Becoming a Full-Time Podcaster | Scott Jeffrey Miller

Do you ever feel it's impossible to become a full-time podcaster or content creator? Although this feeling is familiar among most podcast guests and podcast hosts, it doesn't have to be this way! In this episode, Alex Sanfilippo interviews Scott Jeffrey Miller about his transition from corporate C-suite executive to full-time content creator. Get ready to hear the raw journey of someone who made it happen and how you can follow in Scott's footsteps! 

MORE FROM THIS EPISODE: HTTPS://PODMATCH.COM/EP/288

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Background
04:36 Favorite Form of Content Creation
06:00 Being Fearless in Content Creation
09:47 Dealing with Overwhelm in Content Production
14:30 Knowing When to Stop and Pivot
25:46 Aligning Podcasting, Book Launch, and Content Creation
30:04 Book Recommendations for Podcast Guests and Hosts
31:31 Final Thoughts

Takeaways

• Content creation is a job and should be treated as such. It requires effort and dedication to create and promote content effectively.
• Fearlessness is key in content creation. Don't be easily embarrassed or discouraged by negative feedback.
• Find your audience and speak directly to them. Don't try to be all things to all people.
• Living in the future can help you stay motivated and in control of your destiny, but it's important to also be present in the moment.
• Take time to celebrate your wins along the way. Recognize and appreciate your achievements.
• Recommended books for podcast guests and hosts: 'Rise Above This Story' by Karina Kilcone, 'The Gift of Struggle' by Bobby Herrera, and 'The Perfect Ten' by Dave Linegar.

MORE FROM THIS EPISODE: HTTPS://PODMATCH.COM/EP/288

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Background
• 4:36 Favorite Form of Content Creation
• 6:00 Being Fearless in Content Creation
• 9:47 Dealing with Overwhelm in Content Production
• 14:30 Knowing When to Stop and Pivot
• 25:46 Aligning Podcasting, Book Launch, and Content Creation
• 30:04 Book Recommendations for Podcast Guests and Hosts
• 31:31 Final Thoughts

Transcript

0:01

You're listening to Podcasting Made Simple. Scott, Jeffrey Miller, welcome back. It is our third time recording together. Hey, it's my honor. Thank you for the spotlight and the platform to talk about all that's going on that you and I are mutually interested in. For sure, man. You know, this is the first time you've been on the show since this podcasting made simple. It was creating a brand for the last two, which I just funny. I discovered recently, I was like asking Jeff, I'm like, Hey, can you give me an introduction to this person I'd like to bring on the show? And jokingly, Scott was like, when are you gonna have me back on? I'm like, dude, I just had you on. I looked, it was like three years ago. I'm like, so sorry. So anyway, Scott, glad to have you here today, man. People can't help you if you don't ask, right? So. Very true. So I don't usually do an intro like this, but I just want to mention this. And I'm for Evergreen's sake, this is just today. And I think I'm getting this right. You have seven books. True. Master Mentors is my favorite of the series that you have. I really enjoy that. It goes off of his podcast and I was referenced in one of them. So maybe it feeds my ego, maybe that's why I like it. You're the host of On Leadership, where you've interviewed people like Matthew McConaughey, Malcolm Gladwell. Everybody. All these. You, I've interviewed you as well. You did, yes. Again, feeding my ego here. You have a new podcast that goes along with your latest book, Career on Course is the name of the book and the podcast. Man, partner, founder of Gray Miller Agency as well. Working with people like Damon John, John C. Maxwell, like all these huge names. And then also you're a course creator, public speaker. You've written articles for some of the biggest publications. You've been on TV. Somehow a father of three and husband as well. Dude, I'm saying all this because I don't usually get into this, but the point is we're going to dive into how on earth from a content perspective you do all this at such a high level. But I probably don't miss anything that like just has to be shared. I don't know if I did. I got some things cooking, but they're not important. All right. Again, I don't usually share all that. We usually just dive straight into it. But like, I want to talk about content creation in general. Yeah. Like how do you do it? And so I'll just kind of open it up to like hearing a little bit about your story, I guess, but like what got you into this? Like when was the first time you wrote a blog post or podcast or appeared on TV? Like what came first from a content perspective? So I had a little bit of a head start, meaning I worked my ass off for 25 years, but we'll get back to that. I was once interviewing Stephen M .R. Covey, right? The author of the book, The Speed of Trust. He is the son of the co -founder of the Franklin Covey Company. Stephen Covey wrote the book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, where I worked for 25 years and was the chief marketing officer for nearly 10 of those. I was hosting our podcast called On Leadership with Scott Miller. And when I was interviewing Stephen M .R. Covey, I said to him, hey, Stephen, you know, given the fact that you share the name with one of the most famous humans of our generation, Stephen Covey, his book sold 60 million copies. Did you ever feel the pressure to write a book? Now, Stephen M .R. Covey, was the CEO of the company for several years. And he said, no, not really because I didn't have anything to say until I did. And then he went on to write the book, The Speed of Trust that sold two million copies. And I thought, gosh, that's interesting. I had always played the role of behind the scenes as chief marketing officer. I was, you know, stage manager, producer, director, box office, ticket collector, but I wasn't on stage. I was making everybody else rich and famous. And it was at that interview, I thought, you know what? I've got a few things to say. I mean, in fact, they're kind of different than most people about how hard leadership is, how hard marketing is, how hard it is. Most books tell you, oh, just do this, it'll be fine. And so it really was that interview with Stephen and Mark Covey where I realized, you know, actually at the age of 48, I have something to say, I'm gonna take the risk and say it and wrote seven books and host three podcasts. And as you mentioned, I speak for a living, which is odd because I'm a stutterer. I have a quite debilitating speech impediment. I talk about it quite publicly and comfortably to give voice to those that can relate. So my content creation comes from my knowledge of Franklin Covey, the most trusted leadership firm in the world, learned a lot of things, broke a lot of rules, made a lot of mistakes, have a expandable folder as my human resource file, nothing illegal or unethical, sometimes close. But I was steeped heavily in a content creation company. And I think it really sort of... ignited my creative juices. And so what I've done is taken, you know, a lot of lessons that I failed at, and I've written about them in ways that other people can avoid them. And that's kind of created a big career for me. That's great, man. Yeah, that's the Mesta Success series where I think you actually keep some of your HR file put into it as well. Just kidding. So real quick here, side note, but do you have like a favorite form of content creation? Like is there, is it video audio writing? Like, is there one thing that you're like, I just love this. I'm just curious personally, actually. Probably not, because I'm not great at any of it. I'm just fearless. I mean, I kind of don't care what you think about me. I mean, I do in terms of you thinking I'm not cheating on my wife and I pay my bills well, but I'm not easily embarrassed. Like I don't have the embarrassment gene. I read all of the vitriol on Glassdoor and Reddit and YouTube about me. Like literally my oldest son, we have three sons that are nine, 12 and 13. And about once a month, my oldest son and I go outside, and we sit in the driveway of my car, we turn it on, and we read all of the vitriol about me. And we laugh ourselves silly. I mean, you would think I should take my life about all this stuff that comes my way, but I'm just fairly fearless, and I just keep trying stuff in the hopes that it will help someone else along the way. And I am pretty good at laughing at myself. I'm not great at any of those, particularly. I'm a decent writer, I'm a decent speaker. I'm a decent podcaster, I'm a decent interviewer, none of them are my life calling. I just, I don't try to be all things to all people, but I don't try to be all things to any people. I try to be myself and then find those people who find me valuable and speak to them. You find those people that find you valuable, you speak to them. I think that getting to that point requires you to be somewhat fearless, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, it does. It does. I mean, I think we're all in... The best position we're in is to help people that are sort of our former selves, right? People that are going down our path. And so I'm very much trying to create maybe a deep versus wide listenership, viewership, readership. There are people like me. There are millions of them out there that are like me, that aren't like you. And they tend to know each other because they build a tribe. And so I'm, I'll tell you, I write for myself. Most... publishers and editors will say, you got to write for your audience. And I just don't do that. I write for myself. I write books for me. And then I go try to find the Scott Millers out there who resonate with me. And as a result, there's lots of people that write lots of mean things all over the internet. I don't even read them, don't even care. And in fact, I probably agree with half of them, which is kind of funny. Man, okay, I don't know if you can give this perspective because of the way that you're kind of like just brush that stuff off. I'm more fragile, man. That stuff bothers me. And I think it does bother most creators. And yes, we have to become fearless, but like, did you have to take steps toward that? Or do you have any suggestions on taking steps for that? Or are you just so far removed from that that you can't? I mean, no, of course, right? I mean, here's a lesson I learned is most people talk about having thick skin, which I understand. I was a single Catholic boy from Orlando who moved to Provo, Utah, 29 years ago. I mean, there were no Catholics. I mean, so. I had to develop thick skin in a very evangelizing state, right? 29 years later, I'm thriving here. I don't think you should have thick skin. I think you should have transparent, translucent skin. Stuff comes in, stuff goes out. And so for me, I don't take it too seriously. I mean, people will say, well, he slurs his words. Newsflash, I'm a stutterer. People will say he has a short attention span. Newsflash, I have a lot of passion. So it's hard to hurt my feelings. because I live my life by the principle of most of us think they don't know, no, they do. Everybody can guess everybody's credit score to the closest 50 points. Everybody can guess your net worth to the closest million dollars. Everybody knows who's gay and who's straight and who's voting this way. You can kind of guess it all. There's no secrets anymore. And so I just don't worry about what you think of me. Here's what I worry about. When I go to the grocery store, And Alex is there with one of his buddies and Alex says, Hey, how you doing? Hey, meet my friend, Jim. And then I walked to the next aisle and Alex turns the corner to the next aisle and his buddy Jim says, Hey, who's that Scott guy? I don't want Alex to say he's a flim flam artist. He's a user. He's an opportunist. I want Alex to say that's actually a good guy. He's a good guy. He makes and keep commitments. He's an abundance guy. He knows what he's good at. I actually liked that guy. I do worry about. making sure my reputation is something that I've owned and I've instilled in you. And I think at 56, you tend also to less care what people think about you. That doesn't mean I am flagrant with my personality. Doesn't mean I say things that are outrageous. Well, sometimes I do. But I think there's part of that is just having some confidence in who you are. We're all on a learning journey, right? Everybody's life looks better than it is, truly. I'm very comfortable talking about the ups and the downs, the goods and the bads, the messes. and the successes. That's helpful, man. My big takeaway from that is like, we each serve a specific person, right? Like there's that person that we actually do serve that is probably somewhat of a mirrored image of who we are. And it's a matter of building a good reputation among them. Like the way that you show up for them, right? You can't make someone love and like you, but you can show up in a way that you're like, you know what? I really, I show up in a way that I'm on time. I have that abundance mindset, right? I'm here to serve and support. And so I like that a lot. I want to shift gears here a little bit. Because of everything that you do, do you ever get overwhelmed by the production that's required? I do get overwhelmed, but I have a pretty important priority set. I'm very clear on my values. My personal values are purpose, health, integrity, loyalty, positivity, abundance, and learning. I have committed my personal values to memory, P -H -I -L -P -A -L. And so I organize my time very carefully around those seven values. I get overwhelmed, but I never throw in the towel. I mean, I live life through the lens of not I have to and not I ought to, but I get to, I get to do six podcast interviews today. I get to go open five Amazon packages with 12 books that I've need to skim and understand to be a good host next week. I get to fly to Lincoln, Nebraska on Monday, Chicago on Tuesday in New York, New York city on Wednesday to give three keynotes. So I really try to live my life through the lens of I get to, not I ought to or I have to. And my guiding lens to life is gratitude, right? I get to use my two legs and take the garbage cans out. I get to go put gas in my car and drive my three sons to three separate schools in the morning. I have a lot of friends that are dead. I have a lot of friends that don't have the same opportunities I have. I have friends that have arms and legs. Like Nick Vujicic is a dear friend of mine. no arms, no legs. What Nick Vujicic would give to empty the dishwasher, which is the task I hate most in life, I now empty the dishwasher with a spring in my step, because what a guy with no arms and no legs would give to empty the dishwasher. Gratitude is the lens through which I see everything. Dude, that right there is just a huge key. Instead of saying, oh, I have to do this, it's an opportunity. You get to do that. Did that mindset take you a long time to develop or did you like have a revelational moment that led to that? You know, I was raised in a fairly gratitude -focused family. My mother, I think, instilled that in me. You know, I'm the sole provider for five people, myself, my wife, and our three sons. And I take that role super responsibly. I mean, there are four people that are 100% dependent upon me for their food, their shampoo. their braces, their tutoring, their Invisalign, their college. I mean, my wife and I made a deal. My wife is a full -time stay -at -home mom and house manager. And we made a commitment. I said, my mom, and then my wife. Same thing, my mom, my wife. I think you said wife. Did, okay. Whoever listens or watches can correct us later, but I think you did. It's the same thing, my mom, my wife. I may have even called you Jeff at the beginning of this. It's okay. Like there's just little things happening in podcasting. Friends can do that. I also think like you, you learn so much from... all your podcast guests, right? I mean, you can't interview Nick Vujicic, born with no arms and no legs and not leave having your life changed. You can't interview people that survived commercial airline crashes and fell from the sky in their seat upright and hit a building and slid down and landed on a car and someone saved him. You can't interview Elizabeth Smart, who was raped and tortured and sodomized for months. and live to not only tell about it, but to forgive that person. You can't have these interviews and not be a changed person. I try to finish every podcast interview thinking, what do I need to learn from this? How do I become a little more patient, a little more forgiving, a little more grateful, a little more tolerant, a little more joyful? That's the best benefit of being a podcast host is. having access to all of these great minds and then internalizing, hopefully, one or two concepts into your own life. You can relate. Oh yeah. Look at the mass joy you're gonna have after interviewing me today. Your life will be transformed from just listening to my genius. Right, yeah, yeah. This was one of the overwhelming things. I'm liking it. My book, I'm just kidding. No, this is great, man. It's always fun to be able to do this. Do you ever set, like, I find that a lot of content creators, guest or host, and by the way, I've had that same experience that you shared on both sides of the mic. Whether the guest, the host, people just have incredible stories, they're living a different life. I've grown in my abundance and appreciation for people, like both mindsets, just from being on either side of the mic. What I find though, kind of transitioning here, is a lot of people love being a creator, because it requires being creative, but as soon as you start putting in deadlines, organizational tools, it starts feeling like a job. But in order for you to release books and to keep up with everything you do, the production, like you have to have some sort of system and deadline. How have you been able to not kill the feeling of creativity while also treating it like a career, like a business? Well, I kind of don't understand the premise because being a creator is a job. By the way, I don't see a job as a burden. I see a job as a gift. I mean, when you've been to India, when you've been to the Middle East or Africa or South America, like I have dozens of times and seen abject poverty and cruelty and lack of opportunity. I just, I can't even comprehend the fact that it's a joy to have a job or to have seven jobs. It goes back to my gratitude. Being a creator is a job. But to me, it's kind of like consequences. Most people think consequences are all negative. No, there are lots of positive consequences. I see being a creator as a great job. And you can't just do what you love. Most people as an entrepreneur, as a creator, just do what they love. But then they don't understand, yeah, but you've also got to edit and you've got to post and you've got to market and you've got to invoice and you've got to collect. And I mean, so I think I have learned a lesson early in life as an entrepreneur, as a solopreneur, as a creator, is that if you're going to jump into this, you have to understand you may not just do what you like to do. You may not just do what you're naturally great at. In fact, oftentimes what you're great at isn't what brings you joy. Just because you're good at something doesn't mean, that it brings you purpose and joy. I don't see parts of the job as more or less fulfilling to me because it's required to do all the parts of it, right? You can create content, but if nobody sees it, it doesn't matter. You can blog all day long, but if nobody is subscribing to it, it doesn't matter. So for me, creation is a job and that's just fine. That's good, man. I think it's a really good perspective to have. For me, people... regularly ask like, how have you kept your podcast going? It's because there's systems, there's things around it. Sure, my favorite part is this right here, right? But this is really only for me, maybe 20 % of the work and the rest of it happens behind the scenes. But the better I've been getting automating that and building it out into a system has just really helped a lot. Let me be very clear. I'm a literary agent. So my full -time job is I'm a speaking literary and talent agent. And I tell everybody writing a book is 10% of the process. Launching the book, is ninety percent i mean all your social media platforms hundreds of podcast radio interviews tv programs book tours signings all the articles that you'll write we'll get one sentence in newsweek and you may or may not have someone buy your book on that you're gonna launch your book for multiple years it's the long tail of all the work afterwards is what really matters in anybody can interview someone it's how you activate it's how you popularize it how you make it digestible for people. It's interesting, man. You know, I want to transition here to talking about stopping things. Because obviously, if you were still doing everything that you had started at this point, you wouldn't be doing new things. But like, when do you know that it's time to stop? Marketing a book, a podcast, stop speaking at this certain circuit of events that you used to go to. Like, how do you know when it's time? You know, I got nothing here. I'm not great at this. I have a couple of instances. Is I try... not to get so deep into something that I find myself being really defensive. Like for example, for about a year and a half, I wrote a weekly leadership column for Forbes .com. It's a huge honor. You know, it took me five or six hours to write this column each week, right? It had to be edited and curated and activated. And I thought, oh my gosh, I mean, I ought to write column, I write articles on LinkedIn. It'd be so much broader audience. And so I actually abandoned the Forbes column, which was a great opportunity for LinkedIn. I post daily videos on TikTok, maybe not in the future given what Congress is doing, but I post daily videos on TikTok and my viewership hasn't grown in 150 days. And I pay someone $30 a video seven times a week to edit them, get the subtitles right and put the music in, 30 bucks a day, right? I mean, it adds up, right? And my viewership hasn't grown at all. My followership hasn't grown, my viewership hasn't grown. And so I'm having serious conversations around is TikTok my medium? Is my personality right for TikTok? Maybe those videos we better leverage on LinkedIn, by the way, they're all LinkedIn as well. So I'm probably getting a little bit better at separating my ego with this isn't my venue, this isn't my form. You can't be all things and all venues. I think my number one skill is probably keynote speaking, but I also know who my people are, right? As a guy from the C -suite. I'm actually not that resonant in the C-suite. I'm super resonant in a certain crowd. So it's an area which I don't have a lot of expertise, but those are two examples in which I'm kind of separating my ego from where should I be leveraging my time. So you are a podcast guest all the time, also a podcast host, and you literally just launched another show. So maybe you don't know when it's time to stop, but somehow you carved out and hopefully enough that you're not giving up your family life to do something else. I mean, I'm not, but I mean, You know, they're sacrifices, right? I mean, I take my role as provider very clearly and very carefully. And I recognize that right now the best thing I can do for my boys is to provide them with opportunities that are building their self -confidence, whether it is private tennis lessons or tutoring lessons or summer camps or whatever it is. And so I'm keeping my boys busy. by working really hard and keeping them out of video games and keeping them off of, you know, skateboarding with their, you know, whatever you get the point is. So, I mean, obviously there are, there are sacrifices. I'm making tons of sacrifices, but last time I checked, they wanted braces and want to go to college and that ain't coming from uncle Tom or uncle John, cause there was no uncle John, right? So it all kind of comes back to one of my roles in life is very much as the financial provider for my family. And I take it very seriously. I also know that good things come to people who keep going. My podcast on leadership with Scott Miller, it's not the best podcast in the world. I just taped 360 episodes without stopping all through the pandemic and never stopped and never stopped and never stopped. I believe in the principle of keeping going. Keep going, keep going. Make adjustments, make changes, call up Alex every four months and say, hey, hit me hard. What am I doing wrong? What's changing? What do I understand? But I just think, what is it? What's the average number of podcast episodes someone tapes before they bail? I track until eight and 55 % of people stop at or before eight episodes. Yeah, I'm just, it goes back to kind of not caring what you think about me. I don't read all the vitriol about the podcasts, plural, that I host. What I do is I have a small team of advisors that I believe have my best interests at heart. And we talk a lot. Scott, you're trying to run a tractor trailer. through the first two minutes of the podcast, stop talking so much, Scott, you know, let the guest speak more, Scott, read more of the book, Scott, you know, whatever it is. So I have four or five people that I really count on to give me tough feedback and I just keep going. There's one person that wrote a review of me and I love this. One person wrote a review and said online, you know, I've been trying to like this guy for nine months and I just can't find myself to like him. I remember thinking, It took you nine months? Most people in nine seconds know whether, be like, what have you been, guy, dude, I'm not worth it. Maybe your wife is worth it, but I'm not worth it. I thought, why did you try so hard? Go to somebody else. I'm not your guy. Go somewhere else. I would never spend nine months trying. My wife has spent 19 years trying to like me, but you know, we got married in church as a commitment and you know, we like each other. This brings up another point. All right, so. you now doing a little bit more like with this this new podcast. I want to talk about like the alignment of this podcast with your latest book and all of your podcast guesting aside from maybe this one, by the way, is kind of like a aligned along like this new book. Give us a quick little overview of it and then just talk about why you decided to kind of go heavy into guesting, start the show and have the book kind of all together. I just want to hear that strategy from someone as accomplished as you who's done this a number of times now. Well, I mean, listen, I have lots of books that sold 2000 copies. I have lots of books that sold, you know, 40 ,000 copies, you know, so you know, I have to keep reinventing myself and sometimes things don't land the way they are. I do have three podcasts. One is a leadership podcast. One is a C -suite interview podcast. And my seventh book just launched called Career on Course. It's an individual book about how to create a great career for yourself. And I thought, gosh, I've always wanted to help people pick better. Like, I think there's so many people that go to law school and sit for the bar, then, you know, are an attorney for one year and become a mortgage broker. And so I just wanted people to have more knowledge about, you know, should you be a commercial airline pilot? Should you be an anesthesiologist? Should you be a patent attorney? Should you be a massage therapist? So I had this idea of naming a podcast the same name as the book in the hopes that it might help with brand equity and SEO and all of that. And the podcast is a different kind of podcast every week, actually multiple times a week. I interview someone with deep expertise. This week I interviewed a barber. a boutique high -end hotel manager, a neurologist, and a tennis instructor. And they're like 45 -minute interviews, and I don't think you're ever gonna listen to the interview about being a tennis instructor. I also interviewed a personal fitness coach. But I'll bet you after I put 400 episodes in there, you're gonna have a friend who was thinking about becoming an anesthesiologist or a chiropractor, and you're gonna say, oh, you know what? This guy has the largest collection of podcast interviews in the world. go listen to those two episodes. So I don't think people are gonna listen to all my episodes. It's a very different podcast. I think it could get sponsored by, you know, LinkedIn, by Indeed, by Paychex, by ADP. Hello, hello. But I wanna build this massive library so that when your nephew is thinking of going and becoming a massage therapist, his parents and he can listen to this and say, gosh, I had no idea, carpal tunnel. I had no idea. I'm only netting $40 an hour. I had no idea that the average departure is seven months because you burnt out and you still owe 15 grand to your massage therapy school. I had no idea people pivoted to becoming a chiropractor. You get the point. It's gonna take a long time to build these episodes, long time. But I promise big and I deliver bigger. And so two and a half years from now, I'm gonna have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of deep conversations and it's gonna become a reservoir. of information that will continue to lift my book as well as kind of a one -two strategy. Or it won't. And I'll have offered a lot of value to a lot of people and I'll pivot to something else because one of my principles in life is I bruise hard, but I heal fast. And I pivot quick. That's good, man. I'll never forget this. Like, years into our relationship, one time you picked up the phone and called me and I was like, Scott Miller, okay, I answered. And you were pitching this idea. You're like, I wanted, you're like, Destroy it. Tell me why I shouldn't is basically what you said you like why should I why shouldn't I and we we had like a 20-minute conversation and in true Scott Miller form you said okay Thank you. Bye and like that was it. You know, I did this like I was hanging up the phone. I put my hand I'm sorry. I know it was great. I was like man. I love that Can't wait to see what happens of it from this I love that you you take action you do things like you said you pivot along the way This makes me think of the kind of one of the last questions I have for you here today and it's the idea of celebrating the wins along the way when you're adjusting when you're changing things, when you're doing new things, at some point you have to stop and celebrate a win along the way. And you are shaking your head right now, but you've got to talk to me about this a little bit. When do you do it? I don't. Here's a confession. I don't live in the past. I don't, you know, shouldn't have sold that home, shouldn't have dated that person. I'm happily married 15 years, shouldn't have worked for, I do not live in the past. I bought a car, I shouldn't have four months ago, and it's probably my worst decision, but I'm moving on, right? I live in the future. I am always thinking about the next book, the next podcast, the next home, the next vacation. I am obsessed with living in the future, probably because I take my role as provider for my family very seriously. And I'm a solopreneur, right? The corporate paycheck that came every two weeks in Chase Manhattan Bank is gone, right? I mean, I left all the stock, all the insurance, all the 401k. I left everything behind. I'm making half. That's not true. I'm making a third what I was making as an officer in a public company. You can relate. You had a very similar journey. But the benefit of living in the future is I'm in control of my destiny. But the downside is because I live in the future, I never live in the present. I'm never present. I'm not present in the car with my kids driving to school. I'm not present at dinner parties. I'm not present ever. I'm always thinking about what are the next five things I have to do today. As a result of that, I never celebrate. We never celebrate this book became a number one Amazon bestseller. I just think about, I lost these three podcasts, or not podcasts, keynote speeches for 40 grand next month. This is a confession, not a validation. I'm trying to balance living in the future because that's my superpower, is I don't like to be acted upon. I don't want to be part of someone else's plan. I wanna be my own plan. I wanna disrupt myself. As a result of that, I'm always living further out and I don't celebrate things ever. It may look like I do on social media, my social is true, but this is a huge area of growth for me and I know exactly why I don't do it. It's not because I'm not willing to grandstand, I love myself. You know, I'm my biggest champion. I think I'm awesome. That's annoying to people. But I need to spend more time celebrating my successes. If nothing less, just to validate myself and say, Hey, good job, Scott. You wrote seven books, Scott, you know, 400 podcast interviews, I heart radio program. I built an agency in a year and a half. It's an area of growth for me. Man. I appreciate you being so transparent. It's interesting you say that because historically speaking, I've been extremely similar, but it was actually a conversation you and I had. And for everybody listening or watching, Scott has been a mentor in my life for some time. And you challenged me with something because my mom gave me a bottle of champagne. And she says, open this up when you have something great to celebrate. I was like, okay. And it sat there for about two years. And I mentioned that to you and you're like, dude, open that up tonight. You're like, celebrate life with your wife. You had a conversation with me, you did this earlier, right? Like it was like that. And it changed my perspective. And it's interesting that I'm thankful to hear how transparent you were with us when that's something that I felt that you taught me is to stop and celebrate the wins. And I'm still not great at it, but I just want everyone. listening or watching this to understand how important it is because you can chase yourself to the grave, right? Be proud of the achievements you've had. You got on 10 podcasts as a guest, celebrate that. You've just released your 50th episode, almost no one makes it that far. Go celebrate that. And I just think that that's such an important thing. And again, I just appreciate your transparency on that topic, man. Well, if I got one thing and that's transparency in spades, I got plenty of that. Man, I love it. I got two more things for you, Scott. I'm gonna ask you any final thoughts. But before you share your final thought with us, you have a... of books behind you. And for anyone listening, I'm just telling you, there's just stacks upon stacks of books. Tell us a couple of your favorite that you think are great for podcasts, guests, or hosts. These content creators are sharing their message, right? What do you got? Oh my gosh, can I tell you, this book is excellent. It's called Rise Above This Story. It's by a person named Karina Kilcone, and she's a former criminal defense attorney. When she was, I think, 10 years old, her father went to prison for white collar crime. Her mother was fairly emotionally... incapable of raising her and her brother. And so she ended up going to Case Western Reserve Law School. This is all about understanding your story in life and not making your past story your future story. I love this book from Bobby Herrera called The Gift of Struggle about how important struggle is in your journey and to own your struggle and teach through it and talk about it. This is a new book coming out from Dave Linegar. He's the founder of Remax, the largest real estate company in the world, a good friend of mine. It's called The Perfect Ten, Ten Leadership Principles, excellent book. I could talk a half an hour about all the books back there, but those are three that I'm really passionate about. Good stuff, man. All right, your final thought for us before we end today. You know, when I wrote my first book, it was called Management Mess to Leadership Success, my most successful book to date, my first one, interestingly. And Dan Pink, Liz Wiseman, the late Dave Hollis, a good friend of mine who passed away, and Seth Godin endorsed the book. And when the book became a number one Amazon new release, I sent Seth Godin, who's a friend of mine on many levels, Seth kicks my ass sometimes, like good friends do, and I wrote to Seth and I said, hey, look, I'm so excited. The book became a number one Amazon bestseller. It sold like X number of copies. And Seth wrote back, congratulations, stop checking. start writing. And what he was referring to is stop obsessing with your Amazon ranking, checking it nine times a day. He's like, congrats, stop checking, start writing, meaning start writing book number two. My second book was a flop. My third book became a Wall Street Journal bestseller. And here I am seven in. And I guess should you check, you should check. But his point is just, you know, Seth is such an inspiration. He's a little cranky, right? He's an iconoclast, right? I mean, with Seth, it's all yes or no. There's no I'll think about it. He's very, very clear. And sometimes it could be Kurt. And I kind of like that about him. I'm from the East Coast as well. But I'm always in motion. I'm always reinventing, recalibrating, tinkering, moving forward. Who knows? I might write 30 books and none of them may be blockbusters. It might be my 13th book. Rachel Hollis, who wrote Girl, Wash Your Face and Girl, Stop Apologizing. It was her seventh book, seventh book that hit. Keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going. Don't stop. Scott, that was a great way to end this, man. Thank you, Scott. I appreciate your wisdom. Thank you for being a friend and mentor in my life and just for sharing with us all today, man. Same to you. For more episodes, please visit podmatch.com forward slash episodes. Thank you so much for listening.