The Secret Engine For Easily Attracting Perfect Clients Revealed!

Welcome everyone to a Catalyst Call special edition where we are going to do some follow-up thoughts from me on the workshop that we did yesterday, which was the client conversation engine that we talked about, this, this process that I use and I'm currently working with Penny on and with Bri. And I had invited all Voxer students, including Alice as well, who's, who's who's in the midst of this process to join for some follow-up questions, but also folks like Tanya that are Circle or Inner Circle community members that I think will benefit from big overhead view of what we talked about yesterday. I'm not going to address the silver bullet strategy or the CASE system that we talked about yesterday, because the silver bullet is just the way that you can begin to think about this. System that I'm going to share that I, that I've developed based on R3, based on the silver bullet, and CASE is just the way that you're going to optimize the system. We've talked about both of these things many times. If, if you need more information, just go to the curriculum that's available to you all and get the information there. What I want to address here today is specifically what the process looks like and where each one of you in this room, and I'll try to remember some of the folks that I'm working with in Boxer so that it's relevant to you as well. The heart of the training that we did yesterday was to start with, let's, let's take a real clear-eyed view of what we're taught we have to do in terms of funnel gymnastics, ideal customer avatars, lead magnets, optimizing sales pages and opt-in pages, email sequences, nurture sequences, webinars or workshops, leading someone to a sales page of some kind. When you look at the traditional digital marketing funnel, it is very time intensive, it's very labor intensive, and it really only works, number one, if you're very clear about your offer, your, uh, and, and can craft it into a niched power offer and you put a lot of money into it. With ads because a traditional digital marketing funnel has a 2% conversion rate. 2% of the people that enter the funnel by giving you an email address for an opt-in will come out the other end and purchase the thing that you want them to purchase. And that's only if you have designed an almost perfect funnel. And if you're a solopreneur, you don't have the time to invest. You don't have the energy to invest. You don't have the attention to invest. You don't have the money to invest, cuz you'll spend 80 to 90% of the time that you spend in business on funnel gymnastics for a 2% conversion rate. And that's all time that you're not spending doing the work that you started your business for in the first place, which is the thing that's going to give you joy. And gonna give you revenue. So what we have done is we've inverted that dynamic where you have to spend 80 to 90% of your time as a digital marketer for the pleasure and privilege of spending 10 or 20% of your time doing the work that you wanna do and said, no, we're gonna spend 10 to 20% of our time doing what's necessary to start conversations. And we're going to use the conversation engine to naturally and organically and generously and thoughtfully and with intention and integrity, move them through a human-to-human conversational process. The right people will naturally take the next step and you're never going to have to sell anything the way that you have to with digital marketing. You're not gonna have to force anybody. You're not gonna have to pressure anybody. You're not gonna have to use false urgency or scarcity or dig into their pain or all the things that make a digital marketing funnel work. You don't have to do any of that. You just show up as you are with what you have. You do your thing, you let people watch, and you invite them to take the next step. And as I've demonstrated in past workshops, in the first 90 days that I implemented this process for myself, I had a 20% conversion rate of the number of people that started a conversation that bought a thing from me. And in the Second quarter that I did this, I increased— I optimized the system to be a 38% conversion rate from the time someone entered to the number of people that bought on the backend. That's a way better use of your time, attention, and effort. Doesn't require any money, but you're also getting better at doing the thing that you want to do in the first place. And that is the best way to build a sustainable thriving, fulfilling, prosperous business is become preeminent, become the best in the world at doing the thing that you do and the way that only you can do it. If you achieve that and you have some success with some clients, you will never have to do any kind of marketing or any kind of sales because the people that you serve will either be so profoundly changed that everyone around them wonders what the hell happened and how can they experience with their experience, or they'll just become your evangelicals. They will tell their friends and neighbors and family about this fantastic transformation that they experienced by working with Bree, or Alice, or Tanya, or Penny, or Jeff. So that's the promise. And here's the additional promise. It's simple. And it's something that you already know how to do. It's something that you do every day. So the process very simply is start a conversation with some sort of icebreaker. There may be an additional phase in the icebreaker where you're helping get a little clarity about what this person is actually trying to accomplish or what problem they're actually trying to solve and where they're starting and what they're starting with. But you want to start with creating a vector with the person that you're speaking to. What are they trying to accomplish? What problem are they trying to solve? Problem, not situation. You know, someone says, my marriage is falling apart. That's a situation you can't help with. If the problem is my husband comes home, cracks a beer and sits in front of the TV and doesn't even say hello to me, that's a problem that you can probably help them solve. So think about problem versus situation. If it's a— if that's what you're addressing, if it's an aspiration or some sort of goal that they want to accomplish, it's probably not going to be, you know, if they want to lose 100 pounds or 30 pounds or 20 pounds. You can't solve that goal in a conversation, but you can help them maybe lose their first pound, or you can provide them with a roadmap that they— if they do it for a week, they will experience some sort of results. So be clear about what the icebreaker does. Once, once you have started a conversation, you can then invite them into the diagnostic portion, which is, hey, now that we have clarity of what you're trying to accomplish, where you are and what you're starting with and what the gap looks like, I have 5 questions that I can send you that if you answer them will provide you with a roadmap to the 2 or 3 things that need to go right for you to start getting closer to what you want to accomplish with greater ease and velocity. Are you interested? That those two steps, the icebreaker and the diagnostic, are free. That's my encouragement. You can try to charge for the diagnostic. You can charge the diagnostic if you want to, but in most cases, especially if it's colder traffic, you have to, you have to earn permission and trust and interest first. So provide them with the roadmap through the icebreaker and the diagnostic. Here's where you are, where you want to get to. Here's how to get there. Icebreaker and diagnostic. Here you go. Now, this will work as long as time and randomness doesn't happen. I've never seen time and randomness not happen, but if it doesn't happen, you'll get there. However, Knowing that there's probably unforeseen opportunities and obstacles that are gonna come up. If you would like me to help you get a little traction that helps you get more clarity and earn some confidence that you can do this, I have this low ticket offer that I'm happy to share with you where we can work together. And you, you all know mine. It's like we can work together for 2 weeks, do a 5 email exchange, and that will help you actually get some traction and hopefully some momentum. And if that sounds good, let me know. I'll send you the link. For the person that has experienced some clarity and some belief in your competence and has confidence that you can help them, it's a no-brainer to go from icebreaker to diagnostic into some sort of low-ticket thing. And by low-ticket, I mean like $100 to $300, maybe up to $500, depending on your market. And again, your level of preeminence in what you do. If you're able to help them through that low ticket offer, get some traction and momentum, and then say, if you'd like to continue working together, I have a couple of options. Let me know. I'm happy to share those with you. It's a no-brainer. Again, if they've already experienced some transformation through a free exchange and then a couple of weeks of going back and forth, it's pretty, pretty much a no-brainer to just say that that's a real no-brainer, right? Like, why would I stop working with Jeff or Alice or Penny or Bri or Tanya? I'm already winning. So that's the, the, the whole process. Icebreaker, diagnostic, low ticket continuance, mid to high ticket. Let's keep going. Let's create momentum. Let's catalyze the process. Now I'm just gonna go through some of the folks that are in the room to demonstrate where you're at. I'm gonna start with Penny cuz she just shared before I started recording where she's at. Penny has been working really hard. At optimizing a system that was already established. She knew how to start conversations. She, through previous work together, we came up with their 5-question diagnostic, and she is in the process of getting people to move from the diagnostic and into the low-ticket continuance, and will eventually come to creating that mid-ticket to high-ticket once she gets some of these folks into that low-ticket continuance. But She's done the right things in the right order. And for anybody here, like, you know, Jeff and Alice are more at the beginning of this journey. The first step is you have to learn how to start conversations. If you have not demonstrated that you can start 100 conversations and you're thinking about what your diagnostic is or what your low-ticket continuance is, you're get— you're thinking too far ahead and you're going to, you're going to hurt yourself. Because the expectation and the urgency and the pressure that you're putting on yourself to close people into something that you don't even know what that is or what they want is going to hurt you. It's gonna exhaust you and blow you up. If you haven't started at least 100 conversations, we're working on the icebreaker. If you started 100 conversations and you haven't been able to move anybody into the diagnostic, or you're not sure what the diagnostic And of course you can start thinking about the diagnostic before you have 100 conversations, but you better have it, have at least 10. But then it's time to think about the diagnostic. I would say that, Jeff, this is kind of the stage that you're at. Alice, maybe we, this is where you're at in terms of thinking about the diagnostic. Bree and I have worked together both one-on-one and in Boxer where she's well past the icebreaker and diagnostic. And has had some success moving people into low ticket. So let's refine the diagnostic. What are the numbers? If I started 100 conversations with icebreakers, how many raised their hand and accepted the diagnostic? And how many of those people that accepted the diagnostic completed the diagnostic? We need to know those numbers. That's how this, how we optimize systems. We Look at the data. If I had 100 people start a conversation with me and 50 of them moved into a diagnostic conversation and 25 of them completed the diagnostic and 0 of them went into the low ticket, where do we want to optimize? At the end, right? We have proof. We know how to start conversations. We know how to do a diagnostic. What we're not— don't know how to do yet is to get someone to naturally, organically move into the low ticket. So let's, let's optimize for that first, and then we can look at the results after 30, 60, 90 days to see where we optimize next. Once you have some numbers, for number of conversations started with an icebreaker, number of people that received the diagnostic, number of people that completed the diagnostic, number of people that moved into the low ticket. Then we can start thinking about the mid-ticket and the high-ticket offers, but we're gonna make those decisions about the low ticket and the mid-ticket, high ticket based on all of the information that we have collected through 100 conversations and However many diagnostics were completed, because if we take care of the people that are already moving into the process and get better at helping invite them and encourage them to take the next step, you're going to collapse time to target in terms of where you all want to be, which is, I want to do this work that I love doing with these people that I actually care about too. I actually need to make a little bit of money here so I can wake up tomorrow and do it more. Tomorrow. So that's kind of a quick look at the system and just based on the people that are here. So just, I'm gonna shout out some names because I want people to benefit from this that are not here. Lorenzo is in the phase where he's creating. So part of the, I guess maybe a step before the step before you had these icebreaker conversations, which let me check myself. You can start icebreaker conversations without creating any content. You already know people. You have people on your Gmail address book or your physical address book. You can start by just reaching out to those people with, hey, what's going on? What are you working on these days? Anything holding you back? That's a perfectly legitimate way to get started. In fact, that's the best way to get started for people like Jeff. And of course, Tanya, I know you're in this boat. Alice, you're starting this process and Bree and Penny are established. They, they have a content approach to starting conversations. So if you have a, if you have a blog, you know, for Penny, it's LinkedIn and Substack. For Jeff, as far as I know, it's just Substack. For Alice, it's Facebook video. Tanya, you appear to be on Substack, and Bri is using a combination of Substack plus a Discord community. You have to know what medium you are broadcasting from, and you have to make sure that your content has clear calls to action for starting those conversations. You know, they have to leave a comment. Once someone leaves a comment, that's permission for you to engage. You know, I, I think that once people like what you do, you, you have a legitimate excuse to say, hey, thanks so much for following my work. I appreciate that you appreciate it. I'm just curious, is there, you know, what are you working on these days? Is there any, any obstacle in your way that I might be able to help with? These are all perfectly legitimate ways to do that. So for Jeff, he's been doing a great job, uh, of creating content. Lorenzo, Abhishek are both doing this on LinkedIn as well, much the way that Jeff is, uh, on Substack. So that's where you're at, you know, for those folks that I just called out. Tanya, not this Tanya but the other Tanya, Tanya Marion, is also doing this on Substack. I believe she might be also on other platforms. Anna also is doing this on Substack. So just know the medium that you're using, make sure that you're starting conversations. How many conversations should you have? Well, you— I would think you would try to get one started a day. If you did that for 90 days, you would have almost 100 conversations. If you can have 2 conversations or start 2 or 3 conversations a day, you're gonna get it done in 60 or 30 days, getting to that 100. Know your, your platform, know the kind of content that's going to generate interest and have calls to action that get the conversation started and know what your icebreaker is. If that's the stage that you're at. And I think that's true for Lorenzo, for Abhishek, for Alice, maybe for Tanya, Marian. I mentioned Abhishek already and Jeff, that, that's pretty much where you're at right now. If you have some data based on the content and conversations you started, and we're not yet talking about diagnostic, we need to start talking about your diagnostic. And so for, uh, Bree and Penny, and I'm guessing Lenya, you fall in this, we haven't really talked so much about your client attraction. Process, cuz it seems like people just kind of come to you. But if you have a, uh, some success with moving people into your offer, then is there a bridge? You know, do you have a mid or high ticket offer where if we built a little, uh, low ticket continuance, would that help you move more people into the mid ticket, high ticket? Tanya, that's probably kind of where you're at. I know you're having some conversations and you're having some success. The other thing about Tanya Marion is like you, Penny, she's doing some in-person stuff and some online stuff where it would be very easy to come up with some conversation starters with people when you meet them online or in person at an event, just a little QR code. Like, hey, if you'd like to learn more about the way that I work, scan this card, subscribe to my Substack, drop me a note. I'd love to talk to you. Okay. So I think, I think that hopefully clarifies where everyone that I've been talking to today is kind of at. I've got 30 minutes where I can answer any follow-up questions from the people that are here in the room. If you aren't in the room and I shouted you out and you have a question, just drop me a line in Boxer. I'm happy to help you. Um, with whatever the next step is that we need to take. And if nobody has any questions, I'm going to give everyone the rest of their afternoon back, and I'm going to go try to get my grandson to sleep. This is, this is free coaching time. Use it or lose it.

Can I ask a question?

You can ask a question.

Uh, so I schedule a workshop for next week, and I use Luma. I see everyone using Luma, so I'm venturing in that. And yeah, I, um, I send my newsletter— not this Substack, but the newsletter I have from the people that have been signing up for my workshops for all these years, um, with the call to action. And my question is if it would be, yeah, if I should put that link as well in a Substack post because I, yeah, or I see how many people sign up. I limited to 8 people just because it's a testing, like I want to test the logistics.

Just one quick clarifying question, Tania. Is it, is it an in-person, in-person?

No, this is no. So my, yeah, very good question. So my idea is to be able to explain why the mindful walks are important or what's the benefit. I think it's important to get people in a room beforehand to say, like, when you go to a mindful walk, do a workshop version, but online, to then tell people, you can work with me in person in a mindful walk. Individually or in groups, or I can do a virtual coaching session. But my main idea is to funnel people towards my, the mindful walks. Okay.

So this is a great question. And Anna, I'm calling you out because we talked about this earlier today in Voxer. I'm a, like, oh, I'll preface this by saying, do what you like to do. If your personality and preferences is not to do live workshops, don't do live workshops. If your personality and preferences— I love to be in front of people and sharing my gifts, and Anna, I think, does this already, and Tanya does. Penny and I are talking about it. Then, and Jeff has done some of this, then decide where it fits in that process. Is this a path into your icebreaker? I— yeah, to me it sounds like it's, it's a, it's a another portal other than the icebreaker into the diagnostic. Because if it's— yeah, let me tell you about the benefits of, of mindful walking— then you can say, if this resonated and you'd like some more help, I have a free process, a free survey. If you complete 5 questions, I will give you my best suggestions for your next steps. And that will move people into the diagnostic and It can, and it can serve both, Tanya. Like, when you all see me doing— so for most of this year, I've only done workshops for you all in the Circle and the Inner Circle community, because all the freebies people are just a drag because they don't like— they're, they're people that are free subscribers that come to a free workshop are just looking for tools and tactics. Like, hey, teach, just give me the answer so I can go get a quick win without having to learn anything or do anything. And I've just decided those people are not my people. However, earlier on, one of the ways I got to, you know, over 50 paid subscribers was I did free workshops. And at the end, I said, at the end of this workshop, I'm going to have a Q&A session with the circle members. If you want to join, now's the time to upgrade. And I upgraded a lot of people. And so think about like, it can serve multiple purposes, but you have to know what they are. Like, what are you trying to accomplish with a workshop? Who was I just having this conversation? Tanya, you and I, Tanya Marion and I were having a conversation about a GPT. Like, I've tried using GPTs as another portal. I've actually used it to try to automate the the, the icebreaker question, and I decided it's not a good idea. Like, that's my one and only chance for someone that doesn't know, like, and trust me to decide whether they're gonna know, like, and trust me, and giving that to a GPT was not a good idea. But, you know, I do have a Cornerman GPT where people whose permission, trust, and investment I've earned as a community member have access to experience my coaching without me having to do anything. It's been a great way of helping people experience what it might be like to work with me, and therefore they know that they're going to get even better service when they decide that they're going to talk to me directly every single day in Boxer or what have you. So just know where these things put in, fit in within the general System, icebreaker, diagnostic, low ticket, high ticket. Over time, Tanya, you could make the workshop the low ticket thing. You could say after a diagnos— and you could still do an additional workshop like, hey, I have a mastermind session for people that actually already know the approach or have learned the basics that are ready to catalyze their experience or, you know, close time to target to becoming a mindful, you know, a master mindful walker, whatever it is.

Thank you.

Very helpful. Great question and helpful for other folks. Go ahead, Alice.

Um, so my question is that what tends to happen with me— actually, it's a statement. How do I avoid becoming— having a friendship with somebody and then they're like my friends and I'm having this conversation? Like, how do I draw the line between that? Yeah, um, I just noticed, I just noticed that I said that I'd work a certain amount of hours And I'm almost second-guessing myself. Oh, I said that, but I'm not going to do that because I feel that, right?

So Bree and I have talked about this. She, she— it might be worth having— reaching out to Bree offline about, um, some of the things that she's learned from Jake around the friend zone. Um, but it's, it's a very common thing for everyone, especially at the beginning and intermediary stages of any kind of coaching offer, right? Like, and we've talked about this in some workshops, like, you actually, the sooner you decide what you do for free and what can only be done for paid, the better off you are. The frame that I would use, Alice, is if I'm in a, if you're in a, if you're in an icebreaker situation where you're trying to clarify destination and starting point, and a diagnostic stage where you're trying to help them identify the things they have to stop doing, and the 2 or 3 things that have to go right. I would say that's friend zone, do it for free stuff. And then you just let them know. I, I use the frame of it doesn't, doesn't— the compensation obligation equation doesn't compute beyond the diagnostic. If I give you for free a clear clarity about destination and starting point and the things that you have to stop doing and the 2 or 3 things that you've done right, I've just given you a roadmap and that's free. You're welcome to use it in any way that you see fit. If and when you're ready to have a trusted guide be your personal GPS to navigate all of the obstacles and opportunities that are going to come, then I must be paid for that. And you can offer the low ticket, like, hey, if you wanna see if it's gonna work for you, here's a $100 continuance offer. Why don't— low risk. You've already achieved success with me. Why not test drive a $100, 5 email exchange over 2 weeks? Then you'll know, does it work or doesn't it work? Then it might be time to consider the next step. But you have to, you have to clearly define that line. And people will, you know, people that like free stuff like free stuff, and they will continue to ask for free stuff, and they will continue to spin their tales of woe and trial and tribulation about why they need more free stuff. And you just have to say, I'm sorry, I can't take care of myself and my kids and my other obligations as a charity. I've done as much as I can do for free. And if they don't understand that, Alice, fuck them, because they're really not your friend. If they want you to continue to deplete yourself and exhaust yourself helping them for free, those aren't friends, those are vampires. That's— I mean, I know that's my take.

No, that's, um, that's good. It's just boundary setting, isn't it? And just deciding that That's okay, great, I've just transformed you, brilliant, on, onwards, on you go.

Exactly right.

If you want to come back—

here's the thing, when you set those boundaries and say this, you know, this conversation is over, maybe this relationship is over because we have violated the friend zone, we have violated the obligation-compensation equation. They may go off pissed off, they may badmouth you, whatever. But at some point, they're going to realize, Alice told me this was going to happen, that I was going to continue to just spin my wheels and get more depressed and more stuck. And, and here I am, 2 weeks, 2 months, 2 years later. May I wonder if Alice will talk to me? And they will come back. I've had this happen hundreds of times with people that are legitimate close friends from places like the Alta MBA and Akimbo, but they think that just because we did this thing together or that I was their coach for free in a program that I should be their coach for free for life. You know, I, I burned a lot of bridges in some ways, and they work like hell to build them back so that they could get back in touch with me and, and have me consider working with them. Boundaries are super powerful. And there's also power, Alice, in that moment when you say no and you actually say no for now, no ever. If you ever want to talk about this very reasonable next step, let me know. And then you simply walk out the door. You'll be surprised at how many people won't chase you down and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, that makes sense, yeah, can we do that? Happens, happens to me almost weekly.

Yeah, um, one other question, um, is that I'm still exploring, I'm still exploring where I'm at really, but I've got a lot of skills, you know, I've got skills in property investing. Um, but my passion really is to be able to help people move their bodies, ideally footballers, to people to perform. I want to help people perform, but I've almost got these multi— I've got multi-skills. Um, So it's creating a diagnostic, like, set of questions that can incorporate—

right now, Alice, everybody here is a multipotentialite, right? We all have lots of skills. Like, I could be a— I could go back to being a guitar performer and make a killing right now. I could open up a guitar studio, a full-blown guitar studio, make a killing right now. I could become a life coach, you know, for retirees. And like, I could just— I could do a number of things. But fundamentally, I approach everything through the same process. So I am doing the work I'm doing now because there's plenty of people that are asking me, I love your story. I love that you work 10 hours a week and take naps with your grandkids and take care of your grandkids. I want a life like that. Can you help me? And, and I like helping people with that. I love helping people escape the digital marketing hamster wheel. And it's kind of a funny thing that having some success in something actually helps fuel the passion for doing more of it, right? Fuels more purpose for doing it, right? Um, so I don't think it matters which lane you choose. I think it does matter. Like, one of the reasons I— one of the things I found with like my guitar career was being a professional guitar player keeps you from becoming a better guitar player. Because it is a very labor-intensive, time-intensive proposition to get a gig, get to the gig, do the gig, get your freaking money, get home from the gig, and then do it again the next day. So, you know, there's— there is a case to be made for checking yourself. Like, is this— is turning this passion or hobby of mine that I love, the thing that I love, into the thing that I do for a living, is it going to actually give me the joy that I think it's going to give me? Because at the beginning you're going to find yourself doing a lot of work you didn't necessarily want to sign up for, for the pleasure of doing the thing that you do want to do for just a few moments a day. So this— and your— to your other point, and this is for everyone who I've mentioned, you have to audit the system that you're in. How many conversations have you started How many of those people did you offer a diagnostic to? How many of those people completed the diagnostic? How many of those people bought the low ticket thing? How many of those people bought the med ticket? And if you don't have numbers at any point, that's where you have to get numbers. So if you're Alice, if you're in the conversation stage where you're one trying to figure out what do people want from me, or what is it? What— who are the other people that I'm talking to? Who are the ones that I want to help and can help given all of the things that I'm good at? So audit your conversations. What are the common themes? What are the common needs? What are the common problems or aspirations? Can you create a diagnostic for those people? Because you can go right back to those people that you've already talked to and say, hey, I've been thinking a lot about our conversation. And what I remember is we decided you wanted this and you were here. And you had to just do these couple of things to get there. I have these 5 questions that if you answer them will help you start to get some traction and momentum. Are you interested? Because now you'll start to fill in the blank for how many people want the diagnostic. And once you fill in that, that blank, you'll also get how many of those people completed a diagnostic, and you will be that much further along in defining your client attraction system. I wanna— there's one more thing that Alice that I want to address because it was actually something that Bree asked about, which is this whole idea about imposter syndrome. And I'm really just going to repeat what I said yesterday. We think that imposter syndrome is always our worthiness story. Oh, I'm not good enough. Oh, I don't deserve this. Oh, I'm full. I'm full of guilt and shame about this thing that happened to me, or is this thing I did, or this bad decision I made, or this mistake I made. And like, yes, imposter syndrome sometimes shows up like that, sometimes shows up as a worthiness story. The more, the more malignant and dangerous version of imposter syndrome is around the holy shit, this might work. I might actually be able to do this. Because when you realize that this might work, now it's— now the, the fear is, if I put myself on the hook, will I fail? Will I let myself down? Will I let my family down? Will I let the people that signed up for my thing down? And I'm just going to tell you, yes, it will not be perfect. Like, I can't guarantee that when you decide that you're going to— I mean, if you talk to my first 100 coaching clients, you know, not all of them are going to say Scott's the most amazing coach I've ever worked with. If you talk to my last 100 clients, I bet they Majority of them would. But I, you know, at the beginning, I didn't know what I was doing. I had Michael Bungay Stanier's 7 questions taped to my computer so I could remember what they were. But by doing the thing, I became the thing. By doing the thing, I became proficient. So, there is this element of trust. Trust— what's the Kevin Ashton quote is one I always use. Confidence is belief in yourself. Certainty is belief in your beliefs. Confident— or certainty is a barricade. Confidence is a bridge. If you're going to make the leap and start to become the thing by doing the thing, by trusting yourself to figure it out as you go. You have to embrace the fact that you're going to— there will be failures, that you— there will be moments of doubt, and there will be continuing moments of doubt and uncertainty. But you have to decide what game you want to play. Because if you're going to play the game of, I'm just going to keep thinking about my offer, I'm just going to keep iterating and improving my offer, I'm just gonna keep grinding out content. I'm just gonna keep having, um, uh, icebreaker and diagnostics conversations, and you never take a chance on that very small next step that will help someone, help you get better at what you do while you help someone get a little traction in the thing that they wanna accomplish, then that's imposter syndrome too. You are hiding in productivity. Busyness and, and it feels like success. It feels like you're actually doing something meaningful, but you're not. Like, if you're do— if you're engaged in unnecessary business and productivity, you're hiding just like the person that is just too scared to get started because they don't trust themselves enough to do it. And I'm not saying this out of like— I'm not calling anybody out and I'm not saying this out of harshness. I'm just saying this is what is true. And I say this because it took me a long time for me to see this in myself. Penny knows, like my reputation at Akimbo and in Alt MBA was Scott is a productivity machine and I freaking was! I had a blog, I had a podcast, I had a YouTube channel. I had all sorts of lead magnets and all sorts of email sequence. I wrote books, I did all the things. And on the face of it, it looked like I was just a machine grinding this stuff out. I had some systems that made it easier for me than it might be for other people. But it was still like, I'm just putting stuff out there, nobody's buying anything. And it wasn't until I kind of woke up and said, you know, I just started this new publication around the art of encore living. And even though it sounds like it might just be for old folks like me, it's actually for anybody that's in a life transition about what they want to accomplish next. And the very first chapter of the book, which is free on the, on the publication welcome page, um, is you have to have a conversation with yourself on your deathbed. Like, when your time is up— and it might be tomorrow, people— like, when your time is up, do you want to look back on your life and say, gee whiz, I'm really glad I never took a chance on myself and never tried to do that thing that I wanted to do? Oh gee whiz, I'm really glad I stuck with that, you know, relationship that was not— that was abusive or unhealthy or not fulfilling to either one of us. Oh good, I'm glad I, you know, beat my kids. Oh good, like whatever the conversation— like think about the things that right now you're already aware of, want to change, and project yourself to the moment when now you're, you're heading to whatever's next. And I personally believe that there is something there. I don't know what it's called or what it looks like, But all of this energy that we have within us has got to go somewhere. That's just physics. But when you're at that moment of transition to whatever's next, what story do you want to tell yourself? Because I personally believe the story of, I tried and it didn't work out, but I really did my best, is going to be a lot more fulfilling and provide a lot more peace than I'm really glad I never tried, period. I've, I've worked with all— I, one of my very first clients was someone that was dying, and this is what we talked— this is all we talked about. He had a terminal disease, he had months to live. He didn't even make it a full month, but for that month, all we talked about was how do we create a moment at the very end where he can look back and say, I tried my best to repair all the things that I wish I had done better the first time. So, you know, that's strong medicine, and I apologize for anybody that's triggered or, um, you know, thinks that that's too much, but there's no distinction to me between living and working. Working is merely the exchange of energy. You're investing time, attention, money, and effort— that's all energy— into making a change happen. If you want to do that for Amazon in a cubicle in exchange for some filthy lucre that maybe buys you enough drink, drugs, entertainment to dull your pain for not actually doing something meaningful with your life, fine, play your game. But for most of us, what we do for a living is what provides us with a sense of meaning, significance, and fulfillment in our life. So it's not like work-life balance, it's How do I become an integrated person that spends all of my time, whether it's in my relationships or with myself or with the people I work with, in a way that enhances the experience for everyone, that provides us all, that helps us all become half a shade better than we were before we connected in whatever moment that is. That's as far as I know, that's what it's all about. And I can't promise any of you that it's going to work out for the best. Like, I don't anticipate that any of us are going to become millionaires or billionaires. I don't know if anybody wants that. It's not something I really care about. But if you want to, if you want to live well and make enough today to do it again tomorrow. That's within each and every one of yours reach. It's just, it's a math problem. It's auditing the system that you have and optimizing that system to get better results faster and easier. That's all it is. And that's just a decision. You could say, yes, I'm signing up for that. And I'm going to learn how to become antifragile as I go so that I don't cave in to fear, doubt, regret, blah, blah, blah. Or I'm not signing up for that journey. I'm going to stay where I am. I'm going to settle. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with settling. We all have different tolerances and temperaments to risk and to putting ourselves out there. And that's fine. But You can't have both. Can't settle. You can't. If you want things to be differently, you're gonna have to do, and you're gonna have to see and do things differently. That's— there's just no other way around it. What got you where you are won't get you where you want to be. Okay, so I really— boy, oh boy, that was my rantiest rant in some time. But obviously, I feel really strongly about because I've experienced this from a very early age. I was 25 years old when I said— I'm not, I'm sorry, I was 20— how old was I? I was 27 years old when I said, "I wonder if I could do this music thing and make a living at it." And I just, I literally decided I would rather try and fail than die wondering if I ever could have done it. Because it was that important to me in that moment. That doesn't mean I just quit my job and started gigging. I had a conversation with my wife, we had a plan, we saved a lot of money, gave, gave us a runway of a year, and I did it. I did it for a year, and at the end of the year, it turned out that I could make just as much money as a gigging musician as I could as a teacher, sometimes more. So I just kept doing it. I did it for almost 30 years. And it all came down to that one decision, answering the question, I wonder if— let's find out. Any final questions or thoughts before we wrap it up? No, but thank you. Did that address your main question there, Bree? Okay. Yes, that was definitely mic drop.

That was amazing.

Thank you.

Thank you. That was—

yeah, I, um, can I just, um, I really, I really get what you're saying, Scott. Um, we— so I've been looking in this, like, the beliefs. So whatever we're believing right now is keeping us safe from not doing the thing. So everyone's gone now, but, um, so, but the belief of where we stay now is, is keeping us safe, isn't it?

Always.

Until we just go for it and like become, become the higher self, and the higher self is doing the thing that we really like doing. We have to have perseverance, I would say.

So if you haven't read The Art of Possibility, Alice, I would encourage you to, to take a look. But one of the principles is it's all made up, and it's true. It's all made up. It's the story we tell ourselves, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, about each other, in the situation that we're in. And you get to choose your story and you choose your future based on the story you choose to tell yourself. And if you are stuck in a story that is keeping you humble, hiding, stuck and in your own way, you have to figure out how to put a crack into that story where a better story can start to be considered. And that's 99% of the work that you do, and that's 99% of the work I do. Is overcoming the false narratives, overcoming the cognitive biases. And then once you put that crack in, it's how do I get the person to take the next logical step that will help them get a small win that will encourage them to take the next step and the next step and the next step. So I hope that's helpful. Great to connect with you. I've got to hop off.

Thank you.

Hope this was helpful for everyone. And, uh, be well, do good, have fun.

Cheers. Bye.