Your Pain Has A Purpose | Stephen Scoggins (Motivational Speech)

I would tell you that my most broken moments obviously led to my most fulfilling ones. You know, I mentioned this guy yesterday. His name is Steve Myrick.

This guy changed my life.

He changed my life.

He taught me things that I didn't fully understand.

He taught me that I was not my past, I was my possibilities.

And he did so after I betrayed him.

19 years old, he puts me in business for myself. He knows I'm a high school dropout. He knows that I want to do well. He knows that I want to help my family. He knows I want to stop living by paycheck to paycheck and all the crap that comes with it. He watched me go from bad relationship to bad relationship.

He watched me and he still loved me.

I was that guy where he would give advice and I wouldn't do anything with it.

19 years old, he gives me my first shot. I built my first business thanks to him. He buys me all the equipment I need, all the tools I need, everything that I needed to be successful. I didn't lack anything. He took care of my back office, my front office, my corner office. All I had to do was show up and do the work. That's all I had to do. Show up and do the work. That's it.

And I did. For a good six, eight months. For six or eight months, I showed up and did the work. I put the tool belt on, I climbed the ladders, I lifted the poles. I did everything.

And you know what I did well?

I did well. I made money.

And I thought money would fulfill me. Why? Because my family told me that was an impossibility.

What impossibilities are you stepping away from right now?

You see, there's a gravitational pull. And this is why. What makes transformation so difficult for most people to fully understand, even though it's so simple in nature?

You see, as your rocket is rising and everything around you is tugging on you to hold you back, pull you down, keep you stuck. Don't you dare break loose.

But if you'll keep pushing, you keep applying, you keep building off a principle, you keep taking the right actions, you will win. I guarantee it.

Steve takes me, propels me to the highest heights of a 19 year old. I'm walking around, dude, with a big wad of $100 bills, going into the, the pool halls. Because that was the cool thing to do with my pager, actually. I had two pagers. You know, I turn it upside down, it says hello, and I love you, right? And then you would say, oh, beep, beep, beep. Beep. And you run to the pay phone and put a quarter in which. Have you guys seen one of those in a while? And call whoever is on the other end. You felt important. I went out and bought a 1998 Camaro. I thought it was hot stuff. It was the brand spanking new car, silver, six speed, fast. I still like fast cars.

Guys.

What wrecked me.

Was my pride, my ego and my arrogance. I thought I already knew it all. And what I've come to realize even at my age now, even though I feel like I have some level of understanding about certain things.

I still don't know it all. I learned something new every day. I have learned something brand spanking new from every single person that's come across the stage. And even you guys last night when we hang up with the cocktail hour, loved every minute of it.

What happens when your ego outweighs your character.

As a person of faith? There's a quote that says, pride comes before the fall.

And I fail hard and I hit every single branch on the way down.

As I fell from the, you know, as a 19 year old kid who's making well close to the six figure mark, which is in the 1990s, that's a big deal. That's a pretty decent chunk of change. What did I do? Well, I went and spin it.

I got involved in a toxic relationship that totally wrecked me. I didn't have a secure identity, I didn't have a secure sense of self. I had zero boundaries. I had zero level of understanding of how to manage wealth or even the perception of wealth at that age, in that environment.

And slowly but surely I began to lose piece by piece by piece by piece. Getting so bad to the point where my brother comes in and he's like, hey, I know you're in trouble. I'll take over the mobile home. Yes, a mobile home. And I thought I was rich, baby.

Now in this particular case, I was. For me, I was like, I've got my own place. And I began to lose it. So my brother moved in, took over the monthly payments, $276.84 a month.

I began to rent a room in my own home for whatever I could afford to pay that week.

He had one rule. He goes, dude, I know you're trying to figure stuff out, I get it, no problem. Just don't date that chick. Don't date that girl. She's dangerous, she's harmful. Have you guys noticed a theme with a couple of the things I've told you? I get some warnings maybe, right? Same Kind of thing. What did I do? Well, what I wanted to do.

I wanted the physicality. I wanted the sense of belonging. I wanted the sense of feeling like I matter to someone somewhere, even though I got this bipolar, kind of like, I love you, I hate you, I love you, I hate you, I love you, I hate you. And that'll take a toll on your identity to the which.

But I didn't fully understand the full weight of that. And I proceeded to lose everything. And of course he caught me, kicked me out. And because I didn't have any other resources and because my pride and my ego were still very inflated.

I went months without having secure shelter. Months. And it was my fault.

My fault. My decisions led me there. My choices in my relationships led me there.

The fact that I wasn't willing to humble myself led me there. The fact that I wasn't willing to forgive led me there.

The fact that I wouldn't let go led me there.

And that's how I became homeless.

And the crazy thing was, is somewhere in the middle of all of that mess. It was a chilly night. I was over close to downtown Raleigh.

And I sat down and I could hear him talking. Stephen, you gotta be willing to do today what others want so you can have tomorrow what others don't. It's Nice Town Adventures. Look at them dentures.

And I would take that and I was like.

And then I had this entire experience from when I was like maybe 15 or 16 that I've mentioned on the podcast and stuff before. But if you. This is your first time getting to know me. First of all, I want to thank you for tuning in. I do. I want to thank you for giving me a chance to speak to your heart.

I would hear this moment. I was working in the hot summer one day and I was on the. I was on the scaffolding crew and I come down the crew, because he comes around, he would drive around the community. He pulled me down off the crew, asked me to get into his white Jeep Grand Cherokee with a big old dent in the back because he was forever backing into stuff. I get in the car, it's like 90 some degrees outside. It's hot, y'. All. And I'm sorry, if somebody offers you an air conditioned vehicle, I'll sit in there, you can talk to me all you want to, because I ain't sweating.

You know what I'm saying? I didn't care that it smelled a little bit like mothballs. I didn't. And it did legitimately.

This is the same man that I Mentioned the other day that would put $1,000 under a basket of hush puppies at a restaurant to help somebody in need. He's also the same guy that I watched, literally, the Raleigh police department pull up behind him one afternoon. He's in the middle of talking to people, and he's pulling around the thing. And it's funny because, you know, the cop gets out, sir, can you please move your car? He's like, you move your car. I own the street. Cop got in the car, turned around, went the other way. I'm dead serious. He was feisty. In hindsight, being 2020, I now see him as one part lion, one part lamb.

One part compassion, one part grit, one part peace, one part power, baby.

He would talk to me, and he asked me this one question that, you know, I didn't. It's a simple question. He said, what's the difference between a rich man and a poor man? I'm like, I got this money, duh. Rich man got money, poor man don't. That simple.

I thought my poop didn't stink. Yes. I wanted to say the other word.

And if he could have slapped me the back of the head, he really would have.

He said, absolutely not. Actually, he said, absolutely not.

He said, it's the way they think.

It's the way they think.

Let me ask you this.

Do you want to think like me? Do you want to think like me? Do you want to continue thinking like your daddy?

In that moment, I had this Rolodex. My dad does this. My dad, Steve does this. My dad.

I think. I want to think. I want to model you. Now, Steve wasn't perfect. He had his own flaws, but he is a.

That moment came back to my life. And you know what, guys? I'm gonna. I'll use some of this, But I'm gonna spend. I'm just gonna talk to you like a real human. Is that okay? Can I just talk to you real.

These moments are playing back in my mind. And I found myself walking over to this gas station. I don't even know if we have them anymore, but it's called the Circle K.

And as I'm walking into the Circle K, I go into the bathroom, and I open the door. Of course, it doesn't smell great because it's a gas station bathroom. And they.

Walk over, and I lean.

I lean on the mirror or on the table, and I'm disgusted with myself.

I'm totally disgusted with myself. I'm like, how the hell did I get here?

How the hell did I get Here, I don't.

And I looked up and I looked myself dead in the eyes in the mirror. And I said, you deserve more.

You deserve more not because you earned it, but because you breathe life.

Because there's air in your lungs. You deserve it.

So inside of your breakthrough boxes, I want you to do me a favor. Pull out your breakthrough boxes, please. There should be a little box. It has a little mirror there. I want you to pull those out for a second. I'll give you a couple seconds.

Because normally we look in a mirror and we go to look at it and we're looking at this mirror and we're like, you know, we're having a good day or a bad day. You know, I have this. I had this really hard time making sure my hair stays nice and neat. And, you know, so I'm constantly looking at myself and, you know, kind of thing. Or. Or you've got the whole thing where you walk by and you're like, yeah, baby, look at that thing. Oh, yeah, look at that trap. Or, you know, or you walk by and you like kind of flex, right? Or maybe you walk by. This is. This is something I saw my daughter do once, where you just turn, turn the leg a little bit. Am I going to show the booty shot? Right?

You know, and we use mirrors all the time for different things, but the one thing we seldom do is we use it to program ourselves.

We forget to use it to program ourselves.

If you don't mind. Pull out your mirror, look at yourself a little bit. What's up, you sexy thing?

Got a zit forming? Anybody got any bass? Just kidding. Seriously. Everybody stand up. Stand up.

I'm going to give you the greatest blessing I have ever had in my life. And I want you to feel it.

Everybody stand up.

Look at your mirror.

Say hello, you sexy thing.

What you doing?

You know you got possibilities, baby. You know you do. Yeah, buddy. Woo.

And those on the virtual office, you can turn on your cameras and turn off my feed and you can look at yourself. But I want you to do this with me, everybody. I want everybody at the top of your lungs, I want you to repeat after me. I.

Forgive.

You.

And I want you to feel it and sit in it.

Because no matter who's wronged you, the one person who's wronged you more is that person staring at you in the mirror.