Episode 28 - Who Are You Going To Become Now?

What happens when life changes you so completely that you can’t go back to who you were before?

In this episode, I sit down with author Scott Lackey to talk about transformation, identity, and the moments that force us to decide who we’re going to become next.

We talk about the difference between surviving and actually changing, why growth sometimes requires subtraction instead of addition, and why we keep holding onto things we already know are costing us.

Scott is the author of Wake Up to Die Again: Breaking Who You Became So You Can Be Who You’re Meant to Be.

Who are you going to become now?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Most of us think change is about addition, more discipline, better habits, more knowledge, better planning. Sometimes the thing that keeps us from the next version of our lives isn't something that we're missing. It's something that we're still carrying. Something that once protected us. Something we built our identity around. Something that may have helped us survive, but now has actually started keeping us from living. And sometimes something happens that makes it impossible to go back to the person we were only moments before. What happens next? Do we rebuild that person? Do we destroy that person completely? Do we destroy that person completely? Or do we take an honest look at what needs to be released? What needs to grow? And what deserves to be carried forward? Because sometimes life doesn't give us an answer. Sometimes it asks us a very specific question. Who are you going to become now? Welcome to the Man in Motion Podcast, episode 28. Who are you going to become now? I'm Bob. This is a show about what it means to be a man in today's world, navigating real life with strength, purpose, and clarity. No hype, no hacks, no fixing yourself, just awareness, grounded thinking, and choosing direction while you're already in motion. Ever forward. Let's get into it. A couple days ago, I had the privilege of being joined by Mr. Scott Lackey. He's an author of the book called Wake Up to Die Again: Breaking Who You Became So You Can Be Who You're Meant to Be. His book explores transformation through moments in life that change us and the choices that we make afterward. What follows is my conversation with Scott. We have Mr. Scott Lackey, author. Tell me about your book.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Sure, the name of the book is Wake Up to Die Again. And the subtitle is Breaking Who You Became So You Can Be Who You're Meant to Be. There's two sides of the title, Wake Up to Die Again. And Bob, you and I have talked about this, and there are listeners who are going to be in this position, but there are people that we know that wake up every day just to die all over again. Something in their life happened, a lightning strike in their life happened, an event, a series of events that they have just not worked their way through. And I'm talking to them and wake up to die again. But there is another side of that coin, and maybe you're there, and I'm certainly there in my life where I've had my own share of lightning strikes. But to wake up and die again is a beautiful thing for us. And that's because we've learned how to get rid of the things in our life that no longer serve us. We've learned how to create that space so that there's growth in front of us. We can be a better version of ourselves every day. Ultimately, what I write about is transformation. We're all going through some type of transformation. And that's what I write about with true life stories. And what I like to say is that most people think that life did something to them. And I vehemently disagree with that. What my philosophy is and what I write about in the book is that we all live life. But life didn't do anything to us. Life asks us questions. And the actual transformation comes in our life from the answers we give. That's what it's about.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

The idea of these lightning strikes. It's such an uh a visual way. Powerful metaphor. Yes. It's just very visual and very, very strong in how it portrays it. Would you care to share an example of one of these lightning strikes in your life, Scott?

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Well, since you're halfway through the book, I'll go with the one you've read about. One of the big ones you read about. The lightning strike for me was twofold. By the way, not all lightning strikes are bad. Okay. And uh we want to be clear about that with the audience. There are good lightning strikes. And maybe it's worth defining what a lightning strike is, right? In its simplest form. In its simplest form, a lightning strike is an event in our life where the person we were milliseconds ago is no longer there. Can't go back.

unknown 4:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Okay. That's the net of it. So I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you in this one brief story, a positive, very positive lightning strike event and a very negative lightning strike event. In one story. And you'll know exactly which one I picked, Bob. The story goes like this. I was, um, as far as I'm concerned, in my life, given a gift by the Holy Spirit, right? Of an invention, an idea, sitting in a neonatal intensive care unit in Fort Worth, Texas, holding a little baby at nine o'clock at night-ish on a Friday night. And it was for a product that was more of a planted thought, and it was for a childhood health passport. Now the name came later. The thought didn't have the name in it. But I rushed home from the hospital, my job uh at the time, and uh worked all weekend trying to capture this thought before it you know went away. And eventually I turned that product uh into a childhood health passport, and it grew into other products for adults and senior citizens, uh pets and financial health passport, this this product line. And my my wife and I, and even some family members, we invested, certainly my wife and I, we invested everything we had in this product product, and it grew and it did just well enough that private equity took an interest in this and wanted to fund this business plan to really make something out of it on a national or international basis, whatever happened. And they invested $3 million in the company. And that was a lightning strike. And I remember the day, of course, when this happened, you know, we we signed the paperwork and we we uh you know sent it over by a fax machine and waited for the other signed copy to come back and the wire transfer to take place. It was kind of slow and clunky. Uh, but I'll never forget I called the bank back when you could call the bank and I told them who I was and I wanted to check the account. And and they told me the number. And I just hung up the phone and I cried because I couldn't believe I hit the lotto. I I hit the lotto and I invented a product and built something out of it, and we're there. It was amazing, you know, and I can still remember that feeling, uh, that lightning strike, because that's that lightning strike. I say that because the person I was milliseconds before that was no longer this person. I was now a fully funded private equity-founded patented invention. I hit the big time. Right. Right? What a wonderful story. Movies are made about stuff like this, right?

SPEAKER_02 7:23

You know?

SPEAKER_01 7:24

Right. Well, six months later, the same company that and the same investors, the private equity firm that believed in the business plan, uh, we had a uh board meeting. And during that board meeting, they basically said, we're gonna turn right. And myself and the management team said, no, we're gonna go straight. We founded the company, I invented the product, we know what we're doing, you don't. This is what we're doing. And they said, you're fired. Actually, actually, the word they used used, I wrote about this in the book, you're terminated. It's it, I'll never be able to articulate how you feel in that moment, to lose everything. And um, and I mean everything. And not only that, to have to drive home, and of course, I won't get into this detail. There's more to the story that I share about where I stopped on the way there. But anyway, though that's that's a simultaneous high and low of a lightning strike. And I guess I want to go back to how I opened this up with your question, which is life did not happen to me when that happened. That's what we want to say. Life happened to me. No, sir, no, ma'am. Life asked a question. Who are you going to become now, Scott? And my answer to that question for the rest of my life, right? My answer to that question was going to determine who I was going to become next. That's what lightning strikes do.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

So let me let me ask you a question about this then. In those two moments, because you gave two very opposite ends of the spectrum, you got a high end and a low end on your lightning strikes. Great, an amazing event, something most of us would dream about, and then something most of us dread. Correct. In both instances, did you recognize in that moment, or did it take you some time and some distance away from the actual event before you recognized it?

SPEAKER_01 9:18

Great question. Really great question. Because on the good side, where the the the good side never leaves scars. Okay, they leave trophies.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

So in the moment that the funding took place, it was instantaneous. That's ego, pride, all of that comes naturally in the snap of the fingers. But not the lessons. The lessons don't come quickly. And no, I didn't realize it in the moment. I people have asked me on other podcasts, how did you feel in that moment? So that's an easy one. Rage, anger, kill, murder, everything. Everything. Burn the house down, scorched earth. Okay. So no. Uh now, did I intuitively know I'm gonna one day get a lesson out of this? Sure, but I didn't care. I don't want your lesson. Keep your lesson. You stole from me. So it took a couple of years, right approximately. And I'll I'll I'll uh I'll give you the quick answer is because I did, by the way, argue a lot with God about this, and I wanted to know why. Why would you give me an idea and then take it or destroy it? Why would you do that? And I I just you know wrestled and wrestled and wrestled with that, and then um, I don't remember what day it happened, but I remember the event significantly. And the event was um one day arguing with God, he gave me a word, and he said stewardship. I go, what the crap are you talking about, stewardship? And then I was like, wait a minute, it started like to settle, or maybe it was like a buoy coming to the surface, you know, yeah, and it came to the surface and I could see it. I was like, oh my God, stewardship. If you gave me the idea, it was stewardship, not ownership, and I was treating this like ownership. Yeah, and once I knew it was about stewardship and not ownership, Bob, I this peace came over me, man, and I was totally good with it.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

You know, that that's an interesting thought, Scott. What is because we we've all gone through hard times and survived them. But we don't necessarily change from them. Correct. What would you say the difference between just surviving hard times versus allowing hard times to transform us?

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Yeah, I'm gonna give you that an answer in a sentence. It's what you carry forward. That's my opinion. You ask me a question, that's my opinion. The difference is what you carry forward. And I write about this, and what I write about is uh, well, in this this particular story I write about is that the world taught us that everything is about addition. Add a house, add a car, add family, add friends, add job, add titles, add money, add, add, add, add, add, add, add. And the more you add eventually, through that addition, you're going to be happy, thankful, uh, joyful, grateful, faithful, all these things through addition. And through the deeper you get into my book, and you've already gotten deep enough into it, you're like, man, Scott keeps losing crap.

unknown 12:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

Why isn't this guy laying on the ground like a shriveled up? Like, I give up, I quit. Right? And because another lesson I learned in all of these trials and tribulations is it wasn't about addition, it was always about subtraction. What am I willing to let go so that moving forward can be fulfilled or filled with who I'm supposed to be? The subtitle of my book. So that's the longer answer of you move forward. Is the pain still there sometimes? You know, there's other things in my life that have happened that does sometimes that pain come back. I wouldn't call it pain, it's a scar. But when I touch that scar mentally, metaphysically, when I touch the scar, do I feel the discomfort? Of course I do. It's a scar. Okay? So so that the scar is the scar is what goes forward, okay, in my opinion. But we shouldn't carry that pain forward. We shouldn't carry that weight forward. That weight wasn't meant to go forward with us. It wasn't. It was meant to teach us a lesson. And the sooner we adopt that lesson and let go, then that's what opens up the space to be who you're supposed to be. And I hope that answers the question as best I can. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:59

So but I think that's a great segue into something that you uh you you an idea you introduced. It's called the principle of exchange. That's it. Tell me about that, explain that.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Yeah. So that that is, I just loosely went through that, which is giving up, giving up something that was not meant to be carried forward. So you can be who you're meant to be. Okay? You're exchanging. The principle is that there are things in your life right now, and we all know what they are. We just hold on to them, man. We hold on to them because we think we're gonna lose something, that we're not gonna get something. We're gonna there's something, there's there's great fear of subtraction. What happens if I let go? And that's the principle of exchange, is that there are things in your life that you need to are required to let go of to open up the space to receive the things that you've been wanting.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

You know, it's it's funny because you mentioned space, and I'm I'm a big one on teaching um awareness. Yep. Um, and and and these two ideas kind of go hand in hand where awareness itself sometimes helps create that space. That's correct. It lets you step outside and actually look at what's going on and look at it.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

You become an observer.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Yes, observing yourself in your life and and everything that's going on in your head and and identifying this is helping, this is this is not. Right. So this this is a you know, they're very complimentary ideas. The one thing I wanted to ask though is this idea that it has to, you know, we're using the word die, right? It's very dramatic, it's very powerful, evokes a certain image. But taking something and allowing it, something that used to be a a survival mechanism or something that would help you, yeah, that just stuck around too long, yeah, allowing them to grow. I mean, does that does that fit into that same idea? I mean, do you have to physically like say I'm I'm squashing this and moving to this, or can you transition? Is it is it a an A-B situation or is it growth?

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Yeah, so well the uh uh I think I'm gonna I'm gonna let me say this in a different way and tell me if I understand what you're asking. Is Scott, can there be, can the transformation be through a series of gradients, a process, or does it have to be you just cut it off? Is it an either or or is it both? That was your question, right? Yes, sir. Okay, the answer is both. Right? It it is it is, but it depends on what the issue is. So I can only give you my answer for me. There are things in my life that I know I need to work on transitioning out of, right? It's it's unhealthy, probably physically, mentally, to just cut things off. Okay. And I can, you know, and it may be a relationship, to be honest with you. There can be relationships that you're in that are not healthy that you need to transition out of. And I'm not talking about divorce, okay? I'm just talking about unhealthy relationships. And you need to transition away from those. There can be relationships that just need to be cut off. Okay, so that would be that would be an example I would give you of transition versus cutoff. Okay. Now let me talk about one personally. Under the wake up to die again theme. Okay. I've said to people before, um, people that I haven't met for a long long time, I haven't seen for a very long time, and they talked about the way I used to be. And I listened, and I've said to them, that person, I killed that person. That person's dead. He's he's gone. He doesn't exist anymore. And I mean that, you know, literally slash, I'm sorry, I mean that figuratively, but internally, uh, no, I got rid of that person because I don't like that. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Yeah. It's it's funny. I I often say to people the same thing that if you had met me five years ago, the man I was five years ago wouldn't recognize the man I am today.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

Yeah. And so so so in one breath, you have transformed where you are today. But in that transformation, this is my belief, may not be yours, but in my in that transformation, you have picked things to to get rid of to kill. So you've done both.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Yes. Yes. Yeah. So these these things that we want to hold on to. Why? Why do we do that to ourselves?

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Man, what a what a deep question. Yeah. I'm gonna give you some. I can only answer this through my own lens. And my my lens is that it's the fear of loss, it's the fear of the unknown. We we I don't know what it is about us. I I wrestle with this all the time. I don't know what it is about us that thinks that holding on to the past or holding on to anger or not forgiving ourselves, right? Whatever it is, holding on to that so strongly has less risk, less risk, and less consequences than letting it go to become something new, to live in the fruits of the spirits. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, self-control, right? To give up things to get to that place. We we we look at that, we go, yeah, it just can't be that good. Right. And we're dead wrong. Yeah, we undervalue the consequences constantly, and we overvalue the risk constantly, and it keeps us where we are, and it's a miscalculation. So that's the my personal answer to why we do that, is because it's like we think, you know, I know smoking's bad. I used to smoke, loved it. I know smoking's bad, but yeah, you know, it's just a little bit. I just I just do it when I'm drinking. You know, we we come up with these, we the we line ourselves with these rationales, and it's gonna be okay. And then no, it's not okay. Yeah, and it's gonna catch you. And when it catches you, it's gonna be a lightning strike, and it may be a diagnosis, maybe an accident, maybe an arrest. Who knows? See what I'm saying? We undervalue the risk. And and so that's my I mean, there's other answers to it, but that's one that I wrestle with, and uh, and I try to call it like it is, spade a spade, and make decisions.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Hmm. Well, I think there's a lot to think on here, Scott. I think uh I think there's a lot in there. I'm enjoying your book. Uh where where can they find your book? Where can my listeners find your book if they want it?

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Sure. Amazon.com is the most common place. People find it wake up to die again. It's now on Barnes and Noble or other uh Ingram Spark uh locations. Um so if you type in the title Wake Up to Die Again in Scott Wackey, uh it'll come up. And uh yeah, strongly uh encourage people to, if you're looking for a transformation in your life, I'm not giving you the seven steps to get there. I don't believe in that nonsense.

unknown 21:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Yeah, I'm not a big one for telling do XYZ and you'll transform your life. It's it's never that simple, it's never that easy.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

You're not gonna find it, and you're not gonna find it in my book. Um, but what you are going to find, if you're looking for a transformation, you're going to find another human being on this planet, me, that spends 24 chapters publicly destroying myself so that you, right? And I don't mean that in the negative way. No. Um but but you're not going to read this thing and me tout how I got it all figured out and I'm a champion and you too can be a champion. That ain't not what you're going to read. Am I right, Bob?

SPEAKER_00 21:48

No, you're absolutely right. And it's that's one of the things that attracted me to you to have you as a guest, is because I'm very much open about my flaws and my problems, and I get it wrong as much as I get it right, and it's a process, and we're all growing, we're all moving towards where we're supposed to be.

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Yeah, and I'm really proud of that because that's what makes for good conversations. That's what makes for good relationships, that's what makes for authenticity, that's what makes for transformation. We're all looking for a transformation. We want to be a better version of ourselves. And so Amazon.com, uh, or if you wanted a special sign copy, I've had some people ask for that. You can go to my website, and um, I've had some people ask for a uh some special notes to send to a friend, you know, and I've done that for them. So and what is your website? Uh it's my name, ScottLackey.com. Scott Lackey.com. Yeah. Well, one last thing. I would love to re-catch up with you after you finish the book, man. I'd like to learn from you. Oh, absolutely. I would love to. I would love to.

SPEAKER_00 22:43

All right. Well, thank you for coming in today, Scott. I appreciate your time. Bob, the feeling is mutual. Thanks for the invitation. That was my conversation with Scott Lackey. You know, there's there's one idea from that conversation that I just I keep coming back to. The difference between surviving something and being transformed by it is what we choose to carry forward. Every experience leaves behind something. A scar, a lesson, a belief, or a way of protecting ourselves that is necessary in the moment. But sometimes the hardest part of change isn't figuring out what we need to add. It's deciding what still belongs. Now, I I respect Scott a lot, and a lot of what Scott says I agree with, especially the part about letting go of what no longer serves us. Some habits, beliefs, relationships, and and even these methods of protecting ourselves that need to end. But the part of us that built them, I don't know that I agree needs to be destroyed. Sometimes that part just needs to be recognized, it needs to be understood, and and to be told, hey, you're not running the show anymore. But none of that can happen until we're willing to look honestly at what we're protecting, why we're protecting it, and what continuing to hold on to that is costing us. Because life is going to answer the question either way who are you going to become now? That's it for today. Take what's useful, leave what's not. Choose and keep moving.