The Billion Dollar Man Behind Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande & Demi Lovato | Scooter Braun

they always used to say like oh this machine got behind this kid I was broke at that point my 13 months window of I'm going to risk everything and sign these two artist I was at month 11 I was done the manager behind Superstars like Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber and over the next 15 years he would become the most successful manager in music entrepreneur entertainment Mogul investor philanthropist Time Magazine top 100 most influential people in the world the one the only scooter Brock you are going to have an arc in your story I don't

care how good your product is how good you are whatever you're building everyone's going to have that moment of Crisis but a really long-term sustainable business needs a Founder who can pivot and navigate the tough moments and there are nights along your journey where you have cried yourself to sleep when everyone in the world thinks that you're crushing it before we dive in I want to extend a warm invitation to join our thriving founder Community it's the perfect place to discover more insightful interviews aimed at help helping you build grow and scale your business so

don't forget to hit subscribe your support means the absolute world to us thank you so much for subscribing let's get stuck in today's discussion hear the stories learn The Proven methods and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship welcome to the founder podcast with Nathan [Music] Chan the first question we ask everyone that comes on is how did did you get your job AKA how did you find yourself doing the work you're doing today it's a long story um I I think when I was younger I was like I want to be an NBA basketball

player um and then um my physical um god-given abilities just weren't made for the NBA uh being 5'1 just it it wasn't going to work out that way um and then I thought maybe I'd go into law politics or you know who knows like I wanted to you know be a comedian at one point like all these different things but I found myself uh in Atlanta Georgia going to emry University and I chose a university I realized out far away from home because I wanted to create a new identity for myself I had a really

great High School experience um but I just wanted to be on my own away from my father away from my mother just kind of be my own man and I went by my nickname scooter for the first time in my life full-time when I arrived at University and uh um I found myself just wanting to make some money because I was broke and all these kids at University had money so I originally sold fake IDs to uh make a little extra cash um and then I realized that I could throw parties so I started throwing

parties um and I was the kid with the high school girlfriend who could dance a little bit you know cute enough so the girls were like oh go to this party and I became a very big party from about very quickly um and uh my someone gave me a book called the operator um about David geffin he's not a fan of the book but it it's very inspiring book and I read about a guy who is brilliant but a but a human I was like this is Batman I'm like I always love Superman but I

was like this guy he's he's Bruce Wayne he's human he's flawed like me and if he could do it you know maybe I can and I was in Atlanta Georgia the home of hip-hop and so many great musicians and R&B and Country music and rock and roll and David in the book talks about this idea when they were interviewing people that movies took years TV shows took Years A song can change your life in a night and I decided to go into the music industry because I wanted to do a hundred different things but I

thought it was the fastest way into doing what I wanted um and uh I got recruited by a guy named Germaine Dupri when I was 20 years old when I was the big party founder in Atlanta and he said you got more potential than parties and he made me the vice president sood def records I was 20 and I dropped out of school um and IID worked with a guy who was a radio DJ on the radio he's Chris laaa but his rap name was ludicrous and uh I started working with him and next thing

you know I had all these ideas about how the internet could break artists and how this new thing the facebook.com could do it and this new thing YouTube you could use it and you know Myspace at the time uh and then Twitter and um no one really believed me and I decided to to go out on my own and I started the company that I have today um and I signed two artists that no one had heard of and I said okay I'm gonna I'm gonna prove myself with these two guys and the first one

was a guy named Asher Roth we had a big song called I love college and asleep in the bread ale album and the second one was a young kid from Canada named Justin Bieber and the rest has been history so like do you think you are hardwired to to become an entrepreneur and if so why um I think that both the love and confidence and Trauma that I enire that I inherited as a child made me very hardwired for for to be an entrepreneur I think that um my dad always used to say you know

everybody takes a on the toilet you know they're just like you you know if you ever get intimidated imagine I'm takeing on the toilet and you know so I was never intimidated by any to be honest with you I'd always just imagine them to be honest on toilet and then be like okay they're human and um he instilled that kind of ability in me that you know every night before we went to bed he'd come me in my brother's room and he'd say bronze are different bronze are special and he would tell us that doesn't

make you better than anybody but you have something special and that propaganda night after night after night I think we believed it um I'll also tell you my dad's parents were Holocaust Survivors they were alist and daa survivors and I didn't realize until really doing a lot of self-work at the age of 39 going into 40 um how much of that trauma made me great at what I did later um the idea that I I I inherited their hurt and their fear of the world and some people have a fight ORF flight mechanism my family's

a fight um so I always thought that was a super power and it was to a certain extent it made me really good at doing the job and building a business and and going forward but I don't think it made me great at being present for my friends and family um so I think there's a trade-off that happens and I was always the sensitive kid when I was growing up but my dad hardened me you know he grew up in a world that you know his parents had taught him my mom's dad died when she

was 11 and her mom didn't have a high school education like they had tough lives and the generation before that had him even harder as immigrants who had come from genocide um so I was given all this but I had such a loving family and I felt so honored and privileged to not be that generation that I I feel like um I wasn't aware of it but that thing they taught you of like Holocaust thing it's like tomorrow they could come and take everything away so I was constantly building to protect against tomorrow you know

and that made me a good entrepreneur because I was I was never satisfied um I think where it hurt me and where I'm now spending the second hour of my life unlearning is I didn't put enough faith in the universe about what it was doing for me I thought I was manifesting everything and I had to make it happen and it's all on me and never again and all these things um but what happened to me in my life is statistically impossible and I think I've now come to a place in more maturity to understand

that there are bigger Powers than me you know at play and I can I could put a little bit more faith in the universe but that's a whole we can get into that topic as we go yes I believe both the good and the bad made me a very good entrepreneur whether later things I realized the things that made me a great entrepreneur made me made me lacking in other departments look I think I think a lot of people face that because to achieve the things that you've done it has to be an obsession like

for anybody it has to be an obsession but then the balance it's really tough um and by the way I don't I don't really have any regrets though you know I feel like every um like uh one of my friends recommended really great book Marcus aelius meditations and in this book he talks about this concept of Mor Fati which is uh love of one's fate you know you have to love the the joy and the suffering even the mundane moments you have to love them all the same because every moment is for you you know

it's all a lesson on your journey and I feel like for me to have the perspective I have now I have to have the freedom that I have now they came from all that sacrifice um so I I don't have regrets I have I'm kind of just grateful to be where I am and on this journey yeah amazing so coming back to the the college promotion era um you know totally different level now but uh for anyone that's listening in that era like what what advice would you give to them one I get asked all

the time like by interns should I drop out of college like you did and when I dropped out of college I was I wouldn't say financially secure but I was making hundreds of thousands of dollars you know and I was 19 20 years old um so when I left College I was able to pay for college if I wanted you know I was able to get my apartment you know so when I left I was I was able to one I had a job to go to and two I was already making money um so

I would say to people if I was to do it again I wish I would have stayed in college got that degree but it just wasn't in the cards for me and I had an opportunity to pursue a dream so what I would say to someone is don't don't jump out you know for the dream unless you have a dream with real stability and and obviously when I left there was no real stability everyone thought I was insane my parents crying when they find out like you know it's I definitely went rogue but I felt

stability I felt conviction um so what I'd say to someone in that position is one build it and you can kind of build it while you're in school and two um when you're young and you don't have children you can go a week without eating very much you could starve a little bit you could be broke you can pay for pizza with change that one time a week like I did when I was that broke um when you have children someone else is depending on you to put food in their mouth and I think that

a lot of times people hear from their parents who are scared that they don't want their child to fail they say oh you need to do this you need to have stability before you can chase your dream and I think young people are in the best position to chase their dream a lot more than someone with a family um so I would say to someone in that position now is your time to find out before you go and live a life that you might find mundane that you have regrets now is the time in that

age for you to pursue your dream you can always go back to the the safe thing but you know when you're younger and you can sacrifice that's the time you should Chase your own ambition so you know in regards to your life and you know when you when you were 20 you were appointed the marketing director uh for so so deaf like you know can you tell us how you got into that position so young so I was the big I was the big party promoter in town I was like obviously throwing these college parties

at clubs and then Atlanta at the time was very segregated you know there was white people were going to parties at the club that played the hip techno black people were going to the hip-hop club there was nothing in between and I was this kid coming down from New York and Connecticut who was like but I love hip-hop and rock and roll so I started doing parties with that music and you saw a really diverse group of people coming to the party and Germaine found that really fascinating because I had had all these guys coming

to my parties and I would take my money on Thursday nights that I made with the college kids and I would go to Alex gan's party at the velver room on Tuesday nights that had every rapper and every dop booy in town paying $100 ahe to get in and puffy was throwing parties and I would go there and I'd be the only white kid and he'd find me very fascinating like why are you here and he would let me in for free and I'd spend all my money on Thursday nights faking it till I make

it buying tables at his parties networking building relationships and I'd be broke again by the end of the night and then I'd go make my money on Thursday again and repeat the process and I started to meet people and they'd say what are you doing here I'd say well I have this other party and then they started coming to my parties and performances for free and all these things started to happen and Germaine was very fascinated because um he was dating um janana Jackson at the time and she was coming from LA and he wanted

more of an LA type diverse party for her so he would bring her to my events and one day he knew I had done stuff with a sky shaku and his artist ludicrous um and he said I can you meet me at the dragonfly Lounge for uh his best friend Eddie skar rocks birthday and I go and I'm there and I'm 20 years old 1920 whatever it was and he says come talk to me we go downstairs to the lounge downstairs and it's empty and Germaine is not the tallest man um and he got on

a bench like this kind of stool at the bar and he started telling me you have more potential than parties you I want you to be my leor to my Russell I want you to be you know and I all I remember was his feet were dangling and I was just fast ated that his feet weren't touching the ground um but I was hearing him and I was like you know this is my shot this is my shot this guy Believes In Me and I didn't have any intention of leaving him and starting my own

company I looked at him like I'm gonna be his guy we're g to build the next Death Jam like and I I believed him completely and I dove in and he opened my world he introduced me to a lot of people he flew me around with him to all these different events he was the number one producer in the world and he showed me the music business yeah wow crazy and what was some of the you know challenges that you faced in these early days I mean I was new and I was young and I

was you know I was a little wild like I was still going parties and you know I was uh the challenges I faced was I was so young so you know I have these big ideas and people thought I was a little nuts but I was kind of Germaine's Golden Boy like I would bring these deals I was the top earner in the company you know I was getting very close to the artist and coming up with these marketing ideas that everyone liked Germaine wouldn't bring me to the New York meetings because he didn't want

me being poached by the other labels so I would just like prep with him for the week before but I was like his guy and but I had all these ideas about this new thing that was Rising called social media and how we should use it to break artists and no one was listening to me and that was my biggest challenge I knew that something was coming I I felt it I people were not using social media in the way I thought they should to break an act um they didn't give it the credibility it

deserved and the capabilities of worldwide audience that it had and I struggled with wanting to be loyal and give the ideas to Germaine versus them not being executed because no one was listening to me and knowing that I had this bigger vision and um the turning point was uh I was in London Consulting for this group and little John was at the nightclub with me um club called cavaret in London I'll never forget and we were drinking and having a good time and he looked at me and he said you know I worked for Germaine

for 12 years and I created Little John in the middle of it and I knew I had all these ideas to do all this stuff and he said don't wait 12 years and when I got back I was nervous but something happened in Germain and I separated and I realized this is my opportunity I'm not going to wait 12 years I'm going to build what I want to build and um when I left so so deaf I was petrified like I was like here I am I had this thing I was J guy and I'm

23 24 years old now I've been there for four years and suddenly I got to go and do it on my own and I was just like there's no turning back and the biggest decision I made was I was still a very big party promoter throughout the whole time I was working for Germaine I was had that secondary business and I said you know what I'm gonna do this uh I'm gonna go on one trip for a month to clear my head and when I get back I'm GNA do this and I'm not going to

throw a party ever again I'm not going to be a party promoter because all the time when they' write about me they'd be like still party promoter no one was saying VP is soo Def and I was like I need to leave this and I need to really focus and build this new company and um my risk I kind of rest it all yeah wow and I'd love to kind of switch gears now to kind of management nby projects um you've been asked to death about the process of discovering Justin Bieber so I'm just curious

more you know what's the one thing you you wish people ask you around that that they don't I wish they asked me how good he was and how good he is everyone knows now but you can't create a Justin be you know like you could Market something and call it manure all you want it's still at the end of the day Justin Bieber was the most talented gifted kid I'd ever met it was so insane how great of a singer he was how Soulful he was what he could do on the drums naturally taught himself

with guitar drums like he was a phenomenon and we met at the perfect time in both of our Lives um so I wish people would understand I think we don't give credit to Children enough and now he's transcended and become Justin Bieber the iconic adult Superstar but he was brilliant at 13 you know so I wish people asked me and gave him the credit he deserved as a child um because he deserved it there's no way I would have been able to achieve that with someone else he was just that good and and I think

he found me and our skills met each other perfectly and our relationship met perfectly and we pushed each other and we didn't get it right all the time but we found a way and and we've been on this amazing journey and you know he made me a better man you know he was the first kid in my life you know and um I I I wish people asked me that and understood you know they always used to say like oh this machine got behind this kid I wish they asked me how much the label got

behind us because it didn't happen even after I signed him La wanted to sign Justin because he wanted to sign Usher Usher met Justin once before we had had the meeting and told La we're working on this for a year he'd only met him once you know um we were grinding for a year and a half on our own Usher was the right stamp and we were friends La was the right position but we had to earn it Tricky Stewart had umbrella at the time with Rihanna he was one of the biggest producers in the

world he and I had a really close friendship and he did the my world EP on spec as a favor to me because we didn't have an open budget ludic Chris got on baby as a favor because I used to be his party promoter you know and we didn't have a budget to get any of this done it was done through relationships and friendships and people's belief in this kid they were seeing like wow he's special and when we did that EP it was right after Asher had done I love college and everything else and

the only reason I had the money even pay anybody spec money was because Asher wrote I love college and that song Exploded and we got a million-dollar publishing deal for him and the 15% mission one per one manager took five I took 10 that $100,000 that saved my company people understand I was broke at that point my 13 months window of I'm gonna risk everything and sign these two artists I was at month 11 I I was done I called my dad called me to check in on me just say how you doing and I

just out of nowhere broke down crying 11 o'clock at night you know I'm a failure everyone that thinks that Atlanta I've been killing it all these years I've lost everything my party promotion company's done I got this Canadian and kid and his mom living in a townhouse under my name with errands rent furniture that I paid for I'm paying for school like I got no more money after two months I got Asher and his buddies living in another place in my name like I I'm done like I and he said look you haven't listened to

anything we've told you and you've always found a way you got two more months see it through and the next day Asher wrote I love college and I knew what to do and I and I tell people this only because every entrepreneur that I meet I always ask them about their personal life and their personal experience all these people we've invested in over the years both I've done personally and now with our fun TQ and at Hive and Etha I always meet entrepreneurs and they're always like you know you're the only person to ask me

about my childhood or my personal life or my family everyone's asking me about what's my run rate and you know what valuation we investing and what Market sector are we going after and all these things and they go why do you do that and I said because no matter what I don't care how good your product is how good you are whatever your building you are going to have an arc in your story you're going to have a moment like Airbnb when they were about to be the biggest IPO suddenly Airbnb is going to go

to zero and chesky and Joe had to refigure out the entire company you're gonna have a moment like uber had where they had to Shi you're have a moment like lift had when they had to shift you had a moment like Amazon where suddenly they're killing it and then the market crashes and the stock goes to $17 like everyone's going to have that moment of Crisis and me asking you who you were before this is usually the best tell of whether you're going to be able to Pivot and you can handle adversity and the number

one thing an entrepreneur an entrepreneur needs to me isn't a good idea and a work ethic you need those things and you see a lot of people right now with valuations and all of us with VC money you're at two billion you're at five billion you know all these different things but a real business a really long-term sustainable business needs a Founder who can pivot and navigate the tough moments and those are are usually Define far before you get a business hey guys I really hope you're feeling inspired from today's interview the truth is there's

never been a better time to build an e-commerce business and the best part is you don't need to do it alone that's where founder plus comes in which I'm really really really excited to share with you if you are feeling stuck in your e-commerce business lacking the confidence to really move forward or you worrying about making costly mistakes or how to drive your sales founder plus is here to support you you get access to a customized learning pathway with proven Frameworks from successful e-commerce Founders for fast results a supportive Community we have weekly live mentorship

and workshops and exclusive savings on Startup tools and 24/7 real human support you can try founder plus today for just $1 for 7 days so you can accelerate your business goal goals just visit founder. slstart dollar trial or click the link in the description to claim your trial all right now let's jump back into the show I really I really appreciate your openness honesty and rawness and just just talking about the real stuff uh because yeah a lot of people don't talk about this they they talk about the shiny stuff and you know everybody looks

at you and you know you've achieved such incredible things it's uh you know people don't talk about the sacrifices the struggles and the real hard times cuz that those are the defining moments so I'd love to talk about the talent management piece um what's the key to kind of guiding someone through their rise to success um like how do you ride the line between friend and also head of head of an Enterprise someone asked me the other day what makes a good manager and I told them the best advice I've gotten the management has never

been from another manager uh it's always been from just good people because you're the people business you know you have to understand how to treat people how to recognize their trauma how to recognize your role in things how to humble yourself you know how to speak to someone and realize yeah they might not be seeing my point of view but how am I going to get them there because the victory isn't proving them wrong the victory is making them see what I see so I start from a place of respect I start by agreeing with

them on something so they can hear that I respect them and then they can be open enough to hear me um and it's about building real relationships and being there in the tough times um Jus and I have been through so much together but I also respect the times when he's like hey I need to do this because I'm a man now like I I'm not the kid anymore like it's I I got this and I respect it you know you got to give people room to do their thing um I think one of the

biggest mistakes with just in the beginning that and I've talked about I was protecting him so much that he couldn't feel any consequences so he kept pushing the line and you know we I learned from that and we navigated that and he rose from you know from so much and I'm so proud of him Ariana and I have been through a terrorist attack together you know you know in Manchester and to see her bravery and how she responded with one love Manchester those moments those are the big moments people can see and they are def

moments and they build really really strong relationship but the moments where you you really build with someone are the things no one sees the quiet conversations when someone's broken when someone's hurting and you don't help someone by telling them that you're not broken you don't help someone by saying you know you just got to tough it out like you help someone by showing your own vulnerability and telling them that you experience the same thing and there are are nights along your journey where you have cried yourself to sleep when everyone in the world thinks that

you're crushing it you know and and that lets people see it was funny Jus and I had one conversation where he pointed out to me he was like man I never you know when I was younger you didn't show me that vulnerability you know like I just thought scooters got it all together and I I thought I had to be that way for so long for so many people and I think I've become a better person a better manager a better executive a better investor a better father by being someone who can express who they

were the fears of who they were where they are in the present the story of the future that they're dealing with and just be human and and the best way to do that is to not carry shame from the past to realize you are not the same person that might have done that mistake you've grown from that it's not that you did anything malicious or anything horrible but we all carry shame for things that aren't even that shameful we're just ashamed we're holding on to an internal story that other people are like well that's not

even a big deal you know and it's not affecting anyone that's only affecting you but you're holding this internal shame because you don't want anyone to know that you struggled and I think the real power comes and when you accept and embrace that and you start to give yourself Grace and forgiveness because most of our shame comes from things that aren't even our own things that you know we inherited as a kid or uh and then you could have Grace for other people one of my uh my favorite quotes ever is in this book ta

Ching that Rick Rubin actually gave me and um it says what is a good man but a a bad man's teacher what is a bad man but a good man's job and that concept of what is a good man but someone who can be there for someone else who isn't that kind to them because who is that person who's not being kind to them but just someone who's doing what they were taught or told to do whether it be lately or in their childhood and when you get to that place you stop carrying this anger

and stop getting in this VIs cycle people and you can become the better version of yourself and in turn that makes you a better person to deal with someone's life because that's what a manager has to do you're dealing with someone's life they're putting their confidence in you and um I think in the beginning of my career I operated from excitement I operated from conviction but I also operated from fear and I think what's changed for me as I've continue to do this I'm not operating from a place of fear anymore I'm kind of understanding

that you can have a plan but you have to operate from a place of Truth and no fear and if the plan shifts it's supposed to shift yeah well thank thank you for sharing I can I can see um that you've done a lot of deep work a lot of reflection a very spiritual place no I just yeah I I've been through you know many Journeys as well and and I can see that um yeah you really you're just reflecting and just being so open honest this is amazing so thank you um just around your

your skill for identifying Talent I'd love to know just around how you've transitioned that for I guess identifying extremely uh talented Executives and building your team I'd say part of it is what I'm I know I'm missing part of it is I always choose trustworthy people over great people I think the most important thing is you got to know that you I like to build a family you know I um I am an open book so I want to have people on my team that root for me the way I root for them um and

I think I've gotten very lucky over the years of just identifying amazing people um I think they were placed in my life at times um I think that identifying Talent is almost like falling in love you cannot look for it but when it shows up you know um there's this gut visceral feeling that you have first time I saw Justin first time I saw Ariana first time I heard gam Style I was like I know what that is you know um and you know these things kind of happen and and like that's what I said

I think I used to think oh I do this I do that now I believe that part of it is me and part of it is they were placed there for me you know because we're destined to do something together um but I will tell you I do not believe in this concept of do not mix business and pleasure this idea that you know people say oh those those are your employees you know don't treat them like your friends or your family it's business I hate that idea it is not business these people are taking

time away from their loved ones to sacrifice for you for the betterment of your life you can show them the respect of realizing that because I take time away from my children to do this job and I love being around my kids so I treat everyone with that respect and I also want to create a family environment so that if it's 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock or one o'clock in the morning and some emergency happens they don't hate us they love and respect everyone they're working with that they will do that because they know it's

for the betterment of all of us um and I think creating that environment is what got us through covid you know uh in the first two weeks of covid we had an alland staff meeting and I told everyone you know we're seeing all these rumors and what's going to happen no one is losing their job and in fact actually there was one person who was about to lose their job they didn't know that but Co saved their job I said no one is going to lose their job during this pandemic unless they aren't doing their

job in the meantime no one is having a salary decrease I will go to zero on my salary before anyone loses their salary and I have a big salary that can sustain us for covid but we need to find ways to make new Revenue once that meeting happened we actually had a bigger year than the year before because our team had job security so they went to work in finding all these alternative ways to make revenue and we crushed it and we never had to let anyone go we actually had some people get raises at

the end of the year um people made bonus like I was incredibly incredibly proud but we acted as of a family that wouldn't be abandoned and I think that that was a very very important thing um in how we treat each other and you can ask me another question but it leads me to this idea that I actually learned through this whole experience of one of the lessons that I learned if one of the best deals I ever did gave me one of my biggest regrets that taught me how to do a better deal the

next time there you go um I'm curious though uh what happens when people let you down right like cuz I you know speaking for personal experience uh s similar kind of scenario uh with Co we crushed it and yeah after it though I I felt that some people let me down like did that happen to you over the years um the job of management and people and managing a very big company is very hard I've had Executives of mine who I'm really close with leave um with my blessing like there was another opportunity or I

invested in a company they were going to and they got into more of it an executive role more my role and they called me uh three years later one of my buddies at Westbrook um Brad he called me and he's like I'm sorry he's like I I didn't realize what it was like being in that position and and some of the things that happened like I'm really sorry I said I understand so I think being in a position of leadership you're constantly let down if you allow yourself to feel that I think you're constantly feeling

like well how could I be treated this way I've given everything to this like you know there's a lot of taking for granted um when you're in certain positions um and you can allow that to hurt you that happened many times at the beginning of my career I was like oh like that hurts and all that hurts so that person disappointed me and I would guard up and I'd guard up and I'd guard up um to a point where I think many people didn't know me they just knew the work part of me um and

I think that I handled that the wrong way by just guarding and not expressing myself now I've got to a place of they're not letting me down because don't think that's mine to carry you know I don't look at it as this is happening because of me this reaction is because of me they might be saying my name they might be being you did this but I know I didn't and I know that that reaction isn't based on anything to do with me because now that I've done my own work I've realized my own faults

of times I said you did this and it had nothing to do with someone else it was my trauma and my issues and my transference on them from something that happened to me as a kid and I just was angry or upset or insecure and I've kind of chosen to look at that now is you're allowed to disappoint me the only disappointment I have now is if I allow it to affect me powerful thank you for sharing um I'm curious around kind of burnout uh obviously you know you've gone through some intense periods of business

you know what you do to minimize burnout as a Founder um I've definitely probably experienced burnout long the time but it's not really burnout of the job burning me out it was more burnout of do I still love doing this you know that kind of thing um I was so consumed before with tomorrow like I told you about Holocaust trauma I woke up every morning of my life thinking is today the day that they're going to come take it away you know every day I woke up with this idea because of how I was raised

um and that's not a normal way to think you know most people don't wake up every day thinking today's going to be the day um funny enough a lot of minorities do but most people don't um because of that I was more afraid of tomorrow than the burnout of today so I didn't really experience burnout what I experienced though was I was so focused on protecting tomorrow that I wasn't was n present to the problems that were happening today I didn't see them as problems because my idea of what would go wrong was so worse

in the future that I couldn't see the small cracks that I was allowing by not being present and something happened in my life that threw me for such a loop that for the first time in 20 years I was given a choice to choose myself and self-work and trust that my company would be there when I'd come back or continue what I was doing and go down that same path I had done for 20 years and um I've spoken about this very publicly since my friend got me to go to a place called The Hoffman

process uh which was the most influential week of My Life um when I signed up they called me and said we have availability on October 24th 2020 Ariana Grande's album was coming out October 23rd I think and I was like you got to be kidding me I I can't go and do this when the biggest Alum I'm releasing this year is coming out and I realized in that moment it was the universe saying to me what do you want to do you want to stay on the same roller coaster that's giving you all the success

and all this praise and this no variety of scooter or do you want to choose Scott for the first time since you were a kid and I called up Ariana and she told me you were there for me so many different times it's time for me to be there for you if this is what you need to do go um I want even say I was burned out I was lost um I was confused I was lost and I was depressed because I I didn't have Direction um and I went into this process and I

surrendered to it completely no phone no email and I was like how am I going to go with no phone no email for a week I mean I'm I'm plugged to this thing when I got out on November 1st I didn't turn my phone back on until January 16 2021 I got a burner phone I had four people's numbers and I spoke to generals of mine to make sure the business continued going in the right direction and that is how I worked throughout the rest of that year and I chose me and I chose being

present with my children having conversations that I needed to had from what I learned there and for the first time since I was seven years old I liked my name Scott again I used to tell people I don't really like the name Scott I go by scooter I don't think I should have been named Scott when I got out of that place I loved it and it was because they helped me understand me they helped me go back and understand all these different things that I'm talking to you about now and they started that Journey

for me in a very big way um and it helped me reclaim myself um I had built scooter since I was 18 years old because subconsciously even without me realizing it wasn't on purpose I just like I'm going to go buy a scooter now but but subconsciously I realized now that I did it because I believed in my heart even though I was a popular kid in high school and had a girlfriend and played Sports and like I was class president I had a whole good thing going on I didn't love myself I didn't trust

myself I I was I felt I could be overpowered and I built this thing this scooter because he could be powerful he could be strong he could be brave he's he's better than me doesn't have any of this stuff in the past he wasn't 411 his freshman year like you know and I built this amazing life for myself and this incredible thing and I didn't do things wrong I did things right I did it every way I wanted to do it as scooter braw but I didn't have a foundation I didn't heal all the reasons

that I thought I needed that and when I went to that place it started me on that journey and helped me go back and realize the reason I was so lost is because when the script that I had written for scooter broke even the littlest bit I had nothing to stand on I was completely lost if if I'm not going to be this person I you know I've been building towards and it's not going to be exactly where I've I've seen it I Have Nothing Even though I had everything and they helped me go back

and you know I met some incredible people and did some incredible work and you know it helped me start I've done a lot of things since um and for the first time in my life since I was a kid I was present I was conscious of myself conscious of others and everything changed and it didn't mean everyone in my life accepted that change or even has met that change yet you know but I changed and you know I'd meet people I've had like 11 people go to Hoffman since I got back because they saw what

happened to me um and when I did Jay shed's podcast I talked about it and I've had people kind of write me from their experience and I tell people all the time I don't think I actually changed I think I reclaimed I feel more myself than ever before and um I think we spend the first half of our life learning and I think we have the second half of our life to kind of unlearn a lot of things um and and it's been just an very interesting Journey it doesn't mean the waves of insecurity and

fear and hurt don't come back they do but you can have tools to get through them FAS faster and faster and faster uh and I just want to say this also because I want to talk to the naysayer real quick if they're listening someone once said to me uh recently they were like do you think the fact that you're very successful and you have a lot of money that makes it easier for you to do this 100% I want to be really clear I'm not hiding that fact I think money is an Avenue to Freedom

not having money not being able to pay your mortgage not being able to put food on the table for your children is a huge huge stressor for people that can take you away from doing self-work however I got to ask one of the most successful people in commercial history who I became friends with a question and I usually don't say his name but I want people to know he is a good man a very good man uh Jeff Bezos one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time he provided more jobs during covid than any other

company created more new jobs and he raised minimum wage when the United States government Wen with more employees than anyone I asked him what do you want you could have anything what do you want and he gave me a cheat code that I want to share with everyone of your people now he looked at me and he said I want to evolve I said what do you mean he goes I want to evolve I want to be a better father better friend a better person I want to work on intimacy you know I want to

I want to work on my fears I want to evolve as a human and I realize you do not need $200 billion to do that but I had been every single day of my life work stuck to that phone building building building building but the endgame with the guy right in front of me is to evolve so not only did I do Hoffman last year but I took a week no phone no email this past year in December and I went to Sedona and I worked with more practitioners and self-work had another amazing week of

growth and I'm going to do it every year I'm going to give myself one week no phone no email at the end of every year and I'm going to go do a different program maybe I'll do wiim Hoff next year I don't know but um I can tell you the greatest gift I've had is understanding that I'm allowed to pause and choose me yeah wow I'm speechless man like I just want to say thank you so much for being you just so present giving you've just like really just blown me away with all the experiences

you're sharing in your journey and I can see you're on a new one um I'm just genuinely curious uh everything you've done um achieved so much uh is it ever enough I asked David geffin that question the very first time we had dinner I asked him when will I be content look at everything you've achieved when were you content and he gave me a really great answer he said there is no destination and he had me read a poem by kafafi called Ithaca that I ended up naming my company after and um I think everyone

should read that poem and I think it will answer your question it's not about being content it's about the journey and the things you experience along the way you know it talks about going to the island of Etha and you might see things in Egypt you might meet philosophers you might all this say by the time you reach Etha if she finds if you find her poor she did not fool you because it was always about the journey you know and I don't wrestle anymore with whether it's enough I wrestle with the journey you know

I I'm I'm experiencing it now probably for the very first time in a long time because I'm present tomorrow doesn't exist any story I tell myself of tomorrow isn't real I can litigate the past but I can't go back and experience it the only moment I have that's real right now is me talking to you in this moment and I think when you start to get to that place you realize it's enough you know and we already had enough it's just go experience life that's that's a human experience that's the fun of it so if

you could go back in time and give 10-year-old scooter one piece of advice what would it be and why I think most people would expect like an Aro like you're going to do this buy Amazon um I would just tell them you're good enough you don't have to prove anything to anyone you're good enough you're great because of you not because of the things that happened to you you know and um I I just want him to know that you know that that your greatest gift is your sensitivity your greatest gift is how hard you

feel and um I would just want to look at him give him a hug and be like you know you're great you know I think I think that all of us have this core lie and for a lot of us it's that deep down no matter how confident we show deep down we don't think we're good enough and I think I'd tell that 10-year-old that he is uh thank you when is work fun when you're experiencing it with others you've reached the Pinnacle of success what's something you miss from the early days first I miss

first I miss the first time experiencing something cuz the first time is usually the best if you could have dinner with any entrepreneur Dead or Alive who would it be and why I honestly don't know I've never asked that question you know like some of the people that I've wanted to meet who are alive I've had dinner with them and I've gotten to pick their rain and um I'm trying to think of someone dead it's like and because I don't really get excited about meeting someone new because they're an entrepreneur I get excited about meeting

someone because of the human being they are awesome well look we we'll wrap there Scott like just thank you so much again this was incredible this is up there with one of my all-time favorite interviews I'm not just saying that to be nice like this you you were so present Real raw you've given it your all and uh I think this is going to really help a lot of people so thank you so much thank you I appreciate your time all right so if you love this episode make sure to check out my interview with

Alex hosi on how he scales companies from zero straight to 2 million a month in less than a year people were like how you cheap you cheaper like there's 5 years of my life that disappeared in fact I lost all the money which I talked about in the book I had all the gyms I did the turnarounds and then I had Z 5 years later because of mistakes that I made but the things that I was gaining was not the money it was the skills it was the character traits and the beliefs