Latest / Harder Than Life / 145: The Only Way to Lose Is to Quit – Scott D. Clary on Playing the Long Game

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145: The Only Way to Lose Is to Quit – Scott D. Clary on Playing the Long Game · Harder Than Life

• 0:07
  I'm Kelly Siegel, and this is Harder Than Life, a podcast about self-love, self-awareness, business, and health. We tell outrageous stories and boil everything down to simple, practical advice you can start using today. Let's get living.
• 0:23
  Welcome back to the Heart of Life podcast. Today's guest is Scott Clary. He is a dynamic entrepreneur, investor, and author. He hosts the Success Story podcast, a number one entrepreneurship and top 10 business show distributed on Cheddar, Amazon Prime, DirecTV, and Hulu. Throughout his career, Scott has led sales and marketing teams across multiple organizations playing key roles in company growth and acquisition.
• 0:48
  His weekly business newsletter reaches over 321,000 subscribers, sharing valuable insights from his experiences throughout his career. Oh, and he also is Canadian. Welcome, eh? How's it going, buddy? Thank you for having me on. I'm enjoying the Miami winter right now.
• 1:09
  This is like a home and home podcast. I got the joy of being on your amazing show and you and I bonded. And man, there's just tremendous depth to you. So the audience is going to really enjoy you. The Heart and Life audience is really going to enjoy you today. We were just talking about kids and parenting. And I'm like, let's just get this thing started. So let's kick today off with imposter syndrome. You've said everyone experiences imposter syndrome at some point. What advice do you have for someone struggling with self-doubt?
• 1:38
  Everybody struggles with self-doubt. And I think that one of the most powerful ideas about imposter syndrome and why imposter syndrome even exists is because as humans, we are very good at remembering all the times that we failed because those instances, those events imprint on our brains.
• 1:59
  And when we think about, I wanna take risk and I want to ask the girl out, or I want to get the job, or I want to start my own business, or I wanna go to the gym and I've never gone to the gym before. When I think about all those things that are uncomfortable and there's a degree of risk, some more than others,
• 2:19
  If I think whether or not I'm going to be successful at those things, if I can only remember the negative all the times when I failed, which is very easy to do because again, your brain is responsible for keeping you safe. So when something doesn't work out well, you remember it because your brain is programmed for you to remember that so that you don't repeat that thing in the future because thousands of years ago, that would have stopped you from dying. However, that doesn't serve us so well in 2025 when just getting rejected or
• 2:48
  not getting a job offer or getting fired. It's not a life or death situation, but it does imprint and it stops us from taking the risk the next time because we remember that negative event. And that's one of the many reasons why we get imposter syndrome. So I think that very simply, what we have to do is we have to sort of counteract that. We have to find a way to get over and remember all the things that have gone right.
• 3:12
  in our life. And that is the quickest path to get over imposter syndrome. Because if you actually looked at your life, there are more times when things have gone right versus when things have gone wrong. We remember the things that have gone wrong. And I'm going to tell you a story as to how powerful this is in a second. But if we can find a way to, whether it's journaling, whether or not it's just creating space to sit with ourselves and go over highlights of the last year,
• 3:41
  when we start to remember the things that have gone right in our life and we start to remember all the wins that we've actually had, whether or not it's with the girl, with the job, with the raise, with the first customer, with the first pound that we lost when we went to the gym, all these different wins give us that confidence to take the action to do the next thing.
• 4:00
  seemingly risky thing because we have all these proof points that we've already won at all these other risky things in our life. And I think that that idea alone is quite powerful. And if you want to understand how important it is to just walk away from this podcast with that idea, you have to understand how powerful your mind is at,
• 4:27
  not properly giving you the full picture of your life and your history with negative thoughts. News organizations, they understand this. That's why Twitter and news is full of negative because it imprints. If you think about the most traumatic events in your life, you're going to gloss over all the positive ones. You're going to remember all the things that didn't go right. One of the stories I like to tell about how powerful the mind is was actually...
• 4:52
  Bringing me back to when I first started my career, I was selling cell phones in a mall. And what happened was there was a guy who came into the store and he was trying to set up a cell phone with a fake ID. He was trying to commit fraud.
• 5:08
  So we called the cops and the cop walked into the store and we were pretending to do the cell phone activation and the sale for this guy as if nothing was wrong. And then the cop walked in. He said, hey, buddy, can we go for a walk? I want to talk to you for a second.
• 5:25
  And he took the guy who was trying to commit fraud and he walked him out of the store and he walked him, you know, about 200 feet down the hallway in the mall. And and then he arrested him. And when it was all said and done, he came back into the store and he was just writing his report. And I asked the officer, I said, why did you walk him out of the store and walk him away from us before you arrested him? And he said, the reason why is because when you arrest somebody, it's a very traumatic event in their life.
• 5:52
  And when there's a very traumatic event like getting arrested, everything that is around that person gets imprinted in their mind for years. So that includes the faces of all the people that are in their immediate vicinity when they get arrested. And he said, I didn't want him remembering all of your faces. I wanted him just to remember my face. And he'll remember my face for years, like after he gets out of jail years. And I never wanted him to go back forever.
• 6:21
  And remember your face and say, these are the three or four people that were responsible for me getting arrested. That's how powerful negative events are at imprinting in our mind. They stay with us for years after the fact. So just understanding that your recollection of your life and all the things that haven't worked out is not the full picture and your mind is playing a trick on you.
• 6:46
  to keep you safe and to find a practice like figuring out what you've actually won and succeeded at that will allow you to actually see how awesome you are and take that sort of mindset forward when you take on new risk is probably the single most important strategy to overcome imposter syndrome i so i'm going to be full disclosure and steven probably doesn't even know this about me is that i've been arrested many many times i've always been an idiot done stupid things i got arrested for selling drugs
• 7:15
  I don't remember any of the guys that arrested me. So I think that sounds really good. And I think it's a victim mentality, but that's a good story, but I don't remember any of them. But I, 100. Maybe because it's happened so many damn times. But the. But this is the funny thing about it, radical accountability. Every time I was arrested, I was doing wrong, 100%. I could tell you all the times, my fault. And I deserved it.
• 7:41
  But I learned and I moved on. So I'm in the fix of imposter syndrome right now. We talked a little bit about it on your podcast where like who am I to try to become the number one podcast in the self-improvement space? Who am I to start this brand? Who am I to lead these men at my IT company, National Technology Management? What imposter syndrome did you have before you left corporate America and went off on your own? So what I just told you,
• 8:11
  has really been the way that I've lived my life. I focus on how many times that I've won. That is like very simply, when I went out on my own, my thought process was, well, if I've succeeded at all these other things and I can look at somebody who has succeeded at the new thing that I'm trying to do,
• 8:35
  And I can reverse engineer their success to a degree and follow the steps that they've taken. And then you do all the things. You focus on taking action. You seek out mentors. You do all the things that sort of de-risk the next step. In my mind, maybe I'm just very fortunate. But when I do all those steps, I don't feel like anybody is any different or special or more capable than I am.
• 9:01
  That's always the way that I felt because I do focus on all the times when I've actually put my mind to something and one of that thing. And I'm also a big believer in, I mean, maybe it's oversimplistic and maybe a lot of people don't think that way. I don't believe that anybody is truly special. I feel like if somebody's done it before, why would you assume that you can't?
• 9:22
  What are the steps that allowed someone else to become the number one self-improvement podcast? Right. Like truly. I mean, okay, maybe they have a little bit of charisma. Maybe they booked some guests. Maybe they figured out marketing. Maybe they've been in the game long enough. Yeah, it's not easy. It's hard work. But I also don't. And there's a component of luck involved in that as well. But I also believe that if you stay in the game long enough and you apply all these ideas, you start to generate and manufacture your own luck.
• 9:51
  I think that if you replicate all the things that that person did, you figure out marketing, you book the best guests, you stay in the game long enough, you practice your interview skills, you practice how you come across on camera. If you do that for an extended period of time, you end up winning. And maybe you don't become the number one
• 10:10
  But like number two and number three also make, you know, a decent amount of money and you have a decent a decent sized podcast. So if you look at the number one, you know, what's the number one self-improvement? A Jay Shetty or a Mel Robbins or someone like that. I mean, they've been doing it for 10, 15 years. So do it for 10, 15 years and learn what they do and emulate what they do and then and then apply your own personality and your own style to it. And you're going to end up in the top five at some point.
• 10:39
  That's truly what I believe in life. I don't think many things are as complicated as people make them out to be. I just think they give up too soon. Scott, that was beautiful. It's as simple. Keep it simple, Scott. It is. Even business. Okay, so if you think about entrepreneurship,
• 10:54
  Again, people overcomplicate it. And when they start a business and it starts to get difficult, they give up as opposed to trying to figure out why it's difficult because shiny object syndrome takes over. And then they pursue the next thing because they're like, oh, you know what? The thing that I started out to do that I had...
• 11:12
  I had a lot of motivation when I first started, and it's not working out as well as it could. And this new idea seems great, and this seems sexy. And maybe what if I just pivot over here, and I try this new thing. And then they try the new thing because it's this shiny object. And then the motivation for the new thing fades out, and then it gets difficult. And then they move on to the next thing. And people go through this cycle of...
• 11:38
  finding motivation, starting, it getting difficult, and them switching again and again and again and again, where if they had just stuck with that first thing the entire time and they had worked through that friction, and they had stuck with it for 10 to 15 years, and they were smart people, and they learned from their failures, and they learned from their mistakes, they would find a way to build a successful business in that category with that first idea they had. But it's because they give up too soon. And this is why I'm not a fan of motivation, because I think...
• 12:08
  Like, Kenny, I'm a big believer if you stick with something for like 10 to 15 years, keep in mind, you only have to win in life once. Like you only have to win in life once. That's the beautiful thing about life. Like if you find a way to kill it out of business for 10 to 15 years, you will make more money than you know what to do with in nine out of 10 circumstances. And in the 10th circumstance, you're just making above average compared to what somebody with a W-2, nine to five would make.
• 12:35
  So I think that if you apply that mindset and you stick with it long enough, you'll find a way to be successful. I just don't think a lot of people do. There are no coincidences. I'm having you on here as my own pep talk. Thank you, keep going. Because I laugh and I put a post up this morning where it's like, what does giving up look like right now? What do I do? Am I shutting the fricking brand down? No. Am I gonna start drinking and doing drugs? No.
• 13:04
  What does, what's my options? I had the only option I have is to keep going. And when you look at my body of work, that's why I do my shirtless posts, because when you're 49 years old and you're ripped, it says one thing about you. One thing only it means consistency and dedication. And that's what I bring to the table. So
• 13:27
  I always laugh. I always say the night is darkest just before dawn. 100%. When it gets hard, it means you're close. I use the football analogy. They call it the red zone because it's the hardest to punch it in and score the touchdown. It gets hard in the final little bit. It's supposed to because it's not supposed to be easy. So I have to give myself pep talks. It literally is. I talk about life's roller coaster of the ups and downs,
• 13:55
  And if it's flat lines, you're dead. So let's have some fun while it's hard. A hundred percent. Like, listen, dude, you're in incredible shape for your age. I would say like, not just like the top 1%, like the top, like 0.1% of people your age are like shredded and jacked, right? How many years did it take you to do that?
• 14:16
  probably most of your life. You've probably been lifting for, I don't know, like what, like 20 plus years? 31 years. 30 years. So why would anything worth doing in business or even relationships take any less time? And people will be like, well, Scott, what do you mean? 30 years is a long ass time. Yeah, it is. But 20 to 30 years. And again, you only have to win once.
• 14:40
  You only have to. And I'm not saying you're doing 20 to 30 years in a business and it's flatlined and there's zero growth the entire time. You're still smart about it. You're still seeing incremental growth over time. You're still setting KPIs. You're still looking at leading indicators of success. You're still monitoring year over year. And that.
• 14:59
  time spent in the business will give you data and will give you compounded, first of all, compounded skillset, but also just compounded results and education and upskilling so that after you spend 10, 15, 20 years in that business, you'll be so good at that thing. You will be again in the
• 15:18
  1%, 0.01% of people who do that thing. Think about people in the 0.01% of their game in any industry, in sports, in business, in legal, in creative. They all do so well. They all do an exceptionally well job that the money follows. So I think that just staying in the game long enough is probably the single most important idea. We can talk about all the other mindset topics. But if you do this podcast for another 10 years,
• 15:46
  The podcast will be one of the largest podcasts. And if you keep seeing the growth. So if you're like, okay, I'm going to do it for 10 years, but I also have to see, okay, what's leading to the most downloads month over month. If I do a 30 minute show versus a three hour show, if I have mindset topics versus business topics, if I have.
• 16:08
  ask these super personal questions versus asking these sort of tactical strategy questions. If I bring on controversial figures versus, you know, famous influence or thought leaders, like you're testing all the time, all the day. If I do solo shows versus interviews, if I do a panel discussion, if I do a Q&A, if I do a debate, I'm testing all the time. But the point is, I'm seeing what drives the results that I want to achieve and then compound it over time. You will be one of the biggest shows in the world.
• 16:38
  It's very simple. You snuck in there a business thing. What you measure gets better, and you can't make anything better if you're not measuring it. So, guys, we're going to talk about reverse engineering. But before we do that, I heard something from Jordan Peterson. It's amazing how when I'll be in a business setting at my IT company and –
• 16:59
  I say something and then I walk away and I'm like, wow, that was not normal, but it makes sense. And then I'll turn on a podcast and somebody will say the same thing. And I'm like, so my subconscious must have heard it somewhere. But what I heard from Jordan Peterson recently said that it was it was a discussion between pivoting and failure.
• 17:18
  He said, it's okay to pivot as long as you pivot to something equally as hard or harder. If you pivot and you take the road easier traveled, then it's a failure and you gave up. I was like, oh, and that really stuck with me. It's a powerful idea, but I think you have to be careful with that idea because I'll give you an example of a YouTuber. I mean, any YouTuber or any content creator.
• 17:46
  is a good example of this. So I'm thinking of Coffeezilla. So he's a YouTuber that sort of exposes fake gurus and his channel is massive now. But if I look back over like sort of his career as a YouTuber, when he first started out, he was doing very different types of content. He was doing some interview style content.
• 18:09
  And then over time, he pivoted into doing like fake guru commentary and then he did fraud investigation. And now he does all these things that actually expose these massive crypto frauds. But he started off with a very different style of content.
• 18:25
  Now, you can see if you go to his YouTube and you sort of filter his videos and myself as well, like if you look at my videos now, I do podcasts, but I used to do these like explainer videos and these talking head business strategy videos. And if you go, I just use him as an example because he's a much bigger creator than I am, especially on YouTube. And if you filter by oldest videos, you can see sort of his evolution as a creator.
• 18:49
  So he's pivoted several times. I've pivoted several times as well. I don't necessarily think what he's pivoted to or even what I've pivoted to is harder to create. I think that it just resonates with the market more. So I actually think that you have to be, again, he's still a YouTuber. But the style of content and the subjects that he focuses on have pivoted over time to something that...
• 19:19
  actually probably with the same amount of effort, has the same amount of input, has greater output because there is more resonance with the market. So I don't think that he pivoted to something harder. I think that he pivoted smarter. That's the way that I see it. I would say that interviewing people for me,
• 19:40
  is quote unquote easier, but is more effective as a content strategy than recording a 20 minute tutorial on how to set up HubSpot for outbound campaigns for your company. Like this is more fun, but this is like the output of an hour of me interviewing somebody is greater than an output of an hour of me recording like a screen record of like setting up HubSpot or something else. So,
• 20:09
  Yes, I agree with him to an extent, but I don't always think that harder or more time consuming or more friction is always the answer. I do believe that you have to lean into things that are the highest leverageable opportunities, which in my mind means.
• 20:27
  Not just it could be same or lesser input with greater output. And I think that the best businesses in the world understand that if they are going to build anything meaningful, they are tapping into something that is highly leverageable. The best content creators understand that they have certain topics that really resonate with their audience and they stay away from topics that don't.
• 20:46
  because you shouldn't make life harder than it has to be. So I understand where he's going with that, but I don't necessarily think it's true in all circumstances. I agree with everything you said, but I would only add that what I mean is two pivots would be the fail, would be to either go and buy followers or downloads or to give up and say, it's just not for me. So what I meant is he gave the same amount of effort, but he gave it in a smarter way. We hear it all the time. It's like, oh...
• 21:15
  How many podcasts make it past eight episodes? It's nothing, right? If you make it past eight episodes, I'm pretty sure you're like a top 1% of all podcasters ever. People give up. They give up on themselves too soon. And it's also what I've seen because we're launching the 100 Life Coaching Program. And I've met with over 40 people in the last week.
• 21:38
  And the overwhelming majority was people weren't in enough pain to make the change. And that freaks me out. It scares me to bejesus that people have to go through such hardship or hit the proverbial rock bottom before they pivot and go improve their life. I'm talking to some massive successful people that the money is nothing, but they just don't want to look in the mirror. What's your...
• 22:05
  view on that. I think that it is important to define a North Star in your life. I understand where you're coming from, that people have to hit a proverbial rock bottom. But I also think that it's not great to jump into something without understanding why you're doing it, because then you're building something because
• 22:22
  Instagram told you it was a cool thing to do, or your parents told you it was a good thing to do, or your friends told you it was a good thing to do, and you're doing it not for the right reasons. You're doing it for someone else. So the chance of you finding a way to stick in it and stick with it for a long enough period of time is going to be very difficult. I think the first step is really defining what success looks like for you and architecting a life that serves that. If people are okay with,
• 22:49
  living in a city on, you know, 60, 70, 80, $90,000 per year, and they're comfortable and their house is paid off and they have no entrepreneurial ambition and they enjoy the insane amount of time that comes with working a nine to five W2 compared to a building your own business, which you have zero free time and they want to spend time with their kids and they're at a different season in their life. I don't see anything wrong with that.
• 23:20
  I think that's fine. I think that if they're staying in that job and they hate their life and they're struggling financially, that's a different conversation. So I think that you really have to define what success means for you and then pursue the path that's going to help you achieve that definition of success. Now, if you are truly unhappy,
• 23:40
  How do you hit the proverbial rock bottom? I've asked this question a lot because it's difficult. It's difficult. I'll tell you why it's difficult for me and we can talk about it. It's difficult for me because I never hit a proverbial rock bottom, but I was a very ambitious person. So I didn't come from, I know your story. I didn't come from anything close to what you came from. You had a hard life. You had a truly hard life as a kid. I did not have a hard life as a kid.
• 24:07
  So you can ask, why did I not just pursue sort of the same career path as my parents, which my dad worked for the government. My mom worked for university. She took some time off when she had me, my brother. She was able to do that. My dad bought his first home. It was like, it was a detached house in Toronto, cash when he was in his early twenties. That doesn't exist anymore. That's an insane thing to do for somebody of my generation. And I think that what motivated me
• 24:37
  Personally, it wasn't hitting proverbial rock bottom. For me, I was motivated by the fact that I wanted to live the same life and achieve the same sort of status as what my parents had achieved. And I understood very quickly that because of inflation and cost of living, I found at the time that if I put the same amount of effort into my career as my parents, I would not have the same output. Meaning if I worked a nine to five job in the government.
• 25:00
  or, I mean, really, most nine-to-five jobs that they give to like a 20-year-old or early 20-year-old just coming out of college university, I didn't think that that would be enough for what I wanted to achieve. So I'm like, okay, so how do I structure my career or my life so I can achieve what I want for my kids and my family? And that was really what motivated me. And that's what put me on the path to,
• 25:31
  entrepreneurship. And if you start to go down that rabbit hole and you're an ambitious and you're a smart person, coincidentally, you end up doing quite well for yourself financially. But the goal was not to like at the beginning exit a company, make tens of millions of dollars or even more. It was really just to afford the same lifestyle that my parents had. I think that's what if you come from a happy, healthy home.
• 25:53
  You want to emulate what you had growing up. If you didn't, then obviously you want to do something radically different. But I think that people have for me, I knew my North Star is what I'm trying to say. I knew what I wanted to accomplish for my family.
• 26:05
  And ironically, now I'm living far beyond what I ever envisioned my life would look like when I was trying to figure out 17, 18, 19, what I wanted to do in life. Now my life is incredible and radically different from that. But still, I had a North Star. So it wasn't rock bottom. It was just how do I want my life to look? And what is the path to get there? And if I'm not on that path, then there's a disconnect and I have to solve for that.
• 26:33
  So I don't think people have to hit rock bottom. I think they have to just create space to think about what is the life that I want to achieve? And am I on the quickest path to get there? And if not, then what is the answer? And when you start to have those hard conversations with yourself, that's when you start to think differently about your career and entrepreneurship and different opportunities.
• 26:58
  Well, that was beautiful. You're just a good person. You pay attention. You're kind. You listen to what people's stories are. Now, I mean, I'll explain to you. I don't believe I ever hit rock bottom. I may have brushed near it.
• 27:14
  And this is the funny thing about life. There are several warning shots that the universe, that God, that source gives you before you hit rock bottom. Notice them. And it usually starts with, huh, am I living my life in alignment? People, you're not following Scott. This guy is living life the right way. He's got a beautiful wife.
• 27:36
  He lives in Miami, got out of Canada, and he's just kind. If you ever meet him, he's not a small man. He's a big boy, and you walk up, and he will give you a hug. I met you, and we were like best friends right off the bat. We were at an event together, and we're just chit-chatting like long-lost friends.
• 27:58
  You're a good person, man. You're an awesome guy too, dude. That's why. Keep doing you. Thank you. So you just reverse engineered your life. Everything I do. You know that I've spoken about this before. If I think about a job that I want, or I think about a business I want to build, or I think about every single component of the business...
• 28:20
  I mean, I can reverse engineer right now five people that are killing it on Twitter. And I'm like, why are they growing so fast on Twitter? I want to grow that fast on Twitter. And I'll just study. I'll study the shit out of everything they do. I'll study the topics they write about. I'll study how they structure their posts. I'll study if they put.
• 28:38
  paragraphs of text, or if they do one line, then bullet, bullet, bullet, then one line, or if they put spaces, or if they scrunch the text all together, like I'm so in the weeds on reverse engineering every single bit of my life, whatever amount of success I've achieved, that's how I've achieved it. And it's not just like, it's really not just business. I reverse engineered how I like to work out and what I want to look like. I reverse engineered sort of best practices for a healthy relationship, because you can you can pick up from friends that
• 29:08
  are great people, but maybe they don't have the best relationship advice. Maybe I don't want to reverse engineer how they live their life in that arena. Maybe I want to reverse engineer the couple that's been together for 30 years and they're very happy. And one of them has made a lot of money, but it hasn't caused them to divorce, which you see a lot when people have an exit. I reverse engineer everything. We can get more tactical if you want. I love mindset topics.
• 29:32
  Because I think they're very powerful when you apply a mental model or a frame on how you view the world. So a couple that we spoke about is like tracking your successes, reverse engineering success. We can go deeper into that. Another idea that you mentioned, how do people sort of hit this rock bottom that will encourage them to take action? I said...
• 29:54
  It's not about hitting rock bottom. It's about setting your North Star. But another idea that I love that sort of ties into that is the concept of of dying every day. What do I mean by that? Every night before you go to bed, I just wrote a piece about this, and I think it's such a powerful mental model every night before you go to bed.
• 30:10
  Assume that all your commitments that you have in business, in life, in gym, in relationship, they die with you when you go to sleep that night. And the next morning when you wake up, you're a fresh person with no commitments and you can choose to do whatever you want. And the goal of this frame is for you every single morning to say, OK, this is what I have in front of me. I can choose whatever I want to do.
• 30:34
  And I'm going to choose it because I want to choose it today, not just because I have previous commitment to it in the past. And that goes for business. That goes for the calls you're going to take. Do they still serve us? Do they still serve me? The relationship? Are we still aligned? Are we still together? Not just because we've been together for five years, but because I still love this person in the morning. And I think that when you reframe life like that and you focus on pursuing things that
• 31:01
  actually light you up and still serve you and you just don't hold on to things because there's baggage from the past within reason, obviously. But I still think that's a very powerful frame for living your best life. And why does this tie into your question about hitting rock bottom and pursuing things? Because another reason why people don't pursue things outside of imposter syndrome is because they feel indebted
• 31:26
  to the job they have or the business they've built or their person they're dating or the lifestyle that they're living they feel indebted because they've been doing it for so long there's a sunk cost involved in that to date and i think that when you wake up every single morning and you choose what serves you and you do things because you want to do them versus just because you have to do them that will also combined with
• 31:50
  the courage to take on those new initiatives or to do those things or to take the action, that idea will set you up in the right way and put you on the right path. I think that's one of the most powerful ideas that people can take away. Every morning, choose what you want to do because it serves you that day. And now we can talk about reverse engineering success. But that was the one last idea I had about if people feel stuck, why do they feel stuck? That's why.
• 32:15
  Let me jump in there because it just dawned on me. This is why I like you so much. We're the same. I'm older than you, but I'm learning from you. And we look at life very similar. We say the same things in totally different ways. That's why life is so awesome. You need a mentor. Go and research podcasts because he and I are the same. I say you live in daytight compartments.
• 32:37
  Whatever happened yesterday happened yesterday. It's history. Tomorrow's a mystery. Let's just live in daytime. So if it was a great day, great. We section it. I always say, people say you only live once. I say baloney, you only die once. You live every day. That was my spin on what you just said. I love it. It's the same. That's the same. Exact same idea. It's very powerful. Success leaves clues. There's no magic pill.
• 33:04
  Scott's success story, he's giving you the magic right here. And yet everybody has a better way of doing it. You have to grind. You got to measure. And you got to do it with a great mindset. What mindset – you said you love talking about mindset, so let's go down there because I –
• 33:21
  I sat in my Florida house this weekend and just worked on my, and cleared my head and listened to Mel Robbins' book and read another book and meditated to get my mind right for this week, because I told you,
• 33:35
  I'm up against it right now. We are in the thick and the weeds. And so many people will go and commiserate with other friends, drink, scroll, do whatever to not face it. I sat in my shit all weekend long. What's your favorite, or I shouldn't even say favorite. What's your most go-to mindset, habit, and ritual when you are ascending to the next level?
• 34:02
  One thing that I think is important if people are listening and it's like, oh, you know, all these guys. These guys are just bullshitting about all these great ideas, but. It's so difficult to implement these in my life, and it's he's oversimplifying all these sort of difficult experiences like, yeah, it's not so easy to wake up and say.
• 34:26
  hey, I've been building this business for the past 10 years and it's not working out, where do I go from here? Or hey, I'm in this relationship that's not serving me. Or the point is that all these things are difficult. They're incredibly difficult and it's gonna suck. It's gonna suck in the moment when you're making these decisions. All these things that we're talking about, none of them are easy. I mean, you talk about being harder than life. Life is hard. Life is really, really, really hard.
• 34:52
  But, but all the cliches are true too. That's the beautiful thing about it. The things that we're telling you to do are incredibly difficult, but the cliches of the life that you want is on the other side of hard things. And the life that you want is outside your comfort zone. And the life that you want is on the other side of hard conversation. All those cliches are true too.
• 35:15
  So if you understand that, you know, to quote Ryan Holiday, the obstacle is the way. If you understand that, don't just listen to the first part of that idea, which is the obstacle is going to be difficult. The obstacle is there. The work that you got to do is going to be hard. You've got to get out of your comfort zone because if you only focus on that part, you're missing the end of the story.
• 35:43
  you're missing the end of the story where you actually get to where you want to go. And I think that too many people focus on, it's going to be difficult, and not enough people focus on, but then what if I get through it?
• 35:55
  And I think that's the beautiful, that's the beautiful idea that I really want people to take away. All this is going to be hard as hell. On the other side of it, it's pretty good. It's not so bad. Mindset's important. I mean, creating space to be creative, to be alone with your thoughts, to understand why you feel certain ways about things that are happening in your life are very important.
• 36:18
  I'm a big believer in fitness. I mean, obviously you are too. My mindset is busting my ass in the gym. No lie, if I have a difficult day, if I have a bad email, if I have a bad call,
• 36:33
  I will not respond until I go to the gym and bench dead or squat. And after I do that, not only is there like a hormonal response, and you know this too, you know everything about working out. So there is a significant hormonal response that's going to help you feel better, but it also creates space for you to think of solutions and think of ways through the most difficult parts of your life. I think that physical activity is one of the most important
• 37:00
  I know there's going to be some people here like, oh, yeah, well, look at Elon. He doesn't, you know, he doesn't work out daily. I just believe that if you have some sort of health and wellness routine built into your day, everything just gets easier because I think that the body is meant to move. And I think a lot of people listen to this podcast. They're great at working and they're great at solving problems with their mind. Move more.
• 37:21
  And I found that all the other cognitive tasks that I have to figure out, they all just come easier. So work out more, move more, go bust your ass in the gym. That to me is more calming and centering.
• 37:35
  and beneficial to my psyche, to my mental health, than meditation or therapy or any of it. I just think more people have to move, not to discount people with actual stressful problems and traumatic events, but I think that more people have to move and they'd be a lot happier for it.
• 37:51
  Do I finally disagree with you or something? No, I'm just kidding. Of course. I was like, this is it? I've never left the gym sad or angry. No. And this weekend, I noticed something. We go in these waves and –
• 38:07
  We talked about on your podcast, different levels, you meet different devils. You got to become a different person to slay that devil every time. And it's like a video game. And I'm like on level three right now. And we got to get to eight. And then it starts all over again. So I'm in the thick of it. And when I learned, I realized this week, I like to read physical books.
• 38:31
  But I get exhausted from my 4 a.m. workouts. So I'm only able to read about a chapter a day. So I have switched in my workouts to listen into audible books. So I listened to Mel Robbins, Let Them This Weekend. And boy, did I make some notes on that book. She is. She's the number one self-improvement podcast right now. And yeah.
• 38:56
  She just hearing the way things effortly scroll off of her. But that's what I mean. I'm constantly. She's been doing it for so damn long. It's not like she started yesterday. That's my point. Like she's had so many conversations. You don't have to look to Mel Robbins. Look at how.
• 39:12
  brilliant Joe Rogan has got from having conversations with people every single day. He could be a self-help podcaster if he wanted to. He just chooses not to. You just expose yourself to enough inputs over time and you'll be a better podcaster. If you expose yourself to enough great relationships over time, you'll be a better spouse. If you expose yourself to enough business leaders over time, you'll be a better entrepreneur. It's not confusing. It's not complicated. It's hard work, but it's not complicated work.
• 39:40
  I want to go back to that conversation before was about comfort zone. I wrote down, this was not in Mel Robbins, but I don't know. I wrote this down over the weekend that,
• 39:50
  People's identity is their comfort zone and not their goals. And therein lies the problem. So think about that. My goal is I wanna be the number one podcaster. That's my identity, but most people's identity is their comfort zone. It's, hey, I'm a top 20 podcaster. I have 10% body fat. It's where you're at right now and the comfortability.
• 40:15
  How do we reverse engineer that and make people, this is where it goes into your get comfortable being uncomfortable. How sometimes are somebody just too comfortable in their life that they won't take that next level? What's the impetus to get them to move and why? I think you have, I mean, there has to be a degree of you wanting it.
• 40:40
  I think that most people inherently want to do more, be better, be in better shape. I don't think that many people, for example, are necessarily completely happy with their life. They may say that they're completely happy, but I think that most people are ambitious. I think that most people don't wake up to be the same as yesterday. I don't believe that...
• 41:02
  most people wake up wanting to be out of shape or not. And not even like, forget, like you said, below 10% body fat. I'm talking about being able to run around with your kids or being cognitively sharp into your 80s and 90s or just enjoying life and not spending the last 20 years frail and in pain or being able to afford the trips that your family wants to take. I think that most people want to get to that level
• 41:31
  And if your identity is set at the comfort zone that you're in right now, I think the reason why you wouldn't take steps towards that next level across any area of your life, it's not because of lack of want. It's because of lack of roadmap. Like I believe that. Like you can't tell me that somebody who is overweight and has trouble sleeping and can't play with their kids, they want that life.
• 41:59
  They just don't have the roadmap. Maybe they say it's willpower, whatever it is, but they don't have the roadmap to get to where they can live a very healthy, vibrant life and be playing in the park and whatnot. I think it's just this is where reverse engineering success comes into play. They need a roadmap. I think that if you gave most people a roadmap, they would follow it. I think that the issue is not that their identity is wrapped in who they are. It's at the gap between who they are right now and who they want to be.
• 42:28
  is too big and the path there is, is the path to get to where they want to be is not clear and not defined. And that's why they don't take the action, because if the path was defined, they would take the action as as we are seeing now with I mean,
• 42:46
  I like to use health as an example because people can make arguments that they actually are comfortable financially with their current state. But I think that most people, including people that champion this body positivity movement, you see some of the biggest champions of it that are obese now trying to lose weight with like Ozempic and Manjaro.
• 43:04
  So I think that Ozempic and Manjaro really showed that what did people want? It wasn't that they wanted to stay obese, clinically obese. It's that they didn't have the easy path to where they wanted to go. And that journey was too, there was too big a gap, too big of a perceived gap. And the second you sort of remove the fear of that journey from where they are to where they want to go, they start to take action.
• 43:29
  So I think that for anybody listening who, again, if you don't want to make more money, that's fine. That's your choice. I don't really care. But if you do...
• 43:39
  then understand that the reason why you're not taking action and you're not going outside your comfort zone and you're not taking the first step is probably because the journey to get there isn't clear to you. So find a way to map out the journey. That is literally what reverse engineering success is. It's mapping out the journey so that you're not just focusing on the end result. You're focusing on the baby steps you can take every single day that will eventually get you to the desired life that you want to live.
• 44:10
  That's my two cents on it. I mean, that's the way that I see it. I work with a lot of entrepreneurs who, and I work with a lot of people within companies, and even just people that reach out to me on social. And more often than not, they do confide that they want to make more money, switch jobs, build a business.
• 44:31
  But the reason why they're not doing it is exactly what I described. It's because they just, the gap is too wide. They don't see the pathway there. And the second you start to show them that it's not as complicated, it's hard work, but it's not as complicated because if you want to build a business, what do you do? Well, let's find.
• 44:47
  pain point in the market. Let's find a product market fit. Let's identify our ideal customer profile, our buyer persona. Let's set up tools like Apollo and let's have a subject line in that email that gets a high open rate. And let's get the actual text in that email with a high, with a great call to action and a high click through. And then we run campaigns and all of a sudden we're selling our product and two weeks we've started a business. Like it's like, it's not complicated once you understand the steps to get there, but
• 45:17
  If you never knew any of that, it's like, where do I even start? And that's what paralyzes people. Paralysis to analysis. There's a lot of young people that listen to this. And Scott is in his low to mid-30s. And he's teaching you guys a masterclass on A, business, and B, there's something else that you do that I find remarkable. And it is you pause when I ask you a question and you think. I love that. That is amazing.
• 45:42
  All too often we get canned answers or just, you know, regurgitate. And I find myself doing that as I get older and older because I not every answer is applicable. So I applaud you for doing that. And guys, you're getting a masterclass here. So I want to ask you if you're happy, but I know you are. So let me say what's what is something you're working on next to get to your next level?
• 46:06
  I'm super involved in the creator economy because that's what I do for a living right now to my next level. And I took a business angle to this question because I think that that's interesting for people that are listening because obviously they sort of see me as a podcaster, even though I've done different things in my life. The thing that I'm doing right now is podcasting and I'm thinking of different ways to apply technology.
• 46:31
  some sort of strategic growth to podcasting that is not just courses or like launching a product or doing coaching or consulting or masterminds or communities, which I know there's nothing wrong with that. But I'm thinking of podcasting through the lens of what's the business idea that
• 46:54
  that has the biggest benefit. I'll explain. From a business context, from what I'm sort of focusing on right now to take my business to the next level, which is again, the podcast, I think that the future of podcasting and the future of creator economy, I put a lot of thought into this, is pairing,
• 47:14
  creators and media channels with entrepreneurs. And I think that too often, entrepreneurs don't know how to market and creators don't know how to build businesses. So how do you solve that gap?
• 47:30
  I think that creators, what they should be doing is they should be pairing with entrepreneurs who are great business builders, and we call them operators, but great business builders. And they say, I know how to market, I know how to build an audience, and my audience profile is this.
• 47:47
  You're a great entrepreneur, you know how to build a product, and your product is targeted towards this avatar. And then you align my audience with that entrepreneur's product, and then I invest as if I was an investor, but I don't invest money, I invest impressions, and I tie impressions back to sales, and then I unlock vested equity based on sales that I drive for the entrepreneur. And then we are business partners, and I have an equity position in their company,
• 48:16
  And they're the operators running the company. And I think that more creators should apply this strategy as opposed to launching their own companies and trying to figure out how to not only be a creator, but be a business person. So said simply, I think the future of the creator economy is taking advantage.
• 48:33
  creators that are great at building audiences and then getting them to unlock equity in startups where their audience aligns with the startup's product and that's what i'm interested in doing more of for my podcast so finding great entrepreneurs that are building companies and de-risking the deal like i said so vesting equity meaning like i get unlocks of equity based on how much revenue i drive for the company and i can focus on podcasting building an audience they can focus on product and building a business
• 49:03
  And I think that that is the future of the creator economy. So that gets me excited because then what happens when you have equity in a company, then there's an exit opportunity. So it's not just selling a course or a product or a service or a community, which are all great business models, but it's getting equity in startups, trading impressions and revenue for an equity percentage piece. And I think that that's where creators should spend more of their time. So that's what I'm interested in for business.
• 49:30
  You know, we ran out of time. Sorry to cut you off, but we ran out of time at your podcast. I want to talk to you about that because it's funny. You just explained the resistance that I'm having. I started off a businessman with my IT company, and then I went into creator. I'm one of those guys that can do both like you. The challenge is getting my technical team to put on their creator hat is proving extremely powerful.
• 49:55
  Difficult. A thousand percent. You're very similar to me. So I think that we are outliers. We are business first and creator second. Most business people are not great creators, and most creators are not great business people. So what I just described is sort of solving for the person who is either the creator or the business person. Now, why, why you're going to say, Scott, well, you could build a business. I also truly believe that if you hyper focus on one thing, again, you will have outsized returns on the time and energy and attention invested in that thing.
• 50:25
  So I think that it is more beneficial for me to focus on the thing that I'm enjoying right now, which is podcasting, and then find an entrepreneur that can focus on building a business. I don't think it is beneficial for me to focus on both because then my attention is split between two different things.
• 50:43
  Just remember that we have to talk offline. I didn't get a chance to tell you what we did at National Technology Management. It is an IT cybersecurity variant. I listen to all your shows. It is in a line. We got to talk. I have five minutes and I got two more questions and I want to freaking get through them because they're good ones. What's the biggest misconceptions people have about entrepreneurship before they start, which goes right on what you're just talking about? Biggest misconception is that...
• 51:11
  is that it's going to take less time and be less expensive, but that there's a high chance that you're going to fail. I think that it will take more time than you expect. It'll be more expensive to build whatever it is that you want to build. But if you stay in the game long enough, I think that it's almost impossible to fail.
• 51:36
  I don't believe in these 95 plus percent failure rates. If you can find a way to stay in the game long enough, that's the key. That means that maybe you don't leave your nine to five right away and have three months of mortgage payments and food on the table before you hope your business takes off. I think that it means that maybe you take a slower path and you're working your nine to five and you're building your startup from five to nine. And only when your revenue hits a certain threshold, that's when you quit your job.
• 52:03
  Maybe it means not raising money from angels and VCs that have exit expectations and expedited timelines. And maybe it means that you're bootstrapping it. If you find a way to stay in the game long enough, success is inevitable, but it'll take you longer than you expect it to. Again, your positive outlook on life. Your glass is always half full. It's beautiful. You got to do life is tough already.
• 52:24
  Final questions. What's the one business lesson you wish you'd learned earlier in your journey? You gave a bunch just a minute ago, but what's the one thing you wish you would have learned? For business, sales is everything. Everybody has to sell. CEO has to sell. CTO has to sell. CMO has to sell. Everybody has to know how to sell your product or service. If you're a founder, you cannot outsource selling to a hire. You have to find a way to close deals yourself.
• 52:49
  sales solves all problems. Sales cures all. So if you are an entrepreneur, I don't care how introverted or how scared you are of jumping on calls, figure out how to sell your product. You can't hire somebody else to do that for you, especially at the beginning. And then once you do know how to, all the best entrepreneurs and success stories that I've,
• 53:08
  experience in my career, the founder knows how to sell. And then after they figure out how to sell, then they're going to take that and they're going to give it to a first sales hire and they're going to build some systems and processes and run with it. But at the beginning, the founder really has to know how to sell to get the company off the ground.
• 53:24
  It's almost like you're in my back pocket and you watch everything I do. I think we're very much the same. We're very much kindred spirits, bro. It has been an absolute pleasure, dude. The more I get to know you, the more I enjoy you. Guys, where can people find you? And in the opening, we told you where to get the success story podcast. But what's your social handles?
• 53:43
  Yeah. So obviously success story podcast, wherever you get your podcast and then all the social is pretty easy. It's at Scott D. Clary across the board. So you can find me there. You are a beautiful human. I cannot wait for you to become a father and give all of that beautifulness that you have into the world. And guys, follow him. I really appreciate your time and make it a great day.
• 54:05
  Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters. Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with, delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.