From Suicidal To Unstoppable

At the end of the day, the very thing that you think is trying to kill you is actually the very thing that’s actually building you. We’ve learned far more about ourselves from the places in which we think we’re never going to get back up from. And I think at the end of the day, the number one thing that allowed me to keep pushing forward more than anything else is knowing that God’s got it all under control.
I come to the imperfectly empowered podcast with leading DIY lifestyle blogger on. Where women are inspired with authentic stories and practical strategies to reclaim their hearts and homes by empowering transformation. One imperfect day at a time. Welcome to another episode of the imperfectly empowered podcast.
I am your host on a Fullmer today. It is my pleasure to introduce you. Steven Scoggins from living on the streets and contemplating suicide to launching what would become a multimillion dollar construction company. Stephen Scoggins is an award-winning author podcast, host and entrepreneur passionate about using his story to inspire others, to experience transformation in their lives.
He hosts the world renowned transform you live event dedicated to inspiring you to go from stuck to unstoppable and exceed your wildest expectations. Featured on Forbes, entrepreneur thrive, global New York wire NBC, ABC, Evan Carmichael podcast. To name a few welcome real life inspiration and truly one of the most generous people I have ever met.
Steven Scoggin. Well, Stephen, welcome to the imperfectly empowered podcasts. We were just talking about your amazing jacket and how lovely it looks. It’s leather for anyone wondering, let’s just get that out in the open right away. You just want to touch it all today and he’s just going to pet himself the entire interview.
Cause it’s not at all fun, right? Gonna make it fun. You do have to have fun. Leather makes life much more fun. I want to share, I first read your story in a Forbes article. It was published in 2020. And I remember it. So, um, specifically, because the headline, if I’m recalling it correctly, said something like homeless to a hundred million dollar business or something very eye-catching.
And I remember reading through the story and thinking, wow, I just loved, I loved your story. I loved the message. I loved. Seeing all the paths that kind of led you to where you are today and something that I want to share so that people can hear and see this interview through the right lens is this is a guy who is truly practicing what he preaches.
He lives out his message and I’ve benefited from that. We had connected and Steven barely knew me. And you heard that I was in the very early stages of wanting to create a podcast. And you said, Hey, let’s set up a time. I would love to show you through zoom. Products that I use the equipment that you’re going to need some tips.
And that meant so much to me because your responsibilities are great. Your influence is great. And I just as important for people to understand, I think from the very beginning, when they hear what you’re saying, that we don’t always have the privilege of meeting the people that we admire so much. And you have influenced thousands, probably millions at this point.
So I’m telling you right now, if you’ve not had the honor of meeting him, he is truly practiced. Preaching. He is incredibly generous with his time, his resources, his knowledge. So I just want to start that out because I think it’s important for people to not just hear your words, but really hear them.
This is somebody who’s practicing his message. First of all. Thank you. Um, I’m not even sure what to say. I’m officially speechless, so interviews over. Perfect. Perfect. That was easy. I love it. Yeah. Well, when we talk about again, we go back to that Forbes article. People see that headline homeless to a hundred million dollar business.
And as so often happens in our lives. We quickly want to focus on that hundred million dollar business part. We want to see, okay, well, how do you get a hundred million dollar business? But what we still rarely get the opportunity to highlight is the messy, imperfect process that actually got you to where you are.
And in fact, it’s probably a huge reason you are where you are. So I want to press rewind a little bit. Tell us about some of those younger years and how it even resulted in you being homeless and on the streets. Oh my gosh. That’s such a long story. It’s funny. I try each time to condense it and condense it and it still like ramble on for hours.
I think I grew up a light. A lot, like a lot of folks in the U S today and even back in the seventies or so this was, I was born in the seventies. That’s what it was. It was the seventies. And you are looking good. Appreciate that big time, you know, but I grew up in a broken environment, mom and dad, not super like tied together.
Dad chasing alcoholism, mother grew up in abuse and of course all that stuff takes toll on somebody until, you know, they’re, you’re literally taught. How to kind of filter that information and filter that existence into something better. Right. By the time I was nine years old, I was raised by my grandmother, single grandmother, both parents were out kind of chasing themselves and trying to figure themselves out, which is funny.
Cause you know, now I’m like, well, that’s all I do for a living is trying to figure myself and other people out, which is kind of funny. Yeah, but you know, that was kind of like the early days. And then my grandmother passed away. Two 11. I moved in with my dad, got introduced to the construction industry and my little brother went to go live with my mom down in Florida.
So it kind of like child separation, kind of things, abandonment things, you know, to kind of be kind of worked through. And lo and behold, I met Steve mark, who was my first mentor. Now I’ve had lots of other mentors since then. I do talk about him a lot because obviously your first one is like, you’re almost like your major pivot, right?
And, you know, he’s my dad’s employer. So we were sitting out one afternoon and I was working on a construction crew with my dad framing houses, and it was hot. And, uh, Steve had done this before. He just motioned me down several times. And any reason to go get the AC I’m good. Like just put me in the car, let me bring the AC.
Well, in this particular instance, he asked me a couple of questions and the first of which, the more and more I’ve mentioned it on the more and more shows that I’ve been on recently, it’s like, does this really help people? Does this really resonate with people? And I was like, you know what? It’s got to cause it’s the.
Hmm. Right. And Steve asked me the first question he asked you guys, what’s the difference between a rich man and a bore man. And I wanted to, like I said, some stupid foolish thing, like money, right? Rich guy has money, poor guy, doesn’t money and the story, and he kind of snapped at me. He said, absolutely not.
It’s the way that. And he could have stopped right there and he already had my attention. But in this particular instance, one of the things that he did was he pushed a little further and ask me one more followup question, then he said, do you want to continue thinking like your father, or do you want to learn to think like, Now what happened was in my brain.
I had this Rolodex in my head of all the moments with my father, all the moments with Steve. And by this time I’d already seen Steve be a very frugal, very, very gifted, very, very, um, bold businessman. And I’d also seen him be incredibly generous. So it wasn’t uncommon for him to donate money at will. No one would know it like he never bragged about it.
He never said a word. And this one instance that I talk about all the time, it kind of plays in my head is we were at a place called Murray’s barbecue, which was over off of Poole road. And here in Norfolk. Does it exist anymore? It got obliterated a few years back, but one afternoon we went there for like an early dinner.
He was there. He overheard the waitress that was waiting on him talking about like, just being a single mom. I mean, difficult. And it wasn’t, she wasn’t talking to him. She was talking to one of her friends, like across the way he overheard it. He took out a thousand dollars cash out of his wallet and put it under the basket of hush puppies.
And he and his wife, Lona quietly exited the door. And here was this young lady comes over, discovers a thousand dollars and just weeps. Like she completely loses herself, you know, from everything, from what I can pay my light bill, I can pay Mary. Like she just started rattling off all the ways in which it was going to help her, which I, that moment always stuck with me.
And I swore to myself, and in that time I had no idea I’d ever be a person that having any kind of level of resource. But I remember saying if I had. Get to that chance. If I ever get to that place, I want to be just as generous. So I had these moments that are like Rolodexing in my head. Right? Well, that continued on that mentorship.
That kind of opened my mind to a new possibilities because me and my father lost his business a few years earlier. And I remember him telling me one time, he said, Scoggins, don’t get ahead. They get by. Right. And then it got me thinking. Am I believing a lie, like what my father told me or my believing possibilities, which is what Steve told me.
And I find a lot of us get trapped in that mundane. Like for some reason, it’s easier for us to listen to the voice that says we can’t, rather than the believer in the voice that says we can. Which is kind of a transition thing, but safer. It’s safer to live there. Yeah, totally is. And it kind of continued to, I wish I could tell you that, like everything transformed from that one moment, but lo and behold, I had to drop out of high school to help my dad take care of the family.
We had lost the cars, we had foreclosure, we’d lost two repossessions, and then he struggled. He was working as hard as he possibly could. I have no harm, no foul. And he literally worked as hard as he possibly cause probably where my work ethic comes from. Cause it’s pretty insane. At the end of the day, I got fed up.
I woke up one school day morning. It was the tail end of my junior year. And I went to go flip the light switch and it wouldn’t come on. Right. And then I went to go turn the water on the knob. It wouldn’t go. Right. And then once again, our electricity had been shut off and it was like, it wasn’t like the first time it happened several times.
And I finally had enough enough. I went from there, dropped out of high school, kind of got the family stabilized and bought a car to buy here, pay here lot, worked my butt off, got to know Steve a little better. And around the age of 19, Steve gives me an opportunity to go into business for myself. Okay.
Lily buys me all my tools, all my equipment, everything that I need to get going. Like I said, he’s one of those people that much like my grandfather and several others that mentored me. When I didn’t even know I needed to be mentored. Yeah. Like they were just doing it because that’s who they were. Yeah.
And lo and behold, that business goes from zero to a hundred, really, really fast. I mean, I’m, I’m doing really well, making a bunch of money. I’m 19 years old. I’ve never been taught how to handle money. I blew it on everything. Under the sun. I bought the sports car. I flipped a hundred dollars bills at the pool hall because that’s where we used to hang out that and putt, putt, golfing games.
And I thought I was the it guy. I wanted to prove everybody to myself that they were wrong because they told me I’d be a failure. If I had to drop out of high school. Not knowing what I was really up against at home, and that started it. And then within about a year’s time of that, I had ultimately lost everything from one bad decision to another one, you know, tied to bad relationships, one tied to bad financial decisions.
One by, you know, it turns out you’re not supposed to give your credit cards to people that aren’t. Oh, shoot. I shouldn’t have done that last night. Right. That would explain it. Yeah. Right. And all of a sudden bills start piling up. But long story short is I’ve been asked recently, how did you become homeless?
And it’s been more of a recurring theme. And I want to be honest and transparent with people when I answered that question. Yes. It was a bunch of bad decisions. Yes. There was a bunch of bad circumstances, but ultimately the reason I became homeless and then stayed homeless for any length of time was because of my.
Right. It was because of my inability to admit that I needed help my inability to admit to myself that I had fallen. So to speak my inability, to admit to myself that I was becoming the very thing that Steve mark didn’t want me to become. Not too long ago. It shook out that, um, I was kinda hit this weird moment.
I was in a public restroom and was just staring at myself in the eyes. In fact, it’s one of the things I do with my life. But then I have a mirror thing that we do at some of my live events. And as it comes directly from this moment, and I’m staring at myself, looking at myself as deeply as I possibly could in my eyes.
And I said, how the hell did you get. Um, like what are you doing? And about the time that question popped over all these other things that Steve had told me, right. Be willing to do today, what others won’t. So you can have tomorrow tomorrows with others, don’t focus on creating a legacy that outlives you, the greatest purpose in life you’ll ever have, is serving the person used to be and myself and a handful of Rory included like say that 10 different ways from Sunday, but it’s what I call a life truth.
Right. So ultimately, My foolishness and immaturity got me to a place where I needed a massive humbling. And I’d love to tell you, that’s the only one that I’ve had because I’m one of, God’s more stubborn children, but you need to have a boring story otherwise. So yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I’ll fast forward it just a little bit, but about a year and a half went by, had a lot of soul searching.
I found my faith found my identity to a degree, even though I didn’t have anything. It’s kinda one of those things that you understand the value of everything. When you understand that you have. Yeah, right. It’s this weird place to be. And Steve Margaret gave me a second chance. I didn’t deserve a hot summer night, a hot summer afternoon.
Again, I got back on his framing crew, long story. We don’t have time to jump in detail, but in that sense, he gave me a chance, but that’s all he gave me. He wouldn’t buy me tools. He wouldn’t buy me equipment and he wouldn’t get me help. He wouldn’t get me insurance and my father and I literally built the scaffolding and things that I needed for my first construction business, which is one of the seven companies that I own and literally built out of the trash.
And that’s what my first business was built. That business alone employs several hundred people across a couple states and it’s been a blessing. It taught me how to build myself. It taught me how to lead it or taught me to become a better leader because I did that wrong for a while. And you know, so it’s a very complex story.
But at the end of the day, I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know why I was here and I didn’t know what to do about it. And I’ve discovered that anybody can literally create any level of momentum if they can just answer those. I want to highlight an element of your story that, you know, mental health right now is such a huge issue more than it ever has been.
You know, as somebody who’s worked in the emergency department for over 10 years, I can testify to the very real issues that exist for so many men and women and COVID has exacerbated it and kind of taken small cracks in our mental health and just made them gaping. Yeah. You know, ravines that are so hard for people to get past.
And now. In younger. People adolescents, especially we’re seeing such a rise in mental health. There was a moment in that story and in those chapters of your life, that you were very seriously contemplating ending your life. And I want to specifically talk to people right now who either that was you.
Maybe it is you. Maybe you feel like you’re are on that verge. Tell me a little. I realized this was many years ago now, but tell me a little bit about what was going through your head at that time, because even though you had so many words of truth from people in your life, you still were on that point of feeling like this.
Isn’t worth it. Tell me a little bit about your mindset at that time. And then you also mentioned there was a divine encounter that ultimately pulled you back off the ledge. So talk about those two things for me. So a couple of different things. My life. And I feel like I know I’m not the only one, right?
That’s the whole reason we do what we do now. But early on with all the financial stress, trying to take care of my grandmother at nine, trying to take care of my little brother, trying to then operate in the construction industry and then pay the bills and help my dad at the situations and all this kind of stuff I wanted to join.
I just thought, Hey, I need a way out. So I thought I would join the military. So I put all my eggs in one basket. Right. You know what, I guess what some say, go burn the boat and make sure you have no way back. Right. Right. Problem was is I wasn’t in a healthy place to begin. I wasn’t eating. Right. So I had a buildup, a toxins, I’m sure.
In my brain, I had limiting beliefs out the wazoo because I was judging my entire life based on the moment of life that I was in. Not realizing that that’s a season, any level of struggle. It is temporary. If you look at it as if it’s temporary, if you look at it as if it’s permanent, then it ultimately becomes permanent.
But inevitably the Navy wouldn’t have. Had already kind of more or less gotten rid of all my belongings, what little bit I had. And I remember leaving the MEP station at four 40 and capable of art here in Raleigh and walking. And again, I can’t say if it’s 10 minutes or an hour, but I just remember, I literally could not see because I was crying so hard.
I literally couldn’t see. And as I walked up to the bridge, one of the things that I was hearing. The easiest one to do it. To me, this is realistic. Even I’m gonna use a kind of a metaphor, which is you ever seen the cartoons. We got, you know, bugs bunny or whatever. And he’s got little angel bugs bunny on one side, and he’s got the little devil on the other.
That is literally what was going on inside of my brain. The voices of negativity, the voices of not having worth the voices of being a constant failure, being a constant screw up, being a burden to everybody. All of those things were basically being felt like they were being sheltered inside of the. And the quiet little moments I would hear like this little whisper that’s kinda was like, he’s lying.
You do have value. You are worth it. It’s just a tough place. You’ll get through it. Just keep going. And I think a lot of times in lies have to yell. So they get your attention. What truths often whisper because they want you to pay it to. Right. So as I’m looking through that, I’m going through that moment and walking into the bridge, I was very much in a catastrophic state.
Um, crisis moment is an understatement. And to anyone who’s feeling like they don’t have worth, or they’re burdened the people or they’re hurt either. Their hurt is so much that they can’t absorb it. I would tell you that one you’re worth it. Two. You’re not a burden. And three, you just got to find that.
Right. You got to find your way and find your voice. And unfortunately, sometimes the only way to find your voice and to find your way is to go through the very thing that you’re facing, but going through it with an open mind of possibilities, like almost like that excitement, like, oh, like what can I learn from this?
Not why does this always happen to me? But I was very fortunate. I had this broken Nokia, fifty one sixty phone with a cracked screen. And this is long before we could obviously have glass that we could touch him and all kinds of stuff. And I picked up the phone, try to dial somebody in a busy signal, busy signal, busy signal, answering machine.
Yes. The big block answering machines that used to have to push a button to hear somebody play. Right. And then every time the phone wouldn’t get answered, the louder thing would actually be louder, like the yell or whatever of failure. And I told you no one cares and dah, dah, dah, and I was kind of garbage.
Well, my fifth one, my fifth phone call a woman by the name of Susan bats picked up the phone. We are calling the same person all this time, or five different people, five different people, tried to call my mother, my father and my grandfather, and then my best friend that I had at the time. Well, I technically still, I still have him.
He’s still a good friend. And then Susan was my high school girlfriend. Hmm. So my high school girlfriend’s mother, she was another person like Steve Meyer to me, when I would get into her presence, she would, couldn’t help herself, but to try to encourage me and teach me and nurture me and empower me. And, and I think she knew I was lacking that like in the environment that I was growing up in.
And it was interesting because she’s one of those firecrackers, right. She had an old cigarette, raspy voice, you know, kind of thing. And, uh, you know, she tried to convince me to tell her where I was at and I wouldn’t tell her. And then long story short. A lot of truth came out of that moment. And it was a crucible moment for me.
And I would encourage everyone to go, not to go to the place where you feel like you want to end your life or do something foolish to yourself, but go to the place where the crucible is so much that you can say, what can I do now to just make a tiny shoe? Because what I didn’t understand was she was about to give me 11 words that ultimately would set the tone for the next 30 years of my life.
And I had no idea what that would be also had no idea of the level of adversity that would face even all the way up until our latest live event that we had one a couple of weeks ago. And she basically had me streaming this stuff at the top of my lungs. We were, I was sitting on top of the. Tubular thing.
It was to Chile. I was watching the light, the smoke escape, your mouth and the diesel fumes and the corn and the horns are honking everywhere. And of course you could hear all of it. And, um, after refusing to tell her where I was at, she would actually say, well, she said, fine. Promise me tomorrow morning.
You’ll call me at 9:00 AM. I said, no, I can’t do that. I love you. I just want to tell you how much I love you and all the garbage. We’re really, a lot of times we, as people, when we’re hurting that bad, we want to say, I want someone to care, but I don’t want to tell you. I want you to care. Yeah. Right. And um, long story short is she basically says, well, repeat after me.
And she said, this too shall pass. I was like, oh, whatever, this too shall pass what comes next will be your head. To what comes next. She is saying it like, you mean it like screaming at the top of her lungs. And I would in a roundabout way, I would almost give anything just to like, be an outsider, looking at this moment and seeing myself on a freezing bridge, yelling at the top of my lungs, I’m serious.
But, you know, she did was, she took my negative circumstance and my negative thought pattern and she interrupted. Right. She changed my emotional state and a blink of an eye. I don’t know that she knew that she was doing newer linguistics or any kind of like brain work neuroscience or whatever. But the reality was, it was a week later is when I started that business, the one that became, you know, so if you take everything all brought up in together, finding my faith along the way, I literally found my faith.
I had the litter box, like. Homelessness trying for the military military into not going to happen. Almost take my life, almost take my life into cleaning a litter box for 50 bucks, finding my faith, finding my faith, getting a second chance with Steve mark and then everything else has been right. Yeah. And so I would tell someone who’s maybe in that struggle 0.1.
No, you’re not alone because you’re not. A lot of us have been there, even though we’re not really articulating it to, if you need somebody to talk, to hit me up on Instagram, like, I’ll be glad to talk to you because you do have value. And sometimes I have actually thought, like, what is. I had listened to the loud yelling, voices of fear and failure and worth and burden and all this kind of garbage.
Like I wouldn’t have been able to travel to places I’ve traveled to. I wouldn’t be the father that I’m able to be tonight. I’m not, wouldn’t be able to be a husband. I would have been to be a business owner. I wouldn’t have written books. I wouldn’t be speaking like all of these different things that you can’t see because you’re in the moment.
So why not give yourself the position of curiosity and just say, I wonder what could be if I just face this thing. Yeah. And see what has. I love that concept of put yourself in a position of curiosity, because there’s this sense that you know exactly what you were told this too shall pass and what’s next will be greater.
And. We went that be a curious thing to find out like, what is next? But you got to stick around, you gotta stick around. And it is, you’re not an island. You’re not living on an island. You’re surrounded by people. And I know there’s many people that still feel very alone despite being surrounded, but all it takes is one person, you know, and don’t hesitate to reach out, especially when it’s being offered as it is right now.
I think the other thing that I want to highlight here is on the flip side, I want to speak to the, what was the mom’s name? What was her. Her name was Susan bats. Ironically, she had a nickname. She had a nickname. So we had jackets coming off for this name. Sorry guys. I’ll put the jacket back on later. Yeah.
And her nickname was mama Wal-Mart. She nicknamed me I was, you know, her daughter would take quite a bit of time to get ready and our gates at the time consisted of being at her mother’s house. Ordering pizza and watching Ren and Stimpy. So that was our date, but she was told, go upstairs and act like we were going out to a fine dining restaurant and stuff.
Hey great. But would leave me a lot of time with Susan and a one afternoon Susan. Cause you’re just so sweet. It showed up, I call you sugar Walker and I said, well fine, then I’m gonna call you mama llama and then that’s and it stuck. So yeah. So she’s known in the book as mama. Yeah, I love that. So speaking also to the Susans and mama WAM is out there because you know, there’s also a lot of us in the position of having kids who I am not at this moment, but there are probably many women listening or men listening who have children.
Who may be struggling with mental health issues or no of other kids or a friends, or maybe as people older than you struggling with mental health. And I think the other thing I hear from that story is that you have no idea in whose life you could be Susan. And that sense of. Being intentional to speak truth into people’s lives and you don’t have to have the perfect phrase.
I just think this is how God works all of the time is he uses words that we say, when we have no idea, they’re going to pull such a punch. I mean, I could tell my own stories of how that is true, and it may seem so little to you, but you have no idea how it could be supernaturally. Huge. To be that pivot point in somebody’s life.
So I guess I say that also to encourage all of our friends, listening and watching that don’t hesitate to communicate. If you’re thinking it, say it, some people are really bad at that, but I just want to encourage you that even if you struggle with communicating or giving affirming words to people do it because you have no idea how it might be that pivot point for somebody.
So you’re thinking of positive. Just say it. I know it’s hard for some people, but just say it because it really could make all of the difference and you could be that mama Walmart or that daddy whattie or something like that, or something like where we could go on a rabbit trail there, we will keep ourselves from digging a hole too deep.
You have accomplished so many things over the years and your story is true. Inspiring. And I love highlighting that the messy parts of it, which really in the end you realize are crystal clear. It feels messy at the moment, but you know, hindsight vision is always 2020. So I love being able to see how that has so clearly transformed.
What would you say over all of these years? One of my favorite questions, if you could sum up the key to success in one word, what would it be one word or can I use. It’s always more than one it’s okay. Yeah. Especially three words. That’s okay. Go for it. Never do. Never give up at the end of the day. The very thing that you think is trying to kill you is actually the very thing that’s actually building you is the thing that’s creating your version of your story.
It’s the thing that’s teaching you the most about yourself. We don’t learn anything from, I mean, at least I don’t feel like we really truly learn a lot from our successes, things that. You know that we accomplished that other people say, oh, that looks amazing. Congratulations. You know, fancy stuff. Ooh.
Right, right. We’ve learned far more about ourselves from the places in which we think we’re never going to get back up from, and it doesn’t have to be sitting on a bridge to feel like you’re never going to get back up. It could be a failed relationship that you thought that that person was doing. Like you just believe with all your heart.
They were the one that was going so good and all of a sudden the rugs out for money. And you’re not even sure how you ended up there. It’s the getting passed over for promotion again, when you feel like you’re working about as hard as you possibly can, but having no clarity on what to do next. Right. And I think at the end of the day, the number one thing that I think has allowed me to keep pushing forward more than anything else is knowing that God’s got it all.
Right. Like, no matter what I think it is, he’s got it right. He already saw what I’m now doing. When I was the homeless kid or sitting beside the litter box, he already knew all that. He already spoke that into existence and there has to be a healthy level of faith. Knowing that if you don’t give up, you will get to experience the very thing that has been spoken over you.
I don’t know if that, if that’s clear enough, but I think that’s where my heart goes. I think it’s stepping into the God-given purpose is what I’m hearing you say. It’s that sense of the other piece that I think you’re communicating with, I’ll consolidate it, but I think there’s also a degree of humility.
It’s a humble sense of, I don’t have it all together. You mentioned pride, you felt like is ultimately what kept you from succeeding at the time? And I also to have seen it in my own life. This sense of humbly recognizing I don’t have it all together. And that there’s beauty in that it’s not actually a problem.
That is the solution. The sooner that we can recognize we are imperfect. I mean, that’s what I’m all about here is. As soon as you own that, that sense of humility and imperfection and embrace it is truly when we empower transformation. And I think it also gives you then that strength to never give up.
And it, it also takes the focus off of ourselves and puts it onto other people, which you exemplify so well, that’s service-based mindset. So the, one of the other things that I love to ask at this point is if you could achieve one thing yet in your lifetime personal professional could be ridiculous or very.
Profound, what would it be? Hmm, that’s a great question. I want to be a Steve Myrick for a million people. Okay. Who’s that? So Steve mark is the mentor that I mentioned earlier that I didn’t hear his last name before. I, I want to be the person who can kickstart or light a fire under somebody who has no idea what they’re really capable of.
You know, Steve Martin believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. He poured into me, even when I wasn’t listening, he poured into me even when I was like, like stubborn and like, And I’ve got a young man that works with me now, his name’s Connor and I’m stage granddaughter came when afternoon to come to our facility, my live event center.
And as I’ve showing around the building, of course, you know, she’s seeing her grandfather’s words on the walls and she’s hearing my team members talk and they’re using slang that he used to say the course, the, I say that, you know, they picked it up. And so she’s kind of like already in this, like this all really cool place from all, you know, cause her grandfather actually made a difference in my life, but other lives as well, Connor walks up to her.
And I introduced the two of them and say, Hey, you know who, this is so-and-so, this is so-and-so. And she goes, what do you do for Steven? And he goes, well, I’m in charge of trying to figure out the digital marketing side to help them kind of get out there. I believe in them that dah, dah, dah, she goes, huh, that’s cool.
And then he looks at her and then points at me and says, he’s my Steve Merrick. And he and I both started like, like, Ooh, you know, it kind of thing. Because for those people listening. Tell us who Connor is. So people yes are Connors. One of my team members who is now my son-in-law, who was not my son-in-law a year ago, but he’s not my son-in-law and the father of my grand baby granddaughter.
But yeah, he’s been with me now for almost five years. I met him as a kid. He was, so everybody was asking me one time, she goes, why do you have the patience for this? I said, because he is me 20 years ago, like almost verbatim, like, and I think back to all the time, Steve should have thrown in the towel with me and he didn’t.
So. That’s really sweet. So you want to be Steve Myrick? Yeah. Steve Myrick to a million people. I have absolutely no doubt that is going to happen if it hasn’t already. Thank you. Thank you. I’m hoping to get there with confirmation right now, you know? Yes. I understand that. Absolutely. It is going to happen.
I have no. And then we’ll have to bring you back on. Let’s bring Steve on. Bring you Steven. I wish we could, but Steve passed in 2000. Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. He got to see my first business thrive. I mean get to high seven figures, which was nice. He never got to see the author side, the speaker side.
He never got to watch me on podcasts. He never got like all this kind of stuff. So like I said, you already said this, but we’re all capable of being a Steve mark to somebody. Yeah. Right. We’re all capable of that. Yeah. It’s whether or not we open our heart to that. Right. You had mentioned something early on just a second ago and I don’t mean to pin it on you.
It’s in my heart. When you go and ask somebody, how are you doing today? Be sincere about the ask. And then every time you add her this from some, I don’t know where I picked it up from, but I think it’s helped. But when you say, Hey, how are you doing today? And they go, oh, I’m okay. Stop for a second and say, know how you’re really doing.
Mike, all of a sudden the walls come down, it’s kinda like going to go, your shoes are going to go buy a car or something. Can I help you? Oh, no, I’m just looking. No, and you’re like, I think I want this car, right? Yeah. It’s kind of the same framework and another little cool trick. I’ll do this. I assume this is gonna be on YouTube as well, right?
Yeah. All right. Cool. I’m gonna give everybody just a quick exercise. So what I’ve done is I’ve drawn a single square and I’ve broken it up before quadrants. If you will. I had this interesting epiphany called the quadrants of con. And if you’re not sure if someone’s doing really well and you can’t really get it out, I’m just kind of offered to, Hey, I want to do something.
We’ll do this little exercise with you. I learned it on a podcast that Anna did on a digital led light. Want to go. I want to make sure that I do that. And inside of the, one of the quadrants, I want you to write the word financial. Okay. And the other quadrant, I want you to write the emotional, spiritual.
Right. And then physical. Okay. I stumbled on this by accident, by the way, I was doing a keynote for the us Marine Corps and they asked me about the suicide portion of my story. And I said, well, am I just do this thing? And here’s what we did at any given time. Just have them on a piece of paper, sit down with them on the phone or whatever.
Say on a scale of one to 10, how are you doing financially? Okay. On a scale of one to 10, how you want emotionally? Alright. Spiritually, physically. Here’s an interesting thing. Most people are five and above in most areas. Right. And they’re typically really strong. And one of the four, like a lot of folks in the, especially in the circles that I’ve been, they’re very financially successful, but they struggle emotionally, right.
Relationships, et cetera. But when you have seven to 10 and most of the boxes, you’re a good place. They’re like, you’re okay. Life’s good. You got some adversity about. When you start getting to where you have fives and below in multiple boxes, you all of a sudden see an increased level of depression and anxiety, right?
So you don’t tell them this is where you’re taking them. You just say, draw the quadrants. Let’s do the numbers because here’s what happened. I had this young Marine, he stood up in the crowd after we got done doing the exercise. And he said, sir, I’m just, I just had tears in his eyes. He said, I’m curious, what do you do if you only have twos or threes in all four boxes?
I looked at it as they come up here by going to get you some help. And he just started crying. Right. If you give people permission to feel. Yeah, that which they’re actually feeling, you just give them permission to kind of express it and then you give them a framework to kind of bring it to the surface.
It’s much easier to deal with that. One little cheat sheet can be done for trying to keeping you on your goals, but more importantly can also be keep you out of trouble, right? Because if you have twos and threes in all four of those categories, I do. I think you knew to get professional help just to make sure you stay safe, because like we’ve already mentioned what comes next.
Right. It’s a beautiful example. I mean, we employ this in medicine all the time. It’s a scale it’s, you know, we might not have tons and tons of research behind it, but what you are doing is exactly right. It’s this idea of helping to quantify things that we can’t verbalize in a cerebral way. And I want to make sure that we include all of that on our show notes as well.
Cause I think that’s beautiful and everybody that is watching it or listening to it needs to mentally think through those boxes. And rate yourself as that’s a great thing to ask your spouse. I’ll throw that out there as well. And your children, even maybe financial, you could replace with psychological or something, but I would also highly encourage you.
Ask your children, those questions as well. We’re going to take a quick break, but when we come back, stay tuned for a speed round of this or that with Steven, we’re going to learn a little bit more about him, and we’re going to hear more of his expert advice on getting rid of the poverty mindset, going from stuck to unstoppable and learn more.
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Today, we’re back with Steven Scoggins. We’re going to play this or that. Stephen there’s two options. You don’t have to think about it too hard, this or that. All right. First one candy or baked. Candy favorite candy. Okay. Um, you said this or that you didn’t say it’s a good business practice to lie to the guests on your cookie monster battle cookies.
Oh, so cookies. Oh, we just changed it. Well, you’re allowed, I lied to you. So you’re allowed to say, okay. Cookies, country, or pop music between the two of them country, country. Favorite artist. Oh, man. Need to breathe is my favorite. Okay. Yeah. So they’re kind of smack dab in the middle of everything. Yeah.
That’s true. Kindle or old fashioned book, old fashioned books. I can use a highlighter, a true story. Okay. You’re throwing it back to the construction days, Bosch or. Oh man. Well, Boston exists. I’ll have to go with the ball. Really? Yeah, we had, we had Makita, we had Makita and, uh, again with our Ryobi wasn’t there yet.
Okay. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Hi, we’re I’m to Walton Ruby fans over here, but we started out with super cheap tools that did not take us long to realize this is worth investing money.
After we destroyed multiple tools. All right. House by a lake in the woods or a house by the beach house by lake in the woods. That’s my riding place. We’ll go to the mountains. When I’m writing, writing, what do you ride? No. Oh, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I used to ride motorcycles, but I’m not allowed to do that anymore.
I have to stick to frightens a little safer, a little safer. Yeah. I know. That’s my husband hears that he’s not allowed to buy a motorcycle for that reason. Would you rather be a ninja or a pirate ninja? I used to dress up when like, as a kid, when I was a kid, like last. Oh, when you were a kid? No one was a kid I’m like last year.
I mean, I’m not that young, either. No judgment here. And these are cool convertible or a truck. Oh man. I got both, um, both for everyday driving. It is the Ford, every riding it’s the sports car unstoppable here. The man has a convertible and attract that’s right. That’s right. I, my dream car is actually a track.
I really want to track when. Which one, many my truck, I don’t even care. The thing is I show up to home Depot and I’m like a juxtaposition because I show up in a minivan. I come out wearing heels, but I know more about the products I’m looking for. Then the dudes standing in the aisle. Like, maybe if I had a truck, it wouldn’t be quite as confusing for people when I walk in.
Yeah. All right. So then you’re going, needs to be a Ford platinum, cause that’s not spending too much, but getting a creature comforts for platinum, for platinum or the Chevy high country. Those to give you the creature comforts and the ability to use it as a truck. I love it. Can my producer write that down?
Show notes, the show notes. That’s my goal. I’m all the way. Ford and Chevy. If you guys want to throw some ad money back out of still free, let’s go or truck, or are you just giving me a track? That’d be great night out or night in. I actually like going out my wife’s much more of a state in kind of person.
Where do you go? Where do I like sushi joints? And my wife got me into to find dining. As she refers to like nice restaurants. When she first met me, I would sit down and I would just go home. And it wouldn’t matter what it was. I was like, what are you doing? I’m like, it’s just sustain. It’s just food. I guess.
I’ll have to do like, you know, slow down. She goes, that was a XYZ meal. Right. That’s a big deal. Like you just ate from one of the top chefs or whatever. I’m like, okay. So she’s culturally she’s for me, you enjoy the finer things in life. So when we do go out, we go out to the fine dining places together or sent to be straight, which is like a upscale movie theater on one day and really quick.
You’re located where again? You’re in North Carolina Raleigh, North Carolina, right? Okay. Best restaurant. So for those of us listening. Okay. North Carolina, Raleigh, what restaurant do we need to go to? Paris. Yes. There you go guys. Perry’s if you’re going to go to Raleigh, North Carolina, Perry’s for some fine dining.
Nope. All right. Last question. Football or basketball. ’cause I’m like I’m five foot nothing. So I don’t care much about basketball. I don’t care about basketball. This is coming from a football coach, his wife, but yeah, I have some friends that would not like me for that statement, but what team do you follow busy with trying to get these businesses successful?
I haven’t paid attention to sports in a really long time to be smart. And lost with sports. And this sister now I made at the sports that I do watch are typically stuff like my watch. My, I was ever to every one of my kid’s football games, like, cause he just, you know, they just graduated high school at a year ago.
So big year. I love that. Yeah. Well, we’ve obviously highlighted, we’ve gone through so many incredible things. We’ve unpacked a lot. You had mentioned the poverty mindset and you have talked before about how that contributes to this sense of being stuck. So when we pull it all together, this transform you life.
Uh, event, it is a live event that is held in your, this incredible building that you have here in North Carolina, right. Is where the building is. Yeah. You have this framework that you use all around the concept of transformation, and I want to pull it all together and kind of talk about this poverty mindset, how it contributes to us feeling stuck, and then the tools and the questions that you employ to help.
Take that first step from going from stuck to unstoppable. Tell us a little bit about that. I think the first thing you have to understand that a poverty mindset as a poverty mindset is nothing more than saying I’m not. More it’s I’m not worth it. Right? So you don’t feel like that you have the resources to grow yourself.
You don’t feel like you have the energy to pursue a mentor. You come up with all these excuses. So then at the end of the day, the number one thing that I see that people struggle with with a poverty mindset is this reason to have excuses, right? People who quote, unquote become unstoppable or people who just refuse.
To absolutely give up. They kind of really clarify what it is they want, they clarify why they want it because your motivations are super important. And then they start laying out a strategy and a plan to get there. And I think that’s one of the reasons why we do transfer me live on annual basis. Like I said, we just did it a few weeks ago and it was amazing.
We had people from Peru in the UK and live and it was, it was amazing. And what I’ve discovered is, is we are all trying to overcome something at any given moment in our life. It doesn’t matter what the, it is. It matters what the persistence is. Persistence is, are you persistently trying to grow it, go around and go under it and go through it.
And if you are then in time, you will shake out of a poverty mindset or what I call an area of lack. Right? Here’s a case in point when I was in a poverty mindset, I borrowed with no intention of. When I’m now in a more traditional fluence mindset, I only spend money on stuff that I think is actually going to return more of it.
Right? So my house, for example, that we live in now, it’s a nice home, but I didn’t necessarily put this house together and build this house specifically with the resources that for my businesses, I actually did it through the equity buying power of real estate. Right. Steve told me a long time ago, buy a home.
If you will, on the edge of where the good and the bad start and stuff. Hmm. Right. So buy a house there, buy it for 30, $45,000 below asking or somewhere where you get a value of it, invest a little money and resell it. And the signal of you can do that every two years with your own home. And after you get into, by the time you get to the eighth home, you have a very, very nice home and it’s completely paid for rather than following the poverty mindset version, which.
I’m going to get a mortgage and this is the only house I’ll ever own. I just want to plant roots or my wife would say feet first, this sort of take me out feet first kind of thing. That’s just one piece. People who have a poverty mindset are constantly about how they can spend it, how they can spend it, how they can spend it, how they can spend it.
They’re not thinking about tomorrow 10 years from now, five years from now, 20 years from now, people who have a more fluent minded mentality. They’re going to spend a lot more time investing in the things that are going to create more time, talent, and resources on the outside of that. So that’s the easiest way to do it.
And I’m also hearing a concept of short-term sacrifice to reach a long-term goal. And I resonate with what you’re saying, cause we’re literally doing exactly what you just said through our own house. Renovate. This is our third one. And the whole point is to build a dream home. Now that’s why I needed the truck.
That’s why I need the truck. That was exactly right. But it’s so connected to that idea of we are making short-term sacrifices. Could we afford a home that is much bigger than. Tiny little, currently 1400 square feet. So we finished the basement next month. Yes. And the next house we’re going to buy is also going to only be 1400 square feet.
But the thing is with each house, we have been building up more and more ultimately profit that we are putting into an investment account, but it is short-term sacrifice. We’ve got little kids running around. There are days that I think all my can not. But it’s that whole concept that you’re talking about is short-term sacrifice for a long-term goal is seeing that long-term goal and infusing it with purpose.
That’s the other thing I just took away from that is I say all the time, especially to my followers, people have read it on the blog. Many times is we’ve often heard that passion feels purpose, but I believe that purpose more effectively fuels passion. When you are really clear on your, why, what is your goal?
We know what our goal is for this big house that we want to. Yeah, and it has nothing to do with the square footage. It has nothing to do with a status thing. We have a very clear purpose for why we want the house that we want. And it’s ministry focused. It’s all about our kids and being that house that people come to us that we can serve them.
So it’s, short-term sacrifice for long-term game is what I heard you just said and get really clear on your purpose. And I think the more it is about other people, the more passionate you’ll be about it and more effective it’ll be because. It’s about somebody else and we all want to serve at heart. Yeah, for sure.
Do you know the average time of short-term sacrifice to really begin to build momentum for success is what the average time is? No, but I really would like to know the answer to that 27. If you will sacrifice and do what is smart over what you want for 27 months consistently, you will lay the groundwork to enjoy pretty much and get pretty much whatever you want out of life.
And that 27 month timeframe, you’re gonna be spending money differently. Investing money differently, giving money differently. Same with time and talent. Most people meet their major breaks in whatever network or whatever their thing is going to be. Actually in the process of serving, it’s not typically at a networking dinner that are handing out business cards.
Everybody is typically at a Walmart or a Kmart or a target or some store in the, or some guy or gal that you’ve never met before. Drops a bag. You stop for a minute to pick up the bag. And they’re like, oh, I think I recognize you. Or something like that. And then you started a conversation, all your key relationships and all every key opportunities.
Only come if you’re looking for them and you have to be looking for them consistently, and again, 27 months of consistent effort, and you can almost build whatever you want. I love that patience, perseverance, really everything that you have just highlighted you’ve mentioned before. There are three questions.
We need to be asking ourselves in order to even start this process of moving from stuck to unstoppable and experienced transformation in our lives. What are those three questions that we need to be asking? So I stumbled across this. This is weird. I write books. Ellipticals in the mountains of stuff like that.
Like I don’t elliptical when I’m just writing. Weird. How do you write it? How do you write on your ADHD? It helps me focus to have my feet going. I don’t know. I’m weird, but uh, I asked this question, must look terrible. Wait, it’s not an iPhone. It’s on the iPhone, right? Oh, my thumbs are going nuts. But, um, I asked this question to myself and this is almost 20 years ago and this is how I stumbled across these three questions.
And the question was very simple. What does it take to change the essence of. Because when I asked that self with that question is what I was really saying is what does it take to change the essence of me? Because I knew I wasn’t who I wanted to be. And I knew I wasn’t where I wanted to be. And in that moment, I feel like God actually gave me these questions.
They’re very, very simple. Right? The first one is as. Like, who are you really not? Who are you when other people expect you to be someone like, who are you really? Are you a painter that is painting? Or are you a painter? That’s an attorney all of a sudden, like, are you living by your expectations or living by somebody else’s expectations?
Do you know your strengths, your talents, your gifts, your struggles, your blind spots. Do you know yourself in and out? And surprisingly you’ll find out that most of the American population does. Because we are inundated with distraction on a regular basis. So that is one question I would been 30 to 45 days just focused on that inside of that 27 month timeframe.
Right. And you’re defining that by saying like what? I answer that I am a wife and mom who blogs and hosts a podcast, or would you dig deeper to say I am an imperfect woman. Who’s been living transformed by the grace of Jesus. Those deep as you possibly can, because we do tend to identify ourselves by our attributes, right?
Race, gender geography, high school, you went to like, what I’m saying is who is the authentic you, if we were to strip everything away and you couldn’t say I’m a wife, a mother, a husband, or brother, or whatever, you couldn’t say that. And you couldn’t talk about where you work and how much money you made or what your career was going to be.
And if you strip all of that away, who do you say that. Yeah. Right. Who do you say that I am for me? I discovered that I have a, one of my heart’s desires is to transparently give that, which was given to me, right? That comes from a deep place. I have a sincere desire to be a credible father. In fact, my epitaph statement kind of sums up who I desire to be and who I am becoming on a regular basis, which is here lies a man who set out to change the way.
Comma and did, right? Yeah. What’s in that statement is ultimately what I will be pursuing with who am I? I’m not the short Napoleon Bonaparte, like person. I used to be where it was just, okay. I’ll just be out of fear and insecurity. And that’s how I was going to engage with the world. No, I’m someone who can add value to you.
If you’re willing to add value, like to the con, you know what I’m saying? Like it’s a deeper thing. Once you get clearer on that question. And again, I’m going to recommend that this is almost like a soul search, right? For 40 days straight. This is something my grandfather used to do. He used to call it the 40 day walk of faith.
I would do it. If I had something really big in my life that we were trying to figure out, he would always force me to focus on that one thing for 40 days. Right. And in many cases fast from that one thing for many days, how I met my wife, right. I wanted to be married. I wanted to have kids. I wanted to have a family and that wasn’t in the picture.
And then he said, 40 days, let’s pray about it. Let’s do some work. Let’s uncover more about who you are, kind of how you’re wired and what are your defense mechanisms and how can you work on this defense mechanisms to attract that kind of person? And I met my wife on day 14. Um, so yeah, so that clarity is power.
And then once you have a clear sense of who am I, the next one is, why am I here? And that’s where I think your conversation of purpose and passion and meaning insignificance and all that comes from, I can save everybody a decade, a decade off that search. Why you’re here has nothing to do with what you can do.
Yeah, it has absolutely nothing to do with what you can achieve. It has nothing to do with what kind of a prestige you can build. It has nothing to do with any of that. What it has to do with more than anything else is in what way can you impart your best self to the world on a consistent basis? Yeah, right.
Yeah. Once you get clear on that, which that one’s actually doesn’t take super long. The next one is okay, what do I do about it? What are my next steps? You launched a podcast after having a successful blog. And then, you know, obviously being in the, I call it the hospital industry. It’s not the hospital industry, you know what I mean?
And wellness, health and wellness industry. And you said, okay, well, there’s another part of me left to be exhibited that I, for service to another. You think through the questions that you ask with your guests to kind of make sure, Hey, how can I pull the best out of this guest and pivot that so I can share the most out of that.
Like, that’s a action step of how do I do this, right. So who am I? Why am I hearing? But what do I do about it? I’m gonna start a podcast, right? I’m gonna start speaking. I’m gonna write some books. I’m gonna do some other things. Those are attributes. What we often do is we do them in reverse, right? So as a result, because we’re doing the reverse, we’re like, okay, what do I do about it?
I don’t know what I’m going to be doing. Well, if I don’t know what suppose to be doing at all, then why am I even here in the first place? Everybody’s got to figure it out, Sally, down the street. She’s got to figure it out, John, over here, he’s got to figure it out. Right. Right. And the reality is they don’t have to figure it out either.
Right. Who of us has anything figured out, right. Well, I mean, the Christian is you can write progress on that as long as you’re pursuing. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I love to consolidate what I just heard you say is number one, think about what you want written on your gravestone. Sounds a little morbid, but Hey, that’s what we’re all about is trying to figure out why we’re here.
We’re all going to die. So you might as well think about what you want written on your gravestone and then how does the. Contribute to who you are at your core. And I also hear this concept. When you think through that question is it can’t be anything that you can take with you. It has to be something that you leave behind and you spoke to that the only legacy that matters is the one that outlives you.
So what do you want written on there that you can leave behind? Because frankly, there’s a lot of things that I’m really good at doing, but when I’m gone, they’re gone. Like somebody else can do them. What are ways that. Because of who you are, you can leave this legacy behind, I think is another way of answering that question.
And then the why, like, why do you want to be that person ultimately. What do I do next? It seems like there is where you have to start thinking about what are you good at? What are your skills? Because you don’t want to ignore that, but that needs to be brought in then to enable somebody to truly live out who they are and why they’re here.
And that’s when that skillset, I love the order of that and encourage everyone to think through those questions. You can visit Steven. Www.stevenscoggins.com. That’s S T E P H E N S C O G G I N S. All of these links of course, will be on the show notes on hammers and hugs.com. And if somebody wants to go through the transform you event or your course, et cetera, is that all on your website?
Is that pretty clear for them to get. Yeah. So we actually just got the replay up from our first event. We are going to be running a special and about two weeks to allow people to take part in not only the live event. And I had Tom, Tom and Lisa bill, you Anthony trucks, having Carmichael. I had a whole host of amazing thought leaders as part of the event.
Now we can have access to that, but you also have access to additional resources and tools to help kind of get you on the go. And so yeah, if you go to Steven scoggins.com and us. For the 52 principles, which is just the principle a week, I’ll make sure that you get access to the live recording and all that good stuff.
And then we’ll do transform your life. Come the fall of 2022. Your never, never. I love it. Why don’t you guys to definitely check that out on his website? You can go through these questions. It’s written out, it’s organized and be able to check it all out@stevenscoggins.com. Again, that will be on the show notes.
Obviously this will actually air a little later than when we’re recording it, but you can still get access to all of those videos and information. Steven, it’s truly an honor to have you here. Like I said, Not only inspired me and been influential to me. I have absolutely no doubt that you will be Steve to a million people.
I think you’re well on your way. So I thank you and I pray. God’s continued blessing over you and your home and your family. I’m just excited for all that he has in store for you, the film that your stuff’s gonna blow up as well. So I really spend some time with me and let me share a little bit. Well, thank you.
Well, my goal is next time you’re on here. I’ll have that truck. Let’s go. We recorded the episode from inside the truck. Listen, write that down. It’s happening. It will happen from inside my truck with Steven Scoggin. Stephen. Thank you so much. All right, take care. See ya. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the imperfectly empowered podcast.
It is my honor to be here with you. I am so grateful for each and every one of you. If you are watching on YouTube, be sure to click the subscribe button below. So you don’t miss a show and leave a comment with your thoughts from today’s episode. If you are listening via your preferred podcasting platform, would you help keep us on the air by rating our show and leaving an honest review of your thoughts from today in case you haven’t heard it lately, your story matters and you are loved.
This is your host on a former, and I will see you here next time on the, in perfectly empowered podcast.