057: Learning From Ego to Create a Hero's Journey with Scott Oldford
Natalie Jill talks with entrepreneur Scott Oldford about his early business wins and losses, his ego problems that led to debt, and how he transformed his life including losing weight. They discuss what it takes to build resilience and authenticity as an entrepreneur.
Hi, I'm Natalie Jill, Fat loss expert turned high performance coach. When odds are stacked against us, how do we shift and create everything from nothing? How do we level up when we aren't feeling it yet or we've had a big setback? On this podcast I'll be talking to some of the most inspiring and courageous men and women on this planet who at their worst learned how to achieve success greater than they ever dreamed possible. Leveling up and creating everything from nothing. Scott Ulford has been an entrepreneur since he was seven years old. He started selling eggs out of his parents garage and by the age of nine he learned how to program computers. And by the time he was just 13 he had a team across the world. By 16, Scott was discovered by the media and he won a bunch of awards. Business came naturally to him. Despite being a really poor student in school. He was overweight, not liked by his peers, and he enjoyed the virtual world much more than the real world. Between the ages of 16 and 21 he started a lot of different businesses. He was mentored by some epic entrepreneurs. But as what happens with a lot of early success stories, Scott's ego crushed him. He ended up losing everything and by the age of 21 he was nearly a million dollars in debt and suffering from depression. Now, like all hero stories, he had a moment of reckoning and decided this was enough. And this is when his next business was born. And that was a hit. By 2017 he was completely out of debt and generating more than enough money to build his dream life. Today, Scott Ulford is the mentor and investor in many of the top online experts and influencers who have built multimillion dollar businesses. He's been featured on Time Entrepreneur Inc. Business Insider, cbs, NBC and influences hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs who are are looking to grow their businesses past the multiple million dollar stage. Join in today and learn exactly how Scott Oldford leveled up and created everything from nothing. Today on Leveling Up I've got Scott Alford. I am so impressed by Scott. He is a partner and investor in seven figure and higher multi seven figure industries and he helps people scale their businesses. He is so well known in his space right now and I was dying to interview him because Scott was definitely not all this. Scott, thank you for being here. I want to know who you were 10 years ago before all of this because you definitely weren't this person for sure.
Yeah, well I mean super excited to go in on some cool stuff today but when I was I guess 10 years ago if I'm looking at it I was about, I don't know, 300 plus pounds was, you know, I had an interesting childhood because I ended up being this kind of, as a lot of people call it, quote unquote, child prodigy entrepreneur. So by the time I was 16, you know, things were going really, really, really, really, really well. You know, I was making more money than my parents in a year that they made in a year, in a month.
At age 16.
At age 16, 17. Yeah. Now, you know, I lost it all by the time I was 21 and ended up a million dollars in debt. So there's that element of it.
Okay, all right, now the questions are just rolling in right now for me.
Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot, obviously a lot to dive into, but it's not your typical. You know, most entrepreneurs end up becoming an entrepreneur because they're kind of like in some ways fed up with their life and they want a better life. I think in my case, I just ended up being sometimes at the right time at the right place. And I, for whatever reason, never believed that I couldn't not do something. And it probably something to do with my mother telling me that I could do anything I ever wanted over and over and over and over and over again and never saying, oh, you can't do that, or you can't do that. So I'm kind of like the. I feel like I'm still 6 years old and think I could be an astronaut still, you know.
Oh my gosh, I totally get that. And it's actually starting to tie together in my head. So I've got a bunch of questions. So your mom does something amazing. She tells you that you can do anything you want. Tell me about this child prodigy thing. Like, where does that even come from? Who told you that? How were you tested for that? Was that your mom just told you? What was that?
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's really funny because me saying it out of my mouth, I'm kind of like. But it's easy when it's you. But I mean, you know, at the end of the day, I started my first business when I was seven years old selling, you know, eggs on my parents acreage. You know, made my first $20,000 when I was 8. Doing that.
Selling eggs.
Selling eggs. Yeah. I had hens. I had Rhode island at Red Hens, which laid brown eggs. Now I grew up in Newfoundland, Canada, which is easterly part of Canada. And so I, you know, I ended up in so many different businesses when I was young because it was kind of like the Infancy of online marketing before it was like digital marketing before people really were in it.
Okay.
And I had no idea what I was doing. You know, I didn't know that this was not normal. But, you know, by the time I was 16, I had an office and like actual legit office. And, you know, by the time I was 18, I had, I don't know, 15, pretty much full time employees.
Wow.
And so, you know, obviously up to the point that I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't have really like that mentors until I was 17. But I ended up winning all these awards and getting all this, you know, media recognition. So it was more so the media saying, hey, look at this prodigy child than me. I just, you know, for me it was just like life and I enjoyed doing what I was doing. And you know, you know how it is sometimes, you know, Natalie, you end up at the right time, you end up the right place, you end up being the right person. And you know, as many as if you look back, you're like, could someone else have done that exact same thing? And the answer is like, no. Like, that wasn't a repeatable process. You know, like, I get people all the time that are like, you know, how can I? You know, I find it a little bit of a silly question to me, but I understand where it comes from, people being like, well, you know, how do I raise my kid to be like you? Which I find really interesting. But what I say instantaneously, I'm like, I think I was a complete, like, I don't think there outside of just telling me as a kid, hey, you know, you could do anything and standing behind that. I think it was just pure timing.
No, but were your parents saying, hey, you should go sell eggs, or is this coming up with the idea?
Never, Never. My, my parents, my mother at the time was a social worker. My father at the time was a, like a telephone line technician.
Oh, okay.
I had no, I had no, you know, so very middle class, super middle class in Newfoundland. Pretty good. Simply because of the fact that the, you know, for the most part the average household income is, you know, pretty low compared to the rest of Canada.
Was there a need, though? Like, was it like, oh, I buy a bike and so I'm gonna therefore do this?
No, there was no external, like there was nothing. You know, this is the most crazy, this is the most useless story from a motivation perspective. I'm curious though, truly is. And I think it was just like I was, you know, I was in the middle of nowhere. I didn't really have friends. I ended up learning how to program. I was always, you know, very, very, like, curious. I was a very curious kid. I had a lot of learning disabilities. I had a lot of, you know, I'm dyslexic, auditory processing, you know, issues I have, you know, short, long term, memory deficits list goes on. And so I think at the end of the day, it was in many ways me just doing what I loved. And it so happened. It could have been anything. It could have been literally anything. But just so happened that I was like, you know what? I could make money doing this.
Yeah. Okay. So a couple things that are coming up for me and then I've got some more questions for you. But it's interesting, the power of what a parent tells you over society. So you said all these things like add, dyslexic, learning disabilities, and that didn't become your story. Then your mom telling you you can do anything really over wrote that. So that's really something I just picked up on right now. Is that that power of what we tell our kids too?
I mean, I think it is everything. You know, I'm not a parent yet, but I mean, you know, I'll just go into that story of there's a difference between saying something and meaning something. Right. So, you know, if you are. When I was 22, my parents remortgaged their house for me. Okay. I was in so much debt that they remortgaged their house so that I wouldn't go bankrupt.
Wow.
Now, you could say that I believe in you or you could show that I believe in you.
Yeah. That's huge, Scott. What a great.
So there was the dialogue. My entire life, I believe in you, and I believe in whatever you do and whatever decision you make, I believe in you. And most that to me is a radical level of trust.
Yes.
And I'm not going to say it was easy. I'm not saying that my relationship with my mother wasn't difficult for a number of years. But that level of I trust this person and their intelligence and their ideas and their creativity and everything else enough to remortgage my house. 10 years. 10ish years. Maybe actually less than that. 8 years before I'm going to retire. That is a significant level of trust.
Incredible. Yeah, that really is. I like that you just pointed out about showing versus telling.
Well, I think a lot of. In every relationship, people say things that they. If they had to put the action in is not real. And I think and I think that that is a fine line. Doesn't matter if it's a parent, doesn't matter if it's your significant other, doesn't matter if it's a business partner. You know, you are, you are. What will happen in life is based not on what you say, it's based purely on what you actually action. And that for me, you know, that for me was big. I mean, it's kind of like, all right, you know, when you're an entrepreneur and your back is against a wall, you typically, you're the only person that believes in you. Right. Like you had to basically put yourself into what I call reality distortion field. Most entrepreneurs are in reality distortion field. It's a term that if you ever read Steve Jobs about his life, there's a lot about him. And most entrepreneurs need to do this. Which means that most entrepreneurs are very alone in their belief of themselves of what.
Yes, they are.
Right. And so for me, it was really, by the time I was 22, I lost everything. I went a million dollars in debt. I mean, you know, for the most part, I was in a very near depression induced area of my life, going from having, you know, in my mind, everything. But by the time I'm 18 to nothing by the time I'm 22, what happened?
Why did you lose it all?
I mean, you know, a large part of it was, you know, just because you have the Midas touch on one thing doesn't mean that you will always have the Midas touch. And just because it's a lot of overconfidence, a lot of ego and a lot of realizing. I think a lot of entrepreneurs that are successful, the most dangerous entrepreneur is the one that got successful the first time they did something.
Yes, right. So true.
And so I think, and I think a lot of the time, a lot of the people I mentor that are at, you know, seven figures, a lot of our clients, they're at the million, 2, 3 million dollar mark and their first time they ever were in business. And I always say my single biggest thing that I have to do with them is make sure they realize that they have a lifetime, like an opportunity of a lifetime to use that opportunity in the lifetime of it and realize that every other business is not going to be that simple always. And I think that that happens a lot. And that's what happened to me. I thought the economy changed. I started hiring people in house. I didn't know how to build a culture, I didn't know how to build operations, I didn't know how to Do a lot of things. I knew a few things really well. And then I invested too much of my money in different businesses. I got unfocused. I basically, I played the book of every single thing that an entrepreneur could do to fail. I did it.
Yeah. But what I'm hearing, too, it's an ego thing. And I feel that this is a commonality. I'm curious if you do that when people, they almost get too confident. Like, I'm great. I'm good at this. See, look, I. Look what I achieved. And now the ego takes over.
And it's almost like, yeah, it's such a weird line too, because ego is your greatest strength, your greatest weakness. Right. Overall. Right. Because if you didn't have an ego, you wouldn't be an entrepreneur. Because it's completely illogical to be an entrepreneur. There's no logic behind being an entrepreneur. The chances of becoming a millionaire via being an entrepreneur are not that significantly high. The amount of stress you have to go through is significantly high. Elon Musk, I love what he says. It's like staring into the abyss and chewing glass at the same time. Yeah, I love that because it describes entrepreneurship in its truest form. And unlike the Instagram feed of all the people that glamorize entrepreneurship and the laptop lifestyle and so on and so forth, it is really, really, really, really, really difficult. And I think that it's really important to be able to figure. It's really important. And I still struggle with this, you know, just to this day, like, I think a lot of entrepreneurs do. There is the, hey, you know what? I need to be confident, because if I don't, I'm not going to be able to actually be an entrepreneur and do what I say I'm going to do and be the manifesto that I am. The other side of it is that sometimes your ideas are just dumb and you should give up. And so, but it's kind of like, it's this, like, you know, balancing act. And anytime someone gets out of balance, it's typically when they fail. And so you know that overconfidence really has to be the best way to be able to fix that or help that is to have either a significant other that really can ego check you, but of course you have to make sure you respect that significant other. Sure, it's much easier if they're an entrepreneur as well. If they're not. It doesn't always work. Or having a mentor or somebody, you know, quote, unquote, having a hard ass in your life. Yeah, you can't BS right? You can BS the Instagram feed, you can BS the Facebook feed, you can BS your team, you can even BS your wife or husband. But, you know, I've had somebody in my life for the last five years that I just. They know me for who I am, not for what someone sees me as.
They help you check yourself before you wreck yourself.
Yeah. Yeah, you got it. And I think that's so important, especially if you're an online brand, online influencer. People have a version of identity that isn't actually who you are. And the worst thing you can ever do is assume that that identity is actually who you are for a whole bunch of reasons. One being you thinking you're actually better than you actually are. Because that's the start of failure.
Yeah. No. Amazing. You know, it's funny that you mentioned that I had parents like you that told me I could do anything I want to do. And I could see that, that helped me take. Have confidence, take risk, all of that. And I also see how that can distort your reality, because when you find out you're not good at something, it's like. What do you mean? My parents told me.
Yeah, I totally, totally, totally get that. I think the other thing that. I think, it's like, you can do anything and focus on your zone of genius.
Yes. Yes. Okay, so I want to know. So tell me about this. The £300. Was this during the time you were going a million dollars in debt? Was this when you were building? How did that come together?
This was. Yeah, I mean, you know, interesting. So I went from 300, and my highest was 360 that I know of.
I mean, Scott, that. Let's just get real. I mean, that's. That's large. So how do you.
I mean, that's. That's definitely. That's definitely not. I mean, you know, I'm five foot nine, so it's not like I'm six foot seven, you know? Yeah. And so, you know, I think this is it. You know, I've done a lot of therapy, you know, in the past year or so, and one of the things I dive into is I'm just like, why. Why did I end up being £360 and. Because, you know, typically that would be a very emotional sort of situation now. I don't know if I blocked this out. I really don't. I still don't know to this day, you know, but that was before. That was kind of like at the high end of everything going well.
Okay.
So I was. It was kind of like, I didn't even. So it's really funny. It's kind of like I didn't even know that I was, like, completely overweight.
Yeah. Like, your jeans just kept getting a little bigger.
Yeah, exactly Right.
The dryer shrunk them.
My biggest genes were 50.
Oh, wow. Okay.
And so I went from that and then. So what happened? And this is going to be a really interesting. So my mother had a heart attack when I was 14. Now you think I would put two and two together and be like, oh, that's going to be motivating to lose weight? Nope, not at all. When I was 17 years old, I read an article. I used to read a lot when I was a teenager. I read a lot less now, but I used to read a lot back then. Like, I'm talking like two books a week at least. And I read a study that based upon the fact that how attractive you are has a direct correlation to how successful you are. Okay. And you know, whether or not that that's true and. Or whether or not you believe in that, I took that to heart at 17 years old. And 16 months later, I was 175 pounds.
Wow.
Because I looked at my life and what I know in my life, the knowing, the inner knowing that I will be a billionaire someday. The inner knowing that I will change. I want to change the world in such significant ways. And I said, I'm not gonna let something that I can change dictate that.
Yeah, right.
So that was my. I mean, you know, I always used to. I always used to say that it was because, you know, I wanted to be more attractive to women. Probably wasn't really that. It was truly the fact that I knew, as vain as it might sound, that that was gonna hold me back in life because of the fact of all the studies that, you know, happen, you know, around that if I kept on going, I probably would have ended up, you know, becoming healthy anyways just because of, like, health. It's a lot easier to be, you know, 300 plus pounds when you're 16, 17, health wise, when you're 30, as you know, and keep an active lifestyle and be an entrepreneur and so on and so forth. Because it's like the healthier you are, you know, I have a full. I have a trainer that comes five times a week to my house. I have a yoga and meditation person that comes. I have a, you know, a body worker that comes three times a week. I have all these things that I do today. I would have ended up down that path, but at that point in my consciousness when I was 17, it was directly based upon the fact that I didn't want that.
Yeah. You know what is interesting is what you're saying doesn't surprise me at all, because what I come in from the fat loss space, the commonality with every massive transformation of fat loss is the number one thing was they made a decision, and that's literally what you did. Because it doesn't matter. I mean, yes, obviously, the diet, the exercises, the people, that's all important, but without that decision, that definitive decision, it doesn't change.
Yep.
And that is what you did.
Yeah. And I mean, you know, looking back on it, there was, you know, I didn't used to talk about this a lot because, honestly, I was a little bit embarrassed. Right. Because it's like, you know, typically people want to lose weight because of themselves. They want to lose weight because something happened. They want to lose weight because of, you know, whatever it might be. And, you know, I'm here in my consciousness at 17 years old being like, oh, well, I want to lose weight because I, you know, want to perform better in my business.
No. But it's a driving core motivator and that. And it worked. It's a decision. Okay, so talk to me about the million dollars debt. So you met. You master your body, you master. You learned how to make money as a child prodigy. Your mom believed in you. She was right. You did this. Well, how does the. You now realize you're making mistakes? How does it spiral to a million dollars in debt? Because I get, like, now you're not profitable. There's a little bit. But how does it get all the way to a million?
So it's actually really easy to get to a million dollars in debt if you have a business that's running at a fairly high capacity. Right. So if you have a business that's running 200, 300,000, $400,000 a month in revenue, all you have to do is, you know, not make money for four or five months and have some credit and have some. So, you know, you're thinking about credit cards. So you have, you know, $100,000 of credit. Then you have, you know, you can go and get a couple loans against your high profitability and high revenue from past years. You can go and get lines of credit. You can go get, you know, you know, external private money as well. And so what happened? Here's the major thing that happened. So, number one, I was working on a big. I was working on a big business, big business idea. I Won't go into what it is today because it's like a 20 minute, you know, monologue by itself. Really big idea. Still good idea today. Never been done. And I put a lot of my money in it. I had a partner that put money in it. We were going for $4 million in funding for that business. My partner pulled out because of some personal reasons. And now I had a team of 14 people and an office and being like, well, I don't know what to do because I have 14 people. I have all these expenses. Yes. I have this other business over there. And so what I did, I tried to take all those people and run a business that didn't need 14 people extra. 14 people. And I basically just bled my company dry over the span of 18 months.
And that's a hard pill to swallow, obviously. So how did you keep going from there? Because at that point, I mean, I can only imagine what you start thinking about yourself.
Oh, I mean, well, I think the other element is. So I. So here's what happened. I was about to go bankrupt, so I sold to another agency. So I sold my business for like, basically a dollar. I was basically like, you take over my debt payments or, I don't know, whatever they were at that time. And, you know, so I went from like, you know, typically being able to spend whatever I want on my lifestyle to getting paid $3,500 Canadian a month.
Wow.
Okay. Which, you know, to some people might sound like, you know, what they live on and so on and so forth. For an entrepreneur, that's, you know, it's.
Devastating when you already knew what you were capable of.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's. I couldn't live on. I couldn't live two days of my life on $3,500 at this point. And so, and so that was really, you know, that, honestly, that part wasn't difficult. It was working with somebody and kind of like being aqua hired and having to work with someone as them. Almost being my boss for the first time in my life. Right. Yeah. So that was, you know, I'll be, I'll be honest. I used to bring a pipe and smoke weed to cope at the office.
Yeah. Literally to cope and check out.
Yeah. And, and, and, you know, I was never a big. You know, I definitely was never alcoholic or anything like that, but I definitely was on that road.
You were numbing something.
Yeah, I mean, I would, I would, I would try to pull myself out of bed. I would play, you know, I would go Home play five hours of video. I did the minimally viable amount I needed to do in order to be.
Able to make it happen, which is, unfortunately, how a lot of people listening to this might be living their Life right now.
100%. It was terrible. And what happened one day, I don't know how this happened now. I have no idea how this happened. All I can say is this is the universe, like, back up and saying, all right, Scott, you're not. You're not going to peak when you're 22.
No.
And so I won this random award, this innovator, this Canadian innovator award. I don't know who suggested.
So you didn't even apply for this thing?
I didn't even apply for it. I don't know what happened. They're like, we want you to come to Toronto full trip, paid to be with 19 other entrepreneur young entrepreneurs.
Okay?
And I'm like, okay, cool.
Free trip.
So I had to get my own plane ticket, so I had to use. So my mom paid for my plane ticket.
Okay.
So I go up there and I'm in a room, and over the next three days, seeing these other entrepreneurs and what they're doing, I'm like, you know what? No, I'm not letting my life. I'm not. I'm not doing this. This is not my life. And so I went back home, cleaned up my office, and, you know, basically, 11 months in, told him, you know, basically, screw you, I'm out.
You mean you decided you weren't gonna be an entrepreneur, decided you needed to be an entrepreneur?
No, I needed to be an entrepreneur.
Yeah.
I went back. I went back to the guy that. Yeah. That, you know, essentially.
Yeah.
You know, acquired business. And I said, you know what? I'm done with this. You can take me to court, you can sue me if you want, you can do all the things, but this is not what my life is going to be. And four months later, I launched a business that then went on to do a million dollar. Over a million dollars in revenue. This is 2013. Did a million dollars in revenue in less than a year. And then so you, Scott, you just.
Said, I don't know how, but it's the same thing with the weight loss is what I'm hearing. You literally made a decision again. It's.
As soon as I make a decision, as soon as I think. Actually, I think this is not for me. But everybody, as soon as we make an actual decision and we start trying to put one foot over, you know, the moment we give up on Plan B, Plan A is now conspired for us by the universe.
Yes, yes. And you have to decide that because plan B is not a decision.
Well, yeah, you know, I put it in the, I'll put it into, you know, I'll just fast forward you, you know, if you want the, if anyone's listening this and want the in between, there's lots of podcasts you can, you can Google that, you know, will tell you the in between of like 2014 to now. But in 2018, in 2017, I sorry, I blew up a business. So I got depressed again. So I got every, I got all the deck on, I have a 3, $400,000 a month business. I got ever again made it, went into the ashes, rose back again. But this time I'm 26. This time I in the wrong romantic relationship. I realized that there comes a time in every entrepreneur's life where once you get to the fourth, fifth hierarchy of needs, if you don't know about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, I highly recommend you going all in on that. At the fifth level of the hierarchy of needs, which is self actualization is where most entrepreneurs get incredibly anxious, depressed, sort of reckless. Okay, okay. Kind of like, alright, I got money, I've got, you know, intimacy. Love those different types of things. Let me go inward. For most entrepreneurs that have more than $100,000 in profit a month, this is where people get stuck. They get stuck at the self actualization part. So what do I go? I deny.
Explain what you mean by that. So like, they get stuck figuring out who they are.
They get stuck figuring out who they are. Because the problem is that entrepreneurship is so difficult that you have to assume. My friend Todd Herman, he just launched a book on this a couple days ago called the Alter Ego Effect. You have to go so deep into the alter ego of who you need to be. Like, you almost create this identity around who you are. And then once you become successful, you realize you don't have to do that anymore. But now you've lost who you are.
Got it.
Okay, so now you have this. I did 400 hours of therapy last year in 2018, trying to figure out, plus I don't know how many hours on the beach crying here in Venice.
It's normal in Venice.
Yeah, very normal in Venice. You know, I met so many random people. It was great. And so, you know, what happened is, so in 2017, it was September, I said, you know what, I'm going to go nomadic, I'm going to blow up this business that's doing three, four plus million a year. And who knows what's going to happen. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. And then three weeks later, I'm in Venice and I meet my now wife.
That's incredible.
Which is Libby Crowe. And so from there, in 2018 and bringing the story back around, I had two feet. I had one foot. In 2018, I had one foot. Hey, you know what? I want to build this, you know, this big business, change the world, so on and so forth. The other foot was in, you know what? That's too much responsibility. I just want to chill. I just want to work on myself. I just want to do, you know, everything else.
Yep.
And I messed up so much in 2018 because of that. And keep in mind, we still built almost a 10 figure, almost a $10 million business in 2018, like from literally from scratch.
Yeah.
But until November. This is only three months ago until November when I finally decided I'm going to burn the boats. I'm going to burn this. Forget this whole thing, this dialogue, this perspective around. I. Oh, look at me. I. There's so much, there's so much responsibility I have. I had to have the responsibility to team. I had the responsibility, this. I had to do all these different types of things until I gave up the dialogue in my brain that what I was doing wasn't an obligation and it's an opportunity of a lifetime. Same advice I give to a lot of the people I mentor and help. That is when everything where they. Where I can feel the universe literally conspire, conspiring for me versus trying to, like, trying to get me there, trying to get me there, trying to get me there. And I just had this attachment to past. I had this attachment to. I don't want things to be too stressful.
So, Scott, I'm seeing something else with you too. And I don't even know if you recognize this, so I'm going to ask you about it.
We're going into a therapy session.
Yeah, we're Dr. Natalie here. So I see that when you have been in roles where you're at, you're of service to people and you're helping others and it's bigger than just you want to be successful. It feels like that's what's worked for you. And when it goes into like making, just making money and being like about you, that's maybe when the ego had to check and you had the downfall because, like, I know what you do now. And you are a great Service to other people. And that's what's working.
Yeah, 100%. I think the really interesting you say that because that's something I discovered about myself in 2013 and what I realized. I remember the day I realized this. I was on a walk and we even remembered it was in June. June of 2013. And I realized, you know, before this time, I had, you know, all these people I looked up to me. I had all these people that I helped. And it's the moment I'm going to use, you know, I'm going to use me as being, you know, a. When you are a king or queen of your empire, the moment you stop serving your people is the moment that you are no longer the king or queen.
Yes.
Right. The moment that you say, oh, I'm the king, serve me, is the moment that you don't have people to be able to, of course, be in your kingdom.
Totally.
And I think that that's directly related back to ego. And I think that that's why, you know, I spent so much time on helping others. And I think that's why I spend so much time on the content that I produce and what I put out there in the world and all these different types of things. And it's so right. It's so true that every time that I look to what's in it for me, everything kind of blows up.
Yeah. The other thing I noticed about you is a theme of authenticity with what works and then not being authentic with what doesn't. Like, if you. If you were to look at Scott on social media, which I do, I follow him on Facebook and Instagram. I was cool. Is when you're in your authentic self, like when you're really sharing what's going on, struggles included, that you don't have things perfect that lands for people and attracts more to you.
100%. 100%. One of the articles I'm writing right now, the. You know, we run a project Nuclear, which is for people that are making 50k to 250k a month. And I'm writing an article right now. The 21 mistakes we made in 2018. Like, all the things that. All the things that screwed up and very vulnerable type of post. Right?
Yeah.
Like, oh, well, you know what? Yeah, we did screw up. You know, we have an amazing program. We have lots of success. People see that success. Things are going so good, but everything you do is not going to be. Every piece is not. You're learning as you go in business. And I know that that post is going to do so well, because it reveals exactly what's going on versus, oh, look how amazing this is, and there is no problems at all. And, you know, so on and so forth. And of course, you know, people are, you know, everything started working for me online in a social world when I started really showing who I was, which started happening around 2015, 2016, when I had this kind of moment of like, you know what? I'm just going to show who I am. Because when I grew this business, like, kind of my online profile, I was like, you know what? If I ever fail again, I want to at least monetize being able to fail. Because this is actually really interesting piece to go back. I had this. As I talked about the whole identity thing, by the time I was 19, everybody were like, oh, my God, you're amazing, Scott. So on and so forth. So everyone around me for three years just kept on saying how amazing I was and how great I was. And they created this identity of this, like, prodigy whiz kid entrepreneur. And I bought into it.
Right.
I bought into my own Kool Aid.
Wow.
Right. And I spend a lot of time these days making sure I don't buy into my Kool Aid.
Yeah.
Right. To the point that I sometimes downplay, you know, like, the actual good work that I do and all these different types of things. Because my brain. And I think that you might be able to correlate with this, too, Natalie. My brain kind of goes back to, like, the failure, and I'm like, all right, well, you know what? I don't want to swim in my Kool Aid too much. I don't want to drink my Kool Aid too much. And I think it's a hard thing to do when you're kind of like, have failed. And you know why you failed.
Yeah.
But now you haven't failed. And, you know, it's much more difficult for me to fail today than it was then.
Yeah, I want you to. Can you talk a little bit into this shift? Because, like, I know you have. You had a challenge, the shift challenge, but I also, I noticed it, like, for instance, just from what I'm hearing, talking to you right now and knowing what you do, it's not that it's always like A or B choice for you. You're always looking for that C, like, what's the other option? So, like, for instance, like, you just shared that you always have that conversation about, well, this failed before. Could that happen again? But, like, now you invest in other companies, so now it's not just you. Right? So you're always looking for that. Like, what's the choice? C. Or how do I shift? Can you talk a little bit about that?
Yeah. I mean, I think the way that I look at things now is.
When.
I launch my book later this year, I'm going to be talking about this, which is there's three currencies. There's the currency of money, there's a currency of audience, and the currency of relationships. And so if you're down and out, most people only have the current. Most people don't have any of those currencies. And then people hustle to try to get money, I think. Hustle to get relationships.
Yeah.
If I spent all the money all the time being able to get. It kind of goes in this order. Relationships first, audience second, money third.
What about time? You didn't mention time. I think that's a currency, too. I think.
Yeah. I mean, I think that is a currency that automatically gets freed up as soon as you get one of the three in excess. Okay, two of the three in excess, at least. But I completely agree with you on that. You could also say attention is currency, but those three are the core. The interesting thing on that is when you look at where you invest your time and money. I've invested millions of dollars in my audience and my brand in the past couple years. I've invested hundreds, thousands of hours in relationships in the past five years. And I realized, really, when it comes to investments, my money is actually the least valuable of the assets I have. Meaning money in the bank is the least valuable. Right. Because, you know, if you look at it like after. After we changed the whole, you know, money thing ever since 1982 happened, and at least in America, our money is kind of like funny money. You know what I mean? It's not backed by gold. It's not backed by oil. It's kind of like, you know, the government could come out tomorrow and say it's not worth anything.
Yeah.
But when it comes to audience, you're always gonna. If you have audience and an Internet connection, you're always gonna have the ability to be able to generate, you know, more revenue by helping them. If you have relationships, you're always going to have new opportunities that are going to be able to essentially come to you. So the way that I run my world now is, you know, I look at the fact that I have. I'm one of the best in the world at what I do. In the very specific thing that I do. I can help a very specific type of person, and I help help those types of people. And when they're at the point in a level where I can actually help them, I come in and, you know, essentially help them run their company and take a percentage of their company to be able to do that. My thinking is, well, you know, in three years from now, if I have a percentage of 250 companies that are all doing well, it doesn't matter how bad the economy goes or like, you know, if something's bad or something's good or one part of the industry is good or one part of the industry is bad, I'm at least hedging the potential that I'm never ever gonna have to worry about any of this.
Yes, true. Because they're not all gonna have an issue. It's not gonna. There's a way. Yeah.
And you know what? I think there's another element that, you know, unless you're really taking, like, I don't take big bets anymore. I don'. Whole, you know, put a million dollars on red. You know, I don't do the big bets anymore. So it's much more smaller bets. And once you get to a certain point, there's basically 250 influencers or like, high level people in every niche. Right. So if you look at everything, there's like 250 people that are like, the people.
Yeah.
Once you're one of those, you're basically like, you may not be able to be like, if you fail, you may not. You know, it might be a little bit hard, but you're never gonna be completely down and out.
I get that. Yeah.
Right. You know, like, for either of us to, like, completely fail, be completely broke, have to, like, not be in, like, the houses we're in, live the lifestyle we're in would be a little bit difficult versus somebody. And so. And typically it takes 10 to 15 years to achieve that from, like, zero.
Got it. Yeah, I'm aligned with that.
Yeah. Once you're there, it's kind of like, you know, unless the industry just get. Unless you're really actively trying to sabotage yourself.
Yeah. Like you do something illegal. Yes. Like you do something illegal or something. Yes. Got it. Yeah. No, this is powerful. Okay. I've got some questions.
What?
Because it's interesting because your wife has not the same story, but you guys have parallel stories about, like, creating everything from nothing. Right. So I want to know, like, does that help support you moving forward? Like, knowing you guys both kind of came from there and can relate and do you have like. Like, because I. You can't. I. Well, maybe you can be, but I would think most people are not positive 24, 7 and on point. So like when you're in self doubt, you help each other with that. Like tell me about that dynamic.
So important. You know, I'm helping someone right now actually launch a program for entreprene, like in relationships with entrepreneurs. So either both of you are entrepreneurs or one of you are entrepreneurs. Because being with an entrepreneur is like a. That's a ride. Yeah, I will say. And you know, I don't have that many data points. The relationship I was in before Libby for about five years, she wasn't an entrepreneur.
She was or she wasn't?
She wasn't. She was.
Okay.
And that's difficult. You know, it's difficult. And I think being in a relationship with an entrepreneur is not easy. I probably wouldn't recommend it to anybody, to be completely honest with you. It's got a lot of ups and downs and there's a lot. Lack of certainty is difficult. The person probably has a big. Most entrepreneurs are at least somewhat narcissistic because they gotta be. If you look at the bipolar, I mean we're the most functional breed of issues there is. So the relationship I have with Olivia, I love. You know, she's an entrepreneur and she does well and you know, she's been an entrepreneur for six years. It works really, really, really well. I think the cool part is like we get to respect each other.
Yeah.
Really, really deep way in many parts of life. And you know, for whatever reason, I don't know if it works this way or it's how it goes. Like if there's a day that either of us are down or self doubt or judging or whatever, the other person can be there and create the space for that.
Yes, for sure.
And I think that that's a powerful combination. And because it's so cool, because she helps people get to multiple six figures. I help people to get multiple seven. And so the cool part is like she gets my world. Like you can be two entrepreneurs but you know, she might be in the other person might be in the medical industry. And you're an online business. You guys probably don't have that much to talk about.
Yeah.
In this case, you know, I don't have to explain myself. It's kind of like, yeah, this happened today. Or this, you know, this happened there. Hey, hey, babe, you know what, can you help me plan this out? Or like can I pass this by you? Or like whatever it might be. Yeah, that's been really. I mean, you know, when I Quote unquote, called her in, per se. I was like, I want somebody that's like really like evolved. I want somebody that's an entrepreneur. I want someone that is, you know, independent in herself. I want somebody that, you know, is really intelligent and really, you know, all these different types of things. Funny enough, when she called me and she wrote it down on like, you know, six pieces of paper and I was to the t. I was a little bit. I was a little bit more like, here's my five things. And I don't know if I completely, you know, sort of thought that that exercise was actually going to work. But, you know, three weeks later, I found her.
I'm interested in how without that, certainly with my list, I had one rule, I had one thing, and it was I didn't want an entrepreneur. And I somehow met Brooks, who has never had a job other than being an entrepreneur his whole life.
Yeah, well, I mean, I think. I think you get exactly what you need, right? Yeah, but yeah, like overall. And we started a company together, shift, which is a mindset company for entrepreneurs. Because I think that that's so important and it's such. An. Entrepreneurship is such an amazing place for self development. It's such a great place for understanding yourself. And I always say this too. And again, I'm not any, like, marriage pro. I've been married for like since May of five years pro. But from what I feel and what I've experienced is that marriage is the highest commitment to yourself that you can ever make.
Yeah, I would agree with that.
And it's by far the best place for. It's the safest container I've found for deep personal development and deep personal transformation and patience. Yeah, I have 100%. And I think that that is a element that also transcends into business. You know, I think if you're a good entrepreneur, you can be a great husband or wife. And if you bring that same. Looking at. I think a lot of people look at their business being like, ah, this is the business. I got to do this. Whatever. Business is by far the deepest, one of the deepest forms of personal development known to human beings.
Yeah, because you have to look at that. Cause of what's going on. It's always us. It's 100% responsible.
And I think the other side of it is understanding how you do one thing is how you do everything is the most powerful realization if you have a problem in some area of your business, that you have that problem in every area of your business, every area of your life. You just have perhaps had the awareness around it.
Amazing. Yeah. That's super insightful, right? Yeah. Okay, Scott, there's a question I ask everybody, and I'm curious your take on this. If somebody's listening to this and they're in their own. Whatever their rock bottom spot is, maybe they are the £360 you were, and that's their rock bottom. Or maybe it's. They're in their million dollars debt like you were talking about. Or maybe it's just as simple as, you know, they're like, they're in a corporate job and they want to start their own thing, like they're own life journey of, like they're not feeling passion, you know, on purpose, they're not passionate, whatever that is to them. What are three things that you would tell them to do that they can start shifting and leveling up their life and creating everything from nothing?
That's a good question. I think the first thing is we are synthesizers, okay. Meaning we take in all the inputs from the world and we synthesize it in whichever way we choose anything. And we can make it negative, we can make it positive, we can make it ecstatic, we can make it depressive, everything. And so I think the first thing is to make sure that you understand your belief system and how you synthesize information. Become aware of that, because that will largely dictate the success of happiness in your life is why you can meet some people that are completely broke and they're so happy because for whatever reason, they have a synthesizer that's making them incredibly positive. So I think that's the first thing. I think the second thing is looking at everything in life as an opportunity instead of an obligation. And I think the third one is just focus on being 1% better a day.
I like that.
And I think that, that. I think that that's it. And then obviously, I mean, you know, my favorite quote of all time that ironically comes from the Bible is this too shall pass. You know, I think that phrase. Yeah. I have no idea how many times I repeated that over and over and over through time, and not just in bad times, in good times.
Yeah.
This too shall pass. I don't know what's next, but this too shall pass. And I think that that phrase had a lot for me.
Yeah, that's really good. Thanks, Scott. This is awesome. Where can people follow you? Learn more. Can they still take your shift quiz? This that you did that your.
Yeah, for sure. The. Yeah. I mean, you can just Google me. I'm on Instagram, Facebook, you know scottleford.com if you go to scottofer.com, you can go to the SHIFT Challenge, which is the challenge for Entrepreneur mindset, but I'm pretty easy to find on the interwebs.
Thank you Scott.
Thank you so much. It was great chatting today.
Thanks for leveling up with us today. Please share this episode if you found it helpful so others can join in. And don't forget to hit that subscribe so you don't miss out on future shows. And if you would leave me a five star review. I appreciate those so much. I read all of them and it's how I know that I'm giving you information that you find valuable. And come interact with me over on Instagram @nataliejofit. I read all the direct messages and comments over there. Make it a great day. Creating everything from nothing.
