What is Life-Mastery? | Journey Principles Podcast 001

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 to the inaugural episode of Journey Principles with Steven Scoggins. I've got a co host in here, Connor Kraft, Director of connections with the Journey Principles of Institute. Our goal was to take you from stuck to unstoppable in every single area of your life with life strategies that actually work. I'm not talking about the hocus pocus stuff, the rah rah stuff you get from various seminars. I'm talking about actual principles, actual topics and actual things to help you make the most of your life. Your career, your financial life. I mean, all of that. We want to help take you from stuck to unstoppable. Today we're going to be approaching a new topic, which is what is Life Mastery? And the reason I want to cover that one is because I actually was telling somebody on the airplane recently, hey, what do you do? I spent a lot of time with Life Mastery and helping people strategize, like, plans for their life. She said, what's Life mastery? And I said, that's probably where we should start with our show. Yeah, right.

Loaded question.

Yeah. So before we jump into that, I'm curious to know, Connor, you've been around me now quite some time. You've been focused on a lot of the content, a lot of the studying that we've done. When I say the word life Mastery, what's the first thing that comes to your mind?

Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is like, complete self actualization. That's kind of what I think of. I think of like, you know, my health is in order, my fitness and my finances are in order, my relationships, I have happy, good relationships with my family, friends, maybe significant other, maybe he's.

By the way, like, DC's single.

Yeah, he.

Yeah.

Yeah, whatever.

Anyway, so Life mastery. Okay, so Life Mastery is. Yeah. To me. Seriously, I look at it as, like, everything that I want out of my life, I can get now. Not. I don't mean just like, so what.

Happens when you're looking for something like that in your life, but yet you have to go through a little frustration focus factor to get there? Is that still life mastery?

Yeah, that's just the process.

Okay. All right. You have been learning.

Yeah.

Look at you.

Life, Life Mastery is not a destination. It's an ongoing process. That was a very difficult thing for me to learn. Because four years ago when I came and met you for the first time and I was a wannabe entrepreneur, what.

Do they call those? Wantrepreneurs?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wantrepreneur. You know, I kinda had some ups and downs. I was doing some stuff, but not really a lot. Not enough to really, really sustain myself. And I was like, what am I missing? Cause I've been studying this stuff for years. I literally have spent like 10,000 hours watching Gary Vee videos and impact theory. Tom W. We love you, Tom.

That's right.

You know, like, like I've watched so much content and information and I was still stuck. I still had so many questions. I was like, well, okay, I've heard about a lot of these limiting beliefs thing that are things that are probably holding me back, but what is a limiting belief and how do I find it? Yeah, how do I. And how do I find it and how do I even like overcome it? And how do I know that it's a limiting belief and that I'm not just lazy? You know, like, it's. So I really realized that there's so much information out there and I had gotten very information overload. And that's when I met you. And I was like, you know, I need a mentor. I need someone who's actually doing this. And you know, you were a successful entrepreneur, but you also had just a remarkable amount of balance in the other areas of your life. And that really shocked me at first because my idea of what an entrepreneur was based on what I'll have studied from online is like, you have to be completely obsessed. You have to, you know, balls to the wall. Like that's. You sacrifice every other area of your life so you can just master this one thing. Like that's what I was trying to do. And I found myself really, really, really, first of all burnt out and not even enjoying the process. But in addition to that, like the other areas of my life were significantly suffering.

So, so what does suffering, when those areas were suffering, what did that look like for you?

Well, I wasn't paying any attention to them. So like my health was declining because I didn't care enough to go to the gym or eat well. So I just ate for convenience. So I would like order fast food that of course, obvious fast food when you're only making, you know, a couple thousand bucks a month, that's not a good move, guys, because you can't afford that. So that ruined my fitness. It's interesting how when certain areas of your life are in disarray, it affects all the other areas. It's crazy how that works. Like, I've just noticed that. And a lot of people I've heard say, like.

Life is always kicking me while I'm down. Why do you think life kicks you while you're down, by the way? I'm curious.

I think it's not that life kicks you while you're down, you're just ill prepared to deal with life when it comes to you.

So you think it's a lack of preparation that up until that point and then they're just noticing, oh my God. Now I'm realizing that everything is happening at once and I can't stop.

Yeah. I mean, what life mastery is, it's the ultimate moment where everything converges together for progress.

Okay.

Okay. So if you're taking the time to plan your future rather than just react to it, because if you're to react to it, yesterday and today are going to be very similar. Right. So if you take the time to actually plan where you want to go and work towards getting there, you obviously have a lot better chance of getting there. So when it comes to life mastery specifically, I always like to say that when I'm trying to define it, it's the ultimate moment when all of those parts and pieces are converging together. Your finances are finally stable, your relationships are finally healthy, your health is finally in a really high quality place. Meaning you're eating right, you're taking care of yourself, which allows your brain to fire properly. You'd be surprised at some of the stuff that goes into your brain and actually causes more problems. I'm a firm believer in. One of the reasons depression and anxiety has been so pronounced recently is because of the crap that we're prescribed and the crap that we put in our bodies. I mean, you and I have talked about this before, all right? We both have ADHD tendencies from time to time. Right. I know that if I have even the slightest little bit more than caffeine than I really need for my awakeness.

Oh, I can't even.

Yeah, I completely derail. I'm less focused. I can't hardly like bring sentences together.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? So you can underestimate how much of nutrients going to your brain and cycling through your bloodstream actually takes away from you kind of thing, you know? So when you look at life mastery converging together, you are feeling good every time you're waking up, right. You're not worried, you're not actually in a constant state of stress because you've got enough financial means to take care of your bills, if you will. And then they have some spending money, some planning money, stuff like that. That's step one. You shouldn't be focused on going from zero to $100 million right away. Right. You should go to. From zero to sustainability as quickly as you can get there. Right. What can you do to actually provide food and shelter for yourself? Now, part of my story, and I'm sure we'll get into this at a greater level, is in 1998, I was so bad at my own life skills. My own life mastery, if you will. I didn't know any better because they don't teach us in schools.

There's really two main problems when it comes to life mastery. You have a skills problem because no one's there to teach it to you. Your, you know, whatever environment you grew up in was your teaching ground. Right. So if your teaching ground wasn't in a great state of common sense best practices principles that actually work, then you shouldn't expect yourself. You shouldn't be mad at yourself because you weren't able to kind of bring it together and pull it together. Right. The other thing that I see is the relationships that we have. They say misery loves company. And because misery loves company, unfortunately, we like to partner ourselves with people who are not going anywhere further than we're going to. Right. So, you know, those two things.

I never realized that I literally never understood the meaning of that quote. And now it makes sense. Yeah.

I mean, it's you. You gotta make sure that you've got people in your life that are kind of making an impact. But life mastery is when everything comes together, you're making progress. Right. Your life is not a destination, it is a journey. 125,000%. As someone used to remind me because he. Connor used to say, 125,000%. Yeah.

He used to get mad at me because I'd see. He'd be like, dude, there's not more than 100%. I'd be like, dude, at least not mathematically, 10%. I'm excited.

And he's like, yeah, at least not mathematically, you know? And then.

Most people also don't realize they actually have a life mastery problem. They don't get it. That is, until all of a sudden their wallet is upside down. There's not enough in there to cover their expenses. Right. They had another relationship. You woke up crying in your pillow again because the relationship ended that you weren't anticipating or expecting or you began to settle. I mean, there's so many different things.

I just thought of this. I think a lot of people can identify with those symptoms though. Those are symptoms of a lack of life mastery.

Alright.

Because I think what most people don't think of is they're not like, oh, I have a life mastery problem. They think, crap, I can't get to the gym and lose this weight or I can't fix this relationship or I keep going through broken relationships and none of them are working. I can't figure this out. Oh, I must suck. Your emotional life is in shambles. You're depressed all the time, you're not fulfilled and happy with your job. Those are the things that I think most people listening are going to be like. Yeah, yeah, I identify with that.

How do I do that? Well, that's the thing is because that's the thing. I don't want to spill this coffee again because I've already done that once. Sorry. I did that. I literally did that. Guys, you guys missed that earlier. We edited that out. Probably.

What you're describing is in fact a symptom, but it's a symptom of an underlying issue. It means your skill set and the knowledge that you have at your disposal today is not setting you up to deal with those circumstances in a positive way to help you build a future. Right. Steve Myrick, my very first mentor, which no one knows who this guy is until now, basically, I start talking, I talk about him a lot from stage and everything else. But Steve Myrick wasn't famous, at least not at a global or regional or national level. Right. He was locally known. He was a home builder, built homes all over north and South Carolina for a number of years. He was the first guy that I would watch Walk with Wealth and also the first guy that would quietly leave a $500 tip for a single mother.

So he was your first example of humble confidence.

Humble confidence. And then what life could potentially be. Something else that happened too is he gave me my first business and unfortunately I poo pooed all over it. Meaning I made so much money as a 19 year old kid. Again, I had no skills on how to handle that money. And what does a 19 year old kid do with money that he's never been taught how to use your course? I bought the sports car. Right?

Right.

Yeah. So I bought the sports car, bought the fancy watch, bought all the stuff, bought the clothes, bought the booming sound system, boom, boom, boom, boom. You know, with the trunks rattling and all that kind of stuff, went through that entire process only to discover that one, it Was empty. Like even in that moment, it was not fulfilling because I was buying crap to show off to people because my self esteem was low, right? It's like, hey, look at me, I made it. And reality was I was a 19 year old kid and hadn't made it anywhere, right? I was more in debt than I'd ever thought because no one ever taught me that you're not supposed to go in debt or you should stay away from as much debt as possible. So what did I do? I rack up the charges, right? All these different things. Fast forward a year later, through a prideful, arrogant spirit of myself, lost everything. Lost everything. Lost it so far that I found myself almost ready to take my Life at full 40 in Capitol Boulevard. And just before that, I was sleeping in a borrowed friend's Chevy Beretta, right? And for those of you guys who are older like me, wink, wink. You know what a Beretta is, right? Yeah.

What's a Beretta, man?

Yeah, it's an old Chevy, like make believe or want a sports car.

Oh, cool.

Yeah, yeah, it's super exciting, you know. But I found myself in this place where life was a complete wreck. Steve and his grace gave me a second chance. And the first question he asked me when I was able to sit back down with him in his Jeep Grand Cherokee that he always had a dent in because he was always backing into stuff, right? Because he was 17 years older, he was 70 years old, a little bit older than me, of course. He asked me, said, what's the difference between a rich man and a poor man? And like a, a 19 year old, no, nothing kid, basically 20 at that point. I said, well, duh, money. He's like, absolutely not. I never want to hear that in your mouth again. I'm like, whoa, okay. He said, it's the way they think. He said, let me let you in on a little secret. He said, I've had wealth and I've also been in the hospital fearing for my life, right? So wealth is not important if your health is not in check. He goes, so if you want to be wealthy, like truly wealthy in your family, your work, your finances, your relationships, your spiritual nature, if you want to be wealthy, you have to do what wealthy people do. And wealthy people are constant learners. But more than that, they're also constant appliers.

Yeah, that's the piece I was missing. I applied a little bit. I applied probably like 10% of the time and then I spent 90% of the time learning.

Well, the biggest downfall when you're Trying to have the overall application or whatever right away is you expect immediate result. What you don't understand is when you start this journey, you are literally tilling the ground and planting a seed, right? And then everything else you learn, everything else you apply. Every new step you take, every new grace of God, if you will. Whatever they pour on top of that creates that plant. And it's like bamboo. I mean, it may stay under the ground for two or three or four or five years before it starts to shoot up, but once it does, it grows like crazy, right? My financial life today, my relationships today, everything that you think or that you admire about the life that I currently live, how I approach life, the diligence I use, the work ethic I use, the perception of balance that I have, all this kind of stuff, right? And I can still do some things better. Don't get me wrong. I am not perfect, right? But the very things that you admire most were set into motion a decade ago. You know? And I learned a long time ago that the greatest purpose in life you'll ever have is serving the person you used to be. Well, in order to get that purpose in aligned with you, you have to become something more. The problem is people with a life mastery problem, meaning all the things and symptoms we've already described, right? They don't know it's possible because Murphy keeps punching them in the face.

Murphy's Law.

Murphy's Law, right? Anything that can happen will happen, right?

Yeah. A lot of people feel that. They're like, dude, I just can't win.

Well, that's the thing is.

Or they feel stuck.

They feel stuck, and they're not winning there because they don't have a plan. Right? One of the things that you're gonna learn.

Why do you think they don't have a plan?

Well, because no one ever teaches you you need one, nor do they teach you how to build one. I can sit here, right, all day and, hey, Connor, you need a life mastery plan. You're like, hey, man, how do I change my life? Connor, you need a life mastery plan. How do I change my finances? Connor, you need a life mastery plan. If I just said that over and over again, does that give you any additional clarity? Essentially, that's what you see in the marketplace.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, you need to overcome your limiting beliefs. Okay, thank you. It's like, how do I do that? Yeah, please explain, like, what. What do I practically do when I have negative belief of, hey, I can't because I'm not smart enough Overcoming negativity. How do I actually get myself to stick to my new routines and habits and goals? It just says, hey, you have to have good habits. You have to have good, healthy habits and goals. You have to set big goals or set realistic goals. There's so much conflicting information out there that it can be really confusing for people. And it can feel like, especially if you're someone who, like I did, just studies this stuff, like you're a success zombie and it's all you do is basically just study what it takes to be successful, you'll actually find yourself pretty disappointed, especially if you're not taking action.

Oh, and I'm.

Because you're gonna be like, well, what do I actually do? There's so much stuff, and you find yourself so overwhelmed.

Well, and I think that's one of the key factors. That's one of the reasons why I felt like for us to go ahead and do this show along with the YouTube channel, along with all the free ebooks we do, along with all the personality assessments we do, one of the reasons I felt like it was so important is because there needs to be a practical process, right? We need to have people partner up with us. And let us give you step one and let you master step one, and then we'll give you step two. We'll master step two. And lo and behold, in 12 months time, 18 months time, your life would look radically different than it does today. Not only that, you actually have the experience, wisdom and knowledge to actually move the needle forward permanently. And every time your starting point changes, right. You're able to go a little further, a little faster. Right? So it's like building a snowball, going uphill, Right? I know it sounds kind of counterproductive, but it's. As you grow, your starting point changes. And because your starting point changes, your ending point changes over and over again. It's repetitive, Right.

That's why they say that it's a never ending journey.

It's a never ending journey. And because once, you know, I've had the sincere honor and pleasure of earning significant wages. Right. I think you're pretty aware of some of the things that I've been very fortunate and blessed to work through.

And you have money, right?

Well, that's not what I meant, but because life is a whole lot more than that, for sure. But what I mean by that is.

Everything that makes me today in this area that you would consider life, mastery. In other words, Stephen's got most of his life figured out.

Yeah.

Right. You've seen me go through ups and downs in business. You've seen me go through ups and downs in relationships. All of that still happened.

But you. Okay, no, that's a good point. Like, over the last, even few years, I've seen you go through trials and tribulations in business, specifically that I know about. Like, you went through one of the most significant things that happened in your whole business career that basically almost forced you to start from zero.

Could have.

Yeah. And I just witnessed, though, like, you just. You dropped everything, you took care of the problem, you focused, and in like a year or two, problem was gone.

No problem was gone. We've tripled from where we were.

So that's nuts to me. That's like, you literally took such an adversity and you were able to, like, something that would cripple most people, and you were able to just be like, okay, cool, I'm going to rebuild myself stronger.

Yeah, well, all right. So it's no secret that I'm a person of faith. So I will give all that glory to God all day long, regardless if someone believes in my faith or not. No pressure here, right? But on top of that, the principles I learned about resiliency, the principles I learned about eating the elephant kind of one bite at a time, not trying to do too much too fast, all of those different things, right? All of those were things that I learned five, 10 years ago that I'd been redoing over and over again, developing muscle memory. So when there's a choice to be made, a lot of times the choice is already made before I have to make it.

What do you mean by that? The choice is already made before you have to make it.

Because I'm so passionate about honesty and integrity, when someone offers me a chance to get rich quick if I just bend this rule or break this rule or do this thing or do that thing, right? Because I know that. Because I know there really is no such thing as getting there overnight or getting there fast, that it's built off an actual work ethic. And if it's built from there, it's very hard to destroy. Right. It allows me to already lean and say, no, thank you. I'll do it the right way.

So because you've predefined your values and your principles and the things that basically the principles that you live your life by, you've already made the decision of who you are, who you want to be, and what type of decisions you make. And because of that, whenever you are faced with an important decision that most people would be like, oh, My God, I don't know what to do. You've already decided. That's what you mean by that?

That's right.

Interesting.

Yeah. Why don't we distill it down in this way? Because we only have about 10 minutes left in the show. I want to give you three takeaways.

Yeah.

All right, so three steps that you need to kind of look at, identify, spend some time on before our next show. Alright. And in the next show, I'm gonna break down seven key areas that lay on top of each other. We call them the seven levels of life mastery. So you understand where you're at today and how far you have to go to move forward, along with ways to get you there faster. Okay, so the next show, seven levels of life mastery. Let me give you three things right now that you can do today. Okay? The first one is you got to get super duper clear what drives you and makes you you. I see far too many people trying to be entrepreneurs that shouldn't be entrepreneurs. I see far too many people who are working at Wendy's who should be entrepreneurs. Right. Each one of these people are not leaning into their specific strengths, gifts and talents. They're not. They have no idea where they are. They have no idea what it is. You know, they haven't even gone as far as asking their friends and their family, hey, what is it that I really, really do well? Right. What comes natural to me. Right. Another thing is, you know, we've talked about this before. What do you yearn for? Who do you want to become? You know what I'm saying?

So it's. So the self awareness aspect goes into more than just who are you and what's your personality type. It's also what do you desire?

Yeah, absolutely. Really? Yeah, absolutely. You know, you've. The funny thing is, I think if you, if you're anything other than an entrepreneur or working with an entrepreneur, I feel like you would go stir crazy. Me? Yeah. You have to have raw meat on a regular basis. Right. You have to have a new thing to kill and get excited about.

If I had like a administration job.

Yeah, yeah. But not every. But there's a lot of people that are really gifted in the administration.

Yeah, yeah. I think I'm too much of a spaz to be able to handle it.

I see creative people and details and I see detail people in creative roles. And until you get clear on what drives you, who you are, what you value, what's important to you, where it is you want to go, if you don't spend Some time with just a. You see it? Notepad and a pen. Right. I use this notepad because I never know what's going to come up in the show. Right. I want to make sure if there's a new piece of content, if we get a question from one of the audience members, that I can actually jot the question down and actually answer it.

By the way, by the way, quick side note, if you want your question answered in our content, email us at questionsurneyprinciples.com Any question regarding to life mastery. It could be about relationships, finance, fitness, whatever, mindset, we'll answer it.

Oh, second side note, feel free to send that over in any way, shape or form you want. Written email, audio track, you could comment.

On one of our videos. We'll see it.

One of the things that's really starting to take off on our YouTube channel is people actually sending us iPhone questions about life. Yeah. And that's always really fun because I'll come in the studio and I'll actually answer that specific question. Right? Yeah, yeah. But anyway, yeah. So once you get clear on who you are, what you want, you get really clear on who, what's. What your strengths are, what your talents are, all that kind of stuff, the next piece of understanding what drives you, what motivates you, is getting kind of a little bit clear on your struggles and blind spots. Right. These are things that are already tripping you up. Right. So I'll give you an example. Personal one.

My family, because we grew up more or less in what I call trailer pack, trailer park, broken poverty. Right. So we had shelter, but it was. It wasn't always great. Sometimes we had ups and downs and we'd have some wins and some stuff like that, but.

We were taught that, at least in my household, that the poor man would never get ahead. Okay, so that was like the story that you. That was the. That was the narrative that my entire family believed, you know, that the Steve Myricks of the world are different people than the Skoggins of the world that we had at the time. Right.

So you guys, it was almost like you believed that just you go, you were born to be poor. To be poor.

Yeah. Which is totally not the truth, of course. Right. Everybody has the same opportunity. Some people have a different starting point, and then some people have to grind a little harder. But if you look at it, most people that are born wealthy really end up wasting all the money within two generations.

Really.

Yeah. Because they don't appreciate what the sacrifice that was paid by the founding figurehead if you don't mind. Right. Whereas someone like myself, who was taught and mentored, if I go out and teach and mentor, I stand a better chance of creating a legacy that continues on long after I'm gone.

Because you built it.

Exactly. That's why the Journey Principles is the Journey Principles. That's why we call it the Institute. It's not Stephen Scockins. Right. I don't want it to be Steven Scoggins. Right. I want it to be an institute based on helping people become more of who they want to become. Right. Doesn't mean I finally got. You made me do this yourself. Right. One of many people finally come to terms with I need to be okay with being me.

Right, well, being a personal brand.

Well, if that's what they call it. Leading to a degree. Right.

But a lot of that fear came from that original limiting belief of is we were created to be poor.

Okay.

That's an example of a limiting belief, which at that moment was a blind spot of mine. I wasn't even aware it was in my DNA. Meaning I would have never said that before until after I did some soul searching.

That's what you're saying. So these blind spots and these things can actually hold you back significantly in life, and that's why it's important to get this self awareness thing out of the way first.

Yes.

Got it.

Yeah. The self awareness is key. We can obviously help you guys do that. Feel free to engage with us@journeyprinciples.com in any way, shape or form. You can ask as many questions. You can also check us out on all the social media. Just all you gotta do is search my name or search Journey Principles. You'll find us. Yes.

But. Yes. So the blind spot is a secondary priority to discovering your strengths, your gifts and your talents.

Why is that? Why is it secondary?

Because we're far more geared naturally to go after our limiting beliefs than we are for the empowering ones. So if you dig back into it, step two is you gotta get super clear on the relationships you have in your circle right now. There's an old saying that I heard first from a guy by the name of Keith Krath, and it's been said by a lot of different people in a lot of different ways. Because it's such a good quote, everybody wants to take credit for it. I would too, myself, but unfortunately, I didn't create it. And that is, show me your five friends and I'll show you your future. So many of the people that I had in my immediate circle when I was broke and all that kind of stuff. And I was in that zone, unfortunately, were in many cases broker than I was. Right. They had zero hope for the future. They were constantly frustrated and overwhelmed. They couldn't put their finger on why their checkbook was never balanced. And they blamed it on their boss, and they blamed it on the time they got fired. And they blame it on a number, any number of things, except for the fact that they didn't have the skill set in place to kind of really make things happen.

So, real quick, crazy question. Do you believe that if you had a person with a really, really great mindset and they're, let's say that they're well on their way to life mastery, they're doing very, very well. But you take that person and you make it so that the only five people they ever talk about are, for lack of a better word, losers. Like, basically people that are just have.

Well, I wouldn't call them losers. I would just call them people that haven't found their way yet. Well, yeah, I mean, a lot. At least for me, when I decided.

To, I was saying, like, drug addicts, like, like, like, and, and, and like, like, like people who are.

And I'm still. And I'm saying this, people are also not losers. Those are people that haven't found their way yet.

Yeah, I'd agree with that.

Okay, so what I'm saying is, is people groups, people that you just mentioned, people that have significant life struggles, right? What they need more than anything else is they need to believe one thing. It can be different and it's worth it.

Okay?

Right. It can be different. Okay. The best thing that I ever did in my entire life was to go after my own personal life mastery, and never look back. And here's why. Three to five years later, almost every single person who was trying to talk me out of. I could do this, I could do that, I could become this, I could become that, that were stuck in their own misery, if you will, three to five years later. All of them had the courage to move forward. All of them had the courage to start the journey because I showed them it was possible. The reason that they're stuck is the same reason you're stuck. No one's ever showed them that it's possible, right? Having key relationships. Right? And there's an entire. In fact, for those of you guys who need a resource, I created something called 77 relationships you must have to win at life in that free ebook, which is free. You can go download it today if you want to Journey principles dot com, if you want that. If in that resource, I spend time breaking down seven specific types of people that you need in your, your immediate circle.

Yeah.

Okay. It also tells you if you have seven people that you have to have, you don't have a lot of time for people that unfortunately you don't need to have. Right. You just don't have time.

So how do you deal with that? Do you just have to.

It's a matter of focus, right? You're committing to yourself from anywhere from 12 to 18 months that you are going to focus on your own life mastery, your own goals, becoming who you really believe that deep down that you feel like you could be if someone would just show you. Right?

Yeah.

We're trying to give you a roadmap, right? That's what this entire show is about, what the YouTube channel is for. It's what social media is for. It's what the ebooks are for. It's what the video series of four. It's with the whiteboards.

Absolutely.

Everything is designed to give everybody a roadmap, a sense of clarity on how to go from A to Z. Okay. In the relationship sector alone. Right. Here's just a couple from the ebook, right? You need to have someone. You need to have someone's a coach, right? That person's there, they're for you. Meaning they want to see you kick the game winning field goal. Right. Or they want to see you run the ball. Right. Or they want to see you make the defensive tackle or whatever sports analogy you want to use. Right?

That's. That's you for me. That's your. You're like my Yoda.

Well, thank you. I'm short and everything. Don't have big, big pointy ears. Thank God. But thank you for that. That's an honor. Thank you. I really appreciate that. But. Yes, but I also push back on you.

Yeah.

Right. When you're, when you're, when your poop doesn't smell so good one day.

Oh, yeah, you. You push back.

I'm like, dude, come on, man, you're worth it, man. What are you doing? Yeah, you know, I had to remind you, not recently of, you know, I was like, hey, man, just, just remember as you're out there dating, remember that's somebody's daughter. Be careful, behave yourself. You know, all kinds of. And it's just all silly stuff, but those little principles add up to character, right? They shape character, you know. You know, all kinds of little things kind of pop up like that, right? So the coach is one, right? They're for you, but they'll also hold you accountable. Right. You also need. I've got gatekeepers, okay? These are people like my wife, who's one of these. Right. Who doesn't let anybody near me that's not. That doesn't have my best interest in mind or who doesn't just want something from me. Right. Because experientially wise, what she's seen over the last several years, there's a lot of people try to get close to me and try to get near to me because they want something. They want me to advance their career somehow, or they want me to give them money for some reason, or they. I get. You know, you and I have talked about this.

When you. When you're able to steward wealth, you'll have lots of options to steward it towards, let's put it that way.

Because people start asking because people don't.

Know they got to do the work. And a lot of times what I do is I set barriers in place. Right. And your gatekeepers do that. So if my gatekeepers have any indication that someone has a dishonest motive in getting to know me or getting near me or talking to me or whatever, they keep them at a safe distance and radius. I'm not talking at a speaking event or something like that. Totally want to meet everybody. Totally want to shake everybody's hand and get to know you and hear more about your life. Totally do. What I mean is my inner circle, right. The people I spend the most time with. I got you. Right. Because she's watched me, because I'm not. This is a blind spot of mine. I'm not very good at this. Right. Seeing people for their challenging systems that they have in place. Right. I like to see the potential in people. Okay. So that's both, in many cases, a cursing and a blessing. Okay.

But your gate, you only see the good in people.

I see potential in everyone. Because so much of that is people just haven't discovered it yet. Even the person that you mentioned before that you would call, quote, unquote, a loser, right?

Well, you know.

Yeah, I know it's a strong word.

Obviously it was a strong word, and that's why I cautioned it. But I just met people who are like, you would not consider to be well on their way to having a good.

All right, so when I was homeless, I would have definitely fit personally in that category, right?

Yeah, like, that's what I mean. So what I was saying was if you have that person who has the right mindset and everything, but then you put them in a situation where all the people around them are homeless or are. Do you actually think that that person. Even though that they've got it figured out for themselves, do you think that that circle would drag them down if they stay there?

Yes. The problem is, once you start advancing, by definition, you're moving forward. And by definition, if you're moving forward, you're not in the same place you were.

Yeah.

Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.

Now, at some point in time, because the best thing you can do with your life, the greatest purpose you need in your life you can ever have, is serving the person you used to be. There will become a point, and we'll talk about this in the next show. The seven levels of life mastery. There becomes a point in time where you do develop life mastery yourself, and you actually become the guide that we are trying to help you become today. Right?

There's too many, by the way. There's too many people out there trying to be the guide way before they're.

It's because they're not ready. They haven't done. They haven't finished all the work. And one of the ways that you'll know that you're ready for that is because at that moment in time, you won't even be looking to become the guide. Right? You'll just. You'll do it organically. You'll start helping people organically because you're worried about their best interest and not your own, Right. There's a famous dude right now that just rakes my nerves, and I'm gonna, please don't send me hate mail for this. It's just my personal experience. What's this? Grant Cardone.

Oh, Grant.

I just watched a video before we got on air, and the dude is literally on camera on Instagram, like, thumbing through checks, saying, look at my $65,000 check. Look at my $85,000 check. Look at my$100,000 check. I'm like, I don't care how much money you have. Like, how many people are you helping? How many people are you feeding? You know, that's one of the reasons I actually appreciate Tony Robbins. The dude has fed a lot of people. He really has. Right? I don't care that he's got a jet. I could care less, because at least he's doing something with his platform to help people. Now, I don't necessarily agree with everything Tony says or agree with how he loses language or any of that stuff, right? But I do respect him. I do respect him. I have Learned things from Tony. Right. What I don't respect is I don't respect people who build platforms solely based on taking advantage or selling stuff to other people. Now, I'm not saying I'm a firm believer in where there's no margin, there's no ministry. Right. Firm believer in that. Okay. I'm all about businesses being profitable. Right. So then they can do great things with the resources that come with that. What I think is, shows you how low your self esteem is, is when you feel like you have to brag about what you already have. Right. If you spend all your time, like, showing checks off and sitting on top of cars and, you know, looking at your new Lambo that you just bought or walking people through your multimillion dollar house and all this kind of stuff, you're not actually saying it's possible. Except for the young, arrogant person that's just as arrogant as the person actually showing the video to begin with.

Interesting.

Now that's my two cents. That's my soapbox. I need to get off my soapbox. All right. Because we only have like 4 minutes left.

All right.

All right. Last thing.

Yeah.

Okay. So we've gotten really super clear on who we are.

Right?

Okay. We began to answer that question, who am I? We began looking for the relationships to help show us and help us, guide us towards becoming a better version of ourselves. Which means gatekeepers and coaches and empowers and mentors and guides and these kinds of relationships, people that empower us. The third thing, right. The third thing that I think people should do today is begin to look at building a life plan that you love. Okay. Now, when I say that, I'll go back to the beginning of the show. I understand that many of you don't know how to do that just yet. The good news is, as we have all kinds of tools and all kinds of resources that are totally for free. It doesn't cost you a dime that you can use to start working on that. And I promise you, within the next three shows, we will focus on building a life plan.

Absolutely.

Okay. We'll talk about some of the elements of building that road mastery piece. Right? But those are the three things that you can do today to start getting traction in creating life mastery. Now, life mastery is important. And the reason life mastery is important is because that's what your future is based on. Right. Your life will only be the sum total of the skills that you develop, period. So why not develop the best skills possible so you can have the best life possible?

Agreed? Agreed.

Yeah.

I Definitely think. I love how you bucketed out life mastery into literally three actual things that they need to do. Because there's so much information out there. There's so many. Like, do I need habits? Do I need this? Do I need that? I like the idea of just, hey, self awareness, better relationships, and then create a plan.

Absolutely.

I love that.

Absolutely. I mean, if you're stuck about which one of those three to start with, start with the first one.

Self awareness.

Yep. Self awareness. Becoming. Getting very super clear on who you are and who you want to be. For that matter, get on a pad. Like, this is my method. I open a pad for the people that can see us on camera.

Like a notepad.

The notepad. I draw a square, and then I say at the top, who do I want to be? Want to be. And I got sloppy handwriting, which is why I don't draw the dry erase boards for the record and dyslexia. So that's why I know as well. All right, And I'll put on there. I want to be a person of character. Right. I want to be a person of influence. Okay. I want to be a person of financial wealth, not for my own benefit. Right. But in an effort to create a structure to give back to others. I want to feed people, I want to clothe people. Right. I want to help people who are going to take their lives, not take their lives. Right. These are all elements of the person I want to be and I want to master. Start there, right? Start there. First super easy step, just notepad and a pen. Who do you want to be?

You would start with who you want to be before even going into, like, who am I today? Yeah.

Because many of those elements are going to come out while you're writing that down anyway.

I like that.

Right? So who do I. Who do I want to be? And what legacy do I want to leave?

So, okay, so if I'm. If I right now want to decide. All right, that's it. Just listen to this podcast, Stephen. I'm totally jacked out of my mind. I'm excited. I'm fired up, and I want to pursue life mastery. I got the three steps I need to start in, obviously, self awareness. Their first step is literally just taking out a notepad like you just did, and writing out some, I guess, what adjectives.

I've got two questions to answer, and you want to write down as many descripting adjectives as you possibly can. Question number one is, who do I want to be? Question number two is, what legacy do I want to Leave Okay. Out of that one thing, you are already going to start to see patterns, be looking for patterns, connecting the dots of who in the faith world God has already made you to be. Right. If I can help people become more of that, then by definition I will already be just as successful as I'm hoping to be with the legacy that I want to leave by transforming a million lives.

Definitely agree with you. And so, okay, so when they're done with that, if you guys are following along at home and you guys want to do the exercise once they're done with that is the next thing that they can do. Would you say take a personality assessment?

Yeah. Yeah. I tell you what. In fact, the one that we have, the peak performance tester, if you don't mind, when we're done with the show, go ahead and take the time to make sure that's live for everybody for free.

Okay.

It's normally like 90 bucks, but we're not in it for that.

We can throw it in an ebook. So if you go to journeyprinciples.com resources, we have three free ebook resources. You download the one that says understand what drives you.

Yeah.

Or is that what you're doing?

Yeah. It's a free ebook. Yeah.

Understand what drives you. Download that. And inside the ebook there will be actually a link to where you can access our full personality test for free. That's probably the best.

I forgot we did that. Yeah, that's awesome. Very cool.

So awesome. Why don't we do that? That's awesome. I'm so excited.

We're like literally 60 seconds at a time, so. Alright, wrapping up Life Mastery made simple for you. Make it happen. We believe in you. Come get the free resources, come check us out. We'll make sure that happens. I'm sure you already know someone who needs some help who's stuck in their life and frustrated and overwhelmed. Invite them to join the next podcast. Listen in, Invite them to take the same assessments. Invite them to answer the same questions. Go ahead and teach them what you already learned today. Right. You can go ahead and start making a difference before you even have to get everything all figured out. But in the meantime, like share and comment, if you don't mind, help us get the word out. We really appreciate it. Until then, we'll see you on the next Journey. Principles for seven Life Mastery steps that you must have to win. Take care.

I'll see you in the next video. And please, if you enjoyed the Life Mastery content, do me a favor. Consider hitting the subscribe button and clicking the bell, so you'll be notified anytime we release a new video, which will be a lot.