Thought Leader And Best Selling Author Scott Miller On How You Can Transform Your Business And Life Through Master Mentors (#157)

[00:00:00] Jeffrey Feldberg: Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast where you learn how to extract your business and personal Deep Wealth.

I'm your host Jeffrey Feldberg.

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When it comes to your business deep wealth, your exit or liquidity event is the most important financial decision of your life.

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Capping a 25-year career where he served as Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President of Business Development, Scott Jeffrey Miller currently serves as Franklin Covey's Senior Advisor and Thought Leadership. Leading the strategy and development of the firm's speakers bureau, as well as the publication of podcasts, webcasts, and best-selling books. Scott also hosts On Leadership With Scott Miller, the world's largest and fastest-growing leadership podcast reaching more than 6 million people weekly. In addition Scott authors a leadership column for Inc.com and is the bestselling author of the Mess to Success Series.

 Welcome to the Deep Wealth Sell My Business Podcast. And wow, today, do I have a zinger of an episode we have a thought leader, a bestselling author, a number one podcast host a change maker, but most of all, a guy who just likes paying it forward.

And on top of that, he's just getting over a little bit of not feeling so well and his father passed away, but he still decided to show up here what an amazing guy. So Scott, welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. Really an honor to have you with us and you know, Scott, there's always a story behind the story.

What's your story? What got you to where you are today?

[00:02:56] Scott Miller: First, thanks to the platform. Thanks to the spotlight. Honored to be here. Gosh, what got me here is mentors people believing in me more than I believed in myself. I have you know, summon eight creativity and talent and hard work ethic but my entire success journey, which has never been you know, linear is always two steps forward one step back.

The transition figures in my life. The people who mentored me and coached me. And like I said, believed in me more than I believed in myself. I am a product of people that coached me and guided me and sometimes even protected me from myself. And it's why I've written the books that I've written.

And I host this podcast around leadership is to really inspire people, to be a transition figure in other people's lives.

[00:03:39] Jeffrey Feldberg: Scott, what's amazing with your focus on leadership and on leaders. And at least for me, leaders, entrepreneurs, founders, business owners, we really make the world go around. We find painful problems. We solve them. We make life better, but I don't believe anyone is an island onto him or herself.

And so when you came up with your first book, the Master Mentors in the series Volume One, it was a hit and you've been kind enough to share with me Master Mentors, Volume Two, which is coming out just a few weeks after we air this episode of the podcast, you're really doing some incredible things with the mentors that you're bringing to life every day, people who in their own way are unique and special that you're bringing to the forefront.

And I'd love to hear, of all the leaders that you're speaking to. What are some of the common themes for you of what makes someone not only a terrific mentor but a terrific leader?

[00:04:31] Scott Miller: Well, like you said, the book is called Master Mentors Volume One now volume two. It's based upon the podcast that I host for Franklin Covey, the large leadership firm, where I've worked for 26 years called On Leadership with Scott Miller. So what I've done is I've selected and curated guests from the podcast that I thought had a transformational insight and shared a short, pithy story about them in the book. I'm asked this question with some regularity, is there like a red thread? Is there a silver you know, connection between them, and really it's one that they all have an abundance mentality? There's not a scarce mindset amongst them.

They all have generally achieved some level of celebrity or fame or influence. They all probably have a high net worth, but what most of them share, all of them share is this abundance mindset. The desire for others to learn from their mistakes, for others to learn from their successes. That's the first thing.

Second thing is they just have an indefatigable work ethic. Whether it's best-selling authors or Stanford researchers or YouTube sensations or Ted Talk geniuses or you name it? These people work hard. They play hard, but they work hard. They recognize that still in 2023, the work ethic trumps everything.

And they all work smart, but I still think this idea of kind of an old-fashioned putting in the reps and building your expertise and building your brand and reputation. There's no such thing as overnight success. There is overnight fame and it's usually ill-gotten and quite quickly fleeting. But I think what most of mentors have is that combination of an abundance mentality and a really tenacious work ethic to get and achieve the impact, the expertise that they created in their specific area of understanding.

[00:06:17] Jeffrey Feldberg: And so with that abundance mentality and the work ethic, you've really highlighted a few different traits of the leaders, you know, is there a Pareto's law that's going on here where, hey, Jeffrey, you know what, if I look across most of the leaders that I've spoken to, I've had on the podcast that are in Volume two and very courageously in volume two, you're saying, by the way, there's gonna be a Volume Three, and there's gonna be one beyond that one a year, which I admire is your goal to put out a book once each year, which is just incredible in terms of your work ethic to do that. But is there an 80-20 rule here that, hey, you know what, 80% of the leaders or more are sharing 20% of these few traits that I've seen when I've met them or I've spoken to them?

[00:06:58] Scott Miller: I'm not sure if I've teased that out yet. I understand the concept obviously. I'll tell you what they all share too is their transparency around their own mistakes. Their ability to not just own their mistakes and their messes, but to teach through them, to kind of gather people around and say, I did this, don't do that.

I said this, don't say that. Let me tell you this deal I lost or this deal that I screwed up. They all have this willingness to teach through their mistakes. I'm answering your question different than how you asked it. They have strong confidence. Humility flows from confidence.

They're able to talk about their mistakes because they're confident in what they're great at. Each one of them has mentors. Each one of them have talked about who mentored them in their lives. But I don't know if there's a Pareto's philosophy maybe so I think more about that now that you've asked it.

[00:07:46] Jeffrey Feldberg: Fair enough. You know, Scott, what was interesting as I read through the book and for our listeners in the show notes, we'll put a link and I encourage you to get the book and read it. And what I loved about the book, firstly, is you have these barcodes in there that take you specifically to the episode on the podcast, so you can watch it and see it in real-time in terms of what was being said.

But Scott, you're being incredibly vulnerable. You're talking about a leader and then you're saying hey in this one particular case with this leader, here's how it impacted me as a leader myself or as a father or in Franklin Covey. And you know, one of the stories that's coming to mind is you're sharing how an event for your child and you're in a ceremony for your child.

And the phone is buzzing off the hook, your cell phone, and you take a step aside, you pick it up and it is from one of the leaders within Franklin Covey, that there's a huge snowstorm. You have an event of 300 people. And this person's not gonna be able to make it. And based on your experience with the mentors that you've had, you said, okay, leave it with me.

And literally, you're taking red eyes and flights and overnight, and you're showing up to really lead the seminar, not knowing any of the material, but you're doing it anyways. And there's a happy ending to that story. And perhaps you can share that with our listeners, but I'm curious of you know how it's impacted your life in terms of having met these remarkable individuals of what they're doing, and how that is an opportunity for you both personally, and then professionally.

[00:09:10] Scott Miller: Well, It's been transformative for me. I've had the privilege of interviewing some of the most remarkable people in the world, everybody from John Maxwell to Patrick Lindsey Oney, to Patrick Daniel Amen to Seth Gordon and Dan Pink and Matthew McConaughy and Liz Wiseman. And the story that you are sharing is actually drawn from a woman named Marie Forleo.

She wrote a number one New York Times bestseller called Everything is Figureoutable it's an excellent book and she's become a good friend of mine. And the story that I share, actually, I was at church, she was my oldest son Thatcher. We were raised Catholic and I'm raising our son's Catholic. And I was actually at Thatcher's first confession before his first communion.

And my phone kept bringing, you told some of the story. And the point of it was that we had 300 people and an event up in Minnesota and that presenter could not come to this event. And so I tried everything possible to find someone else to go to it. The presenter who was selected had been snowed in upper west Canada.

And so I took a series of red eyes to show up at the event and I studied the content all the way through the night. But the moral the story isn't that I showed up and I saved the day. The moral of the story is that the consultant who was snowed in Canada who I said, it's okay, you've done all you can.

I'll now own it. Cause I was the Chief Marketing Officer. I hope that the learning from the story isn't that I saved today. The learning is that after I got there through the middle of the night with a whole lot of anxiety and only had learned the first hour of three hours of content at the first break, I looked up, and there she was standing in the back of the room.

She never gave up. Even though I said I'll own it. I was the Chief Marketing Officer. She could have easily said no problem lit a fire in her house in Banff. She hopped scotched across the nation and she showed up anyway. I still don't how she got there. She kept working at cause everything in her mind was figureoutable.

And so that story isn't about me as you alluded to it really was about her name was Patricia Lambert and she never took her teeth off the proverbial bone and showed up. And thank goodness she did because I'd had no idea what I would've done Jeffrey in hour two and three of this three-hour program.

Cause I was an expert in marketing, not an expert in actually teaching it. You know, there's a difference between knowing, marketing and content. So I hope it's a good story to remind people. That those who achieve success are just tenacious. They're indefatigable. They use their creativity and their ingenuity and their resourcefulness.

One of the biggest lessons I ever took away from Dr. Steven R. Covey, of course, the founder of the Franklin Covey Company who tutored me, mentored me from my early twenties into my fifties, was to use your R and your, I, he called it your R and your I. Your resourcefulness and your initiative. And when you use your resourcefulness and your initiative Pretty much everything in life is figureoutable. You mentioned my father passed literally three days ago. Great life in his late eighties, it was a peaceful passing. We accelerated his passing with some medication and some treatment in the hospital, but I had to use my resourcefulness and my initiative to kind of work through the hospital protocols ethically and such, but really my R and my I kicked in at my father's sort of traumatic passing because my father could have lingered for days or weeks more. Being very scared and traumatized. And I felt like it was time to accelerate his peaceful passing. It's a bit of a morbid story, but I really drew upon my R in my I to help my father who was ready to pass to his next life. And so it's something that Dr. Covey who's a mentor of mine taught me and I teach it in the second volume. The third chapter on Marie Forleo, everything is figureoutable long answer to your short question.

[00:12:58] Jeffrey Feldberg: Always a terrific answer. And I'm glad you finished it because you know, as I was reading the story, it just goosebumps as, at the very end, when you look up the first break, okay, what am I gonna do for the next two hours? And you look up and boom, there she is at the back of the room. And as you say so eloquently, you know, she actually probably got there right at the start, or maybe just before, or just shortly after, but she didn't interrupt to try and be the hero.

She let you finish. And then checked in with you. She was confident that, okay, you know what? Scott's got this, he doesn't need me. He's doing terrific. I'll let him do his magic and let him continue and then she takes over from there. That so touching, like all the other stories in the book of just how you lay it out and you give the background, but then you make it so personal with your own insights and your own stories. I really appreciated that.

[00:13:44] Scott Miller: Well, I appreciate you reading it. Thank you very much. And I hope that when readers read the book, they don't think it's a book about me. I share a lot of my own successes and all my failures. I share how I've struggled with some of these mentoring concepts as well. That was the elegant part of this chapter is she could have easily, walked up and nudged me and said, I'll take over now, but she chose to stand in the back and watch me.

And I'm sure if I would've been, horrific, she would have, made sure her presence was known and could have saved the day, but she didn't try to save the day. It's so many leadership lessons, that I learned from her, which was not saving the day when it's not necessary being there to catch you if you needed it.

And I needed her by the way. And she was mature enough to realize I was doing okay. And literally, I invited her back on and announcer the whole group. And I'm delighted now to pass the baton to my well enabled colleague, Patricia. So no one knew the difference and I really attribute her for both knowing when to lean in and knowing when to step back. And I learned a lot from that. I hope the readers do as well.

[00:14:50] Jeffrey Feldberg: And, you know, as I was reading the book, I think it was a story with Patty McCord and imposter syndrome that I was really leveraging that today. Scott, I thought, okay, who am I? I'm gonna be interviewing a number one bestselling author and podcast host. And imposter syndrome said, ah, I remember the Patty McCord story. And it's something, I feel the listeners will really benefit from.

Yes. You have some big names, people but you also have other people that we wouldn't have necessarily heard of and they're successful in their own right but you pull out the snippets that really pull it all together make a whole lot of sense.

You start the book with Zafar Masud and his story, just really a goosebump story from beginning to end of how he survived just a horrific crash, but what went on as it was happening and then more importantly afterward and how he now pays it forward with the lessons that he learned and how you're helping him to pay that forward with that message.

[00:15:43] Scott Miller: So your point Zafar Masud was the CEO of the Bank of Punjab, not an internationally known organization. It's a banking institution in Pakistan and like you and I flew, daily on planes across his nation. And this particular plane crashed. It was a fairly publicized commercial airline crash, where everyone died with the exception of one other passenger, hema passenger, and this unbelievable story of falling from the sky and bouncing off roofs and surviving this plane crash and really then deciding, okay, so now what? What's next in life and how all of us don't wanna have to survive a plane crash to decide what's important to us? And what do I do now? To your point, Patty McCord, Master Mentor, number 43. She was the former chief people officer of Netflix and the lessons that she learned around how it's often easy for us to get into the language we speak human resource language.

Or IT language or sales language. And we really have to understand, are we speaking the language of business? Are we speaking a language that is ubiquitous? I think a lot of people in people development and entrepreneurs for that matter, we speak a language that is full of acronyms and jargon and such.

And if you're gonna be an effective communicator, you've got to be really jargon, free and straight talk with your language. Be able to have high courage conversations and discuss people's blind spots and give them feedback. And so Patty, of course, has gone on to remarkable influence as being one of the lead authors behind the Culture Deck, which was a fairly viral culture tool based on how Netflix really became Netflix.

And to your point, there are some famous mentors and some not-so-famous mentors. I wrote the book episodically so that it might hit someone exactly where they are in life. Perhaps they're recently widowed or perhaps they just sold their business, or they're a new entrepreneur, or perhaps they're just gone through a divorce or a termination or a setback.

Each chapter is very short, easy breezy. It does ask a transformational question of you about, what will you take from this. Some of the lessons are about understanding your unconscious biases and understanding do you know the business of your business. Are you communicating it well? It's both professional and personal. A publisher past on the series, cause they thought it was too episodic and now they kick themselves and we joke about it every time I release a new version.

I have some other books with that publisher. I'm delighted that you were finding value in some of the different intentionally episodic stories in the book. Again, every one of these mentors had to be a guest on the podcast. That was the criteria, and it's not easy writing a book about 30 different people getting their permissions and their sign-offs and their publicists and their agents, by the way, don't ever write a book about 30 people. It is like passing legislation through an acrimonious Congress.

[00:18:28] Jeffrey Feldberg: It is a little bit of a loaded question with what I'm gonna ask. It's like almost asking you to choose well, which one of your three sons is your favorite, but I'll ask anyways of the now 60 and maybe we'll focus on volume two of the 30 in volume two of the mentors that you talk about, is there one of the stories, one of the mentors that resonate with you more than any of the others?

[00:18:47] Scott Miller: Sure. So the first 30, the book Master Mentors is my favorite probably is Nick Vujicic he's a very famous speaker Australian by birth Texan by choice. He's of course born with no arms and no legs. And Nick Vujicic is a very famous public speaker and author, and he teaches the concept of gratitude. I strongly encourage your listeners to buy Volume One and just read the chapter about Nick Vujicic and ask yourself the questions in the chapter.

I think my favorite from Volume Two is Bobby Herrera. He's the second mentor number 32. They go in sequence. So book one is mentors one through 30 and book two is mentors 31 through 60. And on like that. Bobby Herrera is a Latino American. That is an entrepreneur he owns and builds his own company.

He shares a story around he and his brother were in high school from a very meager family, an immigrant family from Mexico into Texas. I believe. I believe he now lives in the Northwest, a very successful entrepreneur. And he and his brother were on a high school football team. And every Friday evening, when they would play a football game, the bus of football players would stop at a restaurant and everyone would get off and go to have dinner.

And every time he and his brother would stay on the bus because there was no money for both helmets and dinner. So his mother would pack him and his brother a lunch in one particular football game. This is hard for me to get through without choking up. One of the fathers came back on the bus Jeffrey and said, hey to Bobby and his brother.

I'd like you to be my guest at dinner tonight. I wanna pay for your dinner. No one needs to know, but I want you to join the team for dinner. And I'm not doing the story justice, but it was the first time in Bobby Herrera's life that he'd ever felt seen by anyone. He couldn't see past dinner, let alone tomorrow had no purpose, no focus, no vision for life.

And this one person by stepping back on the bus and walking back in and saying, hey Bobby, can I buy you and your brother dinner tonight? No one needs to know. I just want you to be part of the team. It was a transformational moment in Bobby's life. He went on to serve an honorable term in the US army.

Serving our country, went on to become a very successful entrepreneur, not without many setbacks. And when he wrote a book called The Gift of Struggle, it's a very short book. The Gift of Struggle. He opens with this story at this book launch, he invited that father to come back to the book launch 30 years later, didn't tell him why. The father came back and they got a standing ovation.

The purpose of the chapter is around being a transition figure in someone else's life. Who will you help feel seen today? Who will you walk back onto the bus and do what you need to do? And I think to your point, for so many of us who have been successful in life, not without many setbacks and trials and tribulations, and perhaps we've developed some confidence or skills or mentoring or even personal wealth that we can now become a transition figure.

People in to Bobby Herrera's story will bring you to tears in a positive way, and it will motivate you to become a transition figure in other people's lives. It's hard to pick, but Bobby Herrera had an indelible imprint on my life buy the book, The Gift of Struggle way before you buy my book, buy his book first.

Cause it's phenomenal.

[00:22:11] Jeffrey Feldberg: And you know what I've been reading the book in the morning, and I have to share with you, Scott, that I've been doing bite sizes a little bit of time, and I love how you structure the book that way. But for the rest of that day, the stories that I've read are now I can't get them outta my mind. And with the Bobby Herrera, it was just, again, another goosebump moment and I'm thinking, okay, who in the past have I helped?

But how many more people can I now help that maybe I've just taken for granted? And sometimes it's just what seems like the smallest of gestures that we can do is such a big impact that we don't even realize what the big impact is and the life that it can change. And it just makes you more aware of that.

And I'm wondering Scott, as we look to the Deep Wealth community, so we're business owners, we're making a difference out there. We've built successful companies. We've earned our stripes, as the saying goes, and now we're preparing for what, for many people will be the largest and biggest most important financial decision of a lifetime.

And when you're speaking and learning from these various mentors that you've had the privilege of speaking with, what advice would you have? If you could be the voice. For the mentors, the 60 mentors to date that you've brought and the many more down the road that will be with us.

If you could be the voice of the mentors collectively, what would you be telling the Deep Wealth community as it's not such an easy journey to do a liquidity event? After all, how do you master something that you've never done and you do need mentors along the way to help you to get that done, but what would be some insights or no pressure here, Scott, some words of wisdom that you might be able to share with our listeners?

[00:23:43] Scott Miller: Anne Chow is Master Mentor number seven from the first book Anne happens to be the CEO of AT&T business. It's a 40 billion division of AT&T. She actually is the first non-white non-male CEO in AT&T's 120-year history.

Anne is Asian-American and fortune magazine, top 40 most powerful women in business, a Master Mentor, bestselling author, business titan, one of LinkedIn's biggest influencers, Anne checks, every box in terms of competence and character. What I love most about Anne, Jeffrey is Anne is known for saying, I don't know about that. Teach me about that.

I mean, this is the CEO of a fortune 50 equivalent business. Yet, I hear her say so many times. I don't know about that. Teach me about that. She just has this curious mind and her confidence flows out of humility, not out of experience or arrogance or intellect or accolades or hundreds of thousands of LinkedIn followers or money in the bank.

Her curiosity is her hallmark. So to the extent, it helps some of your listeners and those who are entrepreneurs perhaps facing what is one of the biggest, most important decisions in their life is to, don't be afraid to ask questions. What should I know about this? How do these things go wrong?

What are the questions I should be asking where I might screw this up? Your humility, your curiosity is gonna be enormously successful, and enormously valuable for you. No one earned out a successful transition because they faked it or because they winged it, they just asked every question possible.

They realized where they perhaps headed wrong or what concessions they might need to make that were better for the long term. And maybe not as good for the short term. Which brings me to my second insight. Dory Clark is one of the mentors in the first book. She wrote a very successful series of books.

Her most recent book is called The Long Game. And the tagline basically is thinking long-term into short-term world. So many of us are faced with short-term pressures, whether it's quarterly revenue or our shareholder's return or whatever it is, or going the profits in the EBITDA, make sure that your revenue profitability is as strong for your event.

That's gonna catch up with you and it's, I think it's almost a leadership competency, Jeffrey to summon the patience to think long term in a short-term world to think long term when everything is valued, it seems like in a short-term capacity. Except for your character, except for your reputation, except for your word.

So I would just really encourage your entrepreneurial listeners to be thinking about their reputation, thinking about their legacy, thinking about their character, thinking long-term in an otherwise pressured short-term world. At the same time, constantly recognizing that their ability to have this insatiable curiosity to ask so what do I need to know? I don't know about that. I don't understand that. How does that work? Teach me about that. That's a sign of maturity that will probably exponentiate your exit. Cause last time I checked, you can't attach ego to a deposit slip in your bank account.

[00:26:51] Jeffrey Feldberg: So true. And so often forgotten, you know, for our listeners, what I found in my own experience of Scott with your book, with the Master Mentors of Volume Two, and a thank you. You've been very generous in sharing the books of the mentors. So as an example, you're talking about BJ Fog and his book, and then you go on to the next one. And so my reading list has just exponentially expanded. So between the QR codes of watching these in person,

[00:27:19] Scott Miller: I own you for a year, Jeffrey

[00:27:21] Jeffrey Feldberg: Or more, maybe I'm not such a quick reader, but

[00:27:23] Scott Miller: I'm delighted to hear that because that was my mission. My mission was to take this amazing platform I've been trusted with by Franklin Covey, which has now become the world's largest weekly leadership podcast, and able to turn that spotlight onto these amazing people and hopefully turn you onto some new authors.

And so books that might be transformative for you. I'd love to sell Master Mentor books, obviously, cause that will help fund my children's braces. But beyond that, if I can turn the spotlight onto the books, the masterpieces that these mentors have written and mission accomplished.

[00:27:54] Jeffrey Feldberg: And for listeners, you know, I would encourage you to listen to this episode, go to the show notes, get Master Mentors Volume One. By the time you finish that Master Mentors volume two will be out and you'll be well on your way. And Scott, before we start wrapping up the episode, what I want to share with you, what I really love of what you've done and I'll speak for myself here for just a moment.

You know, growing up, some of my mentors were people like Richard Branson and Bill Gates and Aristotle and Marcus Aurelius. And people say, Jeffrey, how'd you get around how'd you get to speak to some of these people and how are you speaking to people from way back in the day? And it was books, it was their biographies or autobiographies that was done.

But Scott, what I love about the Master Mentors of Volume Two, and even with Volume One, you've taken that whole concept to a different level. Instead of reading you know, an entire 200, 300, 500-page book, It's now in little bite-sized chunks, which doesn't take away from the quality and the insights.

So within one reading session, I'm learning about the lives of incredible people. And you just take that day over day over day, it's instilling a new awareness, new habits for myself, and I want to thank you for that. And for the listeners, when you read the book and I encourage you to do that, I'm sure that you're gonna find the same.

[00:29:07] Scott Miller: I'm delighted to hear you say that because that's the essence of the book is that I think we often think of mentors as someone on the 17th floor or the C-suite or if you're an entrepreneur, someone from your country club or someone from your Vistage group, or Young President's Organization or whatever group, but you don't have to know you're a mentor.

I'm guessing you've not met Richard Branson. Maybe you have, I know you've not met Aristotle. You know, my biggest mentor in life. I open the book and I write about him. I never met him. He was a very famous radio personality named Bruce Williams, who was the Dave Ramsey of the seventies and eighties, so to speak or a little more than that, but you don't have to know your mentor that helps if you do.

But I think like you, I can take enormous wisdom and apply it in my life from people who I've never met. I'll tell you, I usually find insight and from people who have made more mistakes than lessons, if I wanna know how to develop a great business, I go find someone who's had three bankruptcies. If I wanna learn how to have a great marriage, I go find somebody who's had three marriages because I can likely not replicate your successes.

That's your genius. That's your IQ. That's your natural talent. That's your trust fund. That's your work ethic. I can't replicate your genius into my success in most cases. However, Jeffrey, what I can do is I can learn from where you did it wrong and avoid those potholes. Oh, you did that. Oh, that was tempting.

Oh, you got greedy over there. Oh, you thought that would not be turning into a big problem, but it did. So when I seek out mentors, I usually seek out people that have made lots of mistakes, but they've been humbled by them and they're willing to teach through them. And that way I can eliminate most of the temptations that people just keep repeating.

If you think about open up the Wall Street Journal, there aren't a lot of new sins. Most people are going to jail for the same reasons they were a hundred years ago. And marriages are failing. And the IRS is auditing for the same reasons. The tax code hasn't changed that much. So for those of you who are entrepreneurs.

Start talking and reading from people who have had successful transitions out of their businesses and exits and learn their mistakes. There's plenty of books on those. I actually interviewed someone recently on a second podcast that I host called C-Suite Conversation with Scott Miller, where I interviewed people from the C-Suite.

I interviewed one person episode like 15, just on that, how to have successful exits. And the whole episode was what are the things that go wrong? And witness entrepreneurs get too greedy, or what are the questions they should ask? And I learned so much. Google Scott Miller C-Suite conversations. You'll find that episode, but I'm glad you mentioned Aristotle.

Because don't limit yourself to a group of mentors that you know. There's so much to be learned from people that don't even know you're alive.

[00:31:54] Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. And we're talking offline about failure and for the Deep Wealth community, we talk a lot about all these fancy terms, the 9-step roadmap. While I sharing with Scott offline, that of the nine steps in our nine-figure liquidity event that we had. We didn't have nine steps at the time. Some of those steps that you're the benefactor of today came from our biggest failures that we reverse-engineered and put into the whole Deep Wealth Experience system.

Well, Scott, we're starting to bump up again sometime here and I mean, we can just go on, we can probably do all 60 of the mentors and you're probably working on the next 30 for Volume Three, but alas we have some time things that we're bumping into here.

So let me wrap things up with this. It's a bit of a thought experiment and I love this question. I'm privileged to ask every guest on the Deep Wealth Podcast, this question, and here's a question for you. I'd like you to think about the movie Back to the Future and in the movie you have that famous DeLorean car that can take you to any point in time. So Scott, imagine now it's tomorrow morning and you look outside your window, and there it is. The DeLorean car is not only their curbside, but the door is open. It's waiting for you to hop on in, and you can go to any point in your life. Scott, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time it would be.

What are you telling the younger Scott in terms of life wisdom or lessons learned or, hey, Scott do this but don't do that? What would that sound like?

[00:33:16] Scott Miller: Well, this is easy. At the end of the day, all that matters is your reputation and your reputation is the collection of all of the decisions you make all the commitments that you make and keep, so I would have guarded my reputation more carefully than I did. I'd generally done a good job at that.

 I've not ever been incarcerated other than like for an hour for speeding or some stupid thing like that. I gotta really clean business career that I'm proud of. But just small things, saying I'll do one thing and then not doing it, or, overcommitting and underdelivering or over-promising, I tend to have a habit of doing that of saying to my sons I'll be there, but then not, for a game of some sort.

So I would say at the end of the day, your reputation or reputation next to your soul, if you're a religious person, is your most valuable asset. And that combined with that relationships are the most important thing in life is to slow down. I think it was Brendan Bouchard, one of the mentors in volume one that said nearly everything in life is done better, slower, slow down.

That's hard for me, cause I'm a very productive, active person. My entire hallmark, my success of my career, my personal wealth is a result of efficiency faster, faster everything. And there's a time to be efficient. There's a time to be effective and you cannot be efficient with your reputation or with relationships.

You can only be effective. So know when to be efficient. Emptying the dishwasher, taking out the garbage cans, your social media, the ATM machine, and know when to be effective. Your relationships with your children, with your investors, with your spouse, with your parents on the weekend, know when to be present.

There's a great art and knowing when to be efficient and when to be effective.

[00:35:10] Jeffrey Feldberg: Well, certainly words to the wise and some terrific insights to send us off with. And Scott, as we wrap up this episode, we're gonna have all your links in the show notes, all your podcasts and the books, and everything else that goes along with that. But that said, is there one particular online resource or site, or place that you'd recommend our listeners to visit?

[00:35:30] Scott Miller: Sure thanks for asking. So, everything is at scottjeffreymiller.com. All the books I've written of which there are eight. My Inc. Columns for Inc. Magazine, all the blog posts on LinkedIn, all the podcast episodes.

Everything is at scottjeffreymiller.com. Love to have your listeners visit that for a treasure trove of resources after of course they watch all your episodes. Love to have you buy the books that I've written. Thanks again for the platform and the spotlight today, Jeffrey.

[00:36:00] Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. And for listeners, when you visit the scottjeffreymiller.com site, please check out the about page on Scott. It's an absolute riot he's just a very funny, but modest guy and you gotta absolutely read this. I was all smiles and laughing when I read that. Well, Scott, listen, it's been an absolute pleasure.

Thank you for taking part of your day and spending with us here on the Deep Wealth Podcast. And as we wrap this up as always, please stay healthy and safe.

[00:36:25] Scott Miller: Thank you, Jeffrey. You're a class act.

[00:36:26] Sharon S.: The Deep Wealth Experience was definitely a game-changer for me.

[00:36:30] Lyn M.: This course is one of the best investments you will ever make because you will get an ROI of a hundred times that. Anybody who doesn't go through it will lose millions.

[00:36:40] Kam H.: If you don't have time for this program, you'll never have time for a successful liquidity

[00:36:44] Sharon S.: It was the best value of any business course I've ever taken. The money was very well spent.

[00:36:51] Lyn M.: Compared to when we first began, today I feel better prepared, but in some respects, may be less prepared, not because of the course, but because the course brought to light so many things that I thought we were on top of that we need to fix.

[00:37:06] Kam H.: I 100% believe there's never a great time for a business owner to allocate extra hours into his or her week or day. So it's an investment that will yield results today. I thought I will reap the benefit of this program in three to five years down the road. But as soon as I stepped forward into the program, my mind changed immediately.

[00:37:29] Sharon S.: There was so much value in the experience that the time I invested paid back so much for the energy that was expended.

[00:37:39] Lyn M.: The Deep Wealth Experience compared to other programs is the top. What we learned is very practical. Sometimes you learn stuff that it's great to learn, but you never use it. The stuff we learned from Deep Wealth Experience, I believe it's going to benefit us a boatload.

[00:37:52] Kam H.: I've done an executive MBA. I've worked for billion-dollar companies before. I've worked for smaller companies before I started my business. I've been running my business successfully now for getting close to a decade. We're on a growth trajectory. Reflecting back on the Deep Wealth, I knew less than 10% what I know now, maybe close to 1% even.

[00:38:11] Sharon S.: Hands down the best program in which I've ever participated. And we've done a lot of different things over the years. We've been in other mastermind groups, gone to many seminars, workshops, conferences, retreats, read books. This was so different. I haven't had an experience that's anything close to this in all the years that we've been at this.

It's five-star, A-plus.

[00:38:37] Kam H.: I would highly recommend it to any super busy business owner out there.

Deep Wealth is an accurate name for it. This program leads to deeper wealth and happier wealth, not just deeper wealth. I don't think there's a dollar value that could be associated with such an experience and knowledge that could be applied today and forever.

[00:38:56] Jeffrey Feldberg: Are you leaving millions on the table?

Please visit www.deepwealth.com/success to learn more.

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