In Order To Achieve SUCCESS, You Must Become ORGANIZED! | Scott Danner

One of the questions we always ask is what does freedom mean to you? And I think most people don't spend any time defining that for themselves.

Anybody that can generate $2 billion on your asset in a short amount of time probably knows something I need to understand for sure. Curious to know, what are most people getting wrong when it comes to basically finding freedom in their life?

You know, I think it's such a great question. One of the questions we always ask is what does freedom mean to you? And I think most people don't spend any time defining that for themselves. They often let other people define what freedom might mean to them and then we try to copy it. And that's where we find out that we're so empty and maybe we're missing that missing link. When we start asking ourself the question, we really have to establish, where are we now, where do we want to be and how we're going to get there? And it's defining what's most important in our lives. And I think freedom means something different for everybody. You know, when I, when I ask that question, everybody gives you a different answer. And I think defining that for ourselves is the first step in really, really establishing that path.

Well, how do you, I mean, how do you. All right, so devil's advocate here. How do you find such a path or discover a path when the vast majority of us are living a life based on somebody else's expectations, right? We're trying to measure up to our parents identity, our spouse's identity, whatever they think we should be or should be doing. How do we alienate? Not so alienate, but how do we learn to hear our own voice? So we are meaning we do have a level of fulfillment.

Yeah, I think that's a great question. I always think about Keith Cunningham in his latest book, the Road Less Stupid, talks about an idea called thinking Thinking time. And it sounds so simple, but it's, it's really the allotted amount of time that we give ourselves to just think in quiet and really identify some of these things. I think most of us are running so fast in our lives, we're speeding through life that, you know, it's like driving on the interstate, right? If you're going, if you're going slow, you can see a lot of things around you. I had a motorcycle for a decade or so and you know, you could smell the air, you could feel the wind, you could experience it. It's why people like to ride a bike, right? But when you're in a car and I'm heading down To a soccer tournament in Raleigh, Durham. And I'm speeding down the road. I see nothing. I spend zero time taking a break and breathing. And I think that's how life really is. I'll never forget a trip I took to Canada and we drove, my father and I and my brother flew into Calgary and we drove from Calgary to Jasper and all the glacier mountains, all the beautiful scenery, the animals. I think we stopped every seven seconds is what it felt like. And you just took in the air and the breath and the scenery and I think to some extent having a little bit of time to self evaluate and actually think and then going through some of the exercises that once you stop and actually identify that thinking time, what do you do when you're there? Really ask yourself questions. Your brain will automatically answer them.

Yeah, I love that. And I love that. I love Freedom street for that reason.

Right.

You know, there's a lot of practical exercises to help you kind of break your way into and kind of distill that. You know, I'm a big believer that the quality of the questions obviously determine the quality of your answers. Right. So if you're asking why me? You're going to get a thousand reasons why me. If you ask yourself, you know, a reason or a question around, you know, what can I learn from this experience and how can this reshape me, define me, give me a different perspective? Your brain kind of pops off the same thing. Right. It also strikes me as a little bit interesting because in this search for freedom and fulfillment and meaning and significance and purpose and passion and. And all these different things that really make up what I believe to be the blissful human experience. Right. You could be in a very difficult situation, but still actually feel very good about yourself as long as you're making progress in a given area. And I can honestly say that obviously when I was growing up in a very challenging financial environment, even homelessness at one time, and then also growing up in, not growing up, but developing my first business, getting to the place where I was not only financially secure but financially affluent. Both of them, believe it or not, I had moments of emptiness in both of them. Which means it's not more money and resource, but it's also not necessarily without money and resource. Like how do. That's the tricky part, I think most of us are looking for. We're trying to figure out what our own Freedom street is like. One of the things I love about your work is you spend a lot of time basically overlaying the two together. Right. Okay. There is elements of financial stewardship that are important. There's also elements of identity and security and significance. And I guess my question is, how did you discover that? Because not everybody finds the overlay or kind of where those things are interwoven. They're typically on one side or the other.

Yeah, I think. I think it's a path. You know, I like to do a little planning before we go on any type of conversation and watch a couple of your shows, Understand a little bit about. About what's important to the person that we're talking to learn more about each other as we go. Right. Even if we already know each other, it's important to know more about these things. And I think in any meeting, I try to do that. As I was just doing that previously, I was looking, and I started thinking about that exact question. And I don't think. It wasn't a moment where I was just like, oh, man, I get it. It was honestly a progression over time. It was a series of failures. When I started writing the book, I went through a process of really describing and writing down a list of all the things I failed at. And it's amazing that over, like, a day and a half, I started. I started going, oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. And then I asked my wife, and she had a couple more.

She gave you another page or two. Yeah.

But hers were. Hers were really powerful things that really stood out to her that weren't failures per se, but just moments of truth. Right. And I think when you start taking that progression and you look at the body of work, at a certain point in time, we have to say, we are where we think we're supposed to be. We are where we are, and it's the right place to be. And that path over time of those failures has equaled up to a greater sum of success than we could have ever dreamed. And to specifically answer the question, I think when I was young, I was really challenged, financially challenged. You know, I always felt like there was a better way. I think the entrepreneur brain is both exciting and creative, but it's also a little bit lethal when it's. Yeah, it's chaotic because. Because you're always trying to break something and fix it. That means you're trying to do that with even the people in your life, the. The things in your life, the challenges. And so I think it was this progression of. Of waking up each day and knowing that we're getting a little bit better, looking at the failures and the challenges that we've had and Seeing how they brought us to where we are today. And for me, personally, looking at my childhood, looking at some of the struggles and the challenges, and then seeing how I came through them. You know, specifically something like. Like I was working for the Attorney General's office and the AG was an elected governor. I didn't have a job. You know, all of a sudden, I thought I had this perfect path. I was going to work in the governor's office. I was appointed. I was young. Everything was figured out in my brain, and then nothing was figured out. And I end up on a phone call with one of my aunts, who I've been super close with my entire life. I'm super close most of them. But I'm on this. I'm on this call, and I think I'm just complaining. And I hear myself complaining, which isn't me, but I hear myself to her. And to make a long story short, she goes, hey, I think you'd be really good at this career, this financial advising career. I'm working in an office, and I just see you being great at it. And I was like. I kind of paused and went, huh? If she thinks I'll be great at it, maybe I could be great at it. And, you know, it was a moment of truth, a failure in my brain, something that I was actually lost in and just thinking outside the box and challenging, okay, here I am now, how can I get to that next step? And having someone just a little bit, that little tiny voice that isn't just yours, but somebody else kind of guiding you, it can really make a huge difference.

Do you feel like there's. We almost need to have a healthier dose of curiosity as it relates to kind of like, you know, really discovering what our ultimate purpose is, you know, My youngest son is 19. He's working for one of my businesses, the Journey Principles. Right. He specifically. In fact, he'll be actually watching this and actually picking our best snippet to put on Instagram. Right? So, Right. Is to figure this out. And he's been coming to me recently. He's like, I'm trying to figure out my purpose. I'm trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do with my life. And meanwhile, Evan Carmichael pulls him up on stage at our last live event and challenges to become a speaker before next year. So he's already on a fast path.

Now, but that's awesome.

Yeah, but so one of the things he keeps going to is he keeps going and saying, well, I just don't know what I'm gonna do. So, so basically, basically he was stuck not taking a step. Right. And what I've always been trying to tell all of my kids is like, when you don't know what to do, just do something. Because I'm a big believer that curiosity will end up leading you down a path. And somewhere down that path you will ultimately stumble on the path you're supposed to be on. Would you say curiosity kind of helps out with that?

Yeah, I think you, I think you brought up two extremely interesting things. Number one, curiosity is probably the most underrated word when it comes to success in business. I'm curious about everything. I always say my give a shit factor is a thousand percent. And that can be like on the dumbest thing in the world. I'm putting together a case of wine that from the wine festival that we have for, for a donation and I'm like, oh, they'll love this red. Maybe they'll like this red. Like my. It's the give a shit factor is a thousand percent. Because I'm curious about so many facets of what that person may think in a positive way. Not how they're going to think about me, but how I can please them as I'm doing the job the best that I can. And I'm thinking of all the little tiny things. Oh, they usually serve big meals. Maybe this big bold red will be special. And I'm making this thing way bigger than it needs to be. But curiosity drives that. You also said action. I love it because I, you know, I was wearing a Nike shirt the other day and I use this all the time. Nike's tagline isn't just try it. And, and it's not just find it. Yeah, it's not maybe we'll stumble into the right place. It's just do it. So it's all about action. And I think young people today, I've had a lot of conversations. I have a 15 year old and I have a 12 year old boy. And so I always tell them, look, purpose is something that, that you have to start doing something defined. Don't, don't ever think that it's just going to pop up and hit you in the face. You're given the best advice that anyone can give. Take action. Start moving towards something and watch what happens. It's glorious. What will happen when you're working towards something?

Yeah, man. No, I love it. You know, it's interesting because I, you know, I was thinking through back one of the stories that you had in the book that I really liked a lot or examples, which is Hardworking Hank and Laid Back Lonnie. Like I feel like as an American culture we almost get siloed in one of those two places. Very rare. Are we in the middle somewhere or in the transition? So talk to us a little about Hardworking Hank and Laid Back Lonnie.

Yeah, the names are almost meant to be funny just because they stand out and they're memorable. But Hardworking Hank is, is a guy or gal that, that is all of us. Right. It's the person that gets a little too involved in work at a part in time in their life where they're missing all the things around them. They're over investing in one part of their life and under investing in others. And self awareness is something that's, that's amazing. And if you can identify that, I think we're always going to be a little imbalanced at times in one thing. You can't. Michael Jordan couldn't be the best basketball player in the world without focusing all on basketball. Right. But Michael Jordan would probably tell you, and if you watch the Last Dance, there were a lot of other factors of his life that weren't so great. And I think Laid Back Lonnie is the, is the other person. He's the person that has all the talent, all the opportunity, all of everything right in front of him. But he chooses to kind of underperform. Every day he wakes up knowing he has more to give the world. And he wakes up late and he goes into work late and then he works a couple hours, takes a long lunch, then leaves early and he spends more than he makes. And then he's upset that because he's spending the level of talent he has in him, but he's not actually making the level of talent and work that goes into that. And I think at the end of the day, if you could find a nice mix between the two of them and be self aware enough to know that sometimes I've been and probably you've been at some point in our lives, each of those people you wake up and one day you're just, you're overrun and you're overwhelmed. And then other days you're like, man, I got to get off my ass and do something a little bit bigger. And you know, and I think that was the, the, the point of the book was of that story was to, to kind of embrace that we all have a little bit of this in us and how can we find where we might be leaning in one direction and readjust?

Yeah, well, one of the takeaways on that story that I got is permission. Like giving yourself permission to move, giving yourself permission to win, giving yourself permission to try, giving yourself permission to get back up again. You know, I've discovered it especially on this. The search for media meaning and fulfillment and freedom and etc. I've discovered that so much of it is we legitimately hold ourselves back. Like, I have a. One of my. When I do present live events, sometimes I'll, you know, one of my, I guess signature quotes that started shaking out all the time is, you are where you are today because that's all you've allowed yourself to be.

Right?

And I say that to me, Right. That was my truth. Right. And then the more and more I work with people just like you have, the more and more you see that their limitation is them. Like, it's not a skill set. It's not an understanding. It's not always resource. It's, you know, it's. There's something deeper going on. And I felt like hardworking Hank and Layback Lonnie, that story specifically, you know, really kind of lays that out clearly. So hopefully the readers, like, will do like I did. Like, okay, I can give my. I can give myself permission to win finally, like, let me win kind of thing.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we have to get out of our own way. I think sometimes we have to also establish what's going to help us get out of our own way. And sometimes it's a matter of just having a conversation with somebody else who's ahead of us. You know, I think one of the challenges I had when I was younger was this mentality that was me against the world. You know, coming from that blue collar mentality, it was like, man, I'm punching up constantly from the ground and everybody's out and I just got to go take what I can get. And when my mindset shifted to I'm going to give all that I have to give, like, life just changed and it opened up in a different way. And the permission that you mentioned was the permission to get the hell out of my own way. You know, stop overthinking and overanalyzing and just do. And the action itself will just guide you where you need to be.

Yeah. And it's interesting because, you know, one of the things that if I, If I continue looking at this, the self awareness piece alone, I find most people are missing permission. They're actually missing in what I refer to as intentional awareness, meaning they. They've actually done the reflective work like you mentioned at the beginning of the show, which is like, go sit alone with yourself with a notepad and a pen and ask yourself probing questions. And, you know, your book is full of them. Your book is full of steps. In fact, I am curious. You are very, very, very intentional about helping people at the end of each chapter get, like, specific next steps to take an advanced step. Why was it so important for you to. Especially in a book format when it's easier to kind of just teach.

Right.

Why was it so important for you to teach and then have an application scenario? Why was it so important?

That's a. That's a great question. I honestly just believe. Because part of my entire purpose in writing this book was to create a place where I could help change more people's lives. And I can't change anyone's life if I just talk about the teaching lessons I've learned. I can't change anybody's life. Maybe I will, but by just telling my version of the story. Everything that we've ever learned about success comes from you, not me. Yeah, Everything we've ever learned comes from you. And so you know, every marketing class that you've ever taken, anything that you've ever learned in funnels, anything we ever see in the world of attracting people, comes from making it about you and not me. Yet no matter how hard people try, oftentimes it's about me. So what I try to do is take the storylines and make them about me, because that's the best example I can get. But turn the end of the chapters into how you see yourself in these stories, and how can you find yourself in the action steps? And quite frankly, I've done all these things, and they're not. They're not things that I just came out of, you know, I pulled out of a hat. They're genuinely things that I've struggled with and I've. I've worked through, and these are some of the things I found most effective and efficient to work through them, because I'm humbly coming at. At people as I wrote this, not as someone that knows it all, but someone that's just living it right now and going through it. And I'm here to learn and gain insight. And maybe what they find from those action steps teaches me more than I ever knew before.

Yeah, well, I think you just. You just hit on two really important words, right? Effective and efficient. I find that a lot of our strategy. What's funny, I was. I was. I forgot what it was. I was. I was doing a seminar somewhere, and I stumbled across an article traveling somewhere that said that most people will spend 80% of their more. 80% more time planning a family vacation than they will planning their life. Like, it was, like, dumbfounding. I was like, oh, my gosh, that is so freaking true. And it's one of the reasons why I like Freedom street so much, is because it clearly lays out an effective strategy and an efficient strategy so you can take the guesswork out of the middle, which I think is so important. The other thing that I think the book does beautifully, and I'm a fan, so I love the word principle, right? So the Journey Principles Institute, meaning give me your journey. I give you principles. Do this, don't do this, win big. That simple, right?

Yeah.

There's principles to win at money, there's principles to win at relationships, there's principles to win it. Finding your purpose, and you're discovering your path. And I've always said that principles govern promises, right? So if you want to live out a specific promise, then all you got to do is apply a specific principle. Well, in your book, you know, I kept running. I'm a quote thing, too, so I just consume quotes. Like, ah, my. My team tells me I talk in fortune cookie.

I love it.

Right. But in doing so, I stumbled across a principle that I really would love you to kind of break down for us. And it's the principle of rocks, pebbles, and sand. Would you want to break into Brocks Pebbles and Sand down for the audience?

Yeah. Rocks, Pebbles and sand is great. You know, the. There's a YouTube video that went around, and then you see this professor, and he's talking about how you fit all the things in life. And he uses an analogy where he takes this jar, and he puts in the pebbles on the bottom, and then he puts the rocks in and the big rocks, and then he tries to put the sand in. And, you know, if you put them in the wrong order, you don't fit anywhere near as much as what you need. In that jar is what you can. But most people say, I don't have time to grow. I don't have time to read. I don't have time to learn. I don't have time to give to my family, you know, and the key component is we have to start with the rocks. What are the biggest rocks? What are the biggest priorities? Anytime someone in my team gets overwhelmed, including myself, by the way, the first thing I say is, okay, of the things on your plate, write them all down. What are the biggest priorities in your brain? What are the biggest priorities in my Brain. And how can you actually prioritize those? Well, it's the same with our family. If social media and our iPhones do a great job of showing us how much we spend in certain areas on the settings, you can go and just see, right?

Yeah. If you've spent 7 hours, 9 minutes on Facebook in a day, okay. On Instagram, on whatever it is, and you're not creating, okay. There are times where you are creating stuff on YouTube or whatever. And I know if that's your job, I get it, but if you're just goofing off, right. That right there is showing you that social media has become a big rock. If that's what you want, great. If that's what you need, great. But I would imagine my two sons might need to be a bigger part of those two big rocks. And if we lay the big rocks in first and then we put the pebbles in and then we filter the sand over top, you can fit way more in your jar. And the chance of you feeling the emptiness that you and I have both felt at different times in our lives is less likely to be there.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, it all comes down to expanding your capacity.

Right.

Again, it goes back to you are where you are today because that's all you've allowed yourself to be. The reality is, is your capacity is totally generated by how, what, how and what you prioritize in your life. Right? So, you know, the more successful that people become in business, for example, typically the more difficult it is to be successful in the home. Like, it's typically, if you're really good at business, you're really good at entrepreneurship, you're really good at earning, maybe you're even really good at influencing the marketplace and you're really good on camera or whatever. A lot of times that means it's more of a struggle at home. Meaning you're so focused energy wise here that you're not necessarily all that effective at home, or you spend so much time focused at home that you may not be as effective over here. And I can tell you from personal experience, that's been a bit of a struggle point for me. I like what I do. I love what I do.

Right?

But I also realized a couple of years ago, and even shoot, even just a few months ago, my boy sat me down like, hey, when you come home, you're in your phone. We're trying to have a conversation with you. Put your phone down. Like, I didn't even know you noticed. Yes, we noticed because we like that intentional dialogue.

Right.

How do we find And I hate that we use the word balance, but how do we find this scenario of perceived balance between family life and very successful career? Because you seem to have that currently, and I've. I want to learn from you.

Yeah. So first of all, I will share that there are moments where I have it perfectly and there are moments where I don't have it at all. And so, you know, and if you ask my family, they would tell you that exact answer. There are days I just spent a week in Orlando with my son at a soccer tournament, and I was present the entire time. It was awesome. You know, I got to watch them play. I got to help him and his friends. I got to. I had a couple of business meetings, none of which overlapped my son's games or the other boys games. It was awesome. Right. Great week for family life. Balance. There are other weeks where, you know, I might spend two weeks off and on the road and I'm traveling to different offices, and the balance is bad. I think the biggest thing is, you know, if. If you have clients, you schedule your clients. So you're proactive. Whatever your business is, you're proactively contacting your clients. So you're not a firefighter. You're not a reaction person. You're proactive because you know that proactive opportunities create a much happier end client, you know, and with our families, I think it's the same way. I think you've got to schedule it. I was on a meeting with Genius Network. Joe Polish has a great group called Genius Network. I'm a part of. I love it. Evan Carmichael's in it, and lots of our friends are a big part of it. And Elko DeBoer is one of the guys that did a 10 minute talk. And Joe has these 10 minute talks, and they're phenomenal. And Elko did one on the struggle that the entrepreneur has. Exactly what you just said, exactly what I've had in my life. All of us have had this struggle because we are so high energy wherever we are, that when we come home, it is not always easy to have that priority still there or even the energy still there. So what he did was he essentially set up a strategy where he wanted to spend more time with his mom. He was tired of feeling guilty about being about not having time with his mom and his family. And nobody was more important than his mom. So he looked at his schedule and he basically said, every Saturday, I'm going to make time to drive to mom's, have some time with her. And I'm making This a priority. And then he sent her a text and he said, hey, Mom, I'm actually going to be here every Saturday, and this is what I'm doing. So what he did was what every entrepreneur is usually pretty great at is they're great at the idea, and they're really great once they actually tell someone that they're going to do it. Because you are not going to tell us that. I'm not going to tell you. I'm going to do something and then bail on you. You're never going to do that to me. So the minute we do that and we schedule it just like we would a proactive contact with the client or big, you know, opportunity, it becomes something that becomes important. It actually takes establishing the Big Rock to an execution point. What are the things that we want to do? What's the one big thing that my boys want to do in the next year? Each, you know, one year, I took Braden, my youngest. He wanted to see Andrea Bocelli. And so we went to Bocelli. We sat right on the side of the stage. He came in and out from the right below us. He was in awe. It was an amazing experience. We stayed in a super cool hotel in Washington, dc. We walked there. That might have got a little dangerous, but it was still wonderful. You know, my oldest son, we just went to a Dallas Cowboys game. We're Cowboys fans. You could see the helmet over my shoulder over here. And we've been fans our whole life. My dad, I took my dad and my oldest son alone and we sat on the 50 yard line and we had an unbelievable experience because of a close friend of mine who set us up. We even went on the field and threw the ball and my son caught a touchdown pass in the end zone and like, the toes touched and the rubber kicked up. Oh, wow, man. All I'm saying is I'm not perfect and my balance is not perfect and nobody's ever will be. But if we can make some memories along the way and create special time, schedule it, and then identify that we're accountable to it, I think that's an effective strategy that I'm always working on. And I'm always working on being self aware enough to know when I've lost it.

Yeah, I mean, I heard this one, this analogy one time that said, when you learn to treat your family like a customer, they will respond like one. You know, thankful. Thankful for your presence. Thanks. We thankful for you being there. I am curious to know, and this is kind of off topic a little bit. It's it's, it's totally covered in the book, but it's off topic in that, you know, let's assume that someone doesn't necessarily have direct access to an, to an accountability group or they haven't found their, what I refer to as their tribe.

Right.

Because not everyone is suited to be your mentor or to be an accountability partner or to be in that zone. What are steps that you've taken in your times past that have opened the doors for you to be in circles, that allow you to be held accountable and to grow you at the same time?

So we can only pay with a couple of things. We can only pay with our time and our money. Right? Those are the two biggest things that you pay with. And so a lot of times accountability groups cost money. And, and so people are like, I don't want to do that. I hired, I hired a business coach as soon as I started to actually make real money as a financial advisor, and I remember paying him $35,000 a year and I was barely making six figures. The reality was I knew I needed something to get to the next level and I paid with money today. It's hard with all the things that we have scheduled, all the businesses you run, the businesses that I'm involved in, I definitely feel that time can often be extremely valuable. And so flipping the script, maybe the money is there, but the time isn't. So it's dedicating an extra day on a trip so that instead of just flying out to Genius Network and hanging out with Joe and the whole group of people that are going to be there in Arizona, maybe I fly in a day early and I create a couple of meetings, just have some one on one time with some people I'm trying to understand and get to know better who I might be able to learn from. I think the key component at the most basic level is this. Where is it? I've always said this. When you find yourself not liking where you are, swim in a different pond. I never forget. I'll never forget. You know, I have many people I've worked with in my life who are awesome people. And I don't surround myself with people that are negative energy and people that will suck the life out of you. So they were having trouble in a relationship and they were trying to figure out, you know, what they should do. And I remember saying, listen, if you want to be in it, where are you going to meet this person? Where do you go when you get off of work? What do you do in the weekends? Where are you Spending your time. Where do most single people spend their time? In bars. Right. I mean, it's not a bad place. I've enjoyed many bars in my life. But the point that I'm getting at is what you're looking for might be there, but there's a whole lot more of what you're looking for in other ponds or other lakes. Go expand the circle. Find the circle where people are. If you can't even find the person, start with the right environment.

Yeah, yeah.

And that would be the start. That would be the most basic start. You want to meet smart people, go where people hang out that are smart. I don't know where that is because I'm just a regular guy. But I mean, the key is go learn from other people and it'll be there. It's just. It's a matter of opening your brain to it.

Well, I think that's a great point. I do think. I mean, for the most part, you can almost. Nowadays, with today's technology, you can almost Google. I want to get better at blank. What's a meetup? Right? And at least for me, when I was getting started, I didn't know who I could trust, right? I didn't know, is this mentor good for me? Is this mentor bad for me? Can they. In fact, I've got a handful of folks I just recently started coaching in the last week or so that I met through my live event that we did not long ago transform you. And when we did it.

The young lady comes in and she's sharing what I refer to as kind of a horror story in mentorship done improperly. Right? To me, the mentor is there to give, not necessarily to receive. And they kind of had that kind of backwards.

Now, at the same time, I like you because I am running multiple businesses. I have basically three main priorities in life and everything else has to fit around it. My faith, my family, and the businesses. Right. I got responsibilities in every category of each one of those items. So for me to stop for an hour and to dedicate my hour to a group of people or even one person, there's got to be a meaningful response or a meaningful responsibility there. And one of the things that I've done, and I'm not sure if you've done this as well, but is I test, right, I might give somebody an idea, hey, here's a little homework. Do they. Do you go and do your homework or not? Have you ever tried to utilize that? Because I know you get sought after all the time.

Yeah, 100%. I mean, I Coached a person one time and we were talking and they were eating up all the ideas and it was really great. And I said, okay. I needed to see if they were serious because it was, it was going to take a lot of time and energy. And I said, all right, I want you to get on a plane in the next two weeks, come out here, spend two days, I'll dedicate two full days with you. Here's what we're going to do, here's how it's going to work, and I need you to book it right away. Let me know when your ticket's booked and I'll book the time around it. Like, I opened the schedule, gave them a set time of when we were available, and they did it and they came out and we had an unbelievable two day session. And their life is completely different from that point on. But you know what they chose to do? They chose to get off their rear end and do something about it. And it was very uncomfortable for him. It was not something he had ever done. And I think that you said something that I think is extremely important foundationally to me. And you have the three things of family and business and faith. I would only add my health because in my life I've had to focus at different times where I've not been giving it all that I needed. And I call that my four quadrants. It's work, wealth, it's family and relationships. And on the bottom, the foundation to all of it is without a healthy me and without a healthy faith of knowing something's bigger than me and God, I've got nothing. And so, so I'm a better. I'm a better human when my spirit is right. I'm a better human when I'm healthy. And I think having those priorities are also a great starting point. A lot of people, these are the easiest things to do. And in the book, I actually go through an exercise called the four quadrants. It's my brain dump. All it is is laying out four categories and then anything on my mind in those areas, I lay it out. I mean, anything I want to do, anything I'm worried about, anything I'm scared about, anything I'm excited about, I write it all down. Anything I said I was going to do that I couldn't do. And then I circle and prioritize the big ones. What am I going to work on in the next six months, year, four months, whatever it may be. And that's allowed me to keep those big things, the priorities and the big rocks still in line. But it's right in, right in line with what you're talking about. Absolutely.

I love it. You know, it's a really cool thing about that is I've discovered that when I get it out of my head and either in front of a mentor, whether it's on a whiteboard, a piece of paper or whatever, but when it comes out of here and onto a piece of paper or some somewhere outside of me, all the fear that was associated with doing that thing, seeing that thing, confronting that thing, is basically gone. The longer it stays up here on that, on that movie wheel replaying through your mind, right. The quicker it is that it. That you stay in that, that place of spiritual suffocation. Right. Emotional disbelief. And I don't know, you know, there was something else that you just mentioned to me that it caused me to have a memory and my audience has heard me say this before. But in the off chance we've got new people joining the show because we do on a regular basis, which we thank God for. I had this one of my first mentors, guy by the name of Steve Meyer, I've talked about a lot on this show before, but one of the things that I witnessed was he had both knees replaced in the late two in the early 2000s. And as a result he ended up going and getting pneumonia because he was already in his 80s when he had his knees replaced. And we didn't know it on the time, but at the time, but he was basically. He would later pass away as a result of this pneumonia and things like that. Well, my father and I go up to the hospital and we're standing over top of him. Now keep in mind my dad is a good man, hard working guy, made a bunch of mistakes early in life, has been working to reconcile it ever since. But one of the things that he's never been super gifted at specifically is handling money and finance and things of that nature.

Right.

I say all that to say because my dad went to go dote over top of Steve and say, tell Steve about all the millions of dollars he made, all the communities he'd built, all the people he'd helped. Bragging. Not bragging, but kind of like, look at this amazing life you've lived. Steve not really having a firm understanding of what Steve sacrificed to get there. But, but more importantly, I'll never forget this, Steve took the mask off his face and set it to the side. He goes, what good is a million dollars when I don't have any health? And he put the mask back on his face and he Turned his head back over and just laid there and breathed as the fog kind of. It's always stuck with me. Like, it is so vivid in my head. It's part of the reason why I have to at least start my day with some level of physical activity every day. That's also my reflection time that we talked about at the beginning of the show. But I feel like people get lost in the pursuit of wealth. As someone who manages a lot of wealth for a lot of different folks and a lot of different venues and capacities, how is wealth an actual illusion in most cases?

Yeah. So, first of all, I love that there's an old saying that says a man with. Let's see. A man with his health has a thousand wishes. A man without his health has only one. And so they. They only have one. To get better. To get better. It's amazing, right? And so that is the first thing. The second thing is wealth is an illusion because it's empty. Chasing money is empty. Zig Ziglar said that there's. There's three things to a successful entrepreneur or business owner. Number one, and. And it's always. It always stemmed from this came from a conversation of someone who was direct working with Zig and in a mentorship position. So it ties in the mentorship conversation perfectly. And the guy said, look, I feel like I'm always chasing money. I'm just constantly chasing money, and I got to pay the bills, then I got to pay the employees, and I just feel this pressure to always produce. And I'm chasing. And Zig says, as long as you're chasing money, you'll never catch it. If you change your mindset and you do these three things, life will change for you and money will chase you. Number one is you have to serve people. You have to help people. That's. Any business that doesn't help people is very difficult. What does it help them do? That's up to the business. But helping people is fundamental. Number two is big for this latest generation because they oftentimes come out and they just want to give back right out of the gate. But you got to turn a profit. If you don't turn a profit, you don't stay in business. So if you're helping people and you're turning a profit, that's a great thing. But the third is the key component. And he said, you've got to serve a higher purpose. You've got to serve God or a higher spiritual being. At the end of the day, for me, once you realize that someone else is bigger than you that there's a purpose beyond you. It's almost like the cards just lay out. It sounds so simple, but it really is so. So helping people, turning a profit, and serving God were the three things that. That allow you to stay away from money. And when you talk about the wealth illusion, I always go back to the old cartoons. You know, when I was a kid, you had the. The.

They used to describe. Donald Duck would have the Ebenezer Scrooge with the three little ducks. And my little brother would watch this show. And I remember watching Scrooge constantly count his money. And Scrooge, we know from the old Dickens tale, was the emptiest human in the world. And except until he finally accepted that money couldn't buy him what he really missed the most, which was love and his affection for his family and friends and.

The emptiness that counting and watching money. How many people do you know literally every time you talk and like, dude, my bitcoin, oh, man, my stock portfolio, it is the emptiest thing in the world. Now for someone that doesn't have it at all, it's something they're trying to attain. And it's really hard to take the recipe of success and not make it about money, because I know I did early in my career, and I talk about it in the book, but here's what I know, and this. This will round it out to your story as well, because what a powerful story, being there, laying in the hospital. I've done four eulogies. I've had the honor of doing four eulogies for each of my grandparents. And they're all different people, and they all had different levels of success or failures. But here's the reality. Not once did I stand in front of. In front of the congregation or even the small little chapel because they all had different levels of attendance. Never did I stand in front of that room and deliver a presentation or speech or talk where I talked about all the money they made. Never did I talk about their career, even, you know, what I talked about, their relationships, who they loved, their example, their spiritual journey. You know, I used it as a chance to honor what they thought was most important. Never in my life do I want to pass on and have someone talk about. About success in a. In a financial spectrum. I want them to talk about that. I gave everything I had, I loved as hard as I could, and I was someone special in their life that made a difference. That's all we want, all of us.

Yeah. No, it's. That's so good. The. The thought that Keeps coming up in my mind is legacy. So I stand up and have done so in front of, you know, countless people in different venues and on the podcast, YouTube clips, whatever, you know, whatever we're doing, trying to produce content to help the most people. And, you know, I talk about Steve Myrick, I talk about Susan Batts, AKA Mama Wama. I talk about Frank Wisner and these. Even Dave Ramsey and now even Evan. Right. Evan's been very supportive and helped out a lot this last year. And I talk about these people because from my perspective, money is a byproduct of service. If you serve well, it's like the money is a reward. It's like an afterthought. When you pursue money first before anything else, it's like there never is enough. There is no contentment in it.

But in this terminology of legacy, when I mention these people's names, especially ones that have already passed on, their legacy is continuing through me, that now is continuing through the people, hopefully, in which I'm touching and you're touching on a regular basis, I call it a legacy that outlives you. It's kind of like my. It's how it sinks in my heart. How would you define legacy? Because I don't feel like enough people are really pursuing legacy they're pursuing now.

Yep. Well, we can combine. We can. First of all, we can combine them both. So here's. Here's the biggest misconception in my brain is that legacy is something only that we leave behind. Legacy is what we start doing today. So the now of legacy is living it. And that means that you're doing the action steps today that create the steps for someone to leave on something bigger than themselves.

Our children are the perfect example.

Yeah, you're planting a seed and. But you have to keep watering it. You have to keep it. I talk about, you know, look at Freedom Street. Creating a rich life is basically figuring out what rich means to you. What's your value? What's your core principles? What do you value the most? And identifying it. Living a legacy is not waiting until the end of your life to decide that now is the time to change into. Make something that someone can remember. It's living it every day. And then. And then owning your future is what you do when those things are kind of set up and you've taken stock and identified where you want to be and you're heading towards it. But living a legacy, to me is something that I think legacy is a scary word to a lot of people, and they think that it's almost bigger than they are. And it's supposed to be at the end of the day when I'm gone, my boys will laugh about something I said or they might remember something. In fact, part of the reason I do YouTube videos and I put this book out is that at the end, I can die tomorrow. And I know that somebody will be able to know, most importantly my own family, who and how and what was most important to me. And it's out there. And there's so many people I miss today that I sure wish I could watch a YouTube video of just to have a little reminder of them.

Tell me about it. Tell me about it. It's funny now. Now more than ever, has it ever been easier. You know, I teach this concept called the mentorship matrix. So peer to peer mentors. So people like you and I bouncing ideas off each other. The aspirational mentor. People in whom I want to be like historical mentors, people that have passed on but left their work behind them. And then, you know, the digital mentor, which is the mentor, if you're, you know that you're like, now this will become a piece of digital mentorship.

Right.

And I'm in awe. I mean, I would give anything to have some video content of my grandfather, of Steve Myrick. Like, it's hard for me, even when I tell the stories. Like, I'm trying to bring people into stories by trying to sound like him and waddle like him when I'm doing a presentation or whatever, you know, but there's. There's people, certain people just have a countenance about them.

Yeah.

And I feel like the countenance is earned over time by doing integrity. Well. Right. Being the same person in the light and that you are, you know, consistently whether people are looking or not looking. Right. You know, you. One of the quotes that you highlighted in the book in Freedom street is this one by Winston Churchill. I went ahead and jotted it down to make sure I didn't screw it up, because I can't. I can't mess around. Winston Churchill, right?

Yeah. I love it.

We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.

I get the chills every day.

That's a profound quote. And to see it in your book, man, I was like, okay, yeah, this dude's onto something. Like, break it down for us.

Yeah. You know what? I think that's the secret to life at the end of the day, you know, everybody thinks so many people at least think that the recipe is going after what you want and Taking it, it's the exact opposite. It's being the authentic version of who you are and giving it. And who you are is exactly who you're supposed to be. And how you deliver your own message is exactly how the message is supposed to be out there. And, you know, ultimately, what we give and what we leave is the biggest part of ourselves. And giving is selfish. Giving is selfish. It's the best feeling in the world. Every single year, we do, my kids and I and my wife, all of us, we go and we deliver food to people that I've been given through different boards that I'm on that don't have food for Christmas or the holidays. Right.

It's.

It's not something that I do because I'm a good guy. It's not something I do so I can tell other people I do it. You know why I do it? Because my kids have gone in and there's been all kinds of scenarios. Scenarios where we walk into a house in the roughest neighborhood they've ever seen, and there's a big screen TV and there's an Xbox and there's all these things. Then we walk out and they're like, dad, how come they don't have food, but they have this? And I get to explain that. A giving is about us giving to them, and second, it's about giving without expectation. Meaning that once I give it to you, what you choose to do with it is yours. I can't judge what you choose to do with it. It is the hardest thing in the world. Give someone money and watch them waste it and then. And then not feel like, you know, like that's the worst feeling in the world. It really. Especially with our families, you want to really feel something, Give money to someone in your family and try to do so without expectation. It is the hardest thing in the world. But what a great lesson for my kids to learn. And I think when you make a life by what you buy, what you give, you're gaining something that's fulfillment. That emptiness that we talked about. Money by itself is empty. Giving some of that money away, building something bigger than yourself, creating a life for other people is powerful.

So it's not just our haircuts we have in common. We're actually brothers.

That's it. Man from a different mother. That's it.

That's right. I love it. Well, you know, it's crazy. You know, this hour has almost is like super flown blast, right? And I feel bad because we didn't talk as much about the book, but one of the things I've realized we've talked all around stuff that's in the book. But one of the things I like best about this conversation, if you don't have a. If you don't have an idea for where Scott's heart's at and what is actually in that book, then you missed out the whole show and you got to rewatch the whole thing. The reason being is because Freedom street is a framework like I've never seen before in articulating the best way to kind of, and I hate to say this selfishly, but almost have it all, right? Find a level of success financially that gives you a firm footing to stand on. Find a level of significance and meaning to give yourself a strong impact, right? You and I would argue, to create your legacy, right? And legacy starts today, not tomorrow. Dude, I can't thank you enough for, one, coming on the show. Two, for taking the time to actually write Freedom street. Because I know it's going to help a lot of people, hopefully a lot of our listeners, if they're wise, for sure. But where can everybody else find more about you and what you're working on? Because your career is pretty astounding.

Listen, Evan Carmichael and their team has gotten us on the YouTube train. So getting anybody to go check us out on YouTube. I put out videos about this kind of stuff all day, all the time, and we're really trying to build something. And it's just started. So I think that's a great place to get little tidbits of what's in this book. Most importantly, you can go to scottdanner.com and it has a link to the Amazon book. It has some of the ideas we share and we do coaching and consulting just like you and all the other great people. Sometimes it's just about finding somebody that helps drive us to success. And it could be a short spark, but that spark could light something. One of my favorite things, the last thing I'll say, Steven, is this. One plus one equals two in every mathematical equation we've ever seen. My kids from the earliest days knew one plus one equals two. What you learn when you become an entrepreneur and you feel like you have it all is one plus one can equal 10 times. With the right ones. Yes, you got to get the right ones in the room. You have the right ones on a podcast. It's a 10 times value podcast like we just did today because it was awesome. That's so cool.

So much truth to that.

You and I. Something. Something tells me we're gonna have a Part two, a part three, and a part four. At some point in time, one of the things that just dawned on me is like, so I've been trying to help the community now at scale for over seven years. Most people don't know that. Right. They've just recently started seeing me about a year, year and a half ago with everything from podcasting to YouTube to social and Instagram and Facebook. And I'm still learning the live versus the real versus the story versus this, versus that.

But I'm a big believer that your work makes room for you.

Right.

So if you're serving me serving well for the last six or seven years that no one knew anything about, I think made the way for now and today and the relationships. You just mentioned that 10x multiplier.

Right.

It comes as a result of proving yourself along the way, not to anybody else other to yourself and maybe your creator. But it seems like that's when the doors kind of open up, because in the last year and a half, we really started getting a lot of traction because of key relationships that believe in us when we're trying to. They just see we're making an honest difference. Evan has been one of those people that has been behind the scenes cheering us and coaching us a little bit here, there, and stuff like that. If you've got Evan in your corner, the great things are ahead, because Evan doesn't support people who don't generally care. He just doesn't do it. He just doesn't do it. So, dude, man, everybody go check out.

This is awesome.

Yeah, absolutely. Check out Freedom Street. Scott, got to have you back on, and sometime in the near future, man, I'm in anytime.

Thank you so much for the conversation. And this was the. One of the easiest we've ever done, so I'm in for 2, 3, 4. Whatever you want to do, man.

Rock on. All right, brother, we'll take care. See you.

Thanks for having me, buddy.

Bye.

Bye. Bye.

If you love that interview, go ahead and check out this next one right here. You know, first step in any change is awareness. So I do think it's possible. It's just you have to have the.

Awareness, and then you have to have the discipline to make different decisions.