Shannon Interviews the Author of The Generosity of Scars - Scott Mann

Shannon interviews the author of The Generosity of Scars, Scott Mann.  It is the second book of his trillogy of tomes.  

The Generosity of Scars is for anyone who has struggled and wants to put their lived struggle to work in the service of others through authentic storytelling.
 
This book, the second in his leadership trilogy, is different than most books about crafting stories. It is forged from high-stakes arenas in Scott Mann's three decade body of work, ranging from his time as a Green Beret in combat zones in Afghanistan, to TED stages, to theatrical productions about war, to corporate keynotes, to congressional testimony, to raising millions for non-profits—and all points in between.

Other Books:

Nobody is Coming to Save You

Operation Pineapple express

Transcript

0:08

Well, welcome back, folks, to another episode of the Bookworm Mom. I'm Shannon Grady, and my producer here, Trip, is with me, and we're super excited today to welcome someone that I am seriously humbled and honored to have on. This gentleman almost needs no recog uh recognition whatsoever, or not recognition, you you would know him. Uh, Scott Mann, uh Lieutenant Colonel, retired, you know, global war on terror veteran. Um, Green Beret has been deployed all over the world. Um very, very recognizable. Josh did amazing things because he doesn't have enough going on in his life. He goes out and says, you know what, I think I'm gonna become a playwright because nothing says playwright like being a green beret. So, you know, he goes out, he doesn't just write one, he writes two. And he doesn't just write a playwright that you put on in a high school production. He actually gets Gary Tanisi to somehow get involved with him. I mean, incredible, uh, just miraculous guy. And then he says, you know what, in my spare time, I think I'm gonna write some books. So and I'm gonna find the Marine and start a black ballet. That's right. That's right there. So then he writes some books, and then he says, you know what, I'm still not doing enough to let me create this academy where I can teach people and pour into them the knowledge that's been poured into me. Incredible. Still not done. You know, 2021 rolls around August. We have utter chaos uh going on over in Afghanistan. Our allies are just being left and you know, heinous things are happening. Once again, now he's a civilian. He says, let me step into the gap one more time and rally some of the veterans and some of the other folks and get our allies out of there. So, I mean, I can't say enough about the tremendous work that he's done. But his latest work, I think, might almost be the pinnacle, but I know that this is only the second book in the trilogy. Um, so today I am gonna be excited to talk about his latest book. It's entitled The Generosity of Scars. And folks, let me tell you what Scott does here. He says, Listen, if you think you don't have a story to tell, you're wrong. If there's something that happened to you or that you went through that you think nobody wants to hear about that, nobody can learn from that experience. Scott's gonna share with you why that's not true, why your scars can actually help somebody else. And he he even talks about how if your wound is still raw, well, you you can't really you can't yet teach from that perspective, because I think Scott, you would agree that's that's a moment we you're still going through the uh the tr the trauma of getting it healed. So uh anyway, uh I Scott, I I thank you again so much for being on, and I I'm just excited about this, and your book is fantastic. Um so you know, just first question, you know, what ex what inspired the title Generosita's cards? What made you come? Oh, here's the title. This is what I want to write about. Oh well, first of all, thank you for that wonderful introduction, Shannon. That means more than you know. And um I I I always, you know, at 57, I try to just every day I try to just be Rex and I need a man's son. And if I can do that, uh, you know, that's that's uh that's a good day. Um sloth either. He was not. He was uh he's a big reason, you know, for this this trilogy of books and for most of the things I do in my life. He he taught me. But the the generosity of scars, um, I have to give uh some props of that title. I guess one would be to my dear friend and mentor Bo Eason, who uh is a former NFL football player, turned playwright, turned actor, and really just showed me uh in a very dark period in my life that you can transition from that thing that was your passion, and you can even take the things that happened to you in that transition and you can turn them into rocket fuel. And and he modeled that for me, and I'll always be grateful to him for it, and he still does. Uh and he always taught Bo always talked about, you know, he when he was uh acting, uh his one of his coaches, a guy named Larry Moss, who who also trained me to some degree, would always say that generosity was critical, giving all of oneself uh in the performance of your story. And and I just love that I love that title because it made sense to me, but it felt incomplete uh a bit in the sense that what what storytelling really makes storytelling so powerful is I started to study it on the other side of my mental health challenge and suicidal ideation in 2015 after getting out was I learned that our brain has a mandate to make sense of the world and it's always trying to make sense of things. And and the way it makes sense of things is it uses uh it got it's kind of a struggle to resolution model. So, you know, we start in struggle and then we gradually move our way through that struggle towards a new goal, and maybe we achieve it, maybe we don't, but along the way we learn things and we change, and that is the gold, right? But that goal can only be served uh with generosity if it is on the heels of the struggle that you went through to get there, because that's what makes you relatable, that's what accelerates trust. And so it seemed to me that if I told the story of my suicidal ideation and how through that I found storytelling and human connection as a pathway to higher ground, then that is being generous with a scar. And and and I'm not alone in that. There's everybody has scars or struggles that could be repurposed into stories that serve others, and that's really where the title came from. Absolutely. You know, Scott, I it kind of makes me think back in my time uh as an educator, particularly working in the Christian private schools, um, and I was often called upon to get up and give what we call our testimony. And so I think sometimes testimonies very much correlate to what you're calling generosity of scars, because a testimony is where you've gone through a struggle and you've been led through the wilderness, so to speak. Um, so you know, I I understand this is a trilogy. So, you know, tell us how does the generosity of scars, how does that build upon the concepts from your first book uh in rooftop leadership? Well, yeah, so the first book uh is about rooftop leadership and the the enemy of human connection called the churn. Uh and rooftop leadership is all about, you know, leveraging our old school interpersonal skills and purpose for human connection to move others onto the rooftops like Green Berets would do in Afghanistan with with village elders and tribal leaders. They would build social capital and rapport when risk was low, and then they would leverage that when the stakes were high, and people would go up to the rooftop and fight. And I started calling that rooftop leadership. And the the the the title of the first book in the trilogy is actually nobody's coming to save you because it's not a doom and gloom book. It's actually a very hopeful book. But what it what it starts with is this realization that much like the Green Berets that I served with, is you have to realize that if you're waiting for someone to come riding over the hill on a white stallion to save the day, you're deluded. You know, uh nowhere and no time in our history have have we ever been saved like that, you know, uh at least on the human level. Right. Um, you know, there's there's we all have to exercise agency in our life, and we have everything we need. Uh we have the gifts endowed from our maker. Uh we have everything we need uh to to lead, to connect, to move through the churn, but nobody's coming to save you. So you've got to take action on your own, and it's a bottom-up kind of approach. So that's book one. It lays out the rooftop methodology and the human operating system and the iceberg and uh the fact that we're meaning-seeking, emotional, social storytellers who struggle, and that if you tap into that, you've got a real competitive advantage in how you're relatable to others and relatable and relevant to their goals. Then the second book is The Generosity of Scars, and that is that is a true field guide for how to use what I call narrative competence, basically the use of purposeful storytelling in real time to meet your goals, and in particular, the struggle to resolution aspect of storytelling, which is repurposing one's scars into stories that serve others. Um and then finally, um, is leaving tracks. And this one is a uh is a really it's the it's the it's the end of the trilogy, it's all about purpose and legacy. I co-wrote it with my dad, Rex, before he died, The Woodsman. Wow, that's awesome. And it's and it's gonna be about you know what he always talked about is this idea of leaving tracks in the world as we move through life and the legacy that we leave, and these indelible impressions that serve other people, and nobody modeled that better than my dad. Uh, and so I think it's only fitting that that's how we wrap up the trilogy on leadership with purpose and legacy. You know, it's funny. I actually had that shirt uh laid out, uh leaving tracks. I purchased that, and that was what I was gonna wear today. But you can complete you and Monty both can completely relate to this. We're in the middle of a PCS move, and somehow that shirt did not make it into the apol that I needed, so it's packed. But uh okay. That's very cool. Well, no worries because I've got mine and Baba's got his in the office today. So we're we're representing anyway. So you yeah, you're absolutely representing it. Yeah, for sure. So, you know, you you talk about that narrative competence, and I think I think you're right about that. And your book does such a great job of laying out kind of a step-by-step process of this is how you do it, this is what it should look like. But I know I'm sure you're encountering this, or you are going to encounter this more often, that there are going to be a lot of leaders who say, Yeah, you know, being vulnerable, that's gonna make me look weak, and I don't want my employees to think that I'm this weak vessel. So, you know, how do you show them that line between strategic and generous vulnerability and, you know, then oversharing? Well, let me offer that's a great question. So let me offer a few thoughts on this that might help reframe the whole discussion. Because remember, I'm coming at vulnerability um as a former Green Beret, and I certainly can appreciate the fact that in that line of work, if you were vulnerable just for the sake of being vulnerable, um, that's a good way to get your jugular cut, you know, and and and and and in corporate America and in today's world, um, it's not untrue there either, is it? Like so let's just offer some different thoughts on vulnerability that I talk about in the book that are actually far more um aligned with our human operating system and our biological reality than what the modern world has taught us vulnerability is. I don't believe like Brene Brown's version of vulnerability, while I respect the heck out of her, I don't necessarily subscribe to this idea of like going up on stage and basically just being vulnerable for the sake of being vulnerable. I don't I don't I think it's it's bordering on performative. Yeah, have a good crack, everybody. Yeah, it's I don't think it necessarily is what we're designed to do as humans. You know, one of the best definitions I got for vulnerability, Shannon, was from an acting coach of mine, Carl Bury, who before a performance that I was doing, I think it was at Fort Bragg, I was very nervous, and you know, because it was all Green Berets out there, and he said, Scott, do you know what the definition of vulnerability is in theater? And I said, No. He goes, Not not knowing what's about to happen and stepping onto the stage anyway. Wow, that's good. And I thought, okay, I like that. Like I get that, like that's true vulnerability. And then, you know, Daniel Coyle in Culture Code, he talks about, you know, leaders who uh in the SEAL teams who signaled vulnerability in combat, which is exactly that definition. They didn't know what was going on necessarily or what was going to happen next, yet they stepped into the arena anyway, and they and they and they took the armor off with their guys to some degree to let that to let that be known. They didn't try to be this impervious, you know, uh machine that like because no one, it's not believable. And then the fact that's no human connection. Right. The final thing I'll say about vulnerability is this is if you have a hard time with the V-word, perhaps adapt it from vulnerability to relatability. And here's what I mean. That's good. Humans are the most social creatures on earth. We don't have fur fangs or claws, right? But yet we sit on top of the food chain. Why? Because we're better at forming teams and partners than any other mammal on the planet, any creature on the planet, we are good at building relationships. That's our superpower, right? So relatability is everything. And what I have found, if you will just let relatability be your intention when you're communicating to your teenager after they've been bullied on Instagram, or when you're having a conversation with a brand new associate, or you're talking to your team at an all hands meeting, be relatable and vulnerability will come alongside you in the totally appropriate way. That's fantastic. Uh yeah, great answer. You know, but I also think that there are people out there who they don't understand what the connection means. And so when you're talking to folks who are in the corporate world, or maybe they're entrepreneurs or they're in community leadership or even politics, you know, how do they apply the principles in your book so that they can bridge those divides and create those deeper connections that actually have meaning, uh, especially in this world that's increasingly distracted and polarized. You know, what are some things that people can do? How can they apply the book's principles to do that? You know, that's a great question too. And in my first two books, The Nobody's Coming to Save You Book and The Generosity of Scars book, I start with foundations, right? I believe we have to get back to our human nature. We have to understand, and I use the iceberg as the metaphor, the tip of the iceberg is the modern world, and that's where we live, work, and play. It's everything that we do every day. It's all of the cash flow reports, it's getting the kids to school on time, but it's also um the post-COVID hangover, it's all of the uh 24-7 news craziness that's out there, the social media tribal dynamics that you see, it's all of that. Yeah. And it's very easy to convince ourselves that, okay, you know, that's the only world that there is, is this modern, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Below the waterline, you know, the part of the iceberg that sunk the Titanic is the part you cannot see. And that's 80% of our human nature. That's the older, more ancient part of our tribal primal mindset. And down there lives a meaning-seeking, emotional, social storyteller who struggles. And 80% of our humanity is still that. That is still our human operating system. And so if you don't understand and appreciate, as a leader, as a parent, as a coach, that you are meaning-seeking, meaning assigning, that the person across from you is an emotional uh creature that needs emotional resonance, emotional access to even come along with you, that they're social in every aspect, that we only operate off social capital. Um if you don't understand um that that we're storytellers and that our brain has a mandate to make sense of the world and it does it through story, and that struggle is a biological necessity. We all struggle. We're either in it, we just left it, or we're going back into it, um that then you're leaving all this value on the table. So, to your question, you've got to have a deeper appreciation for our human nature and what's below the waterline of that human operating system. And what's below is meaning, emotion, social connection, storytelling, and struggle. And we need to get better at all of those. Absolutely. You know, it's funny, folks. If you really want to dive a little bit deeper into what Scott's talking about with the book, I cannot encourage you enough to get into his school of rooftop leadership because I know there's a lesson in particular that I signed up for in which you literally talk about that iceberg and you talk about how we need to address, as you know, that 80% that's below the waterline, because the tip of the iceberg is not what's dangerous, it's what's underneath. That's the kind of the unseen of the phone. And you know what, you know what, Shannon, to that point, I appreciate you saying that, but I started the School of Rooftop Leadership because my mission is to is to is to qualify, train, empower 10 million rooftop leaders in 10 years, because I believe that's what it's going to take to move up move us off the cliff and leave our kids a better world than what we found. Um and and this means having deeper, more profound uh purpose, better human connection skills, and more narrative competence. And and at School of Rooftop Leader, you go to school, S-K-O-O-L, it's totally free. You can register for free. Um, and then the the the School of Rooftop Leadership is free. And we are a community of about 350 people now, all with this like-minded uh appreciation for deeper human connection, and nobody's coming to say if you get the book, there's a 30-day challenge that goes along with it that's totally free. It's only found on School of Rooftop Leadership. And then Generosia Scars, when you're done with that, pick that up. There's a seven-day scar story challenge, totally free, real high production quality. Like, you're not going to find courses like this that are completely free. Yes. Um, you know, and and there's a great community in there that will weigh in with you, that will collaborate with you peer-to-peer. I mean, if you truly look around your world and your community today and you're like, I don't like what I'm seeing, I don't like where this is going, it feels wrong. Then you need to get in that community you just talked about because there's a lot of people in there that feel the same way. Yeah, and listeners, I gotta be honest with you, full disclosure, I've been in the that community now for well over a year, and um I love it. And there's been some times I've had to kind of step away because of life, but it never fails. It the moment I step back in, it's like I never left. I can make those connections, they just spark right back up again. And it's just such a great uh and I I'm an old school teacher, I'm a retired teacher, so I absolutely want to be one of those folks you're talking about, going out and kind of spreading the good, the good word, if you will. Yeah. So I'm excited, I'm excited about it. Now you mentioned it earlier, talking about the churn, and that's that's probably one of the most powerful ideas that that you your book puts in there is that these scars help folks to rise above that churn, and boy is it churn right now. Here in South Carolina, we are we're in the political fight of the you know many people's lives is the race for governor, the race for U.S. Senate, etc. So, you know, in a world sky that's that's dominated literally by short attention spans, that's where you get TikTok videos, they're just brief, and and all the superficial content, you know, how can someone make their scar story break through all that noise and create a lasting impact? I think, okay, so here's here's where I flip it a little bit. I first of all, as far as your scar story goes, there's so much noise right now, um, Shannon, that I, you know, how do you how do you raise your voice above the den and in an authentic way above and so that to a frequency that is heard, right? One of the first things that I found in Special Forces that I think is very replicable in the churn that we live in here at home is to to is it's not necessarily the stories you tell in the beginning, it's the stories you ask to hear. Right? So if you want to bring the emotional temperature down in a room, if you want to bring the emotional temperature down on social media or wherever, is to try to see the pictures in the head of the other person, to try to see the pictures in the head of the other party, the pictures in the head of the Democrat, the Republican across from you, the person that disagrees with your position on immigration, the person that um just disagrees with you in for some reason that you don't even know. Um and the way to do that is to ask thoughtful, open-ended questions that let them respond in story. Questions that, as uh Chris Voss says and never split the difference, uh, calibrated questions, questions that start with what and how. Um, you know, what's going on? How did we get here? What do you think we should do next? What's your take on this? Uh, how do you think we need to proceed from here? What do I need to do about this? You know, just those questions like that, and then uh and then okay, a follow-up question. What do you mean by that? Can you go deeper on that? No one does this anymore. And then listen like your life depends on it. Yes. Let them respond in story. And what you're listening for specifically are the goals and the pain, because that's how we navigate the world. We navigate the world on goals because goals are manifestations of meaning, and we have a mandate to seek meaning and assign meaning in our lives. Goals are how that manifests, and pain are simply the obstacles that are in the way of our goals. So, as a leader, I want to be relevant to goals and relatable to pain. And if I'm not relevant to the pain and relatable to the pain and relevant to the goals of my teenager as he's dealing with addiction, then what am I doing? Right. Like, really, am I gonna just tell him as you know, am I gonna tell them how it needs to be or prescribe the move they need to make? Like that's unwatchable. People shut you out. So my point is use questionology in the beginning that let the other party tell you their story, and then when you think you've got it, reframe it to them. And if they say something like, That's right, yeah, that's it, then hey, would it be okay if I share with you my position on this? And then you tell your story. And that story should be a scar story, a story that's rooted in struggle or a pivotal moment that uh that you went through and that makes you relatable to this other person, and then talk about how you changed and what you learned. And guess what will happen at the end of that? You'll probably have shared perspective with that other person, and that's a pretty good place to start. Yeah, you know, uh so many times we, and I include myself in this, we have this bad habit of we ask the question. Well, we don't ask the question because we intend to listen to the answer. We ask the question because there's something that we want to follow up with. We don't care what you really say. We've already determined what whatever your response is, we have a response to it. And you know, I've I I'm sure you've heard this as well. Um my pastor used to always say, There's a reason God gave us one mouth and two ears because we should be listening more than we're speaking. So, you know, it's important that you, as you said, ask those questions, the how, the why, and and then ask those follow-up questions and then listen. And I think a lot of us have a bad habit of not replaying back if we lack understanding about something that was said, rather than just assuming what they meant and responding to that assumption, we need to go back and say, hey, could you clarify what you meant by that? Um that's spot on, Scott. Great advice. Yeah, yeah. And you know, we can do it without letting our emotional temperature go into the red. That's the other thing, is that we have to, you know, we have to manage our own energy. You have to put your own oxygen mask on first because all of us, Shannon, today are operating in an elevated state of a of our nervous system where we're in a sympathetic state almost, or near a sympathetic state of fight, flat, or freeze all the time, and we don't even realize it. Um, you know, we're we're and the other party is as well. So a lot of times when we hear something, we we you know we click right into it. To the red on the thermometer, and our amygdala shuts down. We experience what Jonathan D. Smith calls an amygdala hijack, and we surrender our agency. And our brain goes within a hyperdrive and it it ties into those neural story maps of things in the past where people took advantage of us or this person said that, and all of a sudden we've become tribal. You know, we've become we've become so primal in our response that we're now demonstrating in-group-out-group behavior. And it's one of the most dangerous things we can do as leaders in a so in a liberal democracy. It's one of the most, it's one of the most irresponsible, dangerous. It puts us in a trance state, as Dr. Ivan Kierrell says. It makes us stupid. And so we have to reclaim our agency, and the way we do that is by managing our own emotional temperature, putting our own emotional mask on, our oxygen mask on first, and usually three to five, walk away from it, three to five diaphragmatic breath, feel your feet on the floor, say, I have time three times, and then step in and engage with questions, and you'll be fine. Yeah, you know, I think one of the um saddest things about Charlie Kirk's death is that he had that down to a science, his ability to really take something. I mean, people are really all but spitting in his face, and he could just keep that level of emotional, you know, red down. It was impressive. Um and that's what we need more of that. That needs to be grown. And that's what he was doing Turning Point USA. And I know that's what you're trying to do with your organization as well. So, Scott, you know, looking ahead, what do you there's so many takeaways from this book. But if you had to say, what's the biggest actionable lesson that you want folks to take away from the generosity of scars, what do you think that would be? The the world is hurting right now. Um, we are losing the uh let me let me just I'll tell you here's the lesson right here. I'll I'll I'll give you the lesson that I think is one of the most powerful quotes. I found it in the book, and it just it just stopped my clock. And so I just want to I'll just share it with you by Walter Benjamin. And it says the art of storytelling is coming to an end. It is as if something that seemed inalienable to us, the securest among our possessions, were taken from us. The ability to exchange experiences. One reason for this phenomenon is obvious. Experience has fallen in value, and it looks as if it is continuing to fall into the bottomlessness. The world needs to hear from you. They need to, your struggles, what you went through, your scar, the things that you're reluctant to tell others, the things that you're hesitant to tell yourself, those are the very things that someone else across from you is going through right now. Your client, your prospect, your employee, your child, and they're and they've never felt more alone, they've never felt more disassociated from the world, they've never been more in their phone and disconnected from the natural world. And the only thing that can pull them back oftentimes is a leader who has the generosity to share their own scar in the service of someone else, to let them know that they're not alone, that they've been through it too, and that it's gonna be alright, and that there's a pathway forward. And that's it. And and it is hard, it is scary. You can't, the instinct is not enough. You need to train on it, you need to train on how you design and deliver those kinds of stories in the time of churn, or you'll just get swallowed by the noise. Um, but if you train on it and you can take this book, you can self-implement it, and you can put stories into the world, whether it's presentations that work, TED Talks, or even just coaching your travel ball team, uh be generous with your scars because the world, the world needs what you've got. Absolutely. Well, Scott, I um I don't know what else you got coming. I mean, I know you've got the the third third book in the trilogy, but I'm not sure what else you can put on your plate. But I hope, you know, a little pencil note here. Uh we are PCS back out to Hawaii Hawaii, and I know I mentioned this to Monty in the emails. I'm gonna do everything I can to get you out there because there are a lot of veterans out there. We have every branch of services located out uh on Oahu. And so if there's any way possible that I can get you out there uh to do your 11 days especially, I think that'll be really impactful. We would love to. We would love to. And let me know. Uh, you know, it travels pretty easy, Shannon. And uh, for anybody that's interested, 11 days is try is touring right now. If you go to tfineapple.org, all the travel dates are there. Yeah, I think uh I'm gonna I was gonna try to make the one in Virginia. I believe it's on the 18th. Is that correct? On June 18th? Yeah, if you do, let me know. Let me know, please. Yeah, my um that's gonna be my birthday present to myself. So uh my husband and our son flew out literally this morning, dropped them off at the airport, they're heading on back to Hawaii. So I thought, hey, I'm free. Uh household goods should be picked up, and I essentially should have no encumbrances. So I'm gonna do my best to make my way to that event. I'd really love to see it. So fingers crossed, I get there. Yeah, fingers crossed. If you are coming, uh let me know, and I'll make sure Carrie gets you. She could right up there with our crew. Outstanding. I will I will certainly reach out and let her know that. Uh, Scott, thank you so much, folks. I mean, if you haven't had the chance to pick up the book yet, don't wait. Rush out, you can get it. You know, we'll include the link in the uh the comment section here. The generosity of scars, how your stories of struggle can change lives, especially your own, by Scott Mann. Uh, Scott, thank you so much again. God bless, Godspeed, and I can't wait to see what comes next. Thank you so much, Shannon. You have a great one. Well, thank you so much, Scott. And this has been another wonderful episode of The Bookworm Mom. And I just wanted to remind our listeners that this June is our month that we are hanging out with 10 cups in our hands for Project 2027 campaign. So go to LibertyCrackmedia.com backslash project dash 2027, or if you're like me, just go find the menu and hit that Project 2027 uh page and uh see if you can read, see if you like what you uh see, and then hit that donate button. Um and I want to remind people that on Flag Day, this Sunday on the not this Sunday, but the coming Sunday, June 14th, uh from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., we're gonna have like a little mini marathon. It's gonna be a a YouTube presentation that we're going to have that's going to be live for everyone to entertain themselves, have some fun, and uh show you all the efforts of our fundraising. So, once again, thank you everybody and uh enjoy another episode of the bookworm.