47 - Stephen Scoggins : no longer stuck, he's now unstoppable

Mike Forrester 0:02

Well, hello, and welcome back my friend. Today I have Steven Scoggins. Stephen, man, he was transformational at a time when I was at an insecure place in my life. I got to be Uber. And given we were both at an event gave him a ride to the airport. And Steven was compassionate. Yet, strong. I mean, he told me, you know, this is this is where I'm at, this is where you're going. And just was that encouraging voice that I needed along my journey. Stephen is an author, speaker. Just a huge voice in everything going on. So he's also a podcast host. So if you're not checking out his podcast, please do so. And we'll get to that later. But allow me to introduce you to Steven. Steven, how are you doing today, my friend?

Stephen Scoggins 0:54

What's going on, buddy? Man, I love hanging out with you. How you been?

Mike Forrester 0:57

I'm doing well, my friend. I'm ecstatic to be hanging out with you and being able to, to bring your voice because like you said, transformational for me, man.

Stephen Scoggins 1:07

Well, you know what I learned a long time ago that the greatest purpose in life you'll ever have is serving the person used to be, right. And I think when you and i, you and I were in that car ride together, I would I had been through some of the things that you were facing in that moment. You know, and I think that's where that, that that piece of compassion, but also boldness of like, okay, I love you, I love you where you're at, but you got to go here Next, it's gonna hurt, but you're gonna like it when it's done.

Mike Forrester 1:33

We need that. And I think that's part of what lacks in so many of our lives. It wasn't like I went, hey, I'm gonna go put myself out here and, you know, get the strong talk that I need. When you just knew what I needed. Like, I'm assuming you look back at yourself and kind of said, yep, here's Mike. Let's give him a swift kick in the butt. But it was a time when it wasn't berating. You know, like, I'm used to that I grew up with berating conversations. You gave me encouragement and said, you're in a place take action, move forward from this, like nobody's stopping you. And the excuses you're using aren't benefiting you. I needed that. And you were the you were the man that didn't couch it. Right? I think that's a gift we so often miss. So thank you my friend.

Stephen Scoggins 2:22

Yeah, man, I'm very, very touched that any time that we spent together impacted your life in a positive direction that it means a world to me, that's, you know, it's where I'm at today. And in today's time, you know, I now own seven businesses. Yeah, seven businesses total. Four of which are interconnected interrelated. The other two cross the gamut of thought leadership and authorship and speaking and stuff like that we, one of the businesses does high figures in revenue. But, you know, when we start looking at it, none of that stuff's really mad. That stuff's really important to me anymore, which is crazy, because I, you know, the whole grind phase and becoming an entrepreneur and fighting the battles and starting, you know, from being homeless, all this kind of stuff, and, like doing all this grinding, you would think that, you know, that, okay, I'm at the top of the world, and it's like, Nah, man, Nah, it's what really matters is when you when you give somebody that, that ultimate aha moment, right. And the more you look around, the more the more people you see around you, that are in need of that aha moment. In fact, it was a Harris Poll done a number of years ago that was published in Time magazine that said, 67%, of the total American population was or would consider themselves frustrated, alone, anxiety ridden, depressed, the like, self sabotage, like they had all these different things that we experience, just by being humans on this earth, right? And these different transitions that we go through, in and out. And, you know, so many of us don't really know who we are, you know, so I've always said that, you know, the greatest way to kind of get meaning and fulfillment is the only answer three questions. Who am I? Why am I here? And what do I do about it? The problem is, is people are answering What do I do about it before they actually understand who they are? why they're here, you know? And as a result, you know, inevitably what happens is people get on this this this, this stuckness, though this this rat wheel, if you will, and it's why we the podcast is called stuck to unstoppable because to me stuck is nothing more than not making progress. Okay, period. unstoppable is nothing more than always making progress or consistently making progress, you know. And, you know, for me, I think once you've experienced your own transformation of some end, you're going to go through several levels of that transformation, right? There's this it's not like you're you're a cocoon, you become a butterfly and then you get to fly away. It's like you become a cocoon, your butterfly, you turn back into a cocoon and you do it all over again. In the faith community, they call that new levels, new devils kind of thing. And, you know, when when we start looking at this, your heart goes out to people who you know, have immense potential but I have yet to discover it yet. You know and so everything that I'm doing with the balance of my life is is centered around trying to help people discover the potential that they haven't discovered yet. And maybe that's a god given gift that God has given me is no see potential in people and when I was in the car with you, and you were very gracious, didn't throw me in the car took me back to the airport at that particular event, was this immense amount of potential. But this particular perspective that had to shift and I knew that if you would make that shift that you would end up exactly where you're ending up right now and and, and well on your journey to even do better than where you are currently. And you've already come a tremendous amount of way. And you've been you're highly successful entrepreneur in your own right and you know, we there's a lot of similarities to our backstory that I know you and I like to talk about, but no, I mean, it's, it's my hardest to serve, and God willing to and today, the, the listeners will get something that will give them a nugget that they can believe in. So

Mike Forrester 5:56

I appreciate it, man. And it. And it's funny, it's like that perspective shift can just be almost like when we talk about the elephant that has gotten trained to be held by a rope, because initially, there was a chain there, which was unbreakable. And now it's just like, even dental floss, dude. But it's Yeah, belief there. That keeps you immobilized. Yeah. And yeah, it's crazy. How many of us allow that with a statistic of like, 67%? I've got to wonder how much higher it is, with what's going on over the last 18 months with good data, because that's amplified stuff, both in our relationships at home, our relationships at work, you know, when I when I lost jobs before, like home was an identity crisis. Yeah. Unfortunately, that has happened for a lot of people. And it's out of their control. Yeah. So yeah, more more important than ever, it is to know like what you talked about, where you know who you are, and then you're going in the right direction, because the last thing you want to do is go in the wrong direction really confidently.

Stephen Scoggins 7:04

That's right. Would you have done that? Would you have done that as well? You know, I think it's funny, my very first speaking event that I ever did in public that wasn't like part of a trade show for the construction industry, because one of my businesses construction company, was this event that I hosted myself, I rented out a small place, and I literally invited people from from a local ministry called step up ministries, which helps people with recidivism and homelessness and stuff like that, and I gave a presentation. And in preparing for that, one of my very first metaphors slash props was this empty jar, and I poked holes in the empty jar. And then I played a video alongside of it, because I think human life is is very close to a fleas life. People were like, okay, like, All right, now you got me in Sri Lanka, tell me a little about that. Well think about it this way. There was a reason why they actually could train quote, unquote, a flea circus. In order to train fleas, all you have to do is put them inside of a container that is further than what they used to. So give you an idea, a flea can jump about 800,000 times it's, it's like its weight are tight, right? So, you know, a flea is tiny, it's about a speck, right? But it can jump up to five to six feet. Okay, from a from a one jump. Okay, that's, that's a pretty, right. And then we'll do that, it'll go and come and go as it pleases, and all this kind of stuff. And then life begins to put boundaries around the flea and light, like, just like life puts boundaries around us, but they're their self imposed boundaries in many respects, and, and you got to put a lid on a course you make sure they got some air or whatever. But if you leave them sincerely in that jar overnight, and you had a bunch of men there, you could literally take them out, dumped them on the counter, and they will literally be the conformations of the of the jar. Right? So what it takes to train a flee is nothing more than the braket spirit and to teach it, its limitations. And I find that too many times, we teach ourselves our limitations, right? We say, well, this event happened, therefore I'm worth this, or this event happened, therefore, my identities here, this event happened, therefore, that's my expectation of possibilities. You know, and it's, you know, I discovered, kind of by happenstance, and by accident, but yeah, I'm sure you're familiar with ancestry.com. Right? You know, the whole thing, right? Yeah. Well, I went down the ancestry.com rabbit trail. I mean, for about three months, like I look, clicking on the little leafs that they have every five seconds and, lo and behold, I discovered that in somewhere between four and 500 years, not a single Scoggins, someone bearing my last name my ancestors had ever been a person of influence had ever stewarded wealth, nor had ever had a healthy relationship. Like a lot of broken marriages in the in the thing And then it dawned on me that at 13 years old, I went out to the trailer park that we were in. And you know, we I didn't, you know, I've had some highs and lows as a child. And I would say a few more lows than highs. But in this particular case, our power had just gotten cut off for I don't know how many the 1,000th time because we, you know, they'll get paid later or whatever. And I left the trainer and I walked down to the local playground. And for some reason, I knelt down on the grass, and then I sent a simple prayer said, God, if you're real, please let me be the one to break the generational curse. Now, I did not know, first of all, at that moment that for you know, my faith is a huge part of who I am now. But at that moment, if there was a God, if God was going to answer this kind of stuff, but you fast forward from 13 years old, all the way for another 30 years, right, and then you look at my life, in comparison to my ancestors, and it's very different. Now, some of the most difficult things you need to face are often the most painful things you need to face. But as soon as you go through that painful thing, all of a sudden, all you feel is like cash was the best word bliss. Like there's considerable more amount of joy and contentment, and, and then you go through that phase. And then much like myself, if you're if you're in that environment where you were working your way through a generational set of belief systems, poverty,

divisiveness, abusiveness, any number of things that come up is as we come up, right, because we, we, from the time we're born all the way until the time in which we have ultimate self awareness are largely being indoctrinated. Right, we're being indoctrinated first by our parents, and who, and they were indoctrinated by their parents and their parents from Darth Vader by their parents and, and then about the time you get ready to go to school, all of a sudden, now you're like, well, maybe I want something different than what people are telling me. Right? And you begin to go on this identity journey. The problem is, is most people don't focus on the identity journey very long. They start and stop, start and stop, start and stop starting. And they basically start up until the point of pain. And they say, Oh, it's just too much, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna take a step back, right? At the end of the day, the people who persevere through that transformational moment, get to go a lot further in life, whether it's in relationships, or finance, or whatever, but it ultimately, the end of the day, I think we're all searching for purpose. And I think the purpose has always been in who we used to be, which means we have to become something more in order to set the stage to help someone who's behind us. You know, and I think that the end of the day, I think that's why I love even what you're doing now so much is because you have taken your stuff, learned about it, identified it and done exactly what I'm doing, which is like, everybody needs to know this kind of thing. Right? So that's why I love it so much.

Exactly. So you have just painted a great picture for where you're at now. And I and I want to touch back like you talked about being in the trailer park being without power can totally relate to that. Like, what were some of the hurdles, like the the identities that were placed on you or or that you bought into? What was what were some of the events and, and stuff that led up to that for you? Because I mean, you talked about being going from homelessness to now like heartfelt mission, right? That's, that's where you're at? Yeah, what was your childhood and then in your teens like,

yeah, you know, what's crazy is I think my childhood is is a lot like a lot of childhoods nowadays, because there's more now there's now more broken homes than ever before. Okay. My parents, who I love dearly. Were not around for the early part of my life, at least not not that I remember right. So my mom obviously, you know, remembers me growing up as a toddler baby, and you know, in feeding me and, you know, but my earliest memories start around three or four years old. For myself, and, you know, by that time, All I knew is my mom, and my name was my grandmother. I didn't know why. I also didn't know for a number of years I'm talking decades when I say numbers, I mean, decades that I tied my identity and self worth to whether or not those that I loved, actually, quote unquote, love me back. But let me back in such a way that their presence was part of that love. Not necessarily that their love was that love. Because my i can i can tell you, honestly, even when my parents weren't there, they loved me. Right, but they were going through their own stuff. You know, my mother, unfortunate battle and a lot of emotional abuse and a lot of physical abuse as a child. especially the younger, younger the teenage years kind of scenario. My father unfortunately grew up in an environment where alcohol was incorrect. prevalent, he was an alcoholic for a number of years. And that was generational. Right? So you've got these different complexities. And I think the very first shaping moment that I can think of that really began to shape me was actually being with my grandmother, at nine years old. I'm literally in our kitchen, this small little house that she had maybe 1000 square foot total, like three bedroom house, but it was, you know, in comparison to a lot of the houses nowadays, it was very tiny. And I had a GI Joe, on one hand, a transformer and the other, I'm still I'm dead serious. I was literally I had Snake Eyes was taking optimist problems, but right. And, and I was going, you know, and I was just playing around as a kid and my and my grandmother calls me over to the table sit, she sits down in the black chair sitting at the kitchen table. And she says, Steven, look at me. And I went to look at her and she started like welling up with tears. And she's and she said, she said I need you to become helpful. Right? Now she was trying to obviously talk to a nine year old. So for those listening or watching, think about the average nine year old or your or your friend's nine year old or your family's nine year old. But you know that the mental acuity with a nine year old is not an adult mental acuity. Right? Our brains aren't even fully formed by that timeframe. But I did realize that in that moment, she was giving me something where I realized that she needed something that she didn't have someone else provide. I didn't know at the time that what would have taken place that day as if she had been diagnosed with cancer. Now, for the listeners out there, cancer research and treatments have come a long way, they're still they're still very, they can be very damaging. But in the this is the early days of using a radiation therapy and both pill form and blood transfusion form and all these different things. And I just remember her her feeling like to me looking a little bit scared, if not a lot scared. And also this wonderment of how am I going to take care of these two kids? Right? So right after that, she basically told me I need your help. And then she told me she literally helped me drive the black chair that she was sitting in over towards the stove and she began to teach me how to boil water and make macaroni and cheese and boil hotdogs and make oatmeal and all the you know, the craft style the powder style, right? And, you know, and then taught me how to set an alarm clock. So I would get up you know, fairly early, get my little brother up who was three years younger than me and we would get dressed and then we'd walk to the bus stop. And then you know, and largely, you know, that was life for much of fourth all the way through the my first interview my fifth grade.

The reason I think this this transformational story is so important is because it's the underlying tone of something in which I believe is now become manifested in a possible positive direction, which is the caretaker of others. Okay, the negative side of that, is without healthy boundaries. Unfortunately, through everything else I went through, people would then use that to try to manipulate me to get me to do what they wanted to do, because they knew that I wanted to take care of them. Right. And that became an undertone that I don't think people were fully aware of. So while the homelessness was was incredibly difficult, the the work lifestyle balance has been crippling. I mean, I'm still I will be honest, I'm still in a place of I have to battle workaholism on a consistent basis largely because I love what I do. But also because I'm so used to doing it for myself because I didn't have anybody to come and rescue me right so i i had to become outside of my faith, I had to become my rescue. Right if I you know, I've taught myself how to build websites. I've taught myself how to launch podcast I've taught myself I've taught myself because I get so frightened. Like I can't find anybody help me I can't everybody helped me you know and next thing you know I'm doing all these other things. The reason I say all that is because I believe that every human being has 123 things that ultimately shape many of the negative outcomes that they had some of those things early in childhood or things that are pushed on us IE parents, some of those things because of the behavior patterns that we're actually witnessing within our parents and the things that they say the things that they do when I say parents I mean parental figure, I mean it doesn't have to be mom or dad. There was a longing inside of me for my mom and dad what's wrong with me that my mom and dad don't want to be around or not around all of which didn't come up till I was an adult after I'd already make a made a bunch of stupid decisions and you start tracing back the the paper trail or the the crumbs. So when you look at it, I think that the difficult part for me was not necessarily directly tied to homelessness or poverty or all those things even though they were very prevalent my early upbringing. It was more concerned more geared Towards discovering what is a person of character? What is trust? What is it really? What are boundaries, really? And then what do I, and I do mean I want for my life? What do I see? Because to the best of our knowledge, we only get one of these at least that we know of right? We might get some do overs. But that's that's a that's a show for a different day and a lot higher than my paygrade. You know, but when it comes down to it, most of us don't ask why. Or, if we do ask why we phrase it in the in the in the negative in that Why me? How come I? How come they never? Right? We always phrase it in the negative rather than let's phrase it in a positive, which kind of gets into some technique stuff, but you're phrasing the positive. What do I want? And then you get super clear on why you want it. Why do you want it? Is that intent pure? Or is that intent at a insecurities? In other words, do you want a nice house? You can show off your your family? Who told you you're always gonna be poor? Right? Or do you want a nice house? Because it's, you know, you got a growing family and a couple extra bedrooms? You see, I'm saying there's a there's a there's a there's that question in the middle that most of us don't ask, we just do. Right? So who am I? Right? This is what I've come to. for me. I'm someone who generally is genuinely concerned about bringing out the possibilities to somebody else. Okay. Why? Why do I do that? or Why do I want that? Well, I want to do it because I believe I can create a legacy that outlives me through it. Just as my mentors did the same for me. Okay, well, what do I need to do about it? Well, apparently I got to start putting myself out there even though it was uncomfortable, a lot of very uncomfortable at first, which is kind of funny, because you were making a comment OFF AIR about my my presentation style when I speak and stuff like that. But you know, I have battled this introversion thing until I became confident in who I am. I'm five foot nothing. So what, right? I'm a high school dropout. So I'm a dyslexic kid. So what ADHD So what? Why do those things have to become label makers that I've been paste all over my body? What I discovered was is my identity is actually tied to my impact that I can create, which takes time, ti m II, right? Spending time developing oneself, so you can later spend time developing other people. Okay, so one final thought, I know I'll stop my rant.

There was this, there was this study that was done not long ago, maybe a year ago. And somebody who I admire respect as an advocate and as an evangelist, and prophetic voice kind of thing. So his name Sean Bowles. And we were sitting in your conference watching a conference he was in, and he actually brought up a statistic, pulled it out, started reading off of it, he said that, you know, the whole world is saying, God, please fix this. God, please fix that, God, please fix this. And he said, you'd be surprised that in the faith community, there's enough money and wealth already in the faith community to solve the vast majority, if not all of the world's current problems. You think about war, treat other people how you want to be treated, there'd be no war. You think about serving others, you think about helping people not be trafficked. Treat people how you want to be treated. Rather than becoming Prop, like you said, I'm saying like, at the end of the day, what you discover is, your life has a certain set of adversity in events, not to hold you back, but to actually shape you moving forward. So my goal is to get to Steven Scoggins at 13 years old rather than 16 years old. And then hopefully, the guy that I'm training will get will try to get to Steven Scoggins at 10 years old rather than 13 years old. And if we'll all focus on creating a legacy that outlives us by doing the hard work first, which is scary, it's unknown, it's uncertain, but it's real. If we'll do those things, then inevitably what happens is is now you are actually positioned to help someone. Right, you get to become the leader you've always wanted to report to.

Very much so. And I think the interesting thing is, you know, like, excuse me, like in talking about dyslexia, right? You can look at it with that victim mindset. Go, I can't do X, Y, or Z. But having dyslexia also helps us in other ways. We're better at spatial awareness. So we can do Tetris, unpacking things, even we change our perspective, those things that we have, rather than looking at them as detriments. They can be gifts. Yeah, give us a different insight that others may not have. But when we're looking at it is like woe is me. Instead of Wow, it It just keeps us in that place, you know, cemented there. Yeah. Not being able to fulfill who we are what we're supposed to do any of that that you've talked about,

Well think about it this way, right? So the very, the very fact that we beat ourselves up is only tied to the fact that someone else tried to indoctrinate us on what the right way was in the first place. Seems and studies have shown ADHD, dyslexic, all of that stuff. There are a heightened levels of strength, especially in the past of entrepreneurship and creativity. So yes, I may have a hard time spelling a word every now and again, or actually putting a word like I was telling you off air just for fun that, you know that my team, God bless him, because I will literally read them back a paragraph, it'll actually have, you know, in my mind, it has all the words there, I literally read it back. And they'll say, What do you talk about that word is not there? I'm like, come on, man. Like, yeah, it is. And I'll read it back. I'm like, oh, oh, it's not there. So Meanwhile, I'm getting my my team Mad Libs to read, right, they get to insert their own words and make it sound like whatever they want. But you know, what, I've discovered that, you know, what, I am incredibly gifted at vision, I'm incredibly gifted at strategy. And I'm incredibly gifted at creative problem solving. Like, to me, there's no one way to solve a problem, there are 1000 different ways, and I just got to find the one that works for me.

And then, until we step out and change our perspective, we're not going to see those other opportunities, like the giftings that we already have, I mean, it's like having a gold chest at your feet. And, and you're just looking up too high, because I can't look down, you know, and see this. So it's like, how much do we miss on what we already have? Because we're focused on our, our lack or being different? So how is it like, as you came along, you know, you you were growing up, and you share it in your book about, you know, going to go into maps? And, you know, it's, it's like that that situation? Dude, seven businesses now, but it's not like, you know, you talked about being homeless, then, you know, you have the story of being at maps and, and not receiving, you know, what you were wanting at that point in time. How did you get from the point maps? And I'll let you share on that, I don't want to steal that from you. How did you get from there to, to have in your eyes opened, you know, to where you're looking at things differently, where you're taking that step? Instead of downhill, you're going uphill, in your you're laying out? Who am I? You know, what am I made to do? How did you make that transition? Man?

You know, I think it's like with every transition, finally, there's enough there's, there's so much pain, that you either surrender to the pain, or you take a chance on the possibility. And, you know, for those that don't know, the story, essentially, I had trained for six or seven months straight locally with some with some new navy seals and marine frogman, and, you know, I felt like the military was gonna be my way out, you know, because I'd grown up in that difficult situation like well, at least they'll feed me right. And, you know, in the in the late 90s, what was interesting was is there was a huge enlistment push. So basically if you breathed and you could fog up a mirror or something like that, you could join the military. Except for me, went to MIPS. Literally after all that training I was in the best physical shape I've ever been in right. I was you know, shoulders are broad and I like a little Mighty Mouse cuz I'm a tiny guy, right I'm five foot five. And I went there fully anticipating that I was heading out to Michigan to go to start Nicko start basic. Now, one of the reasons they put me with seals and frogmen that have been retired and sent down here was because they wanted to get me prepared because at least at that time, if you went to boot camp and you wanted to you had aspirations to become Special Forces. You did a little extra training you got up a little earlier did a little extra things that stuff like that. So when you did graduate boot camp, they could send you straight to the various programs like buds and stuff. And I legitimately thought my life was finally heading uphill like I you know, I'm finally going to get out of this place. You know, and lo and behold, I get there and the the Navy guy wrote, you know, kind of rock walks over and he basically tells me calls me by my last name, hey Scoggins, come here. And I went to come out of the chair. He said, grab your grab your bag, is that a small, like as little as a small duffel bag? And I went to go walk with them any basis. It's me now and kind of away from the group. And he says, I just give you a heads up. You're not going to be enlisting today. And at first, I was like, okay, no problem that goes okay, so when am I allistic? Like, what am I gonna do this? And he said, Well, that's just your your unfortunately you're not. How do you say that you're not military material or something like that? If some some wording like that. I'm like, What do you mean? He's like, Well, you know, you have a GED because your GED score higher on the as Deb than the average person with a high school diploma. I don't know if that's still the case or not, but it was then. And you missed it by if you missed it by like one or two questions or a few points. I said, Okay, well, I can I can retake the ASVAB. Because Well, the next part is, is you've got scoliosis at the top of your neck that they found during the physical eval. And unfortunately, we think that's going to be causing you problems, especially looking towards you know, basically Special Forces and stuff like that there's cold water, there's lifting and to be honest, we think that you'll probably have a really hard time walking by the time you hit 40. And I'm like, What in the world so as you can imagine, my entire rug got tucked out from under me. Now, I'll be transparent tell you that I've had the rug pulled out for money probably four times in my life. And in all four times that was the first one that I remember, remember, remember? And in all four times what I thought was there to destroy me it was actually there to create me, and I didn't know it at the time. I say that because I left maps. I barely made it out the door. And I started whimpering like a little bit I mean, I was weep when I say weeping like the tears were so heavy and so so profoundly there that it was like I was watching ever been in a car and it's raining so hard, the windshield wipers aren't even doing enough good. That's the kind of like whimpering and weeping that I was going through. And I've said before, I don't know if it took me an hour or took me 10 minutes, but I found myself overlooking the Capitol Boulevard 440 Bridge overtop of 440 which is an eight lane highway and I slipped off my shoes, I hopped on the rail and was about to take my life and through a certain set of events that would just take me a long time to take the the entirety of the story. I would tell you that a broken Nokia 5160 phone that my grandmother gave me it was a prepaid phone it was in my duffel bag became my lifeline. And the first four people that I tried to call I got no answer busy signals the answering machine you know and yes, this was when we actually still had answering machines like you know it wasn't on your phone right and then my high school girlfriend's mother answered the phone she's my last phone call before I was you know and I was literally contemplating electronics not big enough. I'm only watching the the you know, the cold air escape my mouth was smell diesel fumes, I can still hear the cars honking and all kinds of stuff right?

Well, in this particular situation, she finally answers the phone and she's like trying to get me it's like where are you at where I'm coming to get you like she instinctively knew something was up. Instinctively. I didn't tell her what I was trying to do. I was just like, I'm just I'm just calling to tell you I love you. You know, thank you so much for being such an important part of my life because she had growing up and had been there to rescue me. I even paid for stitches I have in my hand right here on my hand that that my family couldn't afford to pay for. You know, she took me Got me stitched up and she clothed me and fed me and you know, but she's she said she said something when I was dating her daughter when her daughter broke up with me which totally crushed me because I thought I was gonna marry this girl at 16 and she said when that when that happens, she goes well this too shall pass. I'm like oh, okay, well that's great and all but that didn't help me feel better than and then in this particular situation she she basically after she convinced me Well, I say convince me. She tried to convince me to tell her where I was and I wouldn't she then got me to to agree to calling her by 9am the next morning which essentially she was like maybe one of two people like her and Steve Myrick, my first mentor probably the only two people that would have actually like kept my word kind of thing and it was crazy because once she got me to agree that she got me off the bridge right she legitimately got but that was after a war had going on before before she picked up the phone of the of the airbrushing the cartoons where there's a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other that's exactly what was happening this this I'll call it devilish voice or evil voice or insecurity voice or fear voice or isolation voice or whatever that thing was yelling the top my ear about how worthless I was how I didn't need to be around all this kind of garbage. And meanwhile this other thing is like just whispering He's lying. You're worth it. You're special. Just taking given give yourself another day. When you change your perspective, like you know these these little whispering so when Susan picked up the phone, aka Mama, Mama when she picked up the phone, and she got me to agree to that she got me off the bridge. But the next thing that she said, really surprised me. And she said this too shall pass. But what comes next will be greater. I didn't understand fully And even an even now I don't understand completely fully what that would have become like that was like prophetic in nature right the crazy part was is she had me like in the in the in that moment I was kind of like she's like well say it you know say this after me repeat this after me She said it again and obviously this too shall pass and she yelled at the top of her lungs she said like hit me it like almost like I had just stepped off with a drill sergeant thing and I'm sure I will look silly but I eyes yelling at the top of my top of my lungs this too shall pass and what comes next will be greater and you know what it gave me a piece in my spirit that I didn't fully understand or wasn't fully aware of. and a few days later I I found my faith in a very very real and very very dramatic fashion that we don't have time for that story today I have I have plenty of stories. But at the end of it about three weeks later after my my my I've discovered my faith began to find my voice started to find my footing started to understand the importance of identity. I started a business that became the first of the seven businesses that I owned it employs several 100 team members across several states. And ultimately that business was started out of a second chance I didn't deserve and then it started with my hands. I pulled material out the trash pile of my father My father showed up for the first time of my life and helped me build some stuff over the weekend went to work never looked back. And I just think it's it's interesting because when we look at our life and we look at working with other people, we look at becoming more of who we want to become we look at all these different things. It really starts with the simplest of decisions. Not the most complex. For some reason as humans we like to make everything complex even though it doesn't have to be complex. Right so here's the simple here's the simple thing I'm a big believer that principles govern promises and if you want to live a specific promise you want to maybe be become a better leader, husband father. You want to drive a NASCAR car whatever your whatever your thing is right? Then our guiding principles that take you closer to that or there are humanistic reactions that take you further away from it. Okay I'm as such the principle that I think the easy the easy answer for everybody is they have to believe something my good friend Les Brown tells me now and he did a keynote for a number of years called The principle is it's possible

no matter what you're facing, no matter what you've been through, no matter where you think you're going a greater day is possible and if you focus on the greater day and you focus on where you're trying to get to rather than where you've been not saying there's not value that can be distilled from understanding yourself in your behavior patterns because you can change those no one is fixated in who they may think they are right now no one is no one as a as a gosh and anchor right you're not an anchor you're more of a drifting boat right so turn this thinking motor on believe as possible and go after it

through there are so many more stories I would love to pull out of you but man, I know you have an amazing event coming up here soon and I'd love to share you know have you share where can people find out more about it and where can people also connect with you? But you know open to sharing all that

Yeah, no I'd love to well first of all let me before I say this before I tell them where to where to connect with me and about the event stuff i would i would say this I just want to remind your listeners and your viewers that again no matter what they think is impossible I'm telling you right now there's no how do you how do you argue the fact that a homeless high school dropout dyslexic kid ADHD dude, like if I can do it anyone can do it like seriously right? But going back to your first question transform you live right you can go to transform you live.com you'll see the amazing lineup we've got this event is different because a lot of events and seminars you go to conferences you go to it's all about getting you inspired but not necessarily walking you through something or getting you inspired but not meeting you where you are. I intentionally have for bid any speakers from pitching things this is a straight up value conference is all about value it's kid friendly. So I'm not going to be like my my buddy Tony and be like, say hi and then drop an F bomb right after it. Okay, I'm gonna this is this is about this is about what could you do? With an actual framework that can actually help you amplify every single area of your life What would it mean to you? What would it mean to you to not wake up and be exhausted? What would it mean to you to not have to have a constant battle with your spouse? What would it mean to be to know that your kids admire you What would it be like to know you're becoming a better leader? Like what? What would be the cost? He said, I'm saying like this event transform your life is designed to create and unlock possibilities. I find that 90% of people I come in contact with the reason they're so stinking unhappy, or they're not getting where they want to go is because they're living someone else's life. They're living a life they were never intended to live, but yet they've never had a guy come by and like, Hey, no, no, over here. Let's this put this down on paper. Okay, all right, come over here for a minute let's let's like, I know you're scared. I'm here with you. Just hang on. I'm right here with you. Don't get scared. Okay. All right, do this. All right, great job. All right, we're gonna do we're gonna do it and we're gonna do it again. We're going to do a quicker this time. Right? There's there's not this, this true mentor mentee. But if you look at history, apprentices became the Masters in every instance. Right? The reason people don't even barely know the Term Life Mastery is because there's been no masters teaching the life part. Instead, we go to school, we learn about arithmetic, we learn about English, and learn about all these different things. What we don't learn about is how to take better care of ourselves. How do we become a better person within a relationship, an organization, how to plot a course towards dreams and ambitions and goals that not just allow that person to feel alive and fulfill but also allow that person to make an impact along the way. You see, if you go at life in a selfish modality, then you will never fully see the optimization of that which were created for. It's the selflessness that ultimately leads towards passion and fulfillment and advancement. Okay, so transfer me live is designed to answer that question, then those problems, that's who it's for. It's for it's for someone who's legitimately trying to get to another level, and who's, who was beat their head against a wall. I don't know what like, like I've been, I've been that person, right. It's also for the person who wants a second chance, who's desperately craving for a second chance and is willing to do whatever it takes if someone would just teach them how. So it's, this is a teach you how and hold your hand kind of day. Okay, so no pitching. I don't allow any any of the other speakers to pitch anything they're all coming out of value add they all know that they're gonna be circulating the building for those for the live attendance because we're only limited we're limiting the live. But we're also allowing several 1000 to basically partake on a virtual event. We've got different things there. But so if that sounds like something you or your, your listeners would be interested in your viewers be interested in. Just going to transform your lab comm and check it out. In the meantime, my name is spelled Steven with a pH Scoggins. Two G's. Yeah, you can find me on Instagram. You can find me on Facebook, you can find me pretty much anywhere and Steven Scoggins calm so long winded answer I can't help myself. I love hanging out with you new week. It's been so long.

Well, I was gonna say it's like you're equipping people how we've been blessed to be the generational change makers, right? Yeah, just like you talked about. You looked in the genealogy. Didn't see a pattern. crazy enough. done that myself as well. It's like, Okay, wait a minute. But yeah, we can be the change makers. We can be the chain breakers, the stuff that is held us and our and our families back. This is what you're doing is you're helping them break free and experience that that changed life. So yeah, Stephen, thank you so much for joining me here today sharing so openly and just giving that voice of hope and encouragement that where we're at now is definitely not where we're tied to and going forward. Thank you my friend.

My pleasure, man, dude. Anytime you can hang out I'm always down for it.

Sounds great to me.