When an Old Story Is Still Making Your Choices | Scott Mason

What if some of the choices you’re making today are being influenced by stories you’ve carried for years?

In Week 2: CHOOSING of Delay the Binge™: The Journey, Pam Dwyer talks with Scott Mason, known as The Myth Slayer, about the beliefs and stories that can quietly shape our identity, behavior, and choices. Scott shares his five toxic myths, why recognizing the story beneath a behavior can create space to choose differently, and how small actions begin giving us evidence that another story is possible.

The conversation also takes a deeply personal turn as Scott shares a mysterious illness that nearly took his life, a vivid dream in which he was told his “number was up,” and an extraordinary hospital experience that changed the way he understood his life.

In this episode:
• The stories operating beneath our choices
• Scott’s five toxic myths
• How naming a pattern can create a pause
• Silence, listening, and intentional choice
• Scott’s remarkable near-death experience
• Why changing an old story can mean grieving an identity
• How small actions help us practice change

THE DOORWAY: Recognizing what’s choosing for you.

Ask yourself:

What old story about who you are, or who you’re supposed to be, might still be making choices for you?

Maybe you don’t have to rewrite the entire story today.

Maybe your next choice is simply to recognize that you are the one holding the pen now.

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Pause. Choose. Build momentum. Finish stronger.

Transcript

Welcome And Why The Pause Matters

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to another episode of Delay the Binge, the podcast about the pause before the behavior when life gets hard. I'm your host, Pam Dwyer, best-selling author, keynote speaker, and creator of the Delay the Binge Framework, where we explore how one small pause can change the direction of a life. Today's guest believes that before we change our behaviors, we often have to change the stories, the stories that we've been living. My guest is Scott Mason, better known as the Mythslayer. Scott is a two-time TEDx speaker, executive coach, attorney, author, fellow podcaster, and former senior government and nonprofit executive who helps people identify the hidden stories shaping their lives so they can begin writing new ones, drawing from Greek mythology, leadership, psychology, and his own extraordinary journey through personal collapse, reinvention, and even a near-death experience. Scott helps people move beyond fear into lives filled with greater purpose, courage, and freedom. Scott, welcome to Delay the Binge.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Pam, I am so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

I'm so excited too. I can't wait just to dig deep.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

It's going to be awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

It's always a little fun interviewing another podcaster because I know you spend a lot of your time asking the questions instead of answering them. Today you get to be on the other side. Be nice to me, Pam, please. I'll be gentle, I promise. You know, before we started recording on my little questionnaire that I send out, you said you loved the style and vibe of the show. And I just wanted to say thank you for that because I don't hear that a lot. And it really helps me. It kind of feeds the need, you know?

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Life is not always as long as we might want it to be. And even if it's long, it's still short. It is too short to ever spare anyone a compliment, especially if it's real. So I'm gonna keep it real, and I'm glad that realness landed with you.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Oh my gosh, it did. It did. It made me a lot more comfortable interviewing someone as wonderful as you. What's bringing you joy these days? I like to go there first. Like, what are you doing now?

SPEAKER_02 2:31

I am actually living life in the lane that I was meant to live. For me, as irritating as the day-to-day uh inconveniences of living in New York City, of dealing with technology, of just being a human being in the world, is as frustrating and challenging as those might be. At the end of the day, I have clarity about my mission. I wake up every day in one way or another, moving it forward, having that clarity, knowing that I'm in that lane, feeling it happen, yo, that brings your homie joy.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Well, you exude joy. So it's obvious from my homework. I know that you've been an attorney, an executive, a coach, a speaker, an author. And now, okay, forgive me for doing this, but I really have to do it.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Wow, that was cool. I want to record that. I'm just gonna take that snippet out of here and just use it everywhere. So so this once is out in the world, Pam, it's too late. It's mine, mine, mine.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

It so deserves that. You can't just say the Myth Slayer. No, it needs like a big, huge echo, like in the wrestling ring or something.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

Yeah, like maybe a James Earl Jones sort of poison. Thank

From Kansas To Not Caring

SPEAKER_02 3:56

you.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Yes, I so love it. So, which version of Scott would be the most surprised by where your life has taken you?

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Hmm, what a great question. Growing up, I grew up for the audience members who aren't gonna spend their time just randomly researching me for no reason at all in the backwoods of Kansas. And my mom worked for a dog food factory, my dad worked for the Highway Patrol. And it was a very blue-collar rural milieu. Uh, expectations weren't high for me or really for anyone that I grew up with, but I always felt that there was more in me uh that I wanted to do and was capable of. Uh, like you, by the way, Pam, I was a writer from the time I was a child. And so I would like write things and I had all these fantasies about being out there and getting published, but I knew I couldn't do it in Nowheresville, Kansas. With all due respect to Nowheresville, Kansas. I just couldn't do it there. And so I came to New York and I quickly realized that in order to be successful in the avenues that I saw, and in the avenues that mattered to me at the time, um, which all pertained to things like social acceptance and prestige and the eyes of other people and the opinions of other people, I needed to engage with the world professionally in a certain way. And so I was uh you know, someone who was like, I have to wear a suit. You need to wear a suit, you have to wear a tie. Um, my idea of variety and individuality was having suspenders as opposed to uh a regular belt and all this sort of stuff. And I presented and I spoke and I thought all of this sort of uh all these sort of related things in a highly linear way that can best be described as conformist. Now, I would have described it as professional, but really it was just conformist. What would surprise me most now about the life I live today is that I actually don't give a darn what anyone thinks. I do my own thing, I present my own way, I speak the way I want to speak, I talk to people the way I want to talk to, and who I want to talk to. And that is something that I had to evolve into that I might not have ever imagined was possible. I might have looked at myself 10 years ago today and said, what a freak. But you know what? Living this way is better. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Well, all I know is I want some of what you got over there. That energy is just exudes charisma. I mean, it's just awesome because you're happy. You're truly happy. And it will show people. I'm just telling y'all, it will show if you find who you really are, the person you were meant to be. I'm in San Antonio, Texas. Yeehaw. You are in New York. So if I had one afternoon there, where are we going?

SPEAKER_02 6:54

I would take you immediately. Well, I'm gonna give you two options. I might take you to the Highline, which is a raised um railroad track above above the actual streets of New York City that was abandoned a long time ago and turned into a park full of all sorts of plant wonders and architectural wonders and views of the river and really cool uh uh uh sorts of uh designs and and and public uh sculptures and all that sort of stuff everywhere you can walk. It's amazing. And not only that, but it goes right through the building where the food network is. So if you like to eat, hey, hey, hey, hey, right. So I might take you there. On the other hand, if you're in a super active mood, I am a mega bicyclist, and so I might take you on an all-day bicycle, probably 15-mile bicycle tour of Manhattan. We'd start in Central Park, we'd go up to Harlem, we'd see the biggest uh um cathedral in North America, Columbia University, then we'd go to the riverside and ride that bike all the way down to the bottom of Manhattan, then maybe park the bike, get on the ferry, go by the Statue of Liberty. If there's time, maybe even cross the Brooklyn Bridge, then bicycle through Manhattan back to Central Park. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

That would be incredible. You know, I should my daughter just moved, she's 30, but she just moved to New Jersey. She got a job at Princeton working with international students. Wow. And she knows no one. And she did go to New York one day already, I think, because this was about three months ago. We moved her over there. Maybe I'll send her your way.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

Hook us up, Pam. I I'm I'm down for that. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

She's the most beautiful creature in the world, inside and out.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

That helps. I was gonna say, you know, don't send her my way if she's a jerk, but I can't imagine that your daughter would be a jerk. So No.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

She tried a time or two with me, but she's not. All right.

Mythology As A Lens For Identity

SPEAKER_00 9:02

So, you know, as I prepare for today, one thing kept coming back to me. I don't actually think you teach mythology. I think you teach identity. Would that be fair to say?

SPEAKER_02 9:15

What an unbelievably astute observation. Absolutely. I am not a professional mythology scholar. And that's really important because uh, you know, A, there are enough people that are experts at that, they don't need me added to the mix. Right. B, I view mythology as a lens for an outcome. They are not the outcome themselves. And so to the extent that they are intimately tied to identity, that there are pathways to solve problems, uh reflections of thought patterns, as well as spiritual portals, uh, that all is true. But really, at the end of the day, I'm seeking to take people into a mindset in that enables them to step into an identity, not for them to leave the most uh erudite people about Greek myths in the world.

unknown 10:14

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Well, and people need visuals. I'm sorry, but I mean, everyone I've ever met, if you give them a visual or something to compare themselves to, they're like, oh, I get it.

The Five Toxic Myths Explained

SPEAKER_00 10:24

But your work it centers around five toxic myths. And before we go any deeper about anything else, could you just give us a brief overview overview of each one?

SPEAKER_02 10:35

Yes. And again, to explain people uh or explain these toxic myths to people who may not have any other background in them, these toxic myths are each patterns of thinking that have allegories and genres of Greek myths uh that uh ultimately represent uh behavior patterns or or ways of being that keep you stuck or even in a self-destructive loop. The five toxic myths are as follows. Number one, the tragic origin myth. The tragic origin myth is a story you tell yourself in which the outcomes of your life, whether personal or professional, are guided by the circumstances of your early life or your uh or even your birth. Number two, the social myth. You're living out the social myth when you are making decisions based on the real or perceived social expectations of others. I mentioned that I used to do that a little bit earlier in this conversation. Number three, the ritual myth. The ritual myth is experienced when you engage in the same thought patterns or make the same types of decisions over and over and over again, ritualistically, even though they no longer serve you. Just as the ancients used to uh make animal sacrifices for rain, even though after a while it became pretty obvious that killing a lamb didn't necessarily bring a thunderstorm, right? They still just did it. The fourth one is the doomsday myth. The doomsday myth exists when you hesitate or refuse to make challenging or risky decisions or shift in your mindset in a way that can lead to uh making challenging or difficult decisions because you are concerned that taking that action will somehow lead to a mythical apocalypse. Ignoring, by the way, the fact that the gathering clouds uh that are emerging because you're not making that difficult decision are often worse than the apocalypse that you're running around afraid of. The fifth and final toxic myth is the underworld myth. Now, Pam, in ancient Greek myths, if you died, with some exceptions that may come up later in this conversation, but for the purposes of this right now, it is irrelevant. You usually went to a place called Hades, uh, specifically the fields of Asphodel, which was an endless, gray, featureless, boring uh uh plane that just went on forever and ever and ever. And you as a spirit gradually lost your consciousness and your sense of identity and your memory, turning into nothing. And so the entire eternity that you faced was one that was full of hopelessness and despair. Those who live out the underworld myth are trapped in what they perceive as an eternity of um mental, spiritual, or emotional hopelessness. And it's identified easily by people that are very cynical or apathetic. So those are the five toxic myths, and uh understanding them, naming them, and then doing something about them can have a profound impact on your life.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Gosh, I love that so much. As you were describing those, I wonder if people listening are already recognizing themselves in them. And I think you mentioned it, but which myth do you see most often? And which myth are you?

SPEAKER_02 14:15

I have to say, I don't see one or the other more often. Some days I might see the ritual myth more often. Other times I might see the doomsday myth. Like in corporate leadership, I see the doomsday myth a lot. I will say there. Oh, I'm afraid to do XYZ. I'm afraid to pivot my business, or I'm afraid to get rid of this employee who's high performing but pure evil, right? Because I'm afraid of the consequences. So I think that in corporate America, particularly in uh the professions where people are trained to be very risk-averse and they're always consequentialist in their thinking, the doomsday myth right just blows up like crazy. But in uh independent business people and creatives and mission-oriented professionals, or just people that are seeking to make changes in their lives, the all five of them show up in more or less equal uh uh percentages. Now, in terms of me, Pam.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Yeah, what did you overcome?

SPEAKER_02 15:10

I overcame all of them. That's why I'm creative. Yes, I I'm not talking about these things as though I am some Greek god speaking from up high. Your whole me has lived them all.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

All another thing that struck me while learning about your work is that on this podcast we talk about the pause before the behavior when life gets really tough.

Naming The Myth Creates The Pause

SPEAKER_03 15:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Whether it's emotional eating, people pleasing, anger, overworking, shutting down. There's almost always a story running beneath the behavior. Do you think that's where the myth lives?

SPEAKER_02 15:53

Wow. I would say that's a very strong and powerful way to think about it. Yeah. Uh it certainly can be a place that is right on the surface and is sitting directly at the top of the consciousness, but usually it's not. And what I'm hearing when you say that it is, is that it is in this deeper space. Myths have their power and have been the subject of massive uh levels of study by by minds as diverse as uh Jordan Peterson and Carl Jung, uh, because of that. And that depth of that space that they operate in is exactly what I'm hearing you talk about.

unknown 16:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Yeah. I mean, that's the first thing I thought about. Because I always try to reflect on anybody's message and see how I can apply it to my message and see how I can get people to understand it better.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:54

You talk you also talk about naming the myth. I found myself wondering, does naming it actually create the pause?

SPEAKER_02 17:03

I actually what a again, what a good point. Yes.

unknown 17:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

It does. Right? Because if you are going to name something, you have to take a moment, right? Think about it, process it, make sure that what you're saying, what you're naming has anything to do with anything, and then naming it. And then once you put something out in the world, as I'm sure you know, I would love to hear your thoughts on this, Pam, by the way. Yeah, yeah. But once you put something out in the world, there's inherently a pause as it is either processed by you or processed by those that you engage with when you when you utter those words. And so there's inherently due to either the timed nature of thought or the time between when we utter something and when others react to it, that again, something can shift inside. And so hearing that, it seems like that pause is an integral part of this whole process. Uh, like it or not. I uh is is that sort of how you're thinking about it too, though?

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Yeah, I I think if the pause, I think of it in terms of the brain, right? Because we react with unhealthy patterns or unhealthy behaviors. You know, it could be it's not just food, it could be anything. And we know it doesn't serve us, we know we shouldn't do it, but every day we do it. And so I started asking why. And it's because there's a deeper thing going on beneath the surface, and that's why we go into autopilot, auto mode. And the only way to break that pattern that's in your brain, and it's scientifically proven that if you pause long enough in that moment between the pause and the reaction, you can actually take control and control the outcome. Ask yourself questions like, why am I about to eat this entire chocolate cake? I know I'm gonna feel like crap tomorrow, but I do it anyway. Why?

SPEAKER_02 19:10

It's so fascinating.

Fast Thinking Culture And Charisma

SPEAKER_02 19:12

I think about my many years in large organizational life, particularly actually in both of the principal spheres in which I operated, law and executive leadership. In both of those situations, rapid, almost instinctive, and uh almost inherently um because of the nature of it, uh non-thoughtful instant response was highly valued. To some extent, if you're able to be a fast thinker and say that, you gave the impression that you were intelligent. And that was highly valued. Uh, and sometimes because business or legal work, particularly if you're in litigation, can move very, very fast, the ability to think quickly and be able to say something off the top of your head that at least makes sense and has some plausibility uh really does lead to a financial, professional, and outcome-related premium. Uh but uh what you're hitting at was particularly in non-litigation settings, and litigation, I understand why that just may be the way it is. But for instance, in corporate or leadership decision making, this obsession with whoever talks fastest is the smartest, often led to exactly, you're shaking your head because you know what I'm gonna say. It led to action that was quick. It led to decisiveness often, but things that aren't thought out are often like bridges that are built without paying attention to the plants. They can just collapse. And one of the things I really tried to do with my own staffs and try and do with myself, although I'm not always as successful as I would like, being perfectly honest, is to take that pause and actually bother to think. Uh, you know, someone recently told me, Scott, you spend too much time thinking. Well, the world might be better if we spent a little bit more time pausing and actually thinking before we just did whatever reaction came into our little minds.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Oh my gosh. That is correct because when you pause in any educational environment, when you you've had a teacher, every time if we would be if the class was loud and not listening and she couldn't get the attention, she would start speaking slow and quiet. And everybody would stop to try to hear her. But that is what allowed us to stop long enough to absorb whatever it is she or retain whatever she was trying to get out to us. But if she yelled and talked really fast, shut up, everybody, they're not gonna listen. But you listen when people slow down and talk with intention and Clarity and soft. That's when people really pay attention.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

I love that. One of the areas within the Mislayer framework that I have that I speak about and comes up a lot is charisma. It's my contention that charisma is a foundational leadership skill that people ignore at their own risk. And you see it played out publicly in politics, by the way, all the time. People can develop real followings and begin to exert real power, even if their ideas aren't as good, or sometimes even if their ideas are actively bad because they have charisma, as opposed to someone who might be sitting up there and talking in a way that is boring or might be shrieking all the time. And one of the things that I comes up a lot of times when I speak on that topic is the individual who says, Well, you know, I'm a 70-year-old female who's five foot three and I weigh 140 pounds. How can I be charismatic? Or I'm an introvert and words don't come out of my mouth as quickly, and I don't have the sort of bombastic voice, for instance, that you do, Scott Mason. So how can I be charismatic? And I tell them, charisma is the ability to be able to command attention in order to set forth a message that leads to positive action. And sometimes the person that is up there stomping around, people just get tired of it after a while. They tune it all out. Being soft, using pauses, leveraging who and what you are, which particularly if you're an introvert or a shy person, is someone who lends to that sort of behavior, actually can have more charismatic impact than uh than anything. And then again, it allows people, as you're saying, I hadn't thought about this before, so I appreciate you sort of tying this into a ribbon. It allows people to have that pause so they can actually take in what you're saying, think think about it, and perhaps disrupt whatever thought patterns or whatever narratives are running inside their own minds to be able to move closer to where you want them to go.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Exactly. And I don't know about you, but even in speaking, they teach you that and if you tend to use words like or uh or you know, which I tend to use all of them, but they're saying the trick to not doing that is to pause. Instead of saying anything, you just pause.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

The weird thing too is someone once told me that the pause that you think is really long, actually no one else thinks is long at all. And there have been times in which I've stood up there on a stage and just been silent, you know, counted to a beat of three and then maybe gone over a little bit and then gone on and later asked people for feedback. And particularly about that pause, oh, I thought that was part of the show.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

How do they know if it's intentional or not? They don't. Yeah.

Silence, Listening, And Real Presence

SPEAKER_00 25:08

Yeah. And I remember I have to share this with you. I don't think I've ever shared any of this with anyone, but it was when my my husband and I have been married 30 years. Oh no, 32.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Well, it's my second one. I'm not gonna look for a third time. Third time's the charm. I don't know. But I remember when we were just dating, and that's when I was not healed, still pretty broken, and we were on a road trip. And I can't stand the empty, quiet space. He's very quiet. He's an introvert, he's very reserved. And so I was trying to fill the space with all of this discussion, all this talking, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So finally he looks over at me and he goes, you know, Pam, it's okay to be quiet.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

How did that feel to hear?

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Oh, that did not go over well with me at the time. But now I look back and I'm like, that is so profound because it is okay to be quiet.

SPEAKER_02 26:03

Yeah. Sometimes people need it. When I'm working with clients, a lot of times we will have a discussion in which a profound question is asked or a profound point has been discovered through our work together. And, you know, initially, I didn't want to allow a period of silence because the client was paying for our time together. And I didn't want them to feel as though their time was being wasted on dead air. But really, you're right. There have been times in which I've just sat there with a client, maybe 10, 15 minutes, maybe even a little bit longer, as we've taken it in. They need that time to process too. And I need some time to process and observe how they're taking it rather than just glossing over and moving to the next thing. And then the other thing, too, is once you're aware of that, I don't know about you, Pam, I would love to hear your thoughts on this. But once I was aware of the fact that that filling the space all the time can be irritating to people or overwhelming, then I started to also notice there's people that will not shut up. And that's irritating. Right now, and I don't want to be at risk of being that sort of person either.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Yeah. No, I've interviewed a guest before, and she specializes in teaching listening as a skill. Oh my gosh. She wrote a book and I've read it twice now.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

What's it cost you to not listen? It's by Christine Miles. Wow. And she uh talks about that we are taught to pay attention, but no one is taught, even in childhood, we're not taught to actually listen. Meaning tell me more. If I'm listening to you, instead of trying to interject or tell you what I'm thinking, I should just say, Really, Scott, well, tell me more. And that's the question of a true listener. And it makes the other person feel listened to. They feel heard. I just love it. Because I started podcasting so I could practice listening. Because my therapist told me, you interrupt, Pam, because you think you know what everybody's gonna say. Well, maybe.

unknown 28:17

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

But I do like listening. I learn a lot more.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Well, and I've got to say also, podcasting has helped with that. And it has forced me to be in a mindset of question asking. Obviously, as an attorney, I was used to asking questions in order to extract information from witnesses. However, uh, again, the legal profession can, for a number of reasons, cultivate a lot of narcissism and intellectual arrogance. And as you climb up the executive ladder in organizations of any consequence, these same perverse outcomes can sometimes happen. And so then that listening can or that question asking can serve personal reasons, right? Like I want an answer to this because I'm mad and I want to get to the bottom of what caused this problem, or because of whatever other business or personal uh agenda happened to be on top of mind that day. But what you're talking about is listening for its own sake. And I will say that podcasting has gotten me uh interested in that because no one wants to listen to a podcaster who's talking the whole time, just has a guest sitting there twiddling their thumbs. They wanted to be exactly. Exactly. Right? Podcast is not where you go and be Diana Ross for a day. Come on.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

So true. And in sales, silence was taught. I've done sales my whole life, but uh, they taught me in negotiations. You say what the price is, and the first one to speak after that loses. So you say it's $5.99, and you just sit there and wait and see what they're gonna say. But if you say something else, you've lost the deal.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

We're acculturated in the West, especially I my suspicion is because of the influence of social media and television before that, and radio, even where again, dead space was something that you didn't have, and quick, rapid banter and all this sort of stuff had and repartee and and all that, and fast-moving plots and all that sort of thing had an impact on how we view conversation and human interaction to see that sort of silence as uncomfortable. And thinking about it myself, I'm sitting here listening and thinking, well, in a negotiation, how long would I be able to sit there simply before the pressure of, which is again a totally imagined pressure, no one's putting it on anybody, to actually say something uh would move into place. Um, and uh that's that's hard. Yes, it's so hard.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Ugh Well, you mentioned also that uh there's two stories that especially felt right for this audience.

The Near Death Illness And Ominous Dream

SPEAKER_00 31:15

One was your struggle with bigorexia, which I'll be honest, never heard of it before. I had to look it up. And the other was your near-death experience. I'm curious which story feels like the right place for us to begin today.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

I'm thinking perhaps a near-death experience. Because it's about silence, listening, hearing, and being forced to take time to respond and think everything that you stand for. Pause. Profound pause.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

Well, let's hear it.

SPEAKER_02 31:57

So I'm going to share some things with you, Pam, as well as your audience that are surreal.

SPEAKER_03 32:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:07

That are dark. I'm also going to periodically pause myself because I don't want to over-talk. I don't want to overwhelm. I don't want to be that person who everyone's saying, when will he shut up?

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Never. It's too interesting.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

That's good to hear. Um, but don't hesitate to interrupt me. And I promise to you and those who are watching or listening to this episode that there is a resolution that is light and I hope beautiful and meaningful, and something that you can take into your own life and use after I share the things that I'm about to share.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

I love a story.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

I bet you do. And I bet you're a doggone good storyteller, too.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

I first and foremost. About three years ago, middle of June, I woke up around three in the morning unexpectedly, feeling as though an ice pick made of metal was stabbing at the base of my skull.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

It was intensely painful. I remember crying out. And it wouldn't go away. Now there was no ice pick touching the base of my skull. There was nothing touching me at all. But over the next few days, um, that began a series of escalating symptoms that went from bad to worse. I started getting headaches. I started losing the ability to focus. I remember I like was supposed to be at an all-day retreat, and I couldn't go because I wasn't feeling well enough. And I wanted to watch a three-minute Donna Summer video on YouTube. I couldn't even get through the intro bars. It took too much focus. I lost control of my body temperature. Um, and so it would be boiling hot in the apartment that I live in, and I would be shivering. And my husband was coming and piling on blankets and bathrobes and towels and everything to warm me up, and nothing worked. Um, and then a few hours later, I would be boiling hot and we'd put fans on me, and nothing could control that either. I was chattering uh uncontrollably. My joints began to hurt. I began to feel aches over every single part of my body. And then I started to drop weight. I dropped 20 pounds in 10 days. I, yeah. And I, and then um, I stopped eating and I stopped drinking and I started to sleep. And when I say sleep, I mean really sleep. Like one day I slept 16 hours, the next day I slept 20. And when I woke up from that 20-hour sleep, I woke up with a start because I experienced something that haunts me to this day. It's actually one of the most profound things that ever has happened in my life, and goes as to the importance of pausing and thinking about what we experience rather than just reacting. I had what I call the dream. Now, Pam, I know the difference between dreams and reality. I and dreams when I have them at least, right? They they kind of don't make sense. They're random. I remember them for a few minutes after I wake up, and then they just sort of flitter away into nothing. But I never think that, oh, I just experienced reality. This dream was not like that at all. To this day, I remember the dream as clearly and as realistically as I do our conversation five minutes ago. And there are times when I remember the dream, and it's all I can do not to break down. I don't think that's gonna happen today, but as I experience what that living experience of a dream was like. And in this dream, I was in a mansion. It was a beautiful mansion, old in a New York City brownstone that was attached to a bunch of other mansions. And there was like Turkish rugs on the floor and pianos and chandeliers and spiral staircases. And the rooms in the mansion were connected to each other through a large uh like um arch that didn't have doors you could just walk through. And then you would walk from one room to the other, and then from one mansion to the other, and they were each lavishly appointed, uh, one more so than the next, marble fireplaces with picture paintings of the patriarchs above them. And all of them in every room had a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. And that bookcase was full of all things, in every single case, baseball cards, not books. Weird. And I was going from room to room pulling out baseball cards, and every baseball card I pulled out in every room and every mansion was identical. It had at the bottom big bold letters saying, Your numbers up. And above that, my head shot. I woke up unable to walk or even to stand. I was rushed to the hospital in and out of consciousness and in incredible agony. My husband, when they finally got me a um a hospital room later that night and hooked me up to all these machines, took a photo of me, and there I was, right, like rail thin, asleep, all uh looking a crazy mess. And I later asked him, why on earth did you take that picture of me? And he said, I didn't know if they allowed photos in the morgue. Yes. I remember the next day, I think a lot of those early days were a blur because I just wasn't with it and I was in and out of consciousness. A doctor coming to my bedside and saying, Scott, uh, we're gonna pull you through this. And I told her, I actually don't think so. I think I'm gonna die. And I remember sitting there planning, who do I need to let know so that the word gets out? And um, she said, I I don't think that's gonna happen, Scott. And I said, I told her about the dream I just had. I told her, I think my number is up. I think this is it, and I'll never forget. She just stared at me. Pam, my number was up. The dream was right. The dream was so disturbing, so frightening and so ominous, that it forced me to pause, to pause and to think. Was the life that I had lived the one that it needed to be? Was it everything that I could make it? Had I wasted it? How had I treated people? How had I treated myself? Had I treated myself with love? Had I treated others with love? What had I been here for? And by the way, in treating myself with or without love, had I been treating my partner with love because he was as invested in my life as anyone. And on and on and on. I later came to understand that the words your numbers up may have meant something else too. But I had to pause and think about everything that happened next before I truly was in a place where I could begin to process that. But something else really dramatic had to happen first. And um that taught me about the importance of listening, thinking, and pausing in a way that I could never have imagined before it occurred. I was being tested left and right for everything under the sun. Um you name the disease, the syndrome, no matter how obscure it was, they tested me for it. Endless blood tests, endless saliva tests, endless scans, endless this, that, and the other. And nothing was showing up. Nothing at all. As a matter of fact, there was in some scans situations in which I they would see something like a shadow in areas where I was describing the most intense pain. But then when they would go close and look at that area, there'd be nothing there at all. It was like the whole shadow itself had just vanished. I was in a double hospital room. There was a thin curtain between me and the bed next door. The man that was originally there with me left, and he was replaced by a man who was very, very elderly. I believe he was in his late 80s. And because I could hear the conversations that they were having, and they could hear the conversations I was having

Sacred Singing And A Different Kind Of Healing

SPEAKER_02 41:36

between the uh, you know, through that curtain, I was also aware that although this man was still ambulatory, whatever he had was going to make this his last hospital visit ever, and he was going to the hospice immediately afterwards. Now that hospital was very, the floor was very noisy. There was a lot going on. Um and that led to an increased sense of chaos in my whole situation. I there was chaos because I didn't know what was going on. There was chaos because I was in intense pain. There was chaos because there were new versions of this pain coming on all the time. And this lack of temperature control was still happening. So randomly at night I'd suddenly start to shiver. My digestive system had essentially stopped working. All of this sort of stuff was going on. I was in in I was in pain and I was in ever-deepening despair. And when that man came in, every night a group of other men would come to his to our room and surround his bed. And they would start to sing. This man was an Orthodox Jewish man. He was part of, I found out, the Hasidic community, which has been just such an integral part of New York City's life uh since the mid-20th century, at least, after World War II. I honestly can't even imagine New York City without the Hasidic Jewish community here. And um the men that would come and surround his bed and sing were also Hasidic. I assumed at the time that they were uh his nephews or his sons, that he was some family patriarch. I later found out that in the Hasidic community, if word gets around that an elder is sick or dying, random men will just come to where it is and they will engage in the singing. And this singing, if there were words, I had no idea what language it was, and it didn't really sound like words. It sounded like mumbling. Sometimes if there was noise outside of the room, somewhere else on that floor, and this was all at night, they would just sing loudly. And cover it up. And there was something about these songs that they would sing night after night that deeply impacted me.

SPEAKER_03 44:11

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_02 44:12

It was Pam as though a giant transparent bubble, an orb, was being created through the sound of their singing. This lyrically, there's this lyricless, uh completely alien language, if it was even that, that I was hearing. And that orb was somehow filling the room, escaping past that curtain, covering me. And as I'd lay there night after night, like a child, a dying child in his mother's bosom. The orb of the singing would come inside.

SPEAKER_01 45:06

And it was as though I left my body.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

I stopped feeling the pain of the shell that I'm in. I stopped feeling the fear.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

I lost the despair. And in that other place, I knew only two things. Peace and love. The most profound love that a human being can feel.

SPEAKER_02 45:42

Then they'd stop and leave, and I'd be back in my body. But the next day, after or in the days afterwards, I would tell my husband, or there was people that would visit visit me, and I would tell them about this. And I would, I couldn't help it. I'd I'd burst into tears remembering the beauty of these songs, but also this other place that they took me. And I wondered why was I being given the gift of these songs? I'm a Gentile. They weren't meant for me. They didn't they were things that were quite obviously sacred. And I wasn't part of that sacred community. But nonetheless, Providence, God, the universe, spiritual force, whatever you might call it, deigned to have me next to it.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Listening. Listening. And silently pausing. Thinking.

SPEAKER_02 46:52

I'm a speaker. Like you, I'm a writer. I have a voice and I know how to make it heard. Why was I being given this? I had to stop and think. I also had to think about the internal story I was telling myself. The myths. And think about how were they impacting what was going to happen to me. If I believed the message of those baseball cards was that I was going to die. I was going to die. If I wanted to live, I needed to understand those words very differently. Eventually, it was the time of that old man to move on to his journey's next phase. Like I said, he was still ambulatory. And so before he left, I'll never forget this as long as I live. He stood up and he peeked his head around the curtain and looked me right in the eye.

SPEAKER_01 48:10

And I looked back. He smiled. And he nodded his head. And then he went on his way. He changed my life. And I even say he saved my spirit. All because I had to pause.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

Thank you for sharing that. That's such a powerful experience and for being vulnerable enough to I appreciate you giving the space. Oh my goodness. Yes, it's beautiful. I Yes. You said the songs of the strangers that it awakened something in you. How did that experience change not only what you believe, but who you believe yourself to be? That's that's the message. It's like it's almost like you did, like you said, you did die. That version of you. And it's like a you were reborn.

SPEAKER_02 49:38

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

And so I'm sure it changed the way you lead, the way you love, and the way you live.

SPEAKER_02 49:45

Yes. It's interesting. A friend

Rebirth, Grief, And The Fear Of Change

SPEAKER_02 49:50

of mine once introduced me to a friend of hers who claimed to have intuitive powers. I don't know if I believe that or not. However, I do know that that woman told me, Scott, my sense is that you something happened to you. You were given a second chance at life and you intend to make the absolute most of it. Now, whether she had intuitive powers or not, I don't know. But I told her you got that one right. I don't know that anyone can ever go through this sort of thing and leave unchanged. Because what I later found out about these songs was that they are believed by the Hasidic people. They have no, it's not, they weren't singing in Hebrew, wasn't in any language. They believed that these songs are divinely channeled, which is why strangers can get together, sing these songs, and sing them in unison, which they were being sung, even though they are of no human language. It's believed that they're literally the language of the creator itself. And that they're these songs, when they're channeled, are designed to bypass the intellect, to bypass the heart, and to go directly into the soul, which is why I felt my consciousness circumvent or leave my body and experience something that can only be described as transcendental. Yes. After that, I can never ever ignore or leave that behind as part of what I do at all. I had very much been someone that understood, for instance, my framework, Greek myths, as a fascinating and useful allegory for transformation, but I had not truly explored or even thought about or been prepared to really feel what are they really about? What was really going on when people worshiped these or engaged in these practices for thousands of years? Even though, by the way, many of them knew full well that the Olympian gods weren't up on Mount Olympus because they scaled it and saw that nothing was there. But still, these myths persisted. And it's not just the Greeks, other societies as well. What was really going on with them? Why was I given that gift? Why was I allowed to connect? Well, it became very apparent in terms of how I deal with people and how I think about people and where I move, that that connection to the beyond, the ineffable, the unknowable within each of us is really at the heart of my message, what I'm here to do. And as a matter of fact, when I interview with individual coaching clients in particular, I inevitably find a way to bring that up. Because if they're just purely operating on the surface, we're not right for each other. Pam, I'll share one other thing with you and your audience about this. To this day, no one knows what this illness was. I recently came down, as I mentioned to you in the pre-show, with the coxsackie virus, which is essentially hand, foot, and mouth disease. And I went to the emergency room because I didn't know what it was at first and it was intensely painful. And the emergency room doctor, uh, what happened is there were like blisters that came all over the palms of my hands as well as the soles of my feet. And so the emergency room doctor took photos of um this and then he sent it to the infectious diseases department of that hospital. And the infectious disease doctor got back to him and suggested that that was probably what it was. But one of the things the ER doctor told me was that the infectious disease doctor remembered me immediately. He said the infectious doctor remembered you had come into that hospital. You were so sick, it wasn't clear you were going to live. And they tested you up and down and left and right and everywhere, and no one could figure out what this was. And he remembers this through, it was three years ago. He said the doctor remembers this to this day. This lack of knowledge about what it was and why I got better, and I am 100% healthy. There was a lengthy recovery, yes, but I'm 100% fine, as if it never happened, goes as to your question as well. How does this engage? What does this mean? Well, if this had been something with a clear diagnosis, I would have said, okay, these are, especially the sort of empirical, scientifically driven, data-driven person that I was before, said, okay, this is the data that I have. These are the things I need to do to address it or to avoid this in the future. Instead, what I had was a surreal dream that was unlike

Coaching, Accountability, And Sustaining Change

SPEAKER_02 55:11

anything I'd had in my life that sent me a very clear message. I had a bizarre experience with the fundamental nature of my consciousness and songs that apparently were coming from somewhere above and beyond. And then a mystery about the whole cause of the thing that was unresolvable. Well, what do I do with that? The lack of a clear, narrow solution also forced me to listen and to pause. The recovery time really forced me to pause because I wasn't able to do anything when I got back home. I could barely walk across my studio apartment. What a privilege. Because I had to look at everything. Everything. Everything. Not just the physical, but the spiritual, but the heart, but the inside, but the way that I deal with people. Like I said, my number was up, but it was a different sort of number. A new call was the number that was being pulled.

SPEAKER_00 56:19

And I was anointed.

SPEAKER_02 56:22

You realize that? I don't know if I was anointed, but I was given the chance to see so much that I needed to change.

SPEAKER_00 56:32

And rebirth, being born again is painful. You're a light bringer. You bring light. Yes. That's I mean, that's what I noticed right away. The the energy, the charisma I was talking about, that's light. You're a light bringer.

SPEAKER_02 56:48

Well, I hope that I'm able to bring light to a lot of people because we need it.

SPEAKER_00 56:53

Yes, we do. More than ever. People love to hate right now. It's very sad.

SPEAKER_02 57:01

It is. And what does it bring upon those who hate? What does it bring upon us as a culture? Exhaustion. Exhaustion and work. And by the way, again, going to what you talk about, hate is reactive. Hate is instantaneous, right? You don't sit around, listen to others, and then pause and contemplate and then say, this is why I want to hate. Maybe you do if so you've got other problems.

SPEAKER_00 57:30

Most people hate because they fear being hated. That's so deep. It's the psyche of everything. But what an amazing, incredible. I hope you is that written anywhere? You should write about it.

SPEAKER_02 57:45

Yes. I have a whole book about it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 57:49

Forever, because that's profound and it makes people think, what am I doing with my life? You know. Which is why you probably came up with uh your simple but powerful idea of naming the myth, choosing a hero story, and uh taking one concrete action.

SPEAKER_02 58:12

Oh my god, you're my best friend. Do you remember all that?

SPEAKER_00 58:15

Well, because I watched a lot of those podcasts.

SPEAKER_02 58:18

You're like, I'm saying this in my sleep. Well, you shut up about thank you for that.

SPEAKER_00 58:25

You're welcome. So why is naming the myth so important?

SPEAKER_02 58:31

Naming the myth, first of all, as you said, and we discussed earlier, it forces you to pause. But secondly, it once you name something, you give it an identity. You confront it. You can't run away from it anymore. You can't pretend that it doesn't exist. And once you acknowledge that something exists and you lose the ability to run from it, then your decisions have to change and you have to act differently. It's not just a matter of what you want to do, because by naming it, you've given it life in the universe. It's there, like it or not. So uh that really, although it can be painful and difficult, and the shift, as I'm sure you know, into a different way of being can be pain, can be very, uh, can be very overwhelming and uh make you feel like you don't know where you're gonna go next. Uh shifting actions, shifting behaviors, making different decisions on a day-to-day basis is exactly how people are able to move beyond the things that are keeping them physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually stuck. And stepping into that transcendence, stepping into that and connecting with that, what I call the inner Olympian, uh, that that right, that inner God. It's the hero story. The hero story, which by the way, in Joseph Campbell's framework that it created this whole concept of what we call the hero, I'm not a Cambyllian, but I will say he's right about the idea that the hero story only has meaning if upon the hero's conquest, he actually brings it back to the world with some sort of meaningful action. For me, the action is based on meaningful actions that you take with regards to yourself. But at the end of the day, all of this work is for naught, if it's self-indulgent and also narcissistic, in my opinion, if you're not actually somehow shifting the world around you because of it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:39

Yes, using it. That's my my whole whole mantra is using pain for purpose. Using it.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:45

Like energy, like fuel. Can someone simply decide to live a hero story, or is that something we practice one choice at a time?

unknown 1:00:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:55

You can decide. But you're right. I'm embedded in what you're saying. Decisions don't mean a lot if actions aren't practiced day after day. And you can even take a big dramatic action. Yeah, I always tell people, and I'm sure you do too, when you start making changes, go small. Right? Don't say, I'm going to uh shift my entire career. Some people get these ideas, I'm going to do blah, blah, blah, and then they quit their job without any real plan or with any whatever. Don't do that. How about you start just by maybe meeting some people that are in that job or doing some research about what that job is really like or what that path is really like, and then gradually building yourself up uh up to it. And so you are a hero action by action. You know, Pam, there's a great story about the um Trojan War hero Achilles. He originally um did not want to fight in the Trojan War, and he and his mother arranged for him to basically dress up as a princess and pretend to be a princess on a remote island somewhere because women didn't fight in wars at the time. And by living that false life, he was able to avoid being in the war. Now, eventually, another Trojan War hero named Odysseus, who had been told that the hero who was hidden was necessary for the Greeks to win the Trojan War, went and on this huge search for this hero and came across this quote-unquote princess, who he immediately suspected was not living very authentically. And so Odysseus brought a basket full of gifts to all of the king's princesses and observed their reactions. Now, most of the princesses went for the ball gowns and the tiaras and the heels and all that sort of stuff. But one of them went for some swords and some shields and some helmets that had been hidden with these more princess-like things. And the minute this princess picked up the sword and the shield, suddenly the princess was a foot and a half taller. His skin was crackling, the earth was shaking, the gowns fell off. Light came from his eyes. He had decided to be a hero. But he still had to hold on to that armor and those weapons. He still had to walk to Odysseus's ship. He still had to sail across the ocean. He still had to get off that ship and go to the troops and begin to fight in the war. And he still had to get up day after day after day and engage. And so he would never have been considered a hero at all if he did anything other than what you just talked about a minute ago.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

Yes. And this is so strong in my mind. Hear me out so I can think through it with you. If someone has spent decades living from one story, who are they when that story no longer defines them? I mean, do we ever grieve the identity we're leaving behind, even when it wasn't serving us? Or do you think we're actually afraid of change, or do we fear we won't recognize ourselves on the other side?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:14

I think that you're I think you know the answer to that, because you asked that question so perfectly. But I will say this. Going back to the experience I talked to you about before, although I physically recovered uh after about six months, for a full year afterwards, after that recovery, I was in intense emotional distress. I live, as we mentioned earlier, in New York City. I live near Central Park. And part of what I have loved to do since the pandemic started was just go on walks through random parts of New York City, Central Park or random streets or wherever. And Central Park was my favorite place during this period to walk. And I would walk at night where it was quiet and peaceful. And every night when I would go to that walk, I would burst into tears. And I would find a bench, I remember, and sit and just cry and cry and cry because I was grieving the person that was gone.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:17

Would never be back. That person, he had served me for a long time. He was dead. You're absolutely right. It's wrong and unfair and unreasonable not to grieve. And it's not wrong or unfair or unreasonable to be afraid of what you're going to become. What's dangerous is when you don't see that fear for what it is, the ring of fire for you to jump through so that you can ultimately emerge as that being that passed the test and connects with what's beyond the flame.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:01

I do want to make this point, and it's something I always try to bring out, and it just seems like it gets just skirted to the side. But when we hear an incredible story or conversation that affects us, it impacts us, it makes us think, and then Monday morning arrives, life gets hard again, the old stories show up, old behaviors. How do people begin living from a new story instead of slipping back into the old ones? Because that's what can happen is people say, okay, Monday I'm going to start doing this differently. And Monday gets here and they don't. And or or they've made progress, right? They've made some progress with whatever they're changing to serve them better, but they don't stay there.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:51

They go back to where they were. So maintenance, sustaining your change can be an ever-evolving thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:01

That's the value of coaching, by the way, because that's exactly what paying money to right. So you are sacrificing something for your change as well as setting up a regular recurring meeting with someone who's going to, if they're any good, hold you accountable. Now, I have a client who first saw me a little over six years ago. And he uh runs an antique business here in New York City. And he was not happy where he was at financially or business-wise. He was doing okay. Yeah, but he was not where he needed to be. And he decided he was going to do something about it. And so he decided to, after meeting me at a networking meeting, hire me as his coach. And we tried it for three months initially to see what would happen. And um one of the things that was immediately apparent about him, and then he later told me he realized was something that he really needed, was that someone that he could come back to every week so that he would feel, you know, okay, I didn't do this. Now I have to tell this person that I didn't do this. Right? He wanted the outside perspective, he wanted the bouncing back of ideas, he wanted structure and advice and all of that, but really he also wanted someone to hold him accountable regularly. Six years later, his income has, I want to say, gone up probably twenty-fold. Wow. He owns a second gallery, he's written a book, he has a successful YouTube channel, he is a speaker, right? He I don't know if I mean he bought it, he bought another house, right? He used the coaching system in order to be able to do exactly what you're talking about, make the decisions day to day. You know, we uh used to, he used to, he's the owner of this business. He wouldn't call himself the CEO. One of the first mindset shifts was to get him to call himself a CEO. And in this public testimonial for me, he says this, I'm a CEO now. Imagine this. Me, a CEO. But he had to, and he didn't want to do that. Remember telling him, you are a CEO. Act like it. Start calling yourself that. That makes me sound like I'm somebody important. Well, you are. You are. And and he has over time, right, changed that story by practicing it over and over and over again. Now he'll say, Oh, look, I'm the CEO of this company. I want blah, blah, blah, blah. That's change. That's exhibiting the hero story. This man, in the six years that we have been together, has never once missed a week. He is the only client that I meet when I am on vacation because I know he will not miss it. The only times we've missed have been when I've been sick, like when I was in the hospital and I couldn't do that. But he still, the second I was back, he was ready to go and meet again. So, again, going as to what you're talking about, taking those steps and being realistic. None of us can do it alone. We've all got to have accountability and help.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:20

Yes, I love that because transformation rarely happens in one breakthrough. Sometimes someone helps us understand the story. Sometimes someone helps us rewrite it. And sometimes we simply need someone walking beside us while we practice living it differently until the new story becomes like our norm.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:41

Totally. And spouses can be great. I will say, my spouse loves to point out the areas in which I have not met my commitment. That's one of his hobbies. But not everyone is like that. And sometimes even spouses, even mine, especially him, right, can be blinded by their love for you. They they might not be objective or they may buy into the narrative that you're saying yourself. So having someone, whether it's a coach or whether it's a colleague or whether it's someone in a mastermind group or part of a peer networking group or something like that, who's not who's gonna call you on your uh on your BS for lack of a better word, and say, but you said and not relent, right? It goes exactly as to what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:27

Mm-hmm.

A Concrete Action For Today

SPEAKER_00 1:11:29

If someone listening realizes today, well, I've been living someone else's story, what's a concrete action they can take before tomorrow morning?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:41

A they can scroll back through this podcast and they can listen again to the description of the five toxic myths, the tragic origin, the ritual, the underworld, the doomsday, and the social myth, and say, do any of these apply to me? Or is this do any of these resonate with the story that I'm telling myself? If so, they just write down on a piece of paper this narrative that they're telling themselves is the, and these words, this narrative I've been saying, they repeat what it is, is the XYZ myth, the ritual myth, the social myth, whatever. It is toxic. Once they've written it down, they grab that piece of paper.

unknown 1:12:29

Yeah, tear it up.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:30

You know what I'm going, you know, right? You'll rip it to shreds. And then you say, this is one action step that I'm going to take that is contrary to that story that I'm telling myself. So if your story is that um you you don't believe that you can be a CEO because that was always fancy people who weren't you, a tiny little action step that's contrary to that could be simply pulling up your LinkedIn profile and typing in the letters CEO. Yeah. Right. And then it is. And then it is what it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:06

Right. And even that little tiny step does something. If you guys do that, if you apply that today, you can see what maybe what freedom actually feels like for someone who's finally living their own story. That's what I think. Scott, thank you. One thing I love about your work is that it reminds us our past doesn't have to become our identity. We can choose a different story, y'all. And sometimes that new story begins with a small pause.

Where To Find Scott And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 1:13:41

Before we wrap up, tell everyone where they can connect with you about the podcast, follow your work. Thank you. And learn more about the Mythra.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:53

First of all, they can play this podcast recording over and over again just so they can hear you say that. Right? Really, what else is there to say? But if for whatever reason that pronunciation of it isn't enough for you, go to myfreedomrocks.com. That's myfreedomrocks.com. And there you can go to whatever platform is most convenient or most uh impactful for you and find out more about naming your toxic myths, writing a hero story, and taking action, as well as the role of Greek myth in terms of your ability to transform, move beyond where you at, and uh begin to uh become a leader or a presence in this world that is truly worthy of Mount Olympus.

unknown 1:14:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:39

I hope you'll connect with Scott through the links that I'll put in the show notes. So don't be looking for a pen to write everything down. And if you'd like these conversations to continue beyond the podcast, I'd love, love, love, love to invite you to subscribe to my weekly behind the mic newsletter. And that's where I share reflections, practical takeaways, and behind the scene moments inspired by each episode and especially by each guest. You can subscribe at newsletter.delaythebinge.com. And if you're enjoying Delay the Binge, please take a moment, pause, take a moment to follow the podcast and leave a review. It helps more people discover these conversations and allows us to continue bringing meaningful guests like Scott and practical tools to those who need them most. Remember, you don't have to fix everything today, and you don't have to know the whole road. You only have to pause long enough to ask, what's the next right thing for me today? Until next time, pause, choose, build momentum, finish stronger, and thank you, Scott, so much.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:51

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:54

Welcome. I'll see y'all next week. Hey, it's me, Pam, and before we go, just a quick reminder. Everything we share here is meant to encourage, educate, and get you thinking. But it's not a substitute for professional mental health, medical, legal, financial, or any other licensed advice. I'm simply someone who's walking through life, learning right alongside you. And I'm grateful we get to learn together. Always seek the guidance of a qualified professional for your unique situation. Thanks for spending this time with us. Until next time, remember sometimes the biggest change begins with one small pause. I'll see you on the next episode of Delay the Binge.