Why Your SOCIAL CIRCLE is Killing Your Career

Longest study ever done on the power of relationships done by Harvard. They found that 95% of our success or failure is predicated on the people we spend the most time with. There are some people that are listening and watching us right now that you got some frustration in your personal growth or your professional growth. And I'm here to tell you the first place I look is the people you're spending the most time with change. The people you hang around with change your life.

Look, man, I'm super stoked to talk to you. I know you recently, you've been helping a lot of folks, and I do mean a lot of folks, find occupations and professions they absolutely love as opposed to finding, well, work they can't stand. What started you down that journey?

Specifically my own journey, you know, realizing at the age of 31, 32, that the path that I had been pursuing, been walking down, preparing to do more on that path, was not the path. And that was really disheartening for me. Disillusioning and frankly kind of put me into a funk for a couple of years. And through my own version of life mapping and, you know, just digging deep and trying to figure out what the next path was going to be, I really developed a love for.

Helping other people. The idea at the time of just helping other people discover their uniqueness. And in doing so.

Yeah.

Then being able to decide, all right, this is what I should be doing, where I should be doing it and why I should be doing it. And so that journey for me is, I think I'm a coach at heart. You know, I've told people jokingly before, if I wasn't doing this, I'd probably be coaching basketball somewhere. Certainly love sports. I love the role that a coach plays. And I think that that's just kind of. I naturally lean that direction. So you take all of that.

Yeah.

And having walked through a real life changing process myself, to try to figure out how to take what I learned and package it, bottle it, and help as many people as possible figure that out. And then it ties to my faith as well, because I believe that, you know, we were in fact created to contribute.

Yeah.

Work isn't just a thing we do to live.

Absolutely. No, I love that. And actually me thinking a little bit of my own story, I know that I think it was about three years ago Time magazine and Harris did a. Did a Harris poll and they discovered 67% of the population would have classified themselves. This is before COVID.

Unhappy, unfulfilled, not living their best life. And it got Me thinking when I was, you know, I was forced to drop, you know, drop out of school early to help my family pay the bills long time ago. And, you know, I ended up building a pretty sizable business in this area. Got. I got seven businesses now total. Have a GED is the extent of my education. But I remember this. I remember someone telling me that I needed a college degree if I was ever going to be happy and fulfilled. And I say all that to say that it seems to me that people are often stuck because they're trying to live someone else's life based on someone else's expectation. Have you found that to be similar to the same?

Yeah, you nailed that. It's really well said great expectations become unmet expectations when we do exactly what you just talked about, which is I'm trying to live someone else's life, the life that someone else wants me to live. In fact, it's in the top five five reasons for regret for those of the dying.

Wow.

Is I didn't live the life that I really wanted to live. And that comes down to. They just knew they weren't living authentically. I think everybody understands that they're different. But we don't teach this. We, first of all, we don't. We don't teach it in our homes and we don't teach it in the classrooms. This idea that, that you're uniquely made and then there's a unique role that you have to fill. And work is. Unfortunately, work just becomes this utilitarian function instead of this unique contribution. And so that's what happens. Yeah, we just. We go follow along. Well, my dad went to the school, so I'm going to go to the school. Or my mom and dad think I should be an accountant because I'm good with numbers. So I'm going to go do that. And what happens is we end up taking on the identity of this other character who's not even anywhere close to authentically who we are.

Well, you know, one of the things I've heard you speak on recently and I thought you literally the advice. I was listening to one of your. One of your shows and you were giving a caller some advice on this. This idea that you have to have some level of master's or bachelor's degree to do anything in life or, you know, that that's your education will dictate your elevation kind of scenario. And without giving too much away, everybody can go and watch the show, which I encourage them to do. But what are the insights from your perspective on doing the work, finding the profession, you know, finding that activity level that you absolutely love. Because at least for me, it. I didn't find it in school. So I'm curious to know kind of how, How. What's your process of helping people discover those items?

Well, it is a process of self awareness. And so there are three elements you've got to be aware of. You start with talent. The reason we want to look at talent this is just think of it as raw talent that we're born with. And then with practice and experience over time and failure and all those things we shape that molded that. That ball of clay, if you will. We mold it through experience and education. We learn. And then we do learn. Do takes talent and turns it into a skill.

Yeah.

So we've got to start with talent and those sharpened skills that we have. We look at that first. We want to get aware of that because that's where we have the opportunity to be very, very proficient, very, very powerful. Right? So think handsaw is something that I'm below average at doing. But a power saw is a skill, right. It's excellent and it's efficient. So we start there. The reason we start there is because there are some valuable clues. Okay. One of the things we know about human nature is we don't like to do things we suck at. So let's look at some things that we're good at and go of those things that we are good at doing. Which ones do I really get a lot of joy. And so that's where talent then kind of gives us the clues. Clues to lead us to passion. And I define passion as work that I enjoy. I get great joy out of it. I love it. I look forward to it. I lose track of time when I'm engaged in it. I think we all understand that. And so now we're going to be looking at that. So this is. This is a work function.

That you love to do. So again, think work and think function. So a task or a role? So a task example would be I love organizing, I love creating, I love influencing. Okay, so it's a function or a role. Okay. And so we look at that. So then that work itself does create a result.

So if you then look at. The next element is mission. This is what motivates me. What results do I want to accomplish? So we use the word mission most of the time in a military or a ministry context, right? I'm going to go on a mission trip. Well, so when we go on the trip, our mission is to. Okay, and then when a military unit Goes out. They have a very clearly defined set of results. Those are the missions. So results, results, results. So we've gotten talent. That's the. That's the tool. Passion. This is what I feel for. For a role, for a role or function. But mission is these are results that I want to contribute to into the world. Okay, so now we're looking at this, and this is what motivates us. Okay, so for instance, let's go back a second. I love performing. Okay, I'm using the word very loosely here, but I perform every day on the air. I perform on television when I do media hits. I perform on stage. When I speak, I perform when I write. All right? So I'm always been that kind of weirdo who loves the pressure of attention. So if I know that I love the role of performing, I now need to get an idea. Okay. If a performance creates a result, what results of the performance do I get most fired up about? So, yeah, talent is what I do best, passion is what I love to do most, and mission are the results that I most want to create. So for me, early on, I knew I loved performing, broadcasting, speaking, all that kind of stuff. So I got into sports broadcasting in the Atlanta area, and I realized that I like broadcasting and performing about sports topics. I didn't love it. And what I found was, is what I love is the coaching, the equipping, the encouraging.

Yeah.

And so when I figured that out, that's what steered me towards the right path of the space that I'm in today. And I'm in the personal growth and. And coaching professional space. So that's why I would never be as fulfilled doing sports broadcasting as I am doing the type of broadcasting I do now. So I hope that makes sense for folks as I break those three elements down. What I do best, what I love to do most, and results that matter most.

Yeah.

When I put those together, if I'm spending 80% of my day using what I do best to do what I love, to produce results that matter to me, I am on purpose. I'm doing what the creator of the universe created me uniquely and wonderfully to do do. So that's my methodology right there. And it's. It's very unique to all of us. But what it does is it frees you up to realize I can do more than one job. I can be in more than one career path.

Yeah.

But I know what I am wired to do.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I love that. And I love the way you broke it down, too, because all of those Parts tied to one another very clearly. And I feel like a lot of times what holds people back from taking that, that step of faith, if you will, is clarity right there. It's. It's not being clear of what they're gifted at, what the talents are. It's not being completely clear on some of the passion components. One of the reasons I feel like that happens from time to time, and this is where maybe, maybe a little coaching kind of comes into play from your perspective, is what if I've been raised, you know, in. In a home of blue collar effort? Okay? Nothing wrong with blue collar. That's how I was raised personally. Um, but I'm. I'm raised in that environment. And I'm told repeatedly, in fact, this actually happened when I was a kid, the skagens don't get ahead. They get by, right? But yet I know in my heart of hearts that something about that is a fib, right? I know in my heart of hearts that I'm supposed to do something at scale, even though I don't know what it is, right? How do I get the courage to take the step out of the boat, so to speak, and actually try to walk on water and make something happen with what I feel like is burning in my heart when everybody around you or similar people are around you, are telling you, hey, you shouldn't do this, you can't do this, it's impossible. All of this kind of stuff.

Well, I love the question. It's a great segue from what you just asked me. So what I just described for you and your audience is the process of getting clear.

So when I do that self awareness exercise, and I've got an assessment called the get clear assessment, that actually gives people a detailed report on talent, passion, mission. But the process is this. When I get clarity, I get confidence. And when I get confidence, I will have the courage when I need it. Yeah, you cannot summon courage in that scenario you just gave me. Here I am, I'm telling people what I want to do, and they're going to states Scroggins. That's, that's a waste of time and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever. And so what they're doing is, is they are transferring their lack of belief, they're transferring their fear onto you, and they're doing it, by the way, in a spirit of trying to be helpful to you.

And so those people you're talking about are almost always family and friends. And that means we love and respect them, which means they have an outweighed, they have a very heavily weighted influence over us.

So what you're talking about is your question was how do I get courage to move forward? I retreat back to clarity. So when somebody says to me, I don't know about that, Scroggins, and blah, blah, blah, and this is going to be risky and this and this and this. So they begin to. What they do is they sow the seeds of doubt into you. And so they take a big old. I love the idea of just a big old frickin sandbag. And it's got doubt written on it, bold letters. And they go, here you go, Scroggins.

Yeah.

And I'm holding this bag of doubt, someone else's doubt, by the way, that now becomes my doubt.

So how do I summon courage? You can't, you can't just. I'm going to be courageous. That never works. So what you do is you set the bag of doubt down and you go back to clarity and you go, do I have the talent that with education and experience and grit, that I could hone that talent into the necessary sharpened tool? Yeah, that's a power tool that allowed me to get the work done with efficiency and excellence. You ask the question and you go to people who are going to give you honest feedback go, yeah, you've got the talent. Okay, great, let me go. Do I love the work? Does this work? Just light my fire.

Yeah.

The answer is yes. Do I care deeply about the results? Are these the results that I want to lay my head on the pillow at night and go, I'm glad I put this into the world today? If the answer is yes. And so what happens is we retreat back to clarity and we go, I'm not delusional.

Yeah.

I'm just a real human being who somebody gave me a really heavy bag of doubt. And so now I can leave this bag of doubt right here where I am and I walk forward. So what happens is that process right there is this clarity leads to confidence and confidence leads to courage. In other words, clarity is seeing, confidence is believing. Courage is doing.

Yeah.

Understand there's a very interesting relationship there between confidence and courage. You cannot have courage absent of confidence.

Yeah, it's true.

And you can't be confident if you aren't clear. Give everybody an example. Just to wrap this up, how many of you have been driving a car before or sitting in a car and you come up onto dense fog or a heavy downpour of rain to where you cannot see past the hood of the car? The car slows down. Baby, we are Hitting brakes. We are pulling over. We're not moving. You walk into a dark cave, you aren't walking fast. You are to a standstill. You are just. What is going on there? Yeah, what is going on is, is fear and doubt are creating caution.

So a fear and doubt create caution and cause us to be paralyzed. Then clarity, okay? And confidence give us what we need to keep moving forward so the storm goes away or the fog lifts. I can see. Hey. And I'm confident to drive forward, you know, and so it's just understanding that, that this is the journey that we will all face if we're trying to walk forward. I'm not immune from it to this day. I deal with fear and doubt all the time. And when I'm unhealthy and I'm allowing it to get ahold of me, I have got to retreat back to clarity. And when I retreat back to clarity, then I have what I need to again believe and do.

Hey, guys, I hope you're enjoying the show. Steven Scoggins here. I've got something that I think is I'm just going to blow your mind. Imagine taking your life and your business to the whole another level. I'm talking about eight figure level and beyond. You see, you've been working your butt off to build your business where it is now. But what if you could work smarter, free up more time, make more money and impact along the way? How much would that be worth to you? You see, I can prove that basic steps, basic mindset shifts, and subtle changes can make the biggest difference. I want to introduce you to the eight figure mindset makeover. It's absolutely free and it's here for you. It's a powerful summary of my top strategies that help propel me from the streets, if you will, to upwards of nine figures and quote unquote success as we like to chase it. This is more than just tips, though. It's a complete mindset overhaul with simple hacks that you can apply today to begin working on your unprecedented heights and your business. I would like the honor to share these types of things with you that turn my dreams into reality so you can experience the same type of joy and freedom that I now get to live out in my own day. In other words, it's time for you to build your own unstoppable enterprise. And if you're really ready to take it to the next level and elevate your life and your business, this is an absolute game changer for you. So if you want to take advantage of this free Resource, simply go to the show notes and click the link. Or you can go to steven scoggins.com backslash8figure. That's steven scoggins.com Backslash8figure. Until then, much love, God bless. Let's get back to the show. Take care. You know, one of your previous works, Proximity Principle, that I absolutely love, also talks about the people that you surround yourself with. And as part of building that courage, it seems like we could create more courage and more momentum by being more selective with those that we are, you know, putting ourselves around them.

Right.

I know you and I both heavily believe in mentoring others, being mentored by others and people that we admire and respect. How does someone go and choose the right type of people to allow them to the. Well, the authority, really, to speak into their life? What are the qualifiers to allow someone to speak into their life?

Well, I think a couple things. Number one, I'm always going to try to pick those people who are further ahead than me.

Yeah, me too.

I mean, I. Gee whiz, that's cheat code, you know.

Yeah.

You know, there was, you know, I've read a lot about the early days of America, and as a result of that, I've read a lot about the American, the Native American Indian and the culture.

Yeah.

And one of the things that I've always really found to be so valuable and something that I admire about our Native Americans is the status of the older people in the village. They were treated with tremendous reverence.

Yeah.

And I think that's the idea here, is that they had. They had lived many moons, if you will, you know, they had survived many winters. And so I want to. First qualification is somebody that's further ahead than me because of the knowledge and the wisdom that they can offer me. Then I want to. Then I want to select people who are running faster than. They may not be ahead of me in the sense of age and years, but they're. They're moving at a faster pace. I'll use a running analogy here. Yeah. When you're training for a marathon or half marathon, I've only done it once. I was one and done. I realized that I was not called to be a marathoner, but I did. I did run one. And I realized in my training by accident, I needed some accountability. So I called up one of my buddies, Daniel, and I said, hey, man, could I run with you this Sunday? I got a long run. And, man, if you're willing to run with me, I just think it'll help me having somebody talk to, you know, I had no idea what I was really going to get out of it was, is that in just talking to Daniel to keep my mind off of this really long run, he is a much more experienced and quite frankly, a better runner. His form, his. His pace, he was in better shape than me. And what happened was I looked up halfway through the run, I was looking at my watch, and my pace was substantially quicker. Wow. That I would have set for myself or that I would have even attempted to run. But what I didn't realize is I was just running with him, and in keeping up with him, my pace was faster. So that's another thing. I want to hang around people that are running faster than me, people that have been running longer than me, and then I want to hang around people who are for me. I want to be around people who are for me.

It doesn't mean that they won't be honest with us. It doesn't mean that they're just always walking around going, ken, you're the man. You're the man. You're awesome. It's not that. It's just people that are for me because they believe in what God has called me to do. They believe in living and working on purpose. And so what I'm saying here is, is that they're for me because we share values.

Yeah.

We're in the same game. We have the same type of drive and vision for our lives, even though our past may be completely separate. That's what I'm looking for. In other words, birds of a feather flock together.

Yeah.

And if. If you aren't hanging around. If you're hanging around people that are all the time just a little bit more negative than you.

More fearful than you, more doubtful than you.

Quite frankly, not as successful as you.

Yeah.

And. And I want to be very careful here, because I think some people are going to get all sensitive here. I don't mean as it relates to their bank account. I just mean, are they winning in their life? Are they winning in their marriage? Are they winning in their parenting? Are they winning professionally? That's what I'm talking about. Yeah. I'm not hanging out with dudes that criticize their wife and can't stand their wife. I'm just not.

Yeah.

I'm not hanging out with dudes who have left their wife and kids.

I'm not. I'm not hanging out with guys that can't hold down a job. I'm just not.

Yeah.

And you don't have to like that. I don't really care, because the Data is on my side. The longest study ever done on. On the power of relationships done by Harvard. They found that 95% of our success or failure is predicated on the people we spend the most time with. So I'm going to submit to you that there are some people that are listening and watching us right now.

That you got some frustration in your personal growth or your professional growth. And I'm here to tell you the first place I look is the people you're spending the most time with.

Yeah.

Change the people you hang around with. Change your life.

Yeah, dude. Couldn't have said any better myself. Totally agree with you a thousand percent. I want to. I'm going to flip it a little bit. You know, we, we. We started off talking about how to. If you're, if you're the person searching for purpose. Right. Here's how you. Here's some, some ideas and strategies and techniques to find your talent, your gifts and get yourself and kind of unstuck the script. I'm a flip is what if. And I'm. At least I'm speaking for myself. I know several people that I've been watching for years that I consider friends or family members. Right. Who I see immense potential. And in any given lane. Right. So maybe one of them could be a profound author. Prolific author, or a speaker or a business owner or a teacher. Right. But they don't see it for themselves. They don't. They're. They see. Maybe what they see is limitation. Maybe they see risk or whatever. What are some tools or some techniques that we could use to properly nudge or encourage someone to take action on something they're actually really gifted at that maybe they're not fully aware of.

Well, I think you're going to have to take a posture of asking questions. I love the idea of the nudge, but the nudge has got to be very, very subtle to the point that it's not noticed. Because when you're dealing with a person, like you're describing, you're dealing with a person that is. That is very, very fearful or doubtful. Yeah. And so there's a narrative in their head, and the voice that they listen to most is the same voice that you listen to most than that I listen to most. And that's our own voice. So it's very hard to be with them in a moment and go, come on, pal, you're really good at this. And think that that little affirmation, while important.

Yeah.

While valuable, it's not going to change the narrative, the feedback loop in their head. Just not. So I'm trying to answer the question as intellectually.

Excuse me. With integrity to say there's. There's very little you can do other than ask questions. Hey, what's going on? You good? I think you're crazy talented. I know you've talked about doing this thing. What's. What's holding you back? What are you afraid of?

What. What, what. What. What's. What's got you not believing?

Yeah.

Keep in mind you never want to ask why questions. I've learned this from psychologists and therapists that why questions immediately put someone on the defensive versus a what question allows them to. To process it. Because if I say, why.

Do you cheer for this team? You immediately are coming up with reasons to tell me.

Yeah. To defend it.

But if I say, what do you love about your favorite football team? It's a whole different ball game. Yeah. You're not convincing me you're sharing with me.

Yeah.

You see the difference.

Yeah, very true.

So this is a little nugget right here. And so I think in this friend role, I think we've got to be asking what questions? Stay in that lane. A question, a compliment.

An affirmation.

Yeah.

You know, or a challenge. A question, a compliment, a challenge. Maybe that's your sandwich. But heavy on the question and get them to see.

What. Maybe they haven't seen before. Because when you ask them questions like. Like I was saying, what. You know, hey, what. What's the timeline for you launching that side business? Well.

What. What are the challenges that you're facing?

Yeah.

Well, okay, okay.

What's the thing that's got you most afraid?

Like, and again, you haven't given me an exact. So I'm. But I mean, those are the types of things. As a really good friend, because then as they begin to see what happens is with those what questions. And just the form of questions, when you ask, it's getting them out of the feedback loop. Soundtrack has to stop.

Yeah.

They can't listen to the soundtrack and answer that question at the same time.

Yeah, very true.

The idea here is, as a friend, is we get those. We hope the soundtrack stops in those moments with us, and we hope that they come to the realization. Huh. And then. And then, by the way, even when you have a suggestion after a few what questions, stay in question mode.

Yeah.

So instead of saying, well, just do this, this, and this.

That puts them on the defensive too, because then they feel like they ought to explain why they haven't done it. What you can say is, have you thought about this?

Or what would need to be true for that fear to go away. Stay in that zone and let them work it out. And what you're hoping to do as a friend with this nudge is to get them to a place where they've talked it out and they go, huh, I can actually do this. And then all you're doing is going, I believe in you, man. Let me know how can I help? Yeah, I think that's the approach.

Yeah, no, that's so. That is so good. I was also thinking too, if you're the friend and you're actively trying to help another friend out of sincere love for their best interest, right? What you're getting by answering the, asking those what questions and being really intent with listening to the answers, you're getting a greater perspective, right. And you may actually discover the hold back that maybe they haven't seen, or maybe even you as a friend haven't seen, that could be preventing that. I think that's, that's brilliant. I actually, I'm gonna start using that myself. I love the what question philosophy. I think that's pretty profound myself. In a couple minutes we got left. I want to, I want to mention this assessment that you got, which I'm pretty stoked about because I could have saved a decade of frustration by getting more in my sweet spot quicker, further, faster, rather than spinning my wheels trying to do something I was told I was supposed to be doing and vice versa. Talk to me a little about your assessments and kind of what the kind of the best way to take them. How should. What's the, what's the intent? You pursue them and what's the best way to get it, to get to them?

Well, the assessment tool is a measuring tool. So it's really an awareness measurement. How aware of me am I? Okay, so are you aware of what you're really good at? Are you aware of what work that you love? Are you aware of the results that naturally motivate you? That's what this measurement tool does, and it's called get clear takes about 12 to 15 minutes. Don't overthink it. It is not a personality test.

Test.

It's not a personality test. It measures those three things. What am I talented at doing? What do I enjoy doing? What results do I care about producing? And so then it puts it together for you, give you a detailed report. You begin to see things maybe you haven't seen before. It's a lovely report. You get a one page, you get three pages on each of the top two. The talent, the Passion, then your motivational driver, your mission is one page and then it tells you what to avoid, what to do more of gives you ideas, does not predict what work you will do because no, no, no measurement tool can do that. But what it does is spit out a purpose statement.

I was created to use my top talents of boom, boom, boom to do work. I love boom, boom, boom to produce results of boom. Yeah, you know, and so it gives me a purpose statement that essentially becomes a high level dream. Job description. And the goal is to spend 75, 80% of your day in that zone. And if you're in that sweet spot on that seat of the bus, I mean, people are going to go, you were made for this. You were born for this. You're such a natural. Those are the compliments that you will hear on a regular basis.

Dude, I absolutely love it. Because the reality is, is clarity is king. Yeah, clarity is king, right? We, we spent the, the vast majority of the, of the show talking about different ways to get clear whether it's in your relationships, whether it's within your self awareness, whether it's in your overall life direction. And again, I'm like you, I find that a huge chunk of the population is doing stuff they're not supposed to be doing. They're trying to appease people they shouldn't be trying to appease and in an effort to, quote, unquote, live the fulfilled life and not doing the clarity work. So I want to encourage everyone to go take advantage of Ken's assessment. Um, I know lots of folks that have already taken it and already got a lot of clarity in their own life. We'll make sure everybody does that. Kim, want a final question before I let you go, brother? What does it take to become unstoppable?

Well, it takes tremendous clarity.

And you'll have the confidence and courage that you need.

To kind of keep, keep getting back up. But the long haul, that's, that's a process of the daily. But to truly be unstoppable, you must have.

Undying faith, just absolute, unbelievable faith in your creator that he has a purpose. And the story of your life is giving you the opportunity to fulfill that purpose. And I believe that the man of God and the woman of God are completely unstoppable.

Until it's their time to go. And so I think you gotta have a faith in Christ and then live with that faith. And that will make you unstoppable. But outside of the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, you can't be unstoppable.

Love it, dude. Love it, dude. Thank you so much for coming on the show again, man. I can't wait to hug your neck and see you again in Nashville.

Yeah, bro. Yeah, man. Thank you.

All right. Take it easy, buddy. See you.

All right. You, too.

I hope you liked that video. And if you did, make sure you check out this next video right here.

I've always been, you know, a pretty joyful person. I remember after my motorcycle accident being in physical therapy, and my physical therapist was like, hey, there's this guy, and he has had an accident similar to yours, and I was telling him about you, and I'd really like for him to meet you.