Why High Performers Burn Out Even When They Win | Stephen Scoggins

In this episode of Spartan Leadership, Josh sits down with Stephen Scoggins to unpack what actually causes burnout, why success without integration costs leaders their families and peace, and how to become the kind of leader who can scale without losing meaning.

Stephen shares his journey from homelessness to building and exiting a multi-decade company, why most exits lead to depression, and the framework he uses to help leaders move from emotional reactivity to grounded presence.

This conversation goes deep into:

– Why your external business reflects your internal world
– The five hidden constraints that sabotage leaders
– The difference between being “successful” and being whole
– What it really means to lead as one part lion, one part lamb
– Why presence matters more than performance
– How faith, identity, and leadership intersect

If you’re a founder, executive, high performer, or leader who feels like something is still missing — this episode will put language to what you’ve been feeling.

👉 Free leadership assessment from Stephen:
https://stephenscoggins.com/leader

Chapters / Timestamps

00:00 – Why burnout isn’t about workload
02:10 – Stephen’s story: from homelessness to leadership
04:45 – You can’t scale dysfunction
07:12 – Leadership is a lifelong maturation process
10:38 – The five constraints that sabotage leaders
13:01 – Why impatience isn’t the problem — presence is
17:19 – The “warrior in the garden” framework
20:00 – One part lion, one part lamb
23:17 – Loving the parts of yourself you resist
25:16 – The daily mantra that rewires identity
29:06 – Why most leaders seek validation in the wrong places
31:17 – The real cost of fragmented leadership
32:54 – Why success without meaning leads to depression
35:30 – What children actually want from their parents
39:15 – Why exits are emotionally dangerous
41:20 – How to prepare for life after selling a business
45:40 – An unpopular truth about victimhood and identity
47:23 – Stephen’s leadership assessment and next steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Inevitably, what happens is love overtakes the parts of you that are always scared because resistance always comes from fear. It always comes from form some form or fashion of fear. Fear of not being enough, fear of not being seen, fear of not being heard, fear of not being appreciated, fear of not being able to be connected, fear of not being able to grow, fear of not being able to grow a business, right? These these little and sometimes they're subtle. They're subtle little nudges. But what happens is when that gets activated and it hasn't been dealt with, it becomes an explosion and creates three or four other problems, right? So you're rather than compounding internally on the highly developed leadership, you end up compounding on firefighting, creating chaos, creating overwhelm and burnout. Most of us stay burn out and overwhelm, not because there's a lot on our plate, but instead because our nervous system hasn't dealt with the fact about the subconscious program that's trying to drive the insecurities that are there. I start off every day with a march-up. I do this every morning. I do it four times. And in between each of the statements, I actually take a deep breath and a slow exhale. So it would look something like this.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Today we'll be no different. I got a good buddy on the horn. We are uh coming Zoom today, but hey, we're gonna deliver the impact either way. So let me give a brief introduction to my friend Steven Scoggins. Steven is someone who helps leaders bring alignment where there is chaos, clarity where there's confusion, and structure where things feel heavy or broken. His work sits at the intersection of leadership, systems, faith, and identity. He's deeply focused on helping people lead as integrated humans, not fragmented ones. So success doesn't cost them their health, their families, or their purpose. So as you guys hear that, you know him and I are deeply aligned, as he just said to me before we got on, kind of brothers from another mother. Uh so Steven, welcome to the show, brother. Dude, such an honor to be with you, man.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Love you, man. I miss you, dude. We got we I can't wait to have you out to the safe haven and get you on that, get you on ours as well.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

That's right. Like I just booked with you in April. Our schedules, uh, you do it smarter than me. You you have designated days for podcasts where I just do it where I can fit them in. Uh, but I couldn't align it till April because of both of our busy calendars. But yeah, but yeah, we're gonna rock it either way. So let's let's hop right in because I know time is precious for both of us. Sure. Uh, you know, you and I got to meet up at Renee Rodriguez's home where we're both going through it. Uh, his Amplify uh workshop, which was world class. But you know what was interesting about that? And for those of you that don't know, so Renee helps people uh find their authentic selves in speaking and communicating in front of whether it's a boardroom, a large crowd, a dinner table, doesn't matter. And Steven and I uh do a lot of work on stages, and Steven has been on some amazingly big stages, and so it's kind of curious as there's people in the room that had really never spoken in front of anyone, and then you got Stephen and I have spoken in front of hundreds and thousands of people, and we got asked the question Hey, why why are you guys why are you two here? And we were able to humbly answer is like we're looking to get better, like always looking to get better, and you were at the forefront of that. So, what what does that mean to you? Like you're always constantly growing and evolving. What what what was the impetus, whether it was early on in life or later in life, for you to continue to grow like that?

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Yeah, you know, it's interesting because I um I live a life of epiphanies, right? And you got to put yourself in fertile soil to have these epiphanies, these catalytic moments that kind of like you know can really move you forward. And when we did Renee's event, first of all, never look at toasting ever the same. You know, we'll let the we'll let the audience go go uh be part of that process and they'll understand. But um, at the end of the day, I had sold a company about a year earlier um that I'd spent about 25 years building from a literally literally the trash piles of a construction site. Um, you know, my my stories, my story's kind of public now. So it would, you know, as we don't rehash it a lot, but you know, um, there's a lot of identity and a lot of character, a lot of uh capacity improvements that needed to happen from homelessness to you know ultimately scaling almost a nine-figure business. Um but more importantly, I was going through a pretty uh transformative change. I'd had Renee on the podcast, and uh he just invited me, right, to come be part of this event. And lo and behold, it ended up being a very transformative experience. Uh, not just you and I becoming brothers from another mother, but um also giving me new awareness of where leadership struggles happen, right? As someone who has scaled leadership teams, scaled and built companies, uh tries to kind of impact at scale nowadays. Uh, one of the things I realized is you can't scale dysfunction. You can't do it. Um, it doesn't matter if it's in your home, it doesn't matter if it's in your relationships, it doesn't matter if it's in your business or your leadership in general. Um, and dysfunction dysfunctional um dysregulation comes primarily from self before it impacts the outer world. So I've been I had this new awareness, this new epiphany of um basically your external business is the embodiment or the or the uh uh the view of your internal world. So I think for me, one of my biggest takeaways is I'm always looking to figure out what's the next level for Steven. And I used to do it for an area of growth for myself. Now I'm doing it much more from an area of growth, not just for myself and my family, but more importantly from the people who who call me mentor, call me friend, call me leader, right? Um, I want to be the best version of myself day in and day out. I shared with you off air that I spent time with uh quite a bit of time with David Meltzer recently, um the last couple of days, and our uh our good friend Christy as well. And one of the things I watched David do, um, and this this like stood out to me, um, is David went from being on stage for a 40-minute keynote straight into uh doing two coaching sessions back to back in front of me, um, you know, with a phone, hopping on a podcast with me, hopping off the podcast with me, into another coaching session while eating lunch, while simultaneously um, you know, teaching and mentoring another leader across literally that just happened to be in the room watching the podcast. And I thought to myself, this is probably one of the highest capacity leaders at functionality that I've seen. And I get a lot done in a day. Like I'm no slouch. But David made me feel like, dude, like there's there's more to be done. So I think I think if I can understand, and I think this is this is important, if leaders can understand that leadership is never done, development is never done. It's not it, it's not an end of the journey. It's much more of a um, the word, I think the word I would use, it's it's much more of a maturing process. So the more time you spend investing in yourself around people like yourself, around people like Renee, around people like David, you know, Ed Milette, for example, is a friend. Like all if the more you spend time around people, you start seeing the intangibles. And I think the tricky part is um is taking the lessons that help you raise your character, your capacity, while simultaneously not falling into comparison syndrome of those that you admire and respect. And I think there's a dance there specifically, which is why I'm always asking myself in this given moment, um, and I'm not getting the result that I want. Am I attempting to scale dysfunction in communication, in how I think, in how I process, in what I believe? Um and I think that's at the core of why I'm always hungry for growth. I don't want I never want to stop growing. Like I'm I I'll I can I can do that when I when I pass from this earth and then the next plane, um, I could stop growing at that point and see what heaven's like and see what the guy kind of growth curve there.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

So that's I mean that's you know, it's awesome. Great answer. And and you talked about the dance because you know, Ed's a friend, Renee, yourself. Um, I don't know David Meltzer yet, but that's just a short time coming, as we spoke about. But um because you can fall into the comparison game and you can think also like, oh, I should be doing that when in reality what you there's some things that Ed does that I don't like. I respect him immensely. Yeah, respect him immensely, but there's certain pieces of him that I don't want to be as well. So you also that part of that dance is going, what can I take from this high-level leader that resonates with me and my soul and what doesn't fit instead of me just trying to replicate exactly what they do because I want to be exactly where they're at.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Yeah, exactly. Well, and at the end of the day, you got to start asking, what is mine to carry and what is mine to convert? Right? So you've you've got to carry the weight of the responsibility and accountability as a leader of being as congruent as you possibly can. And I'll give you a frame of reference here in just a second. The other thing is what can you convert? What uh, as you just mentioned, with uh, you know, people that we admire, they've been in, they've do great things in the world. Many of them are big businesses, many of them can be strong leaders, um, but they're like everybody else, they're they're human, right? They're valuable. I'm human, I'm valuable. There are leadership traits. Um, and I'll give you, I'll give you an easy one. Like I, you we were talking a little bit off air. Um, I used to be very domineering, controlling energy type, not because I was trying to hurt or wound people, I simply wasn't aware of it. I was simply trying to literally go from homelessness to getting stability, right? And out of that came a lot of extra tenacity and grit. Um, so much so that when I'm trying to figure out what I'm supposed to carry and what I'm supposed to convert, I started looking at it through the lens of what I like to call the five constraints. Um, you know, in business and leadership and all kinds of different things, statistics would say, you know, lack of sales, lack of marketing, poor uh poor product positioning, um, lack of financial uh cash flow and resources are all the reasons that business and leaders typically go under. I discovered when I just look back at my own journey of scaling a company from nothing to something, that those were nothing more than symptoms of what most leaders in businesses really struggle with. Um, that it's actually far more uh behavioral and integral. And so I said, okay, well, what was the moments that caused me the greatest stress, greatest problems, greatest team member breakdown, greatest issues in my relationships, greatest issues with my kids. And everything I'm and I've lost millions of dollars, right, with what I'm about to say, came out of emotional dysregulation, right? Not being able to regulate myself, not being aware of what was causing the frustration that seems to be just a reactive response without ever asking myself why. So when I took that and I tore that apart, I was like, okay, well, what are the attributes? What are what's actually constricting my airway that's preventing from me communicating in a in a beautiful real level? What's coming, what's preventing me from being grounded and regulated and and just present, right, as a leader with my team? What am I what am I scared of? And all these kinds of things. And essentially I came up to the the what I call the constraints, and which is arrogance, ignorance, impatience, fear, and insecurity. These five emotional triggers or subconscious programs, if you will, drive all kinds of bizarre external behavior. So when I started looking at, okay, what does it, what would I, what would it mean to become a fully integrated leader? Well, I simply have to move from the five constraints to their five opposites, right? So if the a constraint is arrogance, one of the one of the opposites of arrogance is humility. Well, what does it mean to show up in a human in a humble way, but not being a pushover, right? The next one's ignorance. Okay, what's the opposite of ignorance? The the opposite of ignorance is teachability. How often am I seeking mentorship? How often am I inviting my you know my friends and colleagues that know me really well to point out blind spots that I can respectfully, without arrogance, look at objectively to see is there truth there and what needs to change? Right. And I think the one that was really interesting, and I did this um at uh recently, I've done it several times at a couple several events, but I have I'll say, okay, well, the third constraint, folks, is impatience. I'm curious. I'll actually ask this, I'll ask this question uh before I even share it with them. I'll say, curious, by show of hands, who thinks you should be further ahead than you actually are? And without fail, 100% of the hands go without fail every time. And I said, you know what's funny? I used to feel the same way. And that came down to impatience, right? Well, the opposite of impatience is not patience, it's presence. It's being where your feet are, right? And being responsible, being grateful, being mindful, um, taking um data that you have and creating a strategy. You know, I know you do a lot of work with entrepreneurs and um in entrepreneurial systems, and you know how important it is to tie it to try to remove self-triggering emotional responses from data you're actually looking at so you can make a really good decision. The problem is, is you can't do that unless you're literally present in the moment, present with your team, present with the data, right? It can learn to breathe through certain things, you know. And then you look at fear and insecurity. Like, I don't know about you, but I battled fear of success and fear of failure. Yep. I also battled fear of not being enough. Like, so that's comes down to insecurity and worthiness, right? So the opposite of fear to me is compounded faith by looking at other times where you thought the world was going to crumble or something else that was gonna crumble, and somehow, somehow, God showed up and essentially not only took you through that, but when he took you through that, he developed, he continued to develop people through that, if that makes any sense. And then you look at insecurity, you know, and insecurity, when you're looking at insecurity, you're looking at um, why do I feel like I need to compete, compare, or otherwise downplay who I am as a person rather than just being the authentic version of who I am. And you know, you start looking at these constraints, and all of a sudden you you can start to breathe again. Because now you got a place to go, you got a frame of reference.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Yeah, so good. And what was coming to mind is just yesterday I get a text from my wife. Hey, you need to talk to your son when you get home. Uh my eight-year-old son hit one of his friends at recess. Um, he got in another little quarrel. This time it was his partner. Uh yeah, that's right. Uh and you know, part of it is, you know, raising a son, like I do teach him to he has three older sisters, so I do teach him defense and how we go about it. So, but there's lessons in maturity there, right? Like one of the conversation points last time is like, Cam, just because you can fight doesn't mean you should. Here's here are the pro here are the reasons when we fight to defend yourself or your sisters, right? Uh or to get out of uh harm's way, whatever it may be, like in that regard. Uh but though those are just a couple examples because what you're saying is emotional regulation. Like that's what once we lose our emotions, that's when we lose. And so your five constraints uh you've worked so hard on, which leads me before we get in the meat and potatoes, the one story I wanted to tell from Renee's event is I took a risk and paid you a compliment. And the reason I said it was a risky compliment was let me explain, is I I went up to Steven and I said, dude, for a short dude, you are just amazingly humble and you have zero like uh Napoleon syndrome energy. Because I've been around a lot of shorter dudes that have had like the over-bravado kind of arrogance trying to make up for something uh because they've been either made fun of or whatever throughout their life. And and your response back to me was equally humble. You said, Thank you. I've worked really hard on that. And so I think that like what you just stated, like working on those five constraints within yourself has um empowered you to become such a uh transcendent leader with others.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I you know, I um one of the things that I try to get leaders to understand, whether the business leaders, pastoral leaders, leaders of their home, um, doesn't matter if a male or female, what I try to get them to understand is we all have limiting beliefs that create insecurities that then play out in front of us. And the only way to deal with them, to become the most humbly confident version of yourself is to know the value you bring, but more importantly, start seeing value in others. So when we're sitting there um at Renee's event, um, you know, what gosh, like it's been what, a year, year and a half ago now, two years. Um, you know, I picked up something really, really profound. One of the other uh folks there, um, and I don't have permission to share his name, so I'm not going to, but one of the other folks there uh had been through some pretty challenging childhood trauma like I had, right? And and this this concept that uh that Renee brought that brought that Renee gave me, he gave me language to something I couldn't articulate, which is the importance of becoming a warrior in the garden. Right? So a warrior in the garden is prepared for battle, but doesn't seek the battle, right? They they seek to be of service, they seek to plant, sow, reap, and harvest. Um, but if they need to pull up a sword or go to go to work or go to battle, they do it, but they do so with integrity. Right? It's not just the sheer grit, you know. And one of my favorite clips in 300 is uh, and I've seen this in a couple of your shows as well, is like, this is Sparta, or you know, what is your profession? Right. And while I love that, I'm thinking to myself, there's an embodiment of what it means to be a warrior in the garden, right? Um, and if you're not prepared, you'll either be an overly assertive warrior or you'll be essentially a gardener in a war. And I'll I'll say it this way. So you and I love, um, we're people of faith, right? So I can share this concept. So if your audience doesn't follow me or doesn't believe like we believe, just borrow my faith for just a second. There's a story in the Bible about uh a young man named David, who is being stewarded by a king named Saul. He just happens to come up through the ranks, and David is largely out in the shepherd's field, not really having to do a lot. I'm not doing, I mean, not sorry, he's largely he's in the shepherd's field by himself with nothing but him and sheep and God in a heart. All right. Meanwhile, you've got Saul who's in a who's essentially becomes the first king of Israel, who over time um starts to act in a disobedient way because he needs the approval and validation of other people. Okay, David, on the other hand, becomes a king over time, so much so that he has a chance to kill Saul in a cave and chooses not to, because in his words, I will not touch the I will not touch the Lord's anointed. Even though by that time David had already been anointed as the new king of Israel. What happens is when you look at the contrast between those two individuals, those two types of leaders, right? At Saul's worst, um, he was controlling, domineering, and had to get the approval of the people to feel validated and somehow um appreciative, right? David, on the other hand, just sought to serve. He never really needed the crowd to say, hey, you've killed your 10,000, or hey, you can play the harp like the best when the business. And what that done, what that did is that helped me understand the contrast between what I like to call becoming one part lion and one part lamb. Okay, the embodiment of two energetic forces that cohesively cohabitate together. Inevitably, what happens is, and we you saw a little bit of this with a pendulum uh thing that I drew as trying to serve one of the other members there, um, is you have this maturity and immaturity in the leadership style. Okay. So to me, in order to rise, lead, and last long term, you have to become one part lion and one part lamb in complete maturity. So if I look at David and Saul as contrasting components, right? Um, a mature lion is going to be courageous, protective, bold, and then enduring. Okay. An immature lion is going to be domineering, controlling, egotistical, arrogant, and by definition, um, essentially someone who repels people because people don't feel safe, right? Safety is actually a very important word when it comes to leadership. Um, and most of us are there's we're so aware of our out, like our eyes out that we don't know much about our um call it our eyes in, like in the into our heart, into our soul, right? You should flip the other side, you got the you got the lion, you got the lamb, okay. You got the immature lamb, you got a mature lamb. An immature lamb is people pleasing, overprotect um, what's called over functioning. Um, they self-abandon on a regular basis, right? And on the mature side of things, they are compassionate, loyal, loving, and ability to communicate at almost like a divine level. When you take the contrast, you start seeing the criteria of moving from one to the other. So um I've people have asked me different questions in different ways, but yours essentially was okay, well, how did you go? How did you really work on this Napoleon thing and try to become a grounded, well-regulated, well present leader? It's simple. I work my ass off to become one part lion and one part lamb in the most mature capacity forward. And I'm still doing that actively every single day. Every single day I'm pouring into myself. I'm spending time with a journal. I'm spending time saying, hey, what do I hear you say today? And I listen, right? These components allow us to become more present, more grounded, more regulated. And as a result, we we are able to indwell more truth, more revelation. And essentially, we don't even have to say a word, right? Great leaders, you can literally feel them in the room. Right. And you do that through the embodiment process I just described.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

Yeah, that's so good. I said this just yesterday, and it kind of speaks to what you're uh getting at here. I was like, and you you've been on this circuit, you've been on stages with some of these people, I'm sure, like I have. Is the the fake seems real until real enters the room. It's so good, dude. That's so good. Yeah. Yeah. And uh it's it it's so interesting. So there's there's a lot of frauds that get have great marketing systems out there. And uh, I'm not gonna throw anyone under the bus publicly, but uh I know you've been on stages with them, I have as well. And um when you or I walk in the room, because we're so grounded and authentic in who we are, you can already feel their insecurities popping up and they go over over kind of over-rotate to the bravado. And uh so I'm thinking about this is like someone's listening to this and resonating deeply with your words right now, and they want what you have. What would you say is if you could go back to step one of starting to work on Steven and turning into part lion, part lamb, what guidance would you give them?

SPEAKER_01 23:17

I think step one is gonna be love the parts of yourself you normally resist. So, what I mean by that is every last one of us has parts of ourselves, layers, if you will, um, that we're not proud of, we're not happy with. Maybe we react a certain way repeatedly and it's a behavior pattern, and that because of that, we feel a little bit of shame. And so um in order to love parts of yourself you normally resist, you have to begin to accept the parts of yourself you want to resist. And here's what I've here's what I've discovered is when you can when you can begin that process, and I'll give you like a little mantra to kind of just get the get the get the thing growing going in a second. When you can pull these things together, inevitably what happens is love overtakes the parts of you that are always scared. Because resistance always comes from fear. It always comes from form some form or fashion of fear. Fear of not being enough, fear of not being seen, fear of not being heard, fear of not being appreciated, fear of not being able to be connected, fear of not being able to grow, fear of not being able to grow a business, right? These these little, and sometimes they're subtle. They're subtle little nudges. But what happens is when that gets activated and it hasn't been dealt with, it becomes an explosion and creates three or four other problems, right? So you're rather than compounding internally on the highly developed leadership, you end up compounding on firefighting, creating chaos, creating overwhelm and burnout. Most of us stay burnt out and overwhelmed, not because there's a lot on our plate, but instead because our nervous system hasn't dealt with the fact about the subconscious program that's trying to drive the insecurities that are there. So I'll give you the easiest way not to deal with this, and I did that I do this every day still. Um, I start off every day uh with a mantra mantra. I do this every morning, I do it four times, and in between each of the statements, I actually take a deep breath and a slow exhale. So it would look something like this I am healthy. I am wealthy. I am wise. I am a steward of the most high. And the most difficult one to do, especially in the mirror, is I love you, Stephen. Most of us have to go through a process of reparenting ourselves in order for us to be really connected to the fullness of this divine energy that God put in our hearts and our minds to begin with. In other words, we were born with created value and the world compression itself, identity, comparison, and securities, this which was exacerbated by social media in general, um, teaches us that unless we're this, we're not enough. When in reality, we're already, we're already this, we're already the thing that God created us to be, and all we have to do is operate in that. So this mantra is a step-by-step process that allows you to begin to appreciate yourself, love yourself, reparent yourself. And as a result, you no longer need any of the world's validation, right? I don't need to start all because I step on a big stage, does not need I don't need to have the validation of the green room. I don't need to have the validation of the audience. My heart is to serve. I'm showing up to serve because I'm a steward of the most high. It reframes how and why I operate, right? And I'm doing it from a place of love and not a place of need or scarcity or fear, right? The next step in the process, step one is the mantra. Step two is going to be what I call a journaling practice that I started actually during the time you and I met. Um, I was doing it every single day for about six months straight. Now I do it about twice a week, just not only because I'm feeling um, I'm not feeling called to do it every day. But if you're this you're just getting started, I would say do it every day. Grab a journal. As soon as you're done with the mantra, before you go to the gym, before you get on your phone, before you get on TV, and just write at the top of the page what I hear you say is in today's day. And rather than asking, speaking, trying to discern, trying to get validation, just listen and see what shakes out. That one press, that one, that one practice right there allows you to connect to the divine in a way that most people don't. In fact, my first time I did this, it became like a two-page thing, and I was crying like crazy. And I could, it's funny as I was typing, because I asked for, you know, I just God speak speak to me, right? As part of this process. Um, I didn't even, I could, I was, it was happening so fast, I wasn't even aware of what I had wrote, other than I was crying while I was doing it. And then I got to the end of the document and I began like literally um reading what was written, and you can clearly see it's not my voice. Okay. The reason this is so powerful is because there's a phrase in the very first time I did it that says a few different things. So, first of all, um, despise not spall beginnings or painful transition, one. And secondly, I am always speaking, but my children are seldom listening. Think about that. What if you showed up to let God validate you based on what he's already put inside of you? What if he, what if you show up? Um, and I learned this by studying King David. How many times do you see David humble himself constantly, whether he's in a shepherd's field, whether he's in a palace, whether he's just made the boo-boo with uh Bathsheba and is called out for it, what does David do? He humbles himself, he puts himself in presence, he puts himself in a position to listen and learn. You see, we're not learning because we're not listening. That's why we're not learning. That's why we're repeating the same behaviors over and over again. And that one journaling practice and that mantra right there, if you just do it for 30 to 45 days straight without fail and just commit to that process, I guarantee you you'll have a supernatural growth in your leadership and your ability to be present and even magnetic in front of other people because you won't be seeking the validation. You won't be seeking what they have, you won't be comparing yourself to what you don't have versus what they do have. You will be anchored in who you are, who you were created to be. And that's to me is again what it means to become one part line and one part lamb. And that is step one and step two.

SPEAKER_02 29:21

Dude, so much wisdom there. Um, seeking validation through God instead of the outside world. I think uh if you could just latch onto that, write what Steven wrote or asked the question on, and then just listen, it would fix a lot of what you you're not wanting to see in the mirror. Like so many, and I see it so often uh through coaching and just observe observation throughout the world. Like most people can't look at can't stand what looks back at them in the mirror. And if you just did that one practice of seeking validation through God and not your social media and not the outside world, and not even your spouse, like seeking validation through God, uh, you're gonna fix a lot of your internal problems, if not all of them.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

What made you perfect?

SPEAKER_02 30:12

You're unique. I I I state this from stage often is like, you know how unique you are? It's like your fingerprints were formed, I think it's uh either 10 days or 10 weeks. I got the 10 right, I just can't remember in the womb. And you are the only person on this planet with those set of fingerprints. That's how the FBI can find us. Only one. And there's over eight billion people on this planet. So you want to tell me you're not uniquely created? And so the point is to live into that authentic self, that unique uniqueness that God gave you and only you and be wholly that and not something else. All right, so let's let's keep moving. So good. Um a lot of high performers, successful on paper, but they're not truly integrated. And we've we've talked, I think, some about this already, but uh let's talk about the cost. What is what does fragmentation cost people when they're not truly living aligned?

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Peace, fulfillment, and meaning. A lot of the folks that I work with nowadays, um, I'm either trying to help them scale their companies without scaling dysfunction, or uh I am helping people that have become high performers, um, have done really well financially. Some cases, many of them have exited. Um, many of the ones that I've worked with are eight, nine, and even 10-figure earners. Um what we try to do is we try to bring meaning back because a lot of people I serve with they've made money but lost meaning. And I could talk from that place specifically because actually, just before you and I met, um I was going through what I think, what I hope might be my last uh major transition period of time and transformation. But uh I was sitting, I had sold my company about a year and a half earlier, uh, maybe about a year earlier. I was sitting in a very nice home at the top of a mountain in Utah. Um, because what I'd born and raised in Raleigh, but when I sold my company, I went to Utah for about a year and a half. I'm back now in the Carolinas on at Lake Norman uh at Safe Haven. But um I remember being in that house, 6,000 plus square feet, you know, more than enough for you know me, um having access to resource, having access to full-fledged travel, having access to relation, you know, relationships that other people would, you know, they would say that they would die for, so to speak, or they admired, um, having access to uh liquidity and business deals and all kinds of stuff. And I remember having this epiphany in that moment that I was just I was actually more unhappy then than when I was homeless. And the reason I was unhappy then is because I had chased and strived my entire life to go and get the stuff. Get the accolades, get the house, get the cars, get the toys, um, be successful, you know, be successful on paper. My entire identity was tied to being successful on paper. And then you get everything that you think you ever wanted on paper, only to find out that it has no meaning. There's nothing wrong with pursuing at with pursuing goals and aspirations and want to build a company and all these types of things and be and and um having aspirations and becoming a highly high performing leader. Okay. There's nothing wrong with that. What I discovered was what's the question behind the question, which is why do you feel like why do you need it?

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Is it to prove yourself or is it to be of service? And the major shift, and again, I gave you already some tidbits as far as the mantra, the journaling practice, um, grounding, regulating, working out routinely, being mindful of your space, being mindful of your heart, being present with your family. Dude, one of the, I'll tell you what, one of those painful moments was my oldest son came to me after a divorce. Um, and he said, Hey, as far as I'm concerned, you were an amazing father and amazing husband. But if you could do one thing, just one thing better, if you could just be more present when you're present, that would mean the world to us. And it, dude, it hit me like a ton of bricks because it's funny. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 34:28

I can only imagine.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

I I may look check this out. I uh I had these memories pop up, and I'm I'm and I'm I'm this is gonna touch some of your leaders' hearts because just because I know the people that you steward, you always surround yourself with great people. Um, but I remember being present in the room, being present at the football practice, being president, being present uh at band-aids because one of my sons was a you know was a drum major, um, being present um during prom, but I wasn't present. I had my phone in my hand or my computer nearby, or I was like, can I step out one second, walk over here and answer a text message? And honestly, most of it could have waited to the next day.

SPEAKER_02 35:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

But I told myself that the whole, my whole world was gonna fall apart if I didn't respond. Right? And here's the other thing. I thought because I could give my kids expensive trips, take them to really cool places, get them around really amazing people, that I was winning. They just wanted me to lock eyes with them for over an hour. That's all they wanted. They legitimately didn't care about the house they lived in. I mean, they got to enjoy nice stuff, but they didn't care about the house, the travel. Like they didn't care. Right? And when I I feel like when I get to heaven, God is gonna look at me and say, How well did you steward the family that I gave you? He's not gonna, he's not necessarily gonna say, Well, congratulations, you became a nine-figure business owner. Woo-hoo! He doesn't care about money. You know what I'm saying? He wants to see how you led, how you stewarded, what you believed in. And so if you could understand there's a greater calling behind ongoing development and ongoing leadership, inevitably what happens is you don't uh make money and lose meaning. You happen to have meaning, and it's a byproduct, you make money. Yeah, right. And as because of that, you can serve. Like you, I don't know if you knew this, Josh, but you may or may not, but there is approximately um$7 billion of annual need for foster care system, homelessness, education, housing, clothing, um, pretty much every major world challenge can be answered annually for about$7 billion, right? So education then creates mentorship, mentorship then creates momentum, et cetera, right? There's$37 trillion in the hands of professing believers. So it when I feel like when we get to heaven, God is gonna look at us and say, I gave you an immaculate amount of resources. And you chose us to spend it on the extra house or on the extra toy. Or, you know what I'm saying? I don't, I don't want, I don't want him to be able to use that as a tool to say I didn't steward it well. I want to be a good steward. So like I even have an internal process where it's like if I can give away, if I can go buy a$200,000 car, I can also afford to give, I can also afford to give away$200,000 that year. So I have a 50-50 ratio. But inevitably, if your meaning and identity are tied to anything other than service and being of service and being a good steward, you will inevitably feel empty, misaligned. And honestly, you you may lose your family along the way. You may lose people that you love along the way. I can't tell me people I've worked with that they it was the catalyst of losing all that they really cared about that finally said, What the hell am I doing?

SPEAKER_02 37:58

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

Right. And that awareness changes things.

SPEAKER_02 38:01

Yep. Two of the two things are coming to mind is uh one is the only thing you can bring to heaven with you is your children. Not any of your stuff, not any of your businesses, none of your wealth, none of it. There's no never been a U-Haul following a hearse. And so uh we got to keep that in mind. Secondly, was it's amazing how God orchestrates timing and conversations because just this morning I was on a call with uh a buddy out of Michigan, and a couple weeks ago he was at a MA conference, Mergers and Acquisitions, uh, for those that don't know that acronym uh and it was one of those closed sessions. He's in there with a bunch of suits and they're talking about uh how they go about doing business, mergers, acquisitions, and then they put up a stat on the screen, and he that's where he said he wished he could have taken the picture. But uh said 90% of business owners that exit within three months have depression. And you and I have been through exits, I went through uh happy exits and a sad exit. Uh but even my father, who went through a very uh uh very good exit, uh, was depressed for two years because meaning and purpose was stripped. And that's exactly what you're talking about, right? So it's it's not your business, isn't your purpose. And you gotta divine, you gotta figure out that divine meaning of why you're doing for service. And and also if you are a business owner that's listening and going, hey, I'm on the kind of heels of trying to transition my business, I want you to have a purpose and meaning lined up before that exit happens. And it could be, like you said, uh a Christian organization that's uh feeding the homeless. I don't care it could be nonprofit, for free, whatever. You determine what that meaning and purpose is for your level of service in life and where you're at, and you run towards that because you will fall into depression. The stats already said 90%, that's an overwhelming majority. You're not gonna enjoy being on the golf course every day. You're not my dad couldn't hunt every day of he would hunt every day of his life, but that didn't bring him meaning any, anyhow. Or uh, so again, you've got to have that meaning and purpose before you transition because the day you sell, the next morning you wake up and there's nothing there and no responsibilities and nothing like you go through a big mental transition and hurdle to face, and it's a life-changing moment.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's so good. I would say that if you're about to set up for an exit, um I would go to God in that in that journaling practice and say, you know, and kind of be and be open-minded to hearing, okay, what's what am I called to next? Uh I think when you like I would say there's actually three three major pillars of when you're when you sell a company and you exit. Um, one, go take the vacation that you probably never took with your family and let it be an extended one. Let it be a 30, 40-day vacation in Europe or Greece or you know, wherever, wherever it is you've always wanted to go that you've never done. And be completely free, right? No, no thoughts of the future per se, write it right off the bat. Number two, come back with the heart of service, go find to your point, go find a nonprofit that you can just serve for a little bit and kind of see what's what's there and what what could be next. And then three, then you can look at your next investment. Maybe you're maybe um I've I've discovered that the third pillar for me is teaching what I learned as a byproduct for 25 years, right? So there's there's a part of connection with my family. There was a part of um charitable contribution via time, talent, and resource. And then the third one obviously was um, you know, really kind of figuring out, okay, what did I learn and how can I help humanity with what I've learned? Um, I find that those three legs give us at least a frame of reference to discover what it means to have meaning um when you have everything on the planet. Like so, because you again, we're I think I feel like God created us to be of service, right? And I think that was one of the things you mentioned earlier when we're talking about uh thought leader. Um, I would say I would even say thought leader friends that maybe are still very much on their own journey as far as you know being um being whole, being the same on stage as they are elsewhere. Um, you know, so I'm I'm not critical because I've also been on that same journey of the time that I wanted to stage more than I wanted to serve. Right. I'm very, I've been very public about that. So I think those three are components will give someone who's looking to exit or wants to exit um line of sight of what they need to be thinking about and feeling into before they do that. Because you're right. 30, 45 days. I don't even, I don't even think it took me 90 days. Like I was literally, I woke up every day at five o'clock to go do X, Y, and Z when I was, you know, working and building and stuff. It might have been 30 days. And I was already like, like I've already watched all the movies I wanted to watch. I've already gone all the time, you know, I started going to places I like it, like there's no such thing as a perpetual vacation.

SPEAKER_02 42:58

Yeah, you know, well, like for you, uh you're spot on number my last one was a sad sale, sad exit. But uh I wrote in my journal, I put it in my book, like that next Monday when so I I you know everything got ripped away on the Wednesday prior. That next Monday, I wake up and I'm used to being charged on Monday. A new week, a new day to get things uh going, to move in the direction we want to go. Like, and I wake up and I got nothing. Yeah and I'm sitting there on with my, you know, sitting on my hands trying to figure out, well, what am I gonna do? I don't have that purpose is removed. So it's uh it's a hard mental transition. And I just want people to be cognizant of that as they go on. And um that's why retirement's so hard on people too. And it's funny I say that because I literally in my career in the financial world help people retire. But uh now I'm sitting there going, I think we need to question what retirement really means.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

Yeah. Yeah. To me, retirement is nothing more than being going to do what you want when you want. Right. So It's not, and when I say that, it's I don't mean from a place of like you can have a perpetual vacation. What I mean is like take the attributes of yourself that God created within you, that He uses to amplify others around you, and then use those techniques to teach other people how to be amplified. You know, I'm a big believer in, you know, it's funny. Um I I feel like I said it first, then Rory copied me, then Ed copied him. Um, but I used to say from stage all the time that the greatest purpose in life you'll ever have is serving the person you used to be. Now, everybody, their brothers now modified that in their own vernacular, which is fine because it's it's still a principle and a life truth. But I feel like the people, when you when you get to a place where you can really truly give back time, talent, and resources, wisdom, right? Essentially what you're doing is you're helping the 19 version of yourself, the 25-year-old version of yourself, a 30-year-old version of yourself, 40, like you learn things at certain milestones that decrease the pain for others in their present day to day, but only if you put your position, you put yourself in a position to serve them uh with excellence. You know, and I think that's where significance and meaning can really come from because it's not coming from the outside, it's actually coming from the inside as a gift to others.

SPEAKER_02 45:17

Yeah, that's so good. Well, man, we're wrapping up on time. As you guys can probably tell, brother Stephen and I could talk for hours, but uh, we both got stuff to get to. Uh so I always ask this question at the end. It's um, and this could be on anything we've spoken of or just whatever comes to your heart. But what's an unpopular belief you hold to be true that most others disagree with?

SPEAKER_01 45:40

Um, that you're you may have been victimized, but you're not a victim. I see a lot of us, um we we uh the word I comes to mind is the word label. So I I have been divorced, but I'm not divorced. Right? Um I have been a Napoleon, but I'm not Napoleon. Like you said, I'm saying like I we place label limiting labels on ourselves because we feel shameful, guilty, or whatever about ourselves that then impedes us from growing into the person we are ultimately designed to grow. Um, the Bible says very clearly that God wastes nothing. Yes, he wastes nothing, right? No adversity, no challenge, no setback, no advancement, no you know, praise, whole hallelujah moments. He uses everything, not just for the moment of your good, but so you can be good to other people. And I feel like I've I've worked with a lot of people and they've had things happen to them um that could be in the form of being victimized, but that doesn't make them a victim. And if they take on the identity of a victim, they'll never take on the identity of a victor. Because victims have to become a victor in order to actually have momentum and progress forward. So I think that's probably the biggest one um that comes to mind just in recent weeks.

SPEAKER_02 46:58

Well, no, it's so good because you and I are both living proof of it, whether you count your homelessness, my business being ripped away from me, and everything in between for us, we've continued to move forward. And as long as you move through those challenges and understand the meaning behind them, got you'll learn that God wastes nothing. And so that's so good. So in wrapping up, where can people follow you, find you? What's the best mediums?

SPEAKER_01 47:23

Yeah, so the good news is I'm pretty much everywhere. Uh S T A P S T E P H E and so Stephen, pronounced Stephen by that's right. Scoggins, S T O G G I N S. I think if I could leave your listeners and your viewers with something important just for them. Um, we've been working really hard behind the scenes to create uh uh assessment of sorts that helps you understand really where you are on the hierarchy of where the constraints are versus where where you can move to. Um, because I mentioned becoming one part lion and one part lamb. Um if your leaders want to go take that assessment for themselves, we don't sell a thing at the end of it, by the way. There's nothing to be, there's nothing to purchase. Um it's you can go to stepenscoggins.com slash leader and take it. I will tell you that the assessment takes about 10 minutes. So it's not like super quick. And I want you to be thoughtful with your responses, but it'll give you a lot of clarity on where you are, where you could go, and maybe some steps to actually get you there along the way. So I would encourage them to do that more than anything else. Um, everything that we do is built around serving the leader because I believe if I can change the leader, that leader can change 10 leaders. And by as a byproduct, uh, we can make a kingdom impact together.

SPEAKER_02 48:32

Love it. So everyone, go take that assessment. Follow Steven as you saw and heard today. So much wisdom that he's dropping, so much service that he's given back to the world. Uh, thank you so much, my friend, for coming on Spartan Leadership. Always, brother. I love you, man. I love everything you're doing. Love you too. So, Spartans, you know what to do. Share this episode far and wide. Remember, the good and great are the enemies of possible. Lead like a Spartan today.