or whatever, but if they don't come back Monday, you can finish the house we're working on right here. Finish the house and then we'll go from there. I said, done. He drives off. My dad's walking this way, I'm walking that way. My dad's like, what have you done? Like, is he. You know, he just got me back on the crew, right?

Yeah.

You know, and his first time that this, that I actually stood up for myself in my own life was in this moment where I said, you don't understand, this is something I have to do. And I was on fire. From my gut to my head. I was just like mad on fire. And as I'm going through that, my dad sees that I'm serious. And for the first time in my life, my dad showed up. He walks over to a beat up work van that Steve owned, pulled out some equipment and some tools, like, you know, a nail gun and some saws. And I was like, what are you doing? He's like, well, do you remember when you were growing up as a kid working with me and your grandfather working for Steve? What did we make the scaffolding out of? Or wood. What do we make the ladders out of? Wood. How about the walk boards? Wood. How about the braces? Wood. Start pulling stuff out of the trash pile. We have stuff to build. And we did. We pulled out all the lumber we needed over the course of the week, and it took me all weekend to build it. I took the only paycheck that I had had in months and spent it on renting a machine called a brake machine, which is a tool used to Bend metal, which is, you know, we use it here in the States, you know, to do trim, trim details. I think it's very similar in uk. And as we're trying to go through this, Steve comes back Monday. I'm sitting on the curve, waiting to get started. He comes around, I'm like, can I go yet? He's like, it's not 9 o' clock yet. I'm like, okay, so it's like 8:50, whatever, 8:56. He rolls up, hey, what can you do? Can I go yet? No, it's not 9 o' clock yet. He comes back around at 9 o, 5, 9 06, rolls down the window, looks out the window, said, boy, what you waiting on? Sure enough, I went back and I got started. And that was the first day of a company called Custom Home Exteriors that now employs 400 plus people across three states and does almost 60 million top line revenue just in that one business.

Wow, amazing.

That's my story.

Yeah. No, that's awesome. And you talked about, you said something interesting about what's the difference between how those who essentially create wealth think versus those who don't create the wealth that they're after? Think if you were to kind of newspaper headline that today, through all the experiences that you've had for those that create wealth, how would you say, what are the headlines? How do they think differently from those who don't?

I would say when everybody else is running with the bulls, know there's a bear coming.

And you know, there's in the, obviously in the stock market, in the investment world, there's this terminology of the bull market. And when the bull market's present, everybody's super excited, everybody's making money and theoretically hand over fist, like they just don't think anything bad can happen. Right. Well, one of the things that I learned through, not only from Steve, but even prepared me to go through Covid, because all my businesses are debt free, like we don't owe anybody anything, which took some time to do. But because I was forced to start off in humble beginnings, I was forced to do it off of cash. And as I did it off of cash, it taught me that I really didn't need a lot of leverage. Or if I did need leverage, it was for a minute, it wasn't something to do. And Steve taught me to always know that business is a life of seasons, right? There's a winter, and in winter you can't grow much, you can't plant much. You know, you're just trying to hunker down and Kind of hold on, right? You've got the spring, which is like, okay, things are starting to bud, things are starting to open up. You're starting to get some momentum and some traction. Then you got summer, and things are like going like gangbusters. And that's, that's your bull market. Everything's rocking and rolling. But a lot of people forget about fall when things do take a dip, when things do take a slowdown. And in the States, you know, the political environment can change the economic environment, the emotional fortitude of the people can change the economical environment, the economic environment, the marketplace. And Steve taught me a long time ago to always be living in a perception of ratios, right? Always, you know, take, you know, call it 70 to 60% and operate, put, put money away, put your cash away, make sure you've got 20 or 30% always being put away. Because one of the biggest things that I see the wealthy do really well versus people who struggle with money and finance. And it's only mentality, the only thing that separates them too, is mentality, is someone with wealth buy stuff during a down market, someone who's more of a lack of wealth mentality, always sell stuff in a down environment. So doing the opposite, they can lose their home. Exactly. And people with wealth understand that business life, your personal finances, all of that stuff is a resemblance of a season. So when everybody else is, I'm buying the boat, I'm buying the house, I'm buying that other business, I'm doing all this. If they haven't taken the time to do their due diligence, then that purchase over here, that purchase over there, that small and quote, unquote small investment over there for personal enjoyment or whatever, can literally take the legs out from under them. And the next thing you know, the other businesses that they have or potentially they could have, you know, can fall apart. And Steve taught me that. So much so that when Covid happened, I was able to have enough capital to operate all of my businesses for six plus months while we figured stuff out, while I waited for my customer base, my client base, some of the other things that we were looking at to make their decisions, right? To understand or do we need this, how are we going to survive this environment? No one really knew what, how long it would last, what the impact would be. And in the building world, fortunately in our area, the building for the most part kept going. Call it essential business, call it whatever, but it really kept the economy going. But no one really knew that at the time. So I was able to go to my Team in the moment and say, team, I know you guys heard on the news that our local governor shut down the state effective 5pm today. I want everyone to know no one's losing their job. We have X number of dollars a month to operate. We have these tripwires, and these tripwires are blank, blank and blank. And the first one was like, okay, we're going to pull back unneeded expenditures. The next tripwire was going to be, okay, we're going to pause our profit sharing plan as not to shell out cash, not knowing what we need. Right. All the way down at level six or seven was, okay. Now we have to consider, you know, tightening up our team and possibly layoffs and stuff like that. But I was able to go to the team in the moment and say, team, there's no reason to be scared. We're not there yet. I will let you know. We've got my word. I'll let you know if there's a change and a challenge and something we gotta be aware of. And as a result, because I expected a bear to one day come or for winter to follow summer, which happens, right, we were in a position to take advantage of a down market. I was able to buy new equipment and buy vehicles and trucks and things that we needed to better run our business. And I was able to buy a lot of that, including real estate on sale. So to me, that's how the thinking kind of happens.

Yeah, and I'm hearing a couple of things there. So one is.

Just having that counterintuitive approach, like when people are all going in one direction, that's your opportunity to start looking in the other. If people are looking to sell and it's a bit of a frenzy, well, then maybe you should be looking to buy.

And then there's this point you're making around cash, and it sounds like you're saying it's a combination of having that buffer to protect against the downside, but also that reserve. It's a buffer and it's a reserve so that you can capitalize on these counterintuitive upside moments, right, where you can go in and, okay, I'm going to buy when others are selling or, you know, vice versa. So who do you think does this really well in the world?

I think there's a lot of folks. I mean, Warren Buffett comes to top of mind. I mean, he's always, if I'm not mistaken, he's actually had quite a bit of capital that has been undeployed now for a while. And I think he's just now recently started to deploy more capital because he sees a correction coming just like I do. I mean, in our economy, there's a forbearance thing that's going to happen that's actually going to hit us probably the last quarter of this year. And again, we're technically still in spring. But I know that if those forbearance hit the housing inventory in our local market, there's not gonna be a. There's gonna be a surplus of housing and not like a lack of it, which means everything changes. The pricing environment changes. Right. Prices go down, you know, and I learned those bits and pieces from people like Warren Buffett, from people like Tony Robbins, from people like Dave Ramsey, who I consider a friend. Right. These folks just handle money differently. And it's funny how their handling of money also parallels their handling of life.

They never get. Well, they never get really weighted one way or the other. So on the financial side, they always have this, this little bit of reserve or this, this, you know, this cash stockpile. Yeah. They can have some other investments that are. That they've deployed to make some interest and get a gain on here or there. But for the most part, it's almost like set it and forget it for the most part, once they do their due diligence to kind of get the deal they're looking for. Well, on the life side of things, you're not. You don't see Dave Ramsey being out, you know, overly flamboyant and, you know, buying this and buying that. He invest in his business constantly. He has a nice home, he's got nice vehicles and stuff like that. He does have some toys, but they weren't the first purchase. You know, they represent a very small percentage of his income. You know what I'm saying? Instead, what he did was he focused on how many lives can I transform. Right. What is my new camp? He's got a massive, amazing campus he's building that's about a third of the way finished. Right. Which is really a reinvestment because he gets the equity pickup in his property that he's building. Right. Warren Buffett doesn't shop at Gucci and all these different places. Not saying that's necessarily a bad thing if you have the income to do it. But if buying a Gucci belt takes up 90% of your income, you're doing it backwards, right. If it's a 2% of your income, then okay, you can afford a Gucci belt, you know, but basically, you see the people that have the most steward. It the best. They're not wasting time and energy in areas that aren't going to give them another return on investment. So in the financial world, everything they invest in gives them return in their personal lives or romantic lives, everything they invest in gives them a return on investment. It's just, I think it's how the successful entrepreneurs are wired is everything is a return.

As you're talking to it reminds me, do you remember the book the Millionaire Next Door?

Yeah.

Yeah. Basically for someone watching, listening, they basically talk about how the vast majority of the millionaires in the U.S. you wouldn't even know it, they're living right next to you and they, they've lived rather frugally and they've minded their pennies and made wise decisions and they got that compound effect over time which created the wealth. And rather than flash in the pan like, oh, I made it overnight. Right. That doesn't really happen. And it takes discipline, consistent effort as you've done across not just one, but six businesses.

Another interesting thing that you said. Well, I mean there's a couple of threads that I want to pull on but one is you talked about limiting beliefs, which is a big thing for me. I mean it held me back for the whole first half of my career and I think it holds so many people back. What are the most common ways that you see that people cage themselves and how, how would you recommend for, you know, one or two of those ways that they best set themselves free?

Yeah. No, so there's a, there's a concept that I teach during a live events called the seven levels of life mastery. And the first step, if you will, the first stage is awareness. And I'll give you, here's, here's the best example I can give. This one recently started coming up all the time when I was doing some other interviews when I was growing up, around the age of 11 when my dad first came into my life like on a full time basis that I can actually rem because he was in my life early when I was a toddler and I didn't, I just didn't remember a lot of it. We were on a job site and I was making a comment about how Steve seemed amazing because I'd watched Steve slide a thousand dollar bill under a napkin, or not a thousand dollar bill, about a thousand dollars under a napkin for a single waitress that he didn't know and walk out the door and not say anything to her and then I'd watch her melt.

I got to see that stuff physically with my own two eyes, which is a gift. And I remember asking my dad, I said, I understand how come the Myricks get to travel and do all this stuff. And, you know, we're always here working. They took the holidays off. They, you know, they went to the beach, they'd go to Hawaii and stuff like that. And you know, for us to go to the lake was a big deal, right? Like the local lake, maybe 40 minutes away would be a big deal. And my dad said this, he says, because Skagens don't get ahead, they get by.

And the reason that sticks in my mind is because that is the definition of a limiting belief. What I didn't know at the time was when my family came from Wales all the way over to the United States, roughly in the 16 to 1700s, they did so as part of a penal colony. So my family came here because they shot a deer on a lord's land, got arrested, got in trouble, and they were sent to United States to basically become an indentured servant for to work off their time at one of the farm. And they became sharecroppers, essentially. Okay? That mentality all the way from Wales.

All the way to United States over seven generations, all the way to me was, scoggins don't get ahead, they get by. Scoggins are destined to be poor. Why try? Scoggins are destined not to accomplish much, so why try? And I had that comment. When he said it, I know he meant it out of love. And I think a lot of times the limiting beliefs that are put our direction are said theoretically from a place of love. That person doesn't want us to get hurt or experience some level of pain that they themselves have experienced. My father included. Okay. The problem was is that comment didn't sit right with me. It just isn't. It didn't feel right. And maybe that's because I had Steve Myrick pouring into me and pouring into me and pouring into me. The reason I bring that story up is because most people don't actually do the work to uncover the root of where the limiting belief comes from. Because I'm a. Yeah. And I'm a big believer that if you're going to change the fruit of your life, right? So the stuff that you can tangibly see, your relationships, your finance, your lifestyle, stuff you can tangibly see, you have to change the root. You can't get an apple from an orange tree, and you can't get an orange from an apple tree, right? So if you're tired of living a life of oranges and you want to Live a life of apples. Then you need to plant apple seeds, which means you have to go rip up the root of the orange tree so you can plant an apple tree, you know? And I think far too many people aren't taking the time to uncover why do I think this way? Why do I feel this way? And my biggest. My biggest tool is a. There's a pad and a pen. The biggest question I ever asked myself in my life was, what does it take to change the essence of Steven.

Now? When I actually wrote on my iPhone, it was, take the essence, change the essence of a man. I knew my leadership wasn't great. I was scared to death that my team was going to find out that I didn't have any freaking clue what I was doing. And I was winging it the entire time.

Right.

By that time, I was a. We were a top line $15 million company, which is a big deal for a homeless kid. Right.

No one trained me how to use finances. No one trained me how to lead people. No one trained me how to scale anything. No one trained me about systems and processes and balance sheets and P. Ls. And I was terrified my people were going to find out I didn't know what I was doing. So I would overcompensate with, what are you talking about? Of course I'm right. Kind of stuff. You know, all of that stuff came from the limiting belief of I don't want you to find out how scared to death I am that I'm not enough.

Love it. Love it.

Where does it come from? It comes from understanding where people get it from.

Yeah, I think I haven't thought about it in that way before. I've just thought of limiting beliefs as they're originated within you and something has happened to you and you've had that belief. But it's really, really cool what you're saying because, you know, for. You're basically saying, well, you need to do a. Almost a sense check and say, hang on, have I inherited this? You know, is this even me? Or.

How might this be the past reality of someone around me, you know, that it was their life and now it's kind of been infused in me, but it's not my life. Right. And then we. So many people may be going through their lives and their businesses not realizing that they're making decisions or not taking action because of something that their parents or a colleague or something experienced that has nothing to do with them. Right. So that's quite liberating to realize that that's happening. Another word that you said earlier was transform.

And I know you've created this transform you. This university, I guess, right? It's like your life mastery program.

That's exciting. So, you know, tell us, because that's very different from a construction business, right?

Yeah, I get that all the time. Yeah. You know, it's funny. One of the biggest lessons. All right, so let me. I would just share with you the biggest business mistake I ever made. Okay. It cost me millions of dollars, and I did it repeatedly for a number of years. The biggest mistake I ever made in business was building a business without building myself. I didn't see it as important. I thought customer acquisition was important. I thought retaining team members was important. I thought watching my cash flow was important. I thought having processes and systems were like, crazy important.

And then when I had all those things kind of bumping and doing their part, I uncovered in a very big way that the greatest efficiency that I had within my business was actually myself. And once I own that now, I set up myself to change that. So here's why I mentioned that. I'm a firm believer that when it comes to business, specifically entrepreneurship, doesn't matter if you own six companies, one company, or anything in between. I'm a big believer that every single business initiative, if it's done properly, if you were the owner or the C suite executive or whatever, is taking the time to build yourself, then what you'll quickly discover is that your business will mimic my business, and that's this. I discovered a long time ago that my construction business was actually a personal development company masquerading as a construction company.

Nice.

Because. Because the very same things that I've been teaching myself and teaching myself and teaching myself, lo and behold, I discovered that my team members struggled with self worth issues, honesty issues, leadership issues, fear of failure, fear of success, limiting beliefs, self sabotage. All of these are different twigs on the same tree. And when you begin to understand that, then it's actually not that hard to begin to basically take your ultimate outcome of where you're at now and work backwards. And basically, I mean, I'll show this on a screen if you have a key moment in life or business, and that represents a dot. Okay. Most of us think we're living in, like, a linear life straight ahead. So I'm just drawing a straight line. And then we have this moment, business failure, business success or whatever. And what we choose to do with that knowledge determines do we get to continue the growth curve or do we get to fall behind and start to dip down. And when you start looking at all those things, parts and pieces, you understand that the moments in which you got to level up, there's something powerful, some kind of principle, some kind of promise that you find in that moment and then you identify what that is. You're like, you know what? I'm living by honesty from now on. I'm living on, I'm going to spend less than I make. I'm living on a principle of I'm going to save a little, I'm going to invest a little, I'm going to spend a little, and I'm going to give a lot. You see what I'm saying? You start identifying principles.

Yeah. And what, so what was the toughest lesson you learned and the principle that that created for you?

I think the toughest lesson I learned was no amount of things was going to bring you happiness. And the principle that I used was I'm going to live a life of service no matter what, no matter what comes. My experience has been while getting started in that modality is difficult sometimes to get going, especially if you come from a place like I did, where I felt like I was nothing unless I had something. Okay, so that's a self worth issue, right? Sometimes that comes because, you know, mom and dad, parental figures, sometimes you're, you're bullied in school and you know, the jocks have all the stuff and the cars and all this kind of stuff and you're walking to school like there's all kinds of ways that that can be shaped. But when you learn that your life is more about service and the greatest purpose in life you'll ever have is actually serving the person that you used, then you understand where meaning and purpose is actually found, which means you stop searching for stuff that distracts you from actually living your best life or building your best business. When I take the best of me and I apply it to grow my team or any of the businesses on a consistent basis, and I leverage their strengths and gifts and backfill my weaknesses, I'm creating an environment where personal growth is automatic. And when you do that by service and learning to serve other people, I know this is something you and I both agree on hardcore, but when you go to the service side, it's like every, everything else is like a magnet. It comes to you, you know what I'm saying? Like, I don't have to think about, is my light bill gonna get paid anymore? You know, I mean, I'm in a fortunate situation like yourself where I can choose to invest.

In some cases considerable sums of Income in different places to watch it grow and to watch it bless. But it's not just that I'm trying to scale a business. I'm trying to create opportunities for people who are in those businesses. I want to see them reach their fullest potential. I want to see them buy the house they never thought they could buy or send their child to school with cash because they actually had it because they did the right things at the right time. I mean, my daughter is a perfect example. My daughter is not biologically mine. I met her when she was 19 years old and she was pregnant and she was my waitress at a restaurant. My wife and I met her and she shared her life story. And it's so resonated with ours, my wife and I's, that within about six months we started spending so much time together that we finally started calling her daddy or daughter. She started calling mom and dad. And I've worked with her. She actually works in the accounting department with one of my businesses right now. I'm so incredibly proud from her because she just bought her first house not even a year ago. Her first property, had money to put down, did all the right things, did all the hard stuff. And there was a lot of limiting beliefs. There was a lot of things that she had to overcome to get there. And I would say, just keep going. It's worth it. I'm telling you. Just keep going. Right. But you can only say those types of things where they're believable by somebody else if you've experienced those types of things. And as she bought her first house, I'll never forget this. She signed it all the dotted line. She closed on her house. She got her key. She came back to the office and sat in my office and cried because she never thought it would ever be possible. And she was in her 20s.

Yeah. That's amazing. That's. Yeah. Absolutely spectacular. What the. When you think so, going back to transform. Transform you. I'm curious, can you share one of the biggest transformations that you've seen within the program?

You know, the biggest ones I've seen. So we teach a teacher. If I can actually talk, I teach a piece of signature content called the quadrants of conflict. And.

It never dawned on me that my little simple piece of. It's literally drawing four squares on a box. And then, you know, and then ranking of your emotional life, your financial life, your spiritual life, and your physical life on a scale of 1 to 10.

How much of a key indicator that would be about where your mental health is and your emotional Health is. And I had a U.S. marine that was sitting in the audience along with hundreds of other people, and we were having an amazing event. I wasn't even thinking about this, but I began to teach that content. And something occurred to me while I was teaching it, and that is, you can take that same ranking. So let's assume that person a has an 8 in all areas. Okay, well, they're doing good. Maybe they got a weak spot. Maybe they got some growth. That's fantastic. The vast majority of people that I've seen and work with, it doesn't matter if, and I kid you not, if they're billionaires or if they're barely getting by paycheck to paycheck, it doesn't matter. Right? Life skills aren't necessarily relative to your financial wherewithal. And in this particular moment, I had this epiphany. I was like, okay, well, you know, if you have a seven here and a six here and a four here and a nine here, you probably feel anxious. And I said by show of hands, everybody raise your hand. Yeah. It was like, okay, cool. All right. Now if you have a three here, a three here, a two here, and a one here, there's a chance that you're probably where I was several years ago, and you're probably contemplating suicide. A guy stood up and started weeping.

Because what we didn't know is in that moment, he had actually contemplating taking his life the night before and decided to hang on for the event just to see if there would be any hope. Wow.

Amazing.

That's one of a. One of many. But it's one of those situations when awareness meets a renewed hope and an expectations.

Literally any miracle is possible.

Yeah. Beautiful. Beautiful. And the. Let's talk about service for a second because.

One of the, you know, the common ways, right, to find.

You'Re calling, to find your purpose, to find that deepest sense of fulfillment is to connect what you're doing, how you can serve others with your. Well, that becomes your primary wealth creator. And life just becomes a lot easier as a result when you can kind of fuse those two things together, your wealth creation with your service to the world. But for someone who's listening and they're. And, you know, they're thinking, yeah, but how do I find what my unique thing is like? How do I find, you know, what I'm meant to do that others can't, what advice would you give them?

One of the best questions I've ever heard ask is, what have I earned the right? Or what have I earned the right to teach or where have I earned the right to serve? Which is directly tied to a level of adversity or suffering that you overcame.

I'm a firm believer that that can happen in a courtroom. It can happen in an art studio. It can happen right now on a podcast where you and I are hanging out, having great conversation. It can happen at a live event. It can happen while writing a book. I mean, one of the parts of your story that's so beautiful is this three alarms concept that's been amazing for my team and myself is you had learned the hard way that you weren't prioritizing correctly, right?

That's right.

So now you've created a piece of service, right? A piece of service that can help people not have to go through the same level of struggle. I'm a firm believer that if we took the time to identify the areas that we need to work on so we can become something more that will eventually lead us to the person we are going to serve, whether it's at scale, whether it's one or two, or whatever that capacity is. And again, it could be a math teacher, right? It could be a business owner, it could be an entertainer, it can be a sports person. It doesn't matter. I'm a big believer that your purpose and calling is directly connected to the person you're uniquely best suited to serve, whether it's in word or deed or action or whatever. And five or six things that you're most passionate about, the things that you would do for free any day of the week. And if money was no object, what would you do? Kind of scenario. And you ask those questions and you literally just start looking for intersecting pieces. I had a young man that I was working with not long ago that's doing very well now. He was actually managing a gym for a large gym chain. He says, man, I just don't know my purposes. I don't know where I'm going to go. I don't know what I'm going to do. I mean, this is okay. I mean, I'm making 18 bucks an hour. It's decent money. It's not bad. Like, I'm like, well, okay, what do you love about it? Why are you still here? Well, I love people. Okay, awesome. He goes, well, I said, what else? Well, I love the fact that I get to sell stuff. I get to sell drinks. I get a little commission if I sell a drink or if I sell a smoothie or whatever. Like, okay, cool. What else? Well, as you can see, I'm not super healthy. In fitness myself. So the fitness side is not really for me. I'll say, well, okay. Well, what would. If you could choose something different to sell, what would it be?

I think I'd like to sell houses. Well, why? Well, is there something special about making sure that somebody's getting into, you know, getting a shelter and roof over their head? Well, why is that? Well, because when I was growing up, my mom and my dad really struggled to get their first house. And I was so proud. After 25 years, they were able to finally buy their first house. And I want to give that hope and opportunity to someone else. I said, really? So tell me what. Fast forward five years. Top rated agent in this area for selling residential homes and has a checklist or a 98% customer satisfaction list.

That's awesome.

He's living now a lifestyle that he can now have fulfillment and he can do vacations. He's creating opportunity. And it all starts with some simple questions and just being open minded to the answers.

Yeah, and that's very cool, too, because he's doing something which can seem quite ordinary, but because he tapped into a deeper why behind it, it makes it a lot more, you know, fulfilling. It reminds me of when we were, you know, building up Skype in the early days. And our tagline was the whole world can talk for free. And I love it. You know, we weren't, you know, peddling voiceover IP software. It was like, no, we're democratizing, you know, communication. It's like the whole world could talk free. Right? Totally different.

That's right.

Very, very cool. So, I mean, there's so many facets to you, Stephen. You know, you're also an author. You've written the book Journey Principles.

You have a business around live events as well, right? I mean, absolutely. So what's that all about? And what's the aim of that business?

Yeah, so, I mean, I've got the Journey Principles Institute, which is the business organization, but everything's connected to Steven Scoggins. We have a suite of tools and strategies and things that we use that we effectively call Transform youm. I got it trademarked and made it proprietary a few years ago. But one of my favorite events is actually Transform youm Live. And of course, Covid reared up and hit and bit us in the butt last year. Luckily, I was in a good position. So I didn't. Wasn't. It wasn't okay. Everything was fine. But I'm excited because we're bringing back Transform youm Live, AKA Virtual plus, this year. Um, and I have this affinity where I like to bring national thought leaders from around the world and I like to pick their brain and I like them to share their experience with other people. And then what I do is I will partner that with some of our curriculum so they can have a transformational experience. So you mentioned with Skype, connect the world free, right? For us, it is increased hope and decrease pain. I want to help people increase hope, decrease pain and level up their life. So what we do is we have a three and a half day live event this year. I've got Tom Bilyeu, Evan Carmichael, Anthony Trucks, Mel Abraham, Amberly Lago. I mean, I got a whole host of amazing people that are going to join me here live in our live event center to transform some lives. It's a secret. So far we haven't actually opened it up to the public. It'll be like June before we open it up to the public. But I'd love to have anybody that's looking to level up and looking to kind of increase, open, decrease some pain, come on out and check it out.

That's where if somebody's interested in that, where do they find out more about that?

It'll be stevenscoggins.com transformyou with a U. Not, not Y O, U but the.

Letter U like the one right behind your head.

That's right. That's actually, that's our emblem. That's our shield. Battle cry.

Awesome. Very cool. So.

When I'm, you know, on this show, we, it's called the 2% because we're, we're interviewing, you know, peak performers and people have reached the top of their game. But I also like to make sure that people listening, watching, can see that the people that we're talking to on the show, that they also have to think about failure, anticipate it, be ready for it. So on that note, I want you to do some live imagination with me right now. So I want you to picture it's 8, 12 or 18 months from today. Suspend your disbelief.

Everything you're doing or whatever is most important to you has failed. It has failed. So there's no, oh, no, that's not possible answer. It has failed. Now if that were the case, what would have most likely happened in the context of you and your reality to lead to that failure?

To lead to that failure. I probably wouldn't have listened enough.

Hmm. So is that my experience really switches?

Yeah, I think my experience has been that.

The directional keys, like a navigational system with a gps.

You get sometimes the right and the left and the wrong, you know, the right turn, left turn, make a U turn kind of scenario. And oftentimes, you know, think about it like this way. You're going as fast as you can, doing as much as you can, but maybe you got somebody in the car seat beside you. GPS is over here and they're talking in between the. The GPS talking and they're talking, and then you somehow miss the turn and you end up way over here somewhere. I'm a big believer that a lot of times if we get off the markets because we haven't been listening to the signals. And so I'm a big fan of removing distractions as much as possible until you reach the ultimate outcome that you've been striving for. And I think that if I get to the end of this journey in the next 18 months and some of these amazing things that we've got coming down the pipeline are not reality, I will have to assess how well I listened, what can I learn, and then get my butt in gear to start to try again.

Awesome. Fall down seven times, Stand up eight. Right back at it.

Right, that's right. That's right. I know. It worked for both of us.

Totally. I've been, like, knocked. I can't. I've lost count the number of times I've been knocked down.

Cool.

So I'd love to wrap this up with.

Again for someone listening who wants to break free from that 98%. Join the estimated 2% of people in the world who are operating at their full potential. What's the number one piece of advice that you can give them? Something practical that they can implement for immediate benefit.

Stop hesitating.

I think, I think intuitively, I think intuitively we have a. We have an internal barometer, if you will, that says, do this. And you're like, well, I don't really want it. Case in point, my people have been after me to do Facebook lives and Instagram lives. They're like, your videos are great, your social posts are great, your week's buys. You don't like to do lives. I was. Because I'm running businesses. Like, a lot of times I might have. I've got a live scheduled and then I have to run and go do a. You know, I get a run up, I have to go to a meeting or whatever. Right. This was real world.

And then I finally discovered that I was hesitating because.

I like to have a controlled environment before I present.

As a. As a rule of thumb, I just made. I feel more comfortable there. And again, I think so Much of becoming the 2% is being comfortable, being comfortable with being uncomfortable, and not hesitating. One of the young men that works with me, Connor, one of the things he always says is, I don't understand. I work for. I was thinking, and I had all this different stuff planned and strategies for over nine years. I didn't get where I wanted to go. And here you go. I just accidentally created a new revenue line last week. And, you know, here you go. You put something together in three weeks. I never would have done that because I didn't have this answer. I didn't have this answer. I didn't have this answer. I'm a big believer. And just take a giant step and then learn from your experience and just adjust. Like, there's no such thing as failure as long as you're learning. So why not keep learning?

Love it. Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, John Burroughs. Leap and the net will appear.

That's right.

Awesome, Stephen, really. Yeah. Pleasure speaking with you again. Really, really enjoyed it. For those listening you want to learn more about Stephen, definitely head out to stevenscoggins.com and keep an eye out on the transform you coming up. He's also got a great book called the Journey Principles, and I'm sure he'd be happy to chat if you reached out to him via his website. So thank you so much, Stephen. Really appreciate you being on the show.

Dude, it was such an honor. I always love hanging out with you, man.

Awesome. All right, see you soon.