Stephen Scoggins' Story | Journey Principles Podcast 008

Welcome to the Journey Principles, where we show you how to go from stuck to unstoppable with life strategies that work. Now here's your host and creator of the Transform youm Framework, Stephen Scoggins.

Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Journey Principles. If this is your first time listening, we help you go from stuck to unstoppable in every single area of your life. And it's all about life mastery made simple. I am not your main host. I am your co host, Connor Kraft, joined here by our main host, Steven Scoggins.

Hey, buddy.

We kind of did a fliparoo today because today the topic of the podcast is we're going to dive into Stephen's story. So I'm going to be interviewing Stephen. We're kind of just going to start with. I mean, obviously everyone knows where you're at now. So you're running the Journey Principles Institute along with, I believe, five other companies you multimillionaire, extremely successful. I know it's not all about the money, but you are.

But it wasn't always that way, right?

Oh, not even close. You know, when you asked me if I would be willing to share my story on air, I was kind of hesitant at first because there's been so much. To be honest. I had someone not too long ago. I was actually talking to a guy by the name of John Acuff. I was at a live event about four years ago and I was getting ready to decide whether or not to write my first book, the Journey Principles. And he came up to me and we were supposed to have a coaching session. He was supposed to coach me. He was part of the Dave Ramsey organization at the time, or Ramsey Solutions. And I remember, I'll never forget this because I just wanted to know if I should write the book or not because I had multiple people come to me and say, hey, you should totally write a book about your life. Da, da, da, da. I'm like, I don't know. I'm not really an author, not really a speaker. I don't know. I'm a construction guy. So kind of got lost there and sat down with him. And I'll never forget this because we sat down, he got there like 15 minutes late.

But when he got there, I said, well, my question is, should I write a book? People have been telling me I should write a book. And he proceeds to tell me. He said, well, authorship's not for everybody. It's a lot of hard work. It's about a two year process.

But just before we do that, before I just say no. Or you shouldn't write a book. Let me hear what are one of the stories that you would share? And I shared with him one of the stories of my life that happened that had to do with me trying to join the Navy and become a SEAL and how that didn't work out and how I almost took my life and some other things. And literally he got up 45 minutes later, late for his next appointment by 25 plus minutes, slapped the wall and just walked up, ran out the door saying, you should totally write the book. So that's.

I love that story.

Yeah. So I share that because one of the things that happened.

Was I feel like I've lived nine or 10 lives. Right.

Like a cat.

Yeah, I'm just like a catty. No, but in all seriousness, I mean, I. I feel like I've lived a lot of lives. So I, I still remember the young man who grew up in a difficult circ, in somewhat difficult circumstances. And now, now I remember three years ago when I had to put one of my businesses back together kind of like overnight. So I've had so much happen sometimes it's hard for me to start.

You've lived multiple seasons.

Yes, I have. But here's what I've learned from that. One of the things I've learned from that is it's prepped me to help the most people because of all the different experiences I have experienced.

Well, I mean, I guess if you've been through a lot of crap and you've overcome it, then you are very well equipped to help other people overcome the same crap. So in a way, if your goal is to help people one day, then the best thing you can do is really go through a lot of crap, right?

Yeah. But I didn't know that starting off. So I grew up and really still in North Carolina. I was born at Wake Medit, 1976. Yeah, I'm 44 years old. I know I don't look like it. I'm just kidding.

Grew up at Wake Med, mother and father for all intents and purposes. From my childhood photos, I mean, it looks like I had a pretty good life until about the age of three. We relocated to Denver, Colorado before my parents.

I didn't even know you lived in Denver.

Well, I didn't know. I mean, I don't remember much of.

It, but that's like me with California, for example.

Yeah, for three years. Yeah, but you have to California hair though.

Do I? California hair?

Yeah, you totally got the California hair.

I feel I honestly like everyone here in North Carolina Says I have good hair. But I truthfully believe if I went to California or New York or somewhere where there's like a style Mecca, everyone be like, dude, like says the guy.

With a style mecca hairdo. But anyway, you know, no, we lived out in Colorado. And then about the age of three, my parents, unfortunately, I guess whatever challenges they've had started to kind of rear themselves. So my dad, for many, many years, he's been sober for a long, long time, but he struggled with alcohol for the vast majority of my upbringing. Okay. So from the time I was 1 to 13. Now, some of that was due to too much Marine Corps in him. Meaning when you're. He was at Parris Island. Parris island as a gunning sergeant for a long time. There was really not a whole lot to do in Parris island other than hang out with the guys and some other things. And he came from a long line, unfortunately, of alcoholics. From our background on the Skagen side, we had several that struggled with alcohol and control. This was kind of like a generational kind of thing. And, you know, so that he was dealing with that. My mom, who I didn't know at the time, had been substantially in a variety of abusive situations growing up both as a young lady and then later as an adult with, you know, former ex husbands and all kinds of stuff, and seems had seemed to struggle with some identity issues, some self worth issues and some. Anyway, all of that seemed to collide when I was three years old when they decided to get divorced. And occasionally when people divorce, it's a situation where.

People are amicable about it. Well, they weren't right at the time. My mom would tell me a whole lot about my dad's alcoholism and how he was kind of a no good dad.

So your parents basically talked crap about each other to.

Exactly which. And if you think about it, you know, when. When your parents are talking crap about the other parent in front of you, you don't know what to think, I would imagine, Right. You think like somebody's lying, but you're not really sure who. Because no one could be that horrible. Right. Because if they were that horrible, they would. Unfortunately they would probably be in prison or incarcerated or something.

Yeah.

You see what I'm saying?

Well, I mean, that's. I think, I feel like most of the time where there's a he sheds, he said, she said. Especially if there's a level of emotion involved with family, there's gonna be some kind of stretching.

The tr. Reality is, is the truth's always in the Middle, right. So even in business nowadays, or you've seen me do this, if, if there's a conflict to be solved, I try to get everybody in the same room at the same time. So no one has the tendency to manipulate the same thing.

Yeah, that's really smart because like, how is someone gonna completely spend something that the person right next to them says?

It's very difficult for her to. So. But, you know, so that happened when I was about three. My brother was born in Denver, Colorado, Ryan, who I love dearly. You know, we went through a season where we moved back to Raleigh. Like some of this is kind of foggy, but we moved back to Raleigh. And the very next memory that I have of my parents, I actually talk about in the Journey Principles book, specifically where my father, I guess, had been trying to get his weekends with his kids.

My understanding is he hadn't paid his child support in some time and my mother declined to let him come do that or come take us, you know, come take us to do his weekends or whatever. I mean, as a growing up, I can remember him telling me he loved me, like tucking me and Ryan in on weekends, but smelling alcohol on his breath. I mean, I have some pretty profound memories of both of my parents. Some are very, very positive. Some are like hindsight being 2020 were not so positive. And one of the things that we teach here is to accept your story where you're at. And it took some time for me to accept. For me to accept their story based on where they were at, which is something I encourage everybody to do. But in the meantime, very next memory is my dad shows up in a Oldsmobile, an old burnt orange Oldsmobile, two door. I used to like sleep in the back deck of the window, waving at people in the back window, which obviously you can't do now. There's seat belt laws.

You still do that. I mean, you technically can't, but you're not supposed to.

But anyway, I haven't seen it in a long time. It used to be kind of running rampant. But he shows up, he's banging on the door. I remember my mom and him kind of fighting it out at the door, not really thinking much about it. And I remember coming out, Ryan's crying, my little brother, because he's three years younger than I am. And so I was probably 6ish about that time because he was about 3. By the time we finally made it back to this area, we were in a small town outside of Raleigh called Wendell. And he's banging on the door. She's trying not to let him in. I remember being kind of like frozen in place. Like I wasn't sure what was going on. I just saw my little brother. So I went to kind of hug him and kind of in that protective mode. And dad finally gets in the door, holds mom against the wall, and is yelling at us to go get in his car. Like. So I'm a. This is a six year old and a three year old.

I can't even imagine, like, how stressful that was.

Yeah. So we don't.

We're not sure, but dad does.

Oh. And they're screaming at the top of their lungs. I mean, they're, you know, and it was a tough, tough place. I think instinctively I was a little fearful for my mom at the time. Like I said, I never saw him like, raise his hand to her. Nothing like that. I know that my mom growing up had lots of abusive people that unfortunately, that her mother dated my grandmother. And then later in life after my father. Now, I'm not saying there is or is not instances. I just don't know. I never saw it. My dad would definitely say that. No, that's one boundary I wouldn't cross.

But I did like laying hands on her.

Yeah. In fact, I actually watched my dad smack one of my brothers for putting his hands on somebody, like, punch him square in his face.

Dang.

Yeah. So that's, that's, that's Papa Don't Play. Yeah. That came from my grandfather. My grandfather Scoggins, whose nickname, his nickname was Ox, would kind of do that. But anyway, in that moment, we found my brother. I mean, I was kind of maybe instinctively fearful for my mom a little bit, even not really knowing. So he and I got in the car and the very next memory I remember is basically being with my dad for probably a few weeks. And the next memory I have, unfortunately, was probably the one more difficult ones that I struggled with for a long time. We ended up back at my mom's house with my little brother. And somewhere about that time and again, some of this is foggy. These are specific instances. We talked last week about searching your origin story or these are things within my origin story that I had to kind of look at from an objective point of view, almost like on a movie screen to kind of dig into.

But you fast forward. I don't know if it's a week, a month, a year, like it was. We were probably. I would say it was probably maybe a month or two maybe, I guess. But in the, in that moment, we were. I remember being Back at my mom's house. And then I remember it being like a Saturday morning. My grandmother, my nanny, who was my mom's mom, had moved in. I don't know at what point, but she had moved in. She drove an old gray Nova. And I remember her being incredibly encouraging and loving over me. Like incredibly encouraging and loving.

And I remember my mom having like strong situations where she was kind of in and out to me. In and out. Like.

I remember some very interesting concepts. So one of the things was Saturday morning, somebody had. My nanny had made breakfast. I could. You could smell, you know that morning where you smell and you can wake up and you smell coffee and bacon?

Yeah. Yeah, it was the best.

You know, it wasn't a very big house. About a thousand square foot total, three bedroom house.

And I remember waking up smelling it. But on the way down the hallway, you know, I'm like wiping the sleep from my eyes and stuff like that. I was a big fan of Transformers and GI Joe, so I had my GI Joe Transformer.

How old were you at that time?

About six years old.

Okay, so still six?

Yeah. You probably should sit a little closer to the microphone.

Yeah, sorry. You can kind of pick it up when I do that.

I'm have to get you a headset.

I know. Yeah, that's actually probably a good idea.

But anyway. No, so we're sitting there, you know. So I'm walking down the hallway and I remember hearing.

Like through the. One of the doors and it was kind of. I was like weird. Like. And this is so houses built back in the 60s and the 70s. The doors themselves were solid oak.

Right.

If you were to buy a house right now, you're going to have a door that's kind of like made out of particle board that's hollow in the middle.

Yes.

Okay. That's what we have. So they're very thin. They're. They're decorative. They're pretty. They're light, but they're light. You can, you can hear anything.

Is that why. So I've been to some houses just a quick side up because I'm actually curious. I've been to some houses where like they have the huge heavy doors, like usually in more wealthy kind of estates. Like, are those more. Does that just mean that they're solid doors? They don't.

They're solid doors, man. Solid pieces of wood.

But that's cool.

So here's what, here's why this is important. So I can hear this noise through the door. Clearly somebody's having trouble breathing.

Okay.

It just Happens to be my mom's room. And I, I get scared, I run in, I start freaking out to my nanny who's making breakfast. Something's wrong with mommy. Something's wrong with mommy. And she like kind of has like the panic look on her face, like, oh my gosh, what's going on? And.

She gets there because it's a solid door frame because it's built back in the day. My nanny might have been 120 pounds, 110 pounds soaking wet. Like she was thin and, oh, she wasn't frail at the time, but she was definitely thin. Right. So she was trying to help, you know, take her shoulder into the door and couldn't open it. And then so I kind of fessed up and said, well, I can open the door. And she's like, how can you open the door? You're six years old. Yeah.

And so did you pick locks as a six year old?

Yeah, I did.

Holy crap, I did.

So I used to have this thing. I used to want to know what I was getting for Christmas before I actually got for Christmas. Oh, yeah. So my nanny used. My nanny used to hide. My nanny mom at the time used to hide our Christmas gifts in the storage room in the carport of the house. And I used to take a throwing star and a credit card.

Throwing stars too.

Yeah. Well, I was a big ninja fanatic. I used to love ninjas. I was heavily into martial arts. It's actually how I ended up living with my dad for a little while. But I had discovered how to pick the lock and so I always knew what I was getting for Christmas. Long before that, I also used to take a cat's paw and I would take the cat's paw and scratch open the present so it made like the cat would do it so I could see what's going. So this is how. Yeah, I've always been a thinker. Yeah.

But she's like, do whatever you got to do. So I literally had the lock picked in about 10 seconds.

Awesome.

And of course, my mom is laying halfway off the bed.

Clearly very having a hard time breathing. And off to the right hand side, I'll never forget this. There were three medicine bottles. One of them was open and there were pillows all over the floor.

Oh, no.

All right, so I'm a six year old kid. I don't know what that means. All I know is I see sheer terror in my nannies, my grandmother's eyes. Next thing I know, there's ambulances there.

There'S. They're willing her out on a gurney. And then I literally. I don't remember even seeing my mom again for the next several years. Wow. Right? So I didn't, again, I didn't know what was going on at that time. I didn't know how any of this stuff was going to play into my. My upbringing and my future, which is why I've been so passionate about the origin story side. We go through that process. It probably is a couple, couple, three years later, because about the age of nine years old, actually, I was about eight, eight and a half. My grandmother, my nanny, develops cancer, okay. And it started in one location, metastasized all over her body. This is long before they had any kind of real chemotherapy treatments that were really good. Most, in fact, she went through chemotherapy, and that did more damage than I think the cancer itself did. But about that time, for the next six to eight months, my nanny would teach me how to make food for my brother and I. So I learned how to make oatmeal, and I learned how to make hot dogs and macaroni and cheese. And about the time, like I said, I was about seven and a half, eight years old. So I would actually have to pull up a stool or a chair. We used to have these black chairs on swivels to the stove to make this stuff, right? I wasn't tall enough. No short jokes at the moment. Because when I was 14 years old, I was fairly tall. I just didn't grow after that. But that's beside the point, right? But I'd pull the chair up and start trying to make meals. And I would make my nanny tea. Like, I learned how to make iced tea. I learned how to, like, anything that you can make with a pot and boiling water or like scrambled eggs or bacon, stuff like that. Now, I didn't know how to season it. I just know how to make it like eggs, fry it, eat it. Yeah, gotcha. Because Karen gets on me all the time because I make eggs a day. She's like, you never put season.

You still don't season.

I just, you know, it's just one of those situations. But I learned how to dress my little brother. We used to walk. So the school, the elementary school that I went to, and it was an elementary middle school together called Wendell elementary, was two blocks from the house. We walked back and forth to the thing. So. And that was. And that's what I remember for, gosh, another year and a half, two years. And then one of my aunts moved in. Aunt, whatever you want to call it, my nanny's Sister moved in and then she took over trying to help us out and whatnot. And then unfortunately, I remember my nanny disappearing and she went to, I guess at the hospital. And my last memory of seeing her alive, unfortunately, was her with tubes down her throat and all kinds of stuff like that. My nanny. So the person who was raising me.

This is the same nanny who was. Had the look of terror in her face.

So. Yeah. So essentially, while my parents were around earlier, part of my. The very. I have, I only have a few memories. Like I have a memory of my mom calling me from. While she was living in Kentucky in between this time frame from six to nine. Right. I didn't realize at the time that that when she was rolled off in the ambulance, that was a suicide attempt.

So how much between the ages of 0 and 10 did you actually see your biological parents together?

Couple, three years tops.

Wow.

Couple, three years tops.

I saw them individually at different times, like I said, from 6 to 9. My mother was large, from my understanding, largely in Kentucky.

When were they separated?

Oh, they separated when we were about three. Separated, got divorced around.

So between three till like nine. You basically, it was a roller coaster.

For the most part. And then, like I said, I don't have any memories of any bad marital memories at three years old. One to three. I mean, that's a pretty early age. But when my mother had her first suicide attempt, unfortunately, well, not fortunately, unfortunately, I end up, you know, like I said, I end up being raised largely by my grandmother. Now it's interesting because when you go back and you look at origin stories like we talked about last week, my grandmother. Right, my nanny was a fantastic grandmother. Yeah, right. She was a fantastic mother.

Little did I know that I would one day discover that she was not a great mother to my mother. Wow.

She's just great for you.

Yeah. And the reason I think that is, well, because I think I was the do over.

So she had learned lessons.

She had learned, she had learned that. I found out later, found out that my nanny actually struggled with alcohol. Right. So alcohol was a underlying theme of everything that we've been through. But you know, my. When my nanny passes, both of my parents come back into town. Obviously my grandmother who's been raising us, you know, kind of does that. We go through the funeral. I have lots of funeral memories touching my grandmother and like feeling her cold, like just weird stuff that I probably won't get into. But it shook me. And the next thing I was the.

Concept of death for you, difficult for you to wrap your brain because it was.

For me, it was my very first time even knowing what death was or what it could be. Right. When someone says, hey, look, so and so is with God now, or so and so went to heaven, you're like, so how do we get there? I want to go on a trip to heaven, you know, kind of. Yeah.

I remember when I was like, two or three, my mom tells me a lot that when she. When I was like, a young kid, I was 2, 3, maybe 4 years old, and she told me something about, like, I think, like, great aunt or someone who died. I didn't even know who this was. I was too young to really even. But, like, she told me, like, about, like, someone had died. And apparently for the next several months, I, like, would not drop it. Like, I was like, well, what does died? What does dead mean? Like, that sounds like, you know, my.

Mom had to, like, ask the same question. 85.

My mom was like, look, you've got a long time before you got to worry about that. I was like, but, but you could just not be here anymore. Yeah, but.

Yeah, yeah, you know, so that, you know. But, you know, fortunately, I did grow up in church. One of the things my nanny did is she used to put me on it while she didn't go to church often herself. She put me on a church bus from six to nine years old, and I went to a church, and I dedicated my life to God at age eight, if you will, and thinking I knew what that meant, and then got baptized at the local church and all that kind of stuff. But when she passed away, it rocked my world. Like, I actually got held back in the fifth grade because of it, because of the emotional turmoil it took on me.

She would have been about 10.

Yeah, well, it's right at 9, 10 years old. So about the time.

She passed away, it was between the ages of 9 and 10, closer to 10. And then my parents come back into town there. I'm sure they're trying to figure out stuff. My mom and dad still can't stand each other, so that made it interesting. So the phone calls I used to overhear and stuff like that. I felt like they had made it to a place where they could tolerate each other kind of deal. They didn't have the biggest fights and stuff going on. My dad, by that time was in the process of getting remarried, living in Fuqua. And I remember, and this is why you got to be careful with how you let things get positioned. My father knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was a ninja freak, meaning I love ninjas. Anything ninjas. I want an outfit like a ninja. I built my own first set of nunchucks at the age of, like, 9 or 10 years old out of a old curtain rod thing. I knew how to. I actually knew how to use the numb chucks. Like, I actually.

Yeah, if you were that in combat, I mean, it makes sense.

I was heavily.

You went into the SEAL route and you wanted to become a Navy seal.

Well, I didn't think about that, but that's. I guess that's possible for sure.

Well, because. Okay, so my dad's really into the Navy SEAL stuff. Like, he reads all the books and everything, and apparently he says that a lot of them, they. They were raised, like, as young kids, they wanted to be warriors, and they looked at it that way. A lot of Navy SEALs who write books, they're like. I always saw myself as a combatant or something, like. Which is very interesting.

Ye.

But I just thought that was an interesting thing that I realized.

Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there's some truth to that. It was just interesting because when all that happened, one of the greatest mistakes that I've made in my life, unfortunately, that set the tone for a lot of other more difficult conversations, was I agreed to move in with my dad in Fuqua, North Carolina, where my little brother was basically told he was going to live with my mom in Florida. Okay.

Around the same time period.

No, it was the same time period. So it was.

But I decided, basically, your parents, you're gonna split.

Because I was older, and I would be seen in a court of law as being able to make my own decision at, like, 10 or 11 years old, which is crazy. I know it's crazy, but that's how it was.

The court wouldn't even see me as being capable of my own decisions. I bet. At 17.

Yeah. These days, maybe.

Maybe. Maybe it's. Maybe it's the difference in years.

Yeah, I'm sure. I mean, you got to remember rules and laws change all the time. But in this particular instance.

My father had promised me martial arts lessons. Right. And I spent all my upbringing, if you will, wanting to be a ninja and wanting to be a warrior and a fighter, which, large, in part, I still am. I'm very much a warrior at heart. I think you know that.

You know, but when I went through all this stuff, I didn't. I didn't realize that me making a decision to. To live with my dad was gonna crush my brother.

Wow.

Right? My little brother was. Who was three years younger, in fact. For the gosh, I was probably a teenager before my name actually was Steven to him. He used to call me brother. Yeah. And he used to follow me around like a little puppy dog. Wow. And brother this and brother that. And I was his protector. I was his everything, if you would, during that season. And loved him. He loved me. I mean, we were tight, you know, as any two kids would be going through a roundabout, weird situation. A lot of his memories are different from mine because mine happened earlier. So obviously he was. At three years old, I'm seeing this big fight altercation thing at 6. He doesn't remember hardly any of it. Right. And that's where some of the brain conditioning happens. Your brain's still being shaped at that age, you know. But I didn't realize that that was going to set the tone for a very difficult sibling. Not even rivalry, but difficulty. So I remember him not understanding how we had to talk on the phone and how he wouldn't see me for a year because I would go down to Florida once a year, spend the summer with my mom. I didn't know at the time that we had an inheritance that wouldn't be there when I was going to be a teenager. And some other things that kind of got wrapped up in all of this. And then I, you know, then I went from being this, the stupid, stinky kid who. Who literally, my brother and I were forced to dress alike. I know that's. Parents, don't do that to your kids. Please don't. They're not. They're not twins.

Don't make them, like, dress alike.

Don't make them dress alike. They're different people. Let them.

My parents never did that to me.

My mom. My mom used to love that crap.

Well, and also, so I was the oldest and I always had like, the new stuff. And then I always pretty much gave my most of my hand me downs to my brothers.

Well, that makes a lot of sense.

Now my brothers also got some new stuff as well. But, you know, but they wear a lot of my old clothes.

Well, I mean, you know, I'm sure we got there. I mean, I just went. I remember being the kid who was constantly getting bullied and kind of beat up in school from. In my elementary days, too. Then I repeat my second year of fifth grade. I'm living with my father in Fuqua. I meet my stepmother's brother who begins to talk to me about, hey, you're like getting older, maybe you should bathe on a regular basis or something, you know, because when you're 910 years old, you're not thinking about bathing. You're thinking about how many forts you can build and how much romping through the woods you could do. And I just remember him like, he. Like, we used to have this thing where you pin up your legs so you, like, fold your jeans over and roll them up on your ankles, and you would show off your. Whatever, shoes and whatever, and we didn't have a whole lot of money. But, you know, from the time that I moved in with my dad, I began working pretty much every weekend at.

Age, like, 10, 11.

It was like, yeah, I was carrying. I was carrying lumber at 11 years.

Old, for sure, dude.

So I've been working for as long as I can remember.

How big were you at that time?

I mean. What do you mean, how big? I was 11.

Size.

Not too much bigger than I am now.

Just like, how are you caring? Because when I was 11, dude, I was, like, 4ft tall. Like. Yeah. I mean, I was a very slow grower.

I mean, I was small, but I mean, it was. You asked me about work ethic, right? So the one attribute. My dad's. My dad's made a lot of mistakes in his earlier life, just like all of us have, right? And that's where grace comes from, is to finally look at someone. Like you'd look at yourself, right? But one of the greatest things he ever gave me was work ethic, Right. My dad had an insane work ethic. Almost. Almost to the extreme, right? So I've had to learn in my old adult years, I have to scale that back a little bit. I'm trying to be more conscientious that. My family also wants to spend time with me.

So this is. I don't want to harp on a bad point here or go anywhere where I'm not supposed to go, but I just. Something interesting popped in my brain.

Sure.

Because you know that for me, the. At least the mental battle that I've faced over the last several years is like, am I working hard enough to actually achieve my goals? The diligence side, I never really doubted my capability so much as, like, am I gonna really get myself to do the things that I need to do? So for me, I put work ethic on a pedestal. This is the ultimate thing that you need for success.

But there are people who have severely good work ethics who still don't end up in the most.

Successful places in life. And I guess I'm just wondering what other.

Properties.

I think I'll get there. I think I'll get there a little Bit further in the story for sure. I think I can answer that question because what you just asked kind of popped in my head as you were asking. Yeah, yeah. So I went to work with my dad building houses, essentially carrying lumber. Carrying lumber led to putting things together with a nail gun. A lot of early on it was a lot of horse play and carrying lumber. Right. So I would carry lumber for a while and then I would go hide in the polder john. So I didn't have to work or I would.

Alright, good to know that you had some of that because I had that too. I would like sleep on the couch, not go to school.

No, but I mean my body even now wakes me up at 5am because that's what we used to wake up at 5, 6am every day. I mean, and that was my life for a long time. So if I wasn't in school and it was a weekend, a holiday or something like that, I was at work right. Now. My brother had the typical childhood in that when there was school vacation, there was school vacation.

So he got to have fun.

Yeah. And I didn't do that.

Wow.

I don't know that. If you think back to me even making meals and stuff like that for my little brother at like 6 and 7 years old and all this kind of stuff, I don't know that I've really ever had a childhood, like a true childhood. I've always been forced to be a little bit more on the adult side than the child side. And I don't know if that's good, bad or indifferent.

It's interesting because when I first came and met you, literally the first night I ever met you, I said something like that to you. But then I quickly had to take it back because I realized that you really didn't get a childhood. Like I felt like I didn't because I didn't really fit in with most people my age. I was very much like a more mature soul. Like I could get along with the adults that my mom would bring over for party night better than I could. Going to school and having my peers like me. I always had adults like me. I always wasn't as easily accepted by my peers. So I told that to you as well. I was like. I was like, I feel like I didn't get a childhood. Then I heard your story.

Yeah, I'm going into more depth than you.

I was like, I kind of feel bad now because I did have a good childhood. I just.

Yeah, it's all good. No, I mean it's. And then. But When I went to go work for my dad, I got to meet Steve Myrick for the first time. My very first encounter with Steve Myrick was I was probably 12 or 13 years old. I was still kind of young, still very immature, very green.

But when I met him, one of the things that he did is I just, I figured out his name was Steve. I didn't know he was my dad's boss at the time. Said, oh, my name's Steven too. And from that moment on, I don't know if it was the light he saw in my eyes or whatever he used to. He would come, he would come around the block and he would pull me down off my dad's framing crew. My dad didn't care because obviously he respected Steve. Steve was like a father figure to him. Just like he kind of played that role to me and would literally 11, 12, 13, like 12, 13 years old riding around this car and he's talking about flipping real estate and avoiding alcohol and bad relationships and manipulation versus so.

He would just take you right around the block and tell you good stories about.

And at that age, the only thing I was thinking about was it's hot outside. He has an air conditioned car. I'm going to ride around in this car for as long as this old guy will let me ride around and.

I don't have to carry the crazy lumber and all that stuff.

So they're, you know, and. But by the time I was 16 years old, I was working with my dad running framing crews. My dad would go get lumber.

What's a framing crew?

A framing crew is the people that actually build the sticks portion of the house. So they're the ones that cut the wood.

Okay. So they do the actual foundation.

Foundation is before. Yeah, it's way before. Yeah.

It's a shame that I work in construction.

Apparently I have a lot more to teach Connor. But yeah, so, you know, 16, 17 years old, I'm, you know, dad's, my dad's putting me at the end of one wall and I'm beating his top paid guys and so I get raises and stuff like that. And that's, I think that's where I started seeing that if I worked really hard, I'd get a reward. So then I just worked harder. Right.

Accurate.

And then, you know, like I said, so, you know, by the time I was 13 years old, we either got the clothing that we were given or you had to start by, you had to work and buy your own stuff. Because I was already working on summers, you know, I would buy GI Joes. And was it, I think it was called Silver Star, some kind of little thing cartoon back in the day. But anyway, by the time I was 13, I was like, hey, I want a pair of Air Jordans. My dad's like, you're crazy. I'm not spending, get this $50 on a pair of Air Jordans. Now they're like a thousand in some cases.

Yeah, I was about to say like, well, I was expecting you to say at least like 2, 300 bucks.

My son Justin actually has these same pair of Air Jordans that I have that I had at 13 years old. The only difference with mine were black and his are blue and his blue ones are worth like a thousand bucks, which I'm like, that is just stupid. But anyway. But if I want to clothe them, whatever, I mean, I had to buy it myself. But my, my stepmother's brother taught me how to dress. And so I went from being the beat up bullied kid to all of a sudden being the cool kid in a new school, getting lots of attention by girls. I have never experienced that before, all that kind of stuff. And then unfortunately, this is something I found that's true. Every bullied person will one day make a decision and fall for the ability to be a bully themselves.

What I mean by that is I became the bully.

I found the weak kid, the stinky kid, the impoverished kid and whatever. And I picked on him. I mean, at certain points I even flat out bullied people. And I'll never forget this side note. Several. Obviously a decade later when I became a speaker, I went to a high school and was invited there to talk about bullying specifically. And I don't know what it was, but I invited a bully to come up on stage and basically repent of being a bully to the, to the person he was bullying.

That's pretty cool.

And they both got rewarded. It was really, really cool down, down in Georgia. But at any rate.

My dad start develops his own company with my mom stepmother's father and then they do really well. And then we moved to this, back to the big city, literally two miles from where I was born from Wake Med. And all of a sudden we went from not having enough to having more than more than enough. Or at least it appeared like that on the surface, like if I still had to work for my own clothing and stuff like that. But we had a really nice two story house. Everything before that had been trailer park trailers, literally in the middle of a cow pasture. My stepbrother Daryl and I, who is now my Real brother, technically, because he was adopted, which I'm totally down with. I love the guy to death.

Used to play laser tag in the woods and war. He was like a big Rambo guy. He obviously ended up joining the military later and some other stuff like that. But, you know, so I, you know, so there was some, there was some family atmosphere stuff outside of my brother and I, my stepbrother and I really getting into it. He used to get. I was bigger. We used to get into fist fights. My dad's awesome. Your mom sucks. And he was like, you know, your dad sucks, my mom's awesome. You know, that kind of stuff. And that's what a blended family happens a lot of times.

And then, you know, fast forward, you know, we moved back to Raleigh, we're having a great life. And then next thing I know, my dad loses his business.

Turns out you have to pay taxes, so you can't just go buy all the toys. I remember this one Christmas we had where we literally. It's almost like they came to us and whatever you want this year for Christmas, we're getting it right. So I wanted a solo flex, which was a workout machine at the time, which was. I guess they kind of repurpose as a Bowflex, but it was a different machine. So I got a, I got one of those for Christmas. We got all that. We had all the video games we wanted. Like, it was Nintendo, like, you know, Nintendo Super Nintendo, I think it was at the time. You know, I was in and out of playing football and sports, still girls and like cheesiness. And then we slowly proceeded my this. My parents slowly started having financial trouble. Obviously that led to my dad losing his business, that led to them getting a divorce, that led to.

Us being foreclosed on. And the one regret my father would say today, the one regret my father would tell you today is that he wish he had sold the house rather than the bank come to take it. Because. And here's the reason it is because the bank always lies.

The bank always lies.

They'll say, well, we know, we'll give you time, we'll give you space. He had written paperwork from them saying that they were going to give them time and space and all this kind of stuff. And what they did was they sucked the equity out of the house and then they foreclosed on the house.

Yep.

So. And that's exactly what happened. So the next thing you know, we get a foreclosure notice, we have one week to get out, have no place to go. So we moved in briefly with my, with my grandparents, Skagen on the Skagen side. And then Steve Myrick came to. Came to the rescue in a mobile home park. We were back in a single wide trailer, old beat up one that he had. But it was, you know, so obviously around the time of 17 years old, my junior year, high school, had just broken up with my first, my first real love. Seriously, she was my first real love. Every other girl was just like, you know, it's girl, you date kind of thing. Yeah. But at the same time, my dad had pulled something in his back, couldn't work. Next thing you know, we're. Our financial condition that wasn't great to begin with is now worse.

My dad, my father was having to spend all of his money to rent car, to actually go to a car rental place, rent a car for the weekend.

This is after the tax stuff.

This is after the tax stuff. Just so we could actually. He could go to the grocery store, get food, stuff like that. So my dad has always been an incredibly hard worker. Right. He's always been committed.

Where I think his struggle was is he never had the mentorship to change his financial perspective on the future. And this will come back a little bit.

So he was hard working, but he didn't have the right strategies in place to deploy that hard work against. So would it be accurate to say he didn't work smart?

I think there's more to it than that. So I think it's. I don't know if it was an intention of not working smart. It was more of an intention of delayed gratification. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna use my example. My dad is an awesome guy. Love my dad. Okay. Like, he's, he's had an enormous amount of healing. Been sober for many, many, many, many years. Fantastic grandfather. When I was playing adult hockey at, like early late 30s, he was like staying up till midnight, coming to watch every game. Right. So my dad is. My dad.

I love your dad.

Yeah. My dad is coming a long way. But in this particular season, like we've talked about before.

Delayed gratification, if it's not obtained, okay. If you don't do delayed gratification, you are doing nothing but hurting yourself. Because if you don't work towards delayed gratification, you can never, ever build a foundation for a future.

My dad's approach to money was I earned it, I worked hard. And he did right in both instances. So he deserved to spend it. One of the very first things that I've shared before that Steve Meyrick taught Me is the difference between a rich man and a poor man is the way they think. A poor man spends all he has. You see the commonality. A rich man invests for a brighter future. Period. Okay, so during the season, we're struggling, like I said, at another level of.

Difficulty. Dad has no Credit. I'm clearly 17, so technically, my credit stuff hasn't even started yet, you know? So I go to work for Waste Industries, drop out of high school, Literally walk in and drop out of high school myself. I didn't check with anybody. Just walked in and did it. Got my transcripts, left the building.

Oh, that's funny. I also dropped out of high school. I don't even think I showed up, though. I think I just literally was like, I'm not going anymore.

Yeah, Well, I actually had time to go into the office.

I did online school. I just didn't finish the online school because I liked doing the business stuff more. So I just.

I mean. So, I mean, that was it. I mean, I've. It seemed like, you know, some people say that everything he touches turns to gold.

Oh, I've heard that.

Yeah.

Midas touch.

Well, everything that unfortunately, I touched during. From the time my parents got divorced to that to really much later turn to crap. Right. I always started out with the best of intentions. I always started out with the best ways to try to move forward. And every single time, it was crap. It was just horrible. Okay. I go to work, I start making money, I buy. I buy a car at a buy here, pay here a lot. For those of you guys don't know what that is. A typical person go to a dealership, and they'll get a loan for a car, which I don't recommend doing, by the way, because they. They. I'll do a whole nother show on buying cars. I'll tell you what, we'll do that just for fun. Yeah, I could totally do that, because I can teach a whole lesson on that, because that's.

But a buy here will pay here a lot.

I'll teach you what not to do. I've had a big lesson with cars recently, too.

Yeah. So, you know. But a buy here, pay here lot is you make the payment to that person. What you don't know is they buy that car for what they make you give your down payment for, Right? So if your down payment's a thousand dollars, I set up a thousand bucks. That's what the guy had in the car. So there's literally no risk to them whether or not you pay your bills or not because they can just repossess the car and then they get to resell it again. So anyway, so I get the family car. It was an old Honda CRX2 seater.

I'm half adulting, half kidding, meaning I went and got a speaker out of the back of a normal in house stereo. Put that in the back of the car so I can have a bump in system. And I've done all the stupid stuff too.

Put an in house, like a home stereo system in the back of your car.

Yeah, I don't even know you could do that. You have to get very creative, a lot of wiring. So anyway, so, you know, so I go through that, I go through that process, but then I start, I mean, I started to become pretty successful. I had the same experience I had on the construction crew where someone notices how hard I work and then they give me an opportunity, and they give me an opportunity. They give me an opportunity. So by the time I was probably 18 and a half, 19 years old, they had put me in something called a roll off because I started there by delivering trash cans. Put me on something called a rollout, which is the big trucks that carry the big box. There's one big box that they let load off and on the truck, right, it's called Rohloff, it's a roll off truck. And end up, next thing you know, doing really well. Ended up buying my own mobile home because I thought that's what my life was going to be like. So I bought my mobile home, I put it in the same trailer park that we were living in. I thought I was hot stuff because I've got my own place, I've got my own car. Right. Things are going well. I started to develop credit, I start getting a Sears card and start buying stuff on credit and, and all this kind of stuff and oh, I can make the monthly payment, I'll just handle that later, you know, kind of deal, that whole get it now, pay later. Remember, delayed gratification is a common theme here and.

Or in your case, instant gratification.

Well, it was instant gratification is what got you, which is what gets you in trouble. Right. Delayed gratification builds a future.

But that's what you were doing when you had the Sears card was instant gratification, right?

Yeah. I mean, you know, I was buying clothes because I wanted to look good, I wanted to buy cologne because I didn't, you know, all this, all these things I'd never had before. Right, right. And because it was reliant on me, I started having Confidence because it relied on me.

Well, now you have credit. You have some momentum. You're making more money than you've ever made.

And I start dating people and dating girls, and then that doesn't help. Well, I mean, it was. It was okay for a while. I mean, I wasn't getting myself in a whole lot of trouble. I mean, because I was working so much. Right. So one of the things that working a lot does, it keeps you out of trouble because that's true. You got no time. You're sleeping and eating right. You fast forward another six months, that company buys another company. And then I get this jerk of a boss that comes in because this acquisition forced the former CEO to become our boss. And he's harping on me when my. My supervisor is literally upstairs and sleeping in his car because he went out. Well, he had a van. And he'd go upstairs and sleep in his van because he'd party the night before and he's like on the second.

Story of a building.

It was a two, two story building, so parking lots on the first. On the second story. And then it has a lot. I can take you there one, one day.

Makes sense.

Anyway, long story short, I was pitching to do. Yeah, I'm 19 years old. I'm doing the work of a like a 30, 40 year old adult. Like I'm. I'm literally running this area of the company. That's awesome. I had, I had a guy.

You were employed at this point.

I was employed with Waste Industries and have it a guy by the name of Hurley Red, another one of my mentors. He actually got the guys who were double my age to follow me and trust me because of the way I thought.

So was it that like you had like a better.

Mind, like a better thinking mind, or was it like your work ethic or a combination of both? Like what. Why did they choose to put you at that age?

It's hard for me to say what their opinion was, but essentially I've always had a unique way of thinking about things. And that's something I believe that God has put in me. Now, that same thinking platform also got me in a lot of trouble because I didn't know how to aim it. So that being said, new guy comes in, I can't stand him. And then literally he challenges me one day and I'm a pretty stubborn person.

You cross me once too many times, I will. Literally.

You really need to see right in front of you the fact of. Here's why we need to do this. You don't Want to do this, but here's what we need to do. And I'm the same way. I need to see it.

Well, this guy was a horrible. I mean, he was a. I wasn't the only one. Like, he was a horrible boss. Yeah, like, he was a. He was a definition of a boss. Like, he was not a.

He wasn't a leader. He was a boss.

Right. Yeah. Right. So anyway, he was. Yeah. And he was always anxious, kind of a doofus. And anyway, long story short, fast forward, I end up walking out on that building or that business. And what, what, what, what do you go to when. When everything else is falling apart? You go back to what you know. So I basically go back to construction. Right. So I get back with Steve. Steve gives me an opportunity to start my siding company for him. Because Steve, as a home builder, would own every facet of building the house. So he owned a plumbing company, owned a H vac company, owned electrical company. He owned a painting company and interior trim company. Like, he owned every piece, which is how he was able to compete with national home builders. Even though he wasn't a national home builder. He was a smart, smart dude.

He earned his entire supply chain infrastructure base.

That's exactly what he did. It's what they would refer to nowadays as vertical integration. So I didn't know that at time, but I'm not, you know, I'm like 19 years old. I'm not like what Apple does with.

Owning their own hardware and all that.

Kind of, kind of, you know. So we go through this process and I'm, you know, I got to work for him. And he puts. He basically puts me in the business. He buys me all the tools and equipment, and I proceed to go to work. And then I start doing really well financially. Right? Because I got a bonus every time I've completed a certain project in a certain time frame. It's stuff like that. He taught me about excellence, which I didn't really know much about because I would just rush to get the work done, and then I have to go back and fix a bunch of it. It's a common theme of my life. Unfortunately, my wife would actually say that. Apparently. She says, brick wall ahead, and I'm like, well, I can get there faster. That's her terminology. So we go through that whole process. I go to work for him, do really well financially. Screw my brother Darrell out of a bonus commission because I brought him on the. On the crew to buy a 98 Camaro, which is fresh off the lot. I think I bought the Fourth one they had on the lot.

Yeah.

First time that I had had the opportunity to be a man of character and didn't. How'd that feel at the time? I didn't care at the time. I wanted what I wanted. And you know, and I can tell you that to this day, that relationship is still not healed because of that one thing.

Wow.

So it's better.

But I don't know that my brother would. Would trust me, trust me again. You see what I'm saying? And I'm a very different man.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So anyway, one of the most trustworthy people I could think of. So.

Well, I mean, like I said, so that tells you something else. There's hope for everybody, you know, but he's got, he's got a beautiful family doing. He's doing well. But anyway, start making a bunch of money. What is it? What does a person who's never managed money do you that starts making a bunch of money? Well, first of all, they start showing off. They buy the most expensive stuff they can buy to show off all the expensive cologne, all the expensive cars, like all that stuff. And then I meet a young lady at a barbecue restaurant who I thought was in college.

Barbecue girl.

Yeah.

Who God used to humble my butt in a big way. So gave her my credit card.

To do everything from buy tires for her car or whatever, thinking I was going to pay it off anyway. Next thing you know, I'm 70, $80,000 in debt as a 19. Right. At 19 and a half year old kid.

How'd that $80,000 in debt get there?

Well, that's exactly what I'm saying. So half me, half her.

Horrible relationship.

She was struggling with her sexual identity. She went through different relationships of all shapes and sizes. Had a very hard time being faithful.

When I think back. And now that I know now what I didn't know then, I can go back and kind of see how the dots were connecting. And it was just a very toxic relationship. I ended up going into a pretty steep, steady part of depression and end up walking off the framing crew with Steve Myrick.

And this was still so. So Steve Myrick's company. I'm getting confused. What was the company that you were working for at that point?

It was Myrick Construction levels of like I own. So I own custom home exteriors. Okay. Inside of custom home exteriors are four other businesses.

So what was the one you said you said earlier? It was like a gas company.

I can't remember. Trash company. Trash Company Waste Industries.

Was that in Myricks?

No, no, no, that was. I walked out on the trash company and went over to Myrick.

I see. Okay.

So I left this company, went to this.

And this was how long before what we're talking about right now with the barbecue girl?

Oh, gosh, it was.

Six, eight months maybe.

So. So, okay, so at this point, you've left the Waste Industries company. You've gone back to Steve Myrick.

You're back on Steve within a week of leaving Waste Industries. I didn't waste any time.

All right, so at this point, you're at Steve Meyer's company, and then you walk off of that.

Yes, exactly. All right, go through that and then proceed to go through a very, very, very difficult, massive humbling. And that massive humbling took me to the verge of homelessness. And I had a friend of mine that came up, TJ and my cousin David at the time, who were both in the Navy. They were both in different areas at the time. So tj, I think, was down in Texas, working down there in officer school, and my cousin was over in California somewhere in the Navy. Different. Different things. I think TJ was intelligence for a while. I'm not sure what my cousin was doing, but they were both telling me how awesome, how awesome the military was. You know, they're traveling the world and.

I have a friend of the Navy.

Yeah. And, you know, kind of stuff. And they're, you know, they're trying to sell me on how awesome it was. I'm like, well, look, it can't get any worse than I know now. At least I know that I'll get three squares. And by this time, my financial situation is so bad that I had to get my little brother, who's three years younger than me, to take over making my mortgage payments on my single wide mobile home trailer. My mortgage payments were $276.85, and I couldn't make those on a monthly basis. He moved in. I began renting a room for my brother for 50 bucks a month because.

He was paying the mortgage.

He was paying the mortgage. He was. He was either engaged or about to be engaged at the time.

What was he doing for work?

I forgot where he was working, I think. So he was working somewhere and then he began working at Waste Industries for a job. But I got him.

So he had the ability, though, to pay these bills that you did not?

Yeah, I mean, he was, you know, and he's. Yeah, I mean, that's where he was. And I was basically at as low as I could get. And, you know, so then I fought the military, you know, so. But I got evicted out of my own house because I was still dating that girl. My brother couldn't stand her, you know, So I kind of got out of there and then I went to go try to join the military. I spent six or eight months busting my hump. Like I was in the best physical shape I had ever gotten into. As a result of meeting a recruiter and wanting to become a Navy seal. That was my end goal. I'm like, well, if I can become a Navy Seal, that makes all this other crap that I've been through worth it.

So you just worked your butt off. I worked my Navy seal. You got into the best shape of your life.

Dude, I was. I was shredded. Like, I could run miles. I could swim miles. I got to where I could swim a 50 meter pool, like, which is an Olympic pool in the end, with one breath of water, one breath of air, go underwater and swim, which was one of the tests.

Is that like, really impressive? Like, I don't. I don't know.

Yeah, Try to hold your breath for about six minutes. What takes about six minutes to cross. I don't know if I could do it now, but at the time I trained my lungs and stuff to.

Dude, that's.

To kind of do that.

I could only hold my breath for like two minutes. Yeah.

There's a technique that they teach you in order to do that. But when I was doing that, they made me train with a former frogman based out of Raleigh here that was a Marine frogman. And then with visits from a former master chief out of Virginia.

And a frogman for people who don't.

Know, is a Marine diver. Marine diver and frogmen specifically dealt with a lot of demolitions.

Well, they used to call seals frogmen, so I'm a little confused.

Yeah, I don't know.

He wasn't a SEAL or I have.

No idea when they changed the terminology, but Marines were considered frogmen and. And then seals were considered seals.

Got it. So this guy was the Marine equivalent to a seal.

The first guy was. And then the second guy was a. Was an actual former master chief.

That's awesome.

Okay, so these guys are trying to train me. I'm meeting them once or twice a week in the pool up of. In a YMCA off of Strickland Road in Raleigh, North Carolina. You find these guys, the Navy, the recruiter, the recruiter said, here, you want to go do this? That's awesome. Right? Because I think they were trying to prepare me because apparently when I was supposed to go to boot camp in Michigan, and then from Michigan to California to buds. Okay. So that was kind of the, that was the kind of the plan. So they, you know, they began teaching me about basics of scuba diving. They. The scuba diving equivalent that from the Navy at the time was like a strap and a tank. Where in normal scuba diving, recreational scuba diving, you get a bc, which is a big vest that inflates and everything with a whole lot more comfortable. I went through the process of them turning off my air underwater and like all kinds, slapping my mask against my face, all kinds of different things to kind of get me to quit.

And I wouldn't. So the day finally comes where in order for me to kind of have any chance of success, I needed to officially ship out. And I had to go to a place called MEPs, which is the Military Enlistment Processing Center. Okay. And it's still off of Capitol Boulevard right now, today, behind what used to be Perkins Restaurant, now is like a pawn shop. And at the corner of Highway 40 and 440 where the. I'm sorry, Highway 1 and 440, where there's an eight lane bridge and overpass there. And I go in. I'm not thinking anything about it because when you go into MEPs, there's all these different people who are enlisting in different branches of the military. It's where you get your shots. It's where you get your. It's where they kind of align you. And you're allowed to bring a duffel bag with like one change of clothes and like a Walkman. Yes, a Walkman. I know some of you younger people don't know what that is. It's a device. You still have a CD in it and headphones.

It's a primitive MP3 player.

It's a very primitive MP3 player. And. But if you go even more primitive, it's actually a cassette. So we go through that whole process.

And by the way, half of the audience is like this kid, because I said that because there's a lot of people who know what a walk there.

Yeah, I'm just, I'm just messing around. But yeah, so then I, then I go through something pretty incredible. I, I walk in with all high expectations and hopes and finally think my life is finally coming together. And I'd been talking to Susan Batts off and on, and she was excited for me because she was very, very mad that I dropped out of high school. Very mad. And, you know, I kind of got, got going there. And then the next thing I know, I'm I'm sitting in there with somebody and one of the. One of the Navy guys comes up and calls me about my last name. Hey, Scoggins, come over here. And I go to over and he says, grab your bag, right? So I grabbed my little duffel bag and I hadn't been there probably half hour or something like that. And he pulls me back to a back room and he pretends that. He proceeds to tell me that I'm not going to be allowed to enlist. Which is weird because in that particular season in the economy, anyone, almost anyone, could get into the military. Meaning it was a safe bet for anyone out of high school or to go to join the military. And depending on times of war, depending on not times of war, stuff like that, it's easier, harder. I didn't qualify because I. I didn't qualify for any of their free money and their free tuitions and stuff like that because I didn't graduate high school. So by that time, I had got my GED because that was a requirement. But he proceeded to tell me that I had two things against me. The first thing is I had scoliosis atop my neck. It turns out I would actually be a full inch taller. Taller. Taller. Not taller, taller. If the top of my neck was actually straight, which would be kind of nice. I could be 56 instead of 54 and some change.

So I went through that, and then he said, hey, and also, your ASVAB score is not high enough. I'm like, well, what do you mean by that? He goes, well, if you had graduated high school, your ASVAB score benchmark would be here. And because you got a ged, you're required to have it higher than that. So. Because I don't know why that was, but that was something that was going on at the time. And so essentially at the end of the. I mean, there was nothing left that I could do. They just said, you know, it's not going to work out. So it's almost like somebody had taken the rug out from under me, like, for like the 19th time in my life. You know, my grandmother rug, my mother rug, my dad rug, working too much or working out there, dropping out of school rug. Like, I had. I had literally had no security whatsoever. And I began to feel like everything around me was a failure. I began to feel like the ultimate failure, right? I mean, I remember actually having this thought while I was trying to walk out of the building. And that thought was, hey, man, you know, it's. You couldn't even join the military, right? And at the time, you have to understand the season, it's more difficult now. They're a little more selective now. So it was something we couldn't do right in the meantime. So I walk out of the building and next thing you know, I'm. I can't see the swearing, my tears are just overflowing. And I don't know if it was 10 minutes or an hour, but I end up sitting atop a bridge at 440 in Capitol Boulevard on a eight lane high overlooking an eight lane highway. And while I was there on the left hand side, I kept hearing, you know, you're a failure. You'll never matter. You don't matter to anybody. You'll never be enough. You couldn't even join the military. All these different negative things. And I remember, I'll never forget this.

Because when you say you heard these.

Things, it felt like an audible voice.

Was saying these things, were saying these.

Things on my left hand side. And this voice wasn't whispering, it was yelling. Right? You should just end it. Da da da da. So I'll never forget this. I remember taking off my shoes and then sitting atop the rail and it's like an 8 inch tubular rail and I was sitting there, so wrong balance I could have. Or the other. But I'll never forget this either. On the right hand side, it was saying, this is where the entire challenge thought thing comes from. This one instance, the right hand voice was whispering and I'm saying, he's lying. It's not true. You're worth everything. You're worth more than you can imagine.

So there were two conflicting competing voices.

Yeah, the easiest way to explain it was there was a cartoon back in the day, right. That had, you know, the little devil on your shoulder, little angel on your shoulder.

That's exactly that.

That's exactly what was going on.

Got it. So you have this one really loud voice in your head saying, you just need to end it all. You're not gonna make it. You're not gonna be what you wanna be. You might as well just kill yourself now. And then you have the other voice that's much quieter. That's like, he's lying. Yeah, that's not true.

Yeah, got it. And so much so that the voice finally says, well, I tell you what, why don't you call some of your friends and family, they'll tell you how much you matter. I'm like, okay. So I pick out, I go in my duffel bag, I pull out a Nokia 5160 telephone, which is a Prepaid phone, which has been around for a while. Broken screen.

Whoa. You broke a Nokia?

Nokia telephone. The screen was broken.

Aren't those, like, known for being indestructible?

I guess.

Is it a Nokia? I might be roasted alive for this. I need to double check. You go ahead.

Yeah, so he's gonna go look up the word Nokia 5160. So anyway, I broke it. The screen was broken, period. It was a buy. You know, it was one of those prepaid things that my grandmother bought me. My grandmother Scoggins, who was like four foot tall, who I can thank for some of my jeans.

Was it a 3310?

It was a 5160.

Okay, never mind. Yeah, the Nokia 3310 in meme culture is widely known as, like, the most indestructible phone. Supposedly you throw this thing off.

Fun fact.

Fun fact. You can throw this thing off the Empire State Building, and supposedly it'll be find. There are videos about it. Yeah, it's crazy.

So anyway, so we go through this whole process. I'm on top of the rail, and then this voice finally says, hey, call some folks. I pull out the phone and start dialing telephone numbers. First person I call was my father. No answer, no voicemail. Second time, mother. Third time, grandfather. Fourth time, I was calling a family friend or friend. And then the fifth time, because I'll never forget this, on the fifth phone call, the voice that was on my right shoulder had to convince me to make the fifth phone call, because every.

That's the quieter one.

The quieter one, because after the first.

Four, you were like, dude, that's it.

Well, every time that no one would pick up or I would get a voicemail or voicemail, a voice messaging system.

And answering machine would be like, see?

We'll see. Like, I told you so. I told you so. And on the fifth phone call, an old raspy voice picks up, and it's Susan Batts, who is my ex girlfriend's ex high school girlfriend's mother, who had poured mentorship like Steve did to me, taught me a lot of things.

And whatnot. She answered the phone, and she could tell I was distraught. She could tell I was going crazy. Like, not going crazy, but I was a mess. She could clearly hear that I was crying, and she tried to convince me to tell her where I was at. And I was like, no, no, it's good. I just want to tell you I love you and whatever. And she's like, no, no, no, no. Tell me where you're at. I'm coming to get you. I'm like, no, I just want to tell you I love you. No big deal. Da da, da.

Hindsight being 20 20, the powerful part about this part of the story is that was the only person on the face of the planet at that moment that if I gave my word to, I would follow through with it.

The only person out of.

The only person, even out of Steve. Right. Because by that time, I'd walked off of Steve's job site. So I wasn't going to call Steve. I was ashamed of myself. You see what I'm saying?

Yeah. And were you at the bridge at this point?

I was sitting atop the bridge when all this was going on.

Cars rushing.

I can hear that. I can still smell diesel fumes. I can still remember the breath escaping my mouth because it was a little chilly.

And here you are debating on whether or not to take your life. You've made four phone calls. This is your way of saying, okay, maybe I won't, is if someone picks up. You made four phone calls in a row. Nobody's answered.

Yeah. And then Susan answers.

And then Susan answers.

So we go through this entire process of her trying to convince me to tell her where I'm at. I refuse to do that. And then she says, well, promise me you'll call me tomorrow morning at 9am and I'm like.

So she knew.

She knew it. She instinctively knew, as mothers do, because she was a mother figure to me, instinctively knew that something was up and instinctively knew what to say. Now, I later found out that part of that's because I think that she came pretty close herself, right? But then she says, stephen, I'm telling you, I'm telling you right now. And she wasn't. I don't remember her being like a professional, a person of professing faith. In fact, I was there as she was getting ready to pass from here to heaven, where she finally received the repentance that I like to say is important for everybody and whatnot. So I know where she's at now, which is fantastic. But during that season, she was more secular minded than not kind of deal. Which is fine.

But she was convincing. She said. And this is what she said that got me off the bridge. She said, stephen, I want you to repeat this after me. And I'm like, whatever. You know, can you count what she's like, so seriously, repeat this after me. And she goes, this too shall pass, and what comes next will be greater. Right? And she goes, you know, say it. I'm like, no, say it like you mean it. Like, she's like, you're yelling at me. And you remember. So during the live events, we do. One of the things I like to do is I try to teach people how to change your emotional state in 15 seconds. Okay. This is where I learned it from. Not Tony Robbins, really, Because she got me to change my entire emotional state by making me say and yell at the top of my lungs, this, too, shall pass. And what comes next to be greater.

So you discovered the power of physiology and making an emotional state change and your power to do so in that moment. Wow. So you could say that your darkest moment gave you the most powerful thing, powerful tool.

It had the biggest glimmer of hope in the light that I'd seen. Okay, so here's where that's important. For the sake of time, I'll fast forward to a couple different things. So I left the bridge within a week's time. At the bridge, my brother gave me 50 bucks to clean a litter box. I go through the litter box experience, which is my salvation experience, where God actually shows up.

Yeah. I think if we don't already have a keynote on the litter box story up at this time, just stay tuned.

Because that's a really powerful tool.

You're going to do this today, right now.

No, I won't do it today because we don't have time.

That's a powerful tool story. Yeah.

But that is where I actually had the physical presence of God, which is why you can't shake my faith. Even after I spent five years as an atheist. When God physically shows up and shocks you, he gets your attention.

Oh.

Yeah. So, but here's the. Here's the synopsis of what happened. You know, so in this moment, physically, I had this physical encounter with God, which I later discovered was the. Was the whisper on the bridge, which I didn't know at the time. I remember yelling at the ceiling, if you will, to a God I didn't quote, unquote, believed in. God takes my legs out from under me, pins me to the floor, and proceeds to say this. If you will surrender, I will bless you. Essentially, now the litter box stories far greater.

I'd say this is like the most divine moment. You actually.

It's one of three. It was the first one of three. Wow.

I'm sure we'll do a whole podcast.

Yeah.

I've had.

I've had two other divine moments, which is why I believe the way I believe and how strongly I believe it, which is. Which is why I know that. I know that I know that. I know that. It's true, right. I wasn't crazy. I wasn't on drugs. I wasn't in a state of depression because I'd already kind of started finding my way out. Right. But I was still a mess.

Yeah.

Okay.

I finally agree to surrender. I get up off the floor. Within a week's time, I was back on Steve Myrick's framing crew, working for my dad. Okay. I go to. I've worked my first full week in work, been sleeping on the couch and. Couch where? At my dad's place specifically, which was two trailers down from my brother's.

Okay. Why were you not with your brother at that time?

Because he still didn't want to talk to me because of the previous girlfriend. If it wouldn't have been for my dad, I would have stayed homeless after I left the bridge. I see, right. And I left out an entire like homeless area. There was like a two month window where I was basically homeless on a regular basis.

It's pretty important to mention that you don't have to go into it, but.

Yeah, I mean, most people know that I've been homeless before.

But all this point in time, all that's happened already. It's a Friday afternoon. We used to quit it around 2 o'. Clock. So we'd have a long weekend. Steve would bring the paychecks. I was hiding from Steve all week long, meaning he would drive around the block. I would go around the house and hide from him. He'd leave. I'd come back around the house. Well, my father sends me to go clean up a, or go fix a garage door to a house next door. Now this entire time I'm watching a siding company, if you will, or a group of guys doing siding that I think are working for Steve like I work for them. Comes to find out they had bought all the tools and equipment that I used to have. So they're literally, I'm literally watching my first screw up happen on a daily basis all week long. You see what I'm saying? I'm watching people use my trucks, use my equipment, use everything Steve had gotten me. Right. And then overhear them complain about Steve not paying. Well, one thing Steve always did is Steve always paid. If anything, he was too generous.

And he, they were owed probably 10 or 20% of the money that he had left in the house. So there used to be something called a draw schedule. The draw schedule would be, let's say it's $4,000. Okay. A draw schedule at $4,000 would mean there's $4,000 in the house. You could be 50% drawn, which means you would get $2,000. Okay, well, they were overdrawn. Steve didn't owe him anything. And they just basically said, hey, look, I refuse to. I refuse to come to work unless you give me the rest of our money. I overhear that, I get infuriated. It lights a fire inside my belly that I cannot explain to this day. I walk over next door. I see Steve pulling back around the house. These guys had already packed.

Loyalty. It's because you're protective over your mentor, I would imagine.

Well, that's part of it, but more than that, I'll later realize this, but Steve pulls back around the corner. My dad goes, gets our checks. These siding guys have already left for the day. They've already pulled off, and they're not.

Going to finish this.

Well, I mean, I don't know what they're going to do. I just know what they said, right? My dad pulls back up. I'm walking one direction, my dad, like, towards. Towards the. My dad's working towards the crew after he gets the check from Steve. I'm walking towards Steve, and I remember, like, this dumbfound. Look at my dad, like, where are you going? Like, it's like, literally, like. And like, he was getting, like, angrier as I was kind of walking. It came across to me as angry. He could have been just concerned. But I knock on Steve's window. It's like. And he rolls his window down, and, you know, big blast of air comes out. And he's kind of a. Kind of a country guy in that. He goes, what can I do you for? You know? And he said, how's your head now, boy? Kind of thing. I said, well, you know, I'm getting better. And he said, well, that's good to hear. I'm glad, I'm glad. I'm glad. I'm glad to have you back around. I kind of missed you, you know, so, you know, so I kind of felt a brief moment of forgiveness a little bit like, okay, I didn't complete.

This is after you had already walked out.

Oh, I had already, yeah. I mean, I left him totally high and dry and hanging. Right. That just kind of tells you the character of this man.

And I remember him looking. And I just proceeded, hey, look, the guy said this. They're not coming back, and I'd like to take back over for him if they don't come back to work Monday. And he's like, first of all, he laughs at me. He's like, how exactly, how are you planning on doing this? Like, you've been here all of a week, right?

You've been back for a week?

Yeah, I've been back for a week and have. I'm wearing a nail apron. For those of you guys aren't familiar with construction, it's basically like a paper pouches. Set of pouches that hold nails. And you're like, in front of me.

I think I've seen those, right?

Most people have what they call nail pouches, which are made out of leather and they're heavy duty and whatever, right? So that's what I have here now. And so he kind of laughs. He's like, how are you gonna do that? And I said, well, I don't. I don't know. I'll figure it out. If you just, if you'll give me the opportunity, you know, I was thinking, well, maybe you can give me back the ladders and the equipment. I'll just start pick up where I left off. He's like, well, I already sold all that equipment, so I can't give you anything. And I don't know that I would. I said, okay, that's fair. I said, but if. I said, I'll tell you what, if you'll just, if you'll let me, if you'll just give me the chance, I'll figure out the rest.

And he was kind of like taken back, kind of like dumbfounded, like.

So you had no tools and nothing to actually build a house with?

I had no tools, no credit.

And he's like, how are you gonna build a house? You're like, just let me try it. Let me figure it out. I'll figure it out. Just give me the opportunity.

So he agrees to. He basically, with a smile and a handshake. And that was always the terminology we used to use, with a smile and a handshake. He shook my hand and said, I'll tell you what, if they don't come back Monday and don't start by 9 o', clock, I just realized there's a lot of nines in my Life. Start by 9 o', clock, then I'll let you at least finish that house. We'll go from there. And I said, fair enough. He rolls up the window, goes to pull off with his little Jeep Grand Cherokee away. My dad's like walking up to me. You can clearly tell he's pissed, right? He's like, what are you, what are you thinking? You just, like, you just got back on the crew and you're already doing something stupid again. What are you.

So your dad was worried that you were going to like over promise and under deliver and what you're going to do.

There's a lot of truth to that. And I think another thing too is my dad had already remembered. My dad had already experienced a failed business. He didn't want me. No parent wants their children to experience the same failures that they felt. Okay, that's any parent. I have a tendency to understand that's why a lot of parents is. A lot of parents don't want their children to pursue really big stretch goals. It's because they're scared their child won't fail, not realizing that the effort itself will give them the learning lessons they need to do something special. Okay, so he's trying to talk me out of it. And up until this point my dad had been there for me. Not been there for me, been there for me, not been there for me. Been there for like, it's kind of like a ping pong. Like I've never known no security.

I told him about the fire in my belly. I told him I wasn't going to stop, I wasn't going to give up or whatever. And he looks at me, he goes to the old beat up van that he had, opens the door and starts pulling tools out. And he says, I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, I'm getting the tools out. I'm like, why? He's like, well, if you're serious about doing this, do you remember how we used to put on siding and stuff back in the day? I'm like, yeah, because we used to do something called Masonites old crappy siding that they did back in the late early 90s.

He said, what? You know, what do you. He's like, do you remember what the scaffolding was made of? I said, yeah, wood. He said, the pump jacks are made out of. I'm like, yeah, wood. Well, we make the ladders out of wood. He said, okay, start getting trash out of the trash piles. We're gonna start building scaffolding.

So remind me again what scaffolding is.

So scaffolding is the, the material. These, the. That's the best way to explain this. It's the structure. You need to go up vertically to do two story products.

Okay.

So it's like a, it's a, it's a working platform.

Okay. So you didn't have any of that stuff with you, so you went to trash piles.

Yeah, because that stuff was.

And had to build it.

So we built it. Yeah. So Monday Morning rolls around.

And wait, so he actually physically helped you with this?

My dad physically helped me build a scout flank. I see. Okay, Right. So Saturday, Saturday. So that was all day, end of the day Friday, all day. A good, good portion of the day. Saturday took Sunday off. And then at 6am I'm sitting on the curb waiting for these guys to show up on Monday morning with my site built, scaffolding in, laying in between the houses.

You're ready to go? You got it.

I'm ready to go. And.

I'm ready. I'm just ready to go. And six o' clock rolls around. Steve rolls around. I'm like, can I start yet? He's like, it's not 9 o' clock yet. 7 o', clock, can I start yet? Not 9 o' clock yet.

Sounds like something you tell me about, bro. Can we, can we go?

You're like, it's exactly. That's what I'm saying. As you hear this story, you're actually hearing why you and I are so similar. Yeah. Okay. And which is why I'm so in some cases hard on you about specific things is because you have the potential to be much greater than I do. Right. I'm pretty proud about that. So 9 o' clock or 8:57. Something rolls around. I'm like, can I go? He's like, not nine o'. Clock. And I'm like, he pulls back around at 9:01, 9:02. And I'm like, can I go? He said, well, they're not here. What are you waiting for? I'm like, dude, it was three minutes ago you told me to sit still. Right? And then I go to work. And while I'm actually carrying a box of siding.

I hear the words custom home exteriors in my spirit, not necessarily audible. And it said custom home exteriors. And one day I will call you out of this. I'm like.

Wasn'T really sure how to take it, huh? Wasn't really sure what to do. So I just went to work. I did my first four homes by myself and almost five homes by myself. And then I started building piece by piece. There's a, there's a plaque on the wall. Because obviously custom home exteriors became my first of multi million dollar organization that's in like what, three states? It's the flagship.

Basically took you from this point in life to.

Exactly.

Multimillionaire.

So if you, if you, if you think like, so let's go, let's go back. Which is the reason why, like I. The origin story so much bridge this too shall pass. And what comes next will be greater.

So by bridge you mean your bridge, My bridge.

My bridge moment. Which is not a reason why the Journey Principles logo has a bridge. Some see a railroad track.

Yeah.

Okay. Bridge. This too shall cast pass will not come next will be greater. Surrender and I'll bless you. Entities name built from the trash piles. Which just goes to show, no matter what you're facing in life, you can kill. You can actually build something amazing out of your trash piles if you just choose to use it. That's powerful. That's where I learned that resources were not important. Resourcefulness is important. Yeah. What do you have around you that you can use to build? Right.

That's a great question everyone should be asking because I think everyone tends to. I won't say everyone, but I think a lot of the population struggles with that mentality of like.

Well, what?

Like, like that. The, you know, what, what, what, what tools do I have?

Yeah.

Type of thing. So it's like, you know, you're in a situation where you complain about your outside circumstances.

I have entrepreneurs approach me all the time. I need to get a loan. I need capital, I need venture capital. Like, you don't need any of that crap.

You just need to be resourceful with.

What you just gotta get started.

Right. Okay.

You know, start off by getting business cards and handing those jokers out, hey, look, I want to build websites. Go get your first customer.

Just talk to people.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, just go, go get started. So anyway, this taught me some very valuable relations. Custom home exteriors, or che, that we like to affectionately refer to, taught me how to do a lot of different things. First of all, it taught me how to use my hands.

To use my heart, to then use my brain. So Che, some people would have actually had people say this. Custom Home Exteriors is actually a personal development company masquerading as a country construction company. Right, okay, I've been told that several times.

I've noticed that too. You know, I mean, you've seen how I pour it.

You see how I poured into the.

Culture you have here. I mean, we. It's really cool because we have this live event center here where obviously we're working on all the journey principal stuff, but this is also the headquarters as of right now for the exterior.

All business under one roof safety.

Right, Exactly. But what's cool is I've noticed that like, you kind of blend them together when you have new hires. You make it a point to teach them life lessons and things like that, which makes A lot of sense now after hearing your story and what Steve Myrick did for you, you're kind of passing that on to everyone who works for you.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I later found out, you know, Steve Myrick's granddaughter was here not long ago, which she was just, like, blown away. And I was like, your granddad had everything to do with this. That's awesome. Like, everything. And you almost made me cry. I don't know if you saw this or not, but you looked over at her, said, yeah, and that guy right there is my Steve Myrick. So anyway, so, yeah, so, I mean, that was. That was the. That's what got this whole thing started. And then about every five years, I would ask God, I would say, I'd sit down and pray, and I'd like, okay, God, is it time yet? Because he told me he's gonna call me out of it one day, and.

He'S like, no, I've done that. Like, is it my time yet?

Yeah. I mean, Cat was growing, and, you know, I thought it was successful at the time. And then five years go by and I'm like, wow, I really wasn't. I was successful, but I really wasn't as successful as I am now. And that kept happening over and over again.

So here's an interesting question.

Sure.

It was. So then it wasn't like an overnight. Like, all of a sudden, one year you're broke. The next year. It was a very gradual thing. So slow that you might not have even noticed it until you look back and realize where you came from.

Well, here's what I've realized about that. You know, I talked about this a little bit. In order to obtain the blessing that you were actually created to obtain, your character has to be there to support it.

Yeah, you've totally.

And the only way that your character can get there to support it is by going through the process. Going through the various forms of. The various forms of crushing, the various forms of learning, the various forms of development, and eventually you're there.

So is the process, then the process of personal development, Is that the best way to forge your character?

The process. The best way to forge your character and your future come from the seven levels of life mastery. That's where it came from.

The process.

The process is the seven layers, seven levels.

That's actually one of my favorite episodes of the podcast we've done that was episode two, guys, if you haven't checked that out yet.

But you can see that this stuff is very real for me. So everything I teach, I teach From a place of experience I try to teach. From a place of brokenness and humbleness, of how often I screwed certain things up and how much.

More important it is to do it right the first time. So if I can get you started at an earlier date with better information, then by definition you'll be a lot further along than I was at a much earlier date.

As long as I can put in the work.

You know what I'm saying? So. So here's what I want to do. Obviously, a couple years later, God allowed me to create the Journey Principles Institute with my first book. It did really well. That was the book that I mentioned, the John Acuff in a previous episode, you know, kind of insisted that I write.

That came out. That led me to speaking, that led me to doing this, and then that led me to doing that. That led me to Transform youm. That led me to the entire origin story thing that we talked about in the last episode is what built Transform youm. It was that going back to where did I start? Where am I at now? And how. What are the steps in the middle?

So you did that same process that we went through in the last podcast, episode seven, about the origin story.

That's how I built the curriculum.

I see. And you took all that information and there's all your story that we dove into today. And obviously we didn't get through your whole story, but the majority of it at a high level, and you basically just took all the lessons and this is what you were able to create out of that.

So here. And here's what, here's some takeaways. I'm going to go ahead and wrap this up because this is. This has been one of our longer episodes, probably the longest podcast, and I hope you guys have enjoyed it. It's my. It's my true life story. Obviously, I've had a lot of ups and downs, attempted suicides, homelessness, parents that dealt with issues, broken home, all kinds of things. And it just goes to show that no matter what you're facing, no matter what you think is holding you back, no matter where you think you've been, no matter how you view yourself, your significance, your self worth, it does. None of that is. None of that matters. Your future has nothing to do with your past other than your past can teach you something about how to shape your future. Okay, that's it. Okay. So here's the greatest, the greatest mistake I ever made in this, this particular area of my story. The greatest mistake I ever made is forgetting I have enormous value.

If I'd have stayed the homeless kid or jumped off the bridge or given up or not. Not surrendered. Where would I be now? I. How many different lives. How many different lives would have not have been touched? That's why I say all the time, if I can help you, if we can help you, we know that you'll help others. We know that you will fix the bondage and the generational things because it happens by accident.

What's crazy about that really is. I mean, I was in such need of direction myself, you know, I may not have gotten quite to the level or the depth that you did in the sense of, you know, actually being ready to take my own life. I have had those thoughts. I haven't gotten to the point of actually, like, wanting to make an attempt.

I pray you never do.

But I've. But I've had those thoughts of, like, actually being like, you know, that would probably be an easy way out. Like, I've had those. Those thoughts and those kind of. So I almost question, you know, if you had.

Not stuck it out and if you had taken your own life, you know, I never would have met you, and where would I be right now? I don't even know if I'd be here.

That's exactly why.

Just because you took a chance on that one little voice that said, you know what? Maybe there's something here. Just don't give up.

That's right.

That's the most important thing is just don't freaking quit.

That's right. I was asked yesterday on a very large conference call, what's. What's the number one thing that entrepreneurs have to be successful? Without missing a beat, I said, perseverance. Perseverance. It's the same thing in life. The number one thing that you can use to get past any area of your life to become unstoppable is perseverance.

No matter how painful it gets, how bad it looks, your future can be so much brighter.

Just don't freaking quit.

That's it. That's it. Rocky always got back up, no matter how painful the punch was. All right, so let's close with this. I'm going to go this really fast because. Because I feel like we've talked a lot about, but I want to cover a couple of quick things. I learned as part of this process that your purpose is found in your progress. Okay. Your purpose is found in your progress. So what does that mean?

I learned a long time ago there are three specific types of purpose that each of us are called to live out in varying forms I call them the three purposes of life. And we'll do an entire episode and dig into these deep. But in the meantime, number one purpose in life. You've heard me say it before on many, many shows over the last several years, is the greatest purpose in life you'll ever have is serving the person you used to be. Okay? So in order for you to become. To serve the person you used to be, you have to become something more. Right? So that's number one. I'm inviting you to become more.

So this is if you're having a struggle point in your life right now that you need to overcome and you're dealing with these negative thoughts and these. These. This struggle. Yeah, you have to overcome that first. But then you will find if you're looking for purpose right now, once you overcome your own personal hurdles, what he's saying is the most beautiful purpose will supposedly open up. I haven't gotten there yet, but supposedly you get to a point where once you've overcome your own hurdles, you would think, oh, what now? Well, now you can go back and help people who are stuck exactly where you. You are right now, which supposedly is.

Like, the most beautiful. Check this out. So little epiphany for you. You just made a comment about. You haven't really discovered that. That. That. That purpose yet.

Meaning I. I've tasted it.

Okay, so here's the interesting.

Where it's like my whole purpose.

Think about this. When I first learned about that, which was Steve Meyer, which is over 20 years ago, okay. I didn't get those words put in my brain until I had a dream about me shaking hands with my former self. Wow. Okay.

I also didn't know at the time that I was being trained to serve people. Okay, so you're in training, and you're in training, so stick with it.

Yeah.

All right, next two are, we want.

You to be people of impact, not.

Just, oh, hell yeah. Yeah. I'm not.

I'm not all of you to get whatever you want for your life, but we also really want you to go touch other lives.

Yeah. I want compound interest here. I want to invest in people so hard and so fast and so committed and so real, so authentic that they have no choice but to go out and give the world what they learned. That's why I do what I do is because Steve Myrick, Susan Batts, Frank Wiesner, so many more. Dave Ramsey, Chris Locurdo. Gosh, that there's a whole list of people that have poured into me to get me to this place. Just So I could actually help you and help you figure out what to do and where to go and how to get started. All right. The other two service. The other two areas of purpose are serving the person you once or used to love. Okay. So some will go in the medical field because of someone they lost or someone that they love that maybe they're trying to help. The other person is serving the person you could not save. So serving the person you used to be, serving the person you once loved and serving the person you couldn't save. Todd White, who's an evangelist, dreadlock evangelist, somebody whom I admire for his committedness, his entire ministry is built off his best friend who died from a brain aneurysm before he could get to them and actually share the gospel with them. His entire ministry and that dude has changed millions.

Millions of lives.

That's the source of his drive.

That's the source of his drive because.

He lost his friend before he could do something about it.

So if you lost someone that you love, you lost a friend or whatever, if that is part of your DNA and that's part of your pain and that's part of your sorrow, consider pivoting it and using it as a source of your foundation. Right? What is the one thing that that person needed that you could have offered to help that not happen and then take that one thing and change the world with it. Got me. So that's what we're gonna do. Alright, so step one, right? Discover more about yourself. Step two, explore without condemnation yourself. Make sure you got this. Step three, make sure you filter what's there to see, like we talked about with origin story, to make sure you put the good stuff in, take the bad stuff out. And also remember, if you want to leverage your true purpose, as I mentioned before, you're going to have to. Or you may do it in your job, you may do it in your community, you may do it in your home. If you're going to have purpose, those are the areas it's going to happen in. I hope sharing part of my story was impactful. It's my story. Clearly I only share bits and pieces of the story because it is so long and I didn't even go into a great deal of depth without as much of it for sure.

Well, actually that brings up a good point if you want to get a more detailed version of his story. I believe we sell this on the Journey Principles website. But there is a book that he wrote.

First book, yeah, the original Journey Principles.

Which is called the Journey Principles. It's the title of the book.

Yeah. It deals with 10 very specific hurdles that I had to overcome that most people have to overcome.

Absolutely. So if you want to hear more about his story, you could browse through all the other videos that we're going to put out over the next several years. But there's also a great book, there's an audiobook called the Journey Principles by Steven Scoggins, which is essentially your story.

It is my story and everything that I learned. So here's what I've learned.

Every principle that we teach here in that book or anything else offers a promise. Okay. Meaning if you do this, this will happen.

So if you take this action or live within this principle or law or.

Way of living, then this will happen.

You will get this result and that is a promise.

Yes. So here's what I like to say. Every principle has a promise, right? So if you live the principles, you also get to live the promise. If you want to live a life of, for lack of a better word, abundance, commitment, perseverance, joy, happiness, all you got to do is follow the principles.

You have to act within and live out your life within certain guidelines or principles.

Yeah, I mean, you're not. If you plant an apple seed, you're going to get apple tree. You plant an, you plant an orange, an orange seed, you're going to get an orange orchard.

Yeah. You're not going to plant an apple seed and then get something.

So consider the seeds you're planting. Let us give you the seeds that you need to change your life. I'll just. They're here. Right. Kind of thing. Right.

So and by seed, I mean that's the actions that they're taking on a day to day basis, which is creating right now what you do today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year will dictate the results you get next year, two years from now, three, four.

One of the wisest quotes I ever heard from Steve Meyrick, he said, you have to be willing to do today what others won't. So you can have tomorrow while others don't.

That's a very popular quote. I love that one.

You know, that's, that's it was be willing to invest in yourself so you can one day invest in others. Absolutely. We're way out of time today.

Yeah.

We hope you enjoy the Journey principles. Obviously figure. Feel free to go to JourneyPrinciples.com for resources and get all the free ebooks and personality stuff we got there. Feel free to check out the YouTube channel where we do a lot more graphically job at illustrating a lot of these points to go deep dives.

Yeah, we have whiteboard lessons. We have face to face.

My favorite thing is reaching out to us. At questionshourneyprinciples.com you can ask me any question you want on life and or business, and I'll be happy to answer it likely on air. And if we use it on air, we'll send you a free gift in the process.

Yeah, we'll either answer your question on a podcast or. Or more likely, we actually every Monday do on YouTube a life mastery Q and A show. So we need your questions to fill.

That up, to fill it up where we want to. We already got some. We're going to roll out with a bunch, but we can definitely use your questions. All right, guys, that is totally all the time we have for today. I really appreciate you guys sticking around and letting me share my heart and my story. Hopefully now you know why I'm so passionate about what we're doing and why we're really going after it. So this 90 minutes was powerful. We love you, we're happy for you, and we'll see you soon on the next Journey Principles. Take care.

See ya.

I'll see you in the next video. And please, if you don't mind and you enjoyed the Life Mastery content we're building, consider hitting the subscribe button and also hitting the bell so you'll be the first to get notified anytime we release new content.