Thomas Green here with Ethical Marketing Service. On the podcast today, we have Scott Perry. Welcome to the podcast, Scott.
Thomas, really delighted to be spending this time with you. Thank you so much for having me.
It’s my pleasure. Would you like to take a moment and tell the audience a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Absolutely, thank you for the invitation. I’m Scott Perry and as you and I were just chatting that I am a husband and a father first. I also have been a lifelong teacher and musician for most of my adult life and currently I am on the head coach team in Seth Godin’s Kimball workshops and I am also a difference maker coach and my own endeavour called creative on purpose where we help people like you and I fly higher than the difference only they can make. So this might be a little bit of a softball to start off with. But for those that haven’t looked over the website, what does it mean to be a difference maker? Yeah, that’s a great question. So created on purpose is obviously about employing are inherent human creative impulse in an intentional way.
Often, that means solving interesting or difficult problems or challenges. Sometimes it’s just the pursuit of better whether it’s bettering and developing ourselves, which most often is done with and for other people at the same time because in in addition to being creative creatures were also social creatures than we have this capacity, foods that we could employ more often and more purposefully so human, every human being is a difference maker because we all collide and connect with others throughout our day to day, we are all engaged in work. Uh, and we can do that work with intention and integrity and identity and meaning from it. And if you’re going to make a difference, why not make a difference for the better. A different set enhances your own life while it encourages and elevates the lives of others. There was one perhaps quote that I saw when looking for your links and that was legacy.
Isn’t the money or monuments you leave behind? Is the difference you’re making right now? I love that quote and I haven’t actually heard that before. Is that something that you picked up from somewhere or learned all? It’s, it’s my own wording. Um, we talk a lot of creative on purpose and in the difference maker community and coaching program about living your legacy. That the idea that legacy isn’t what you leave behind, that it’s the difference you’re making. Now, I will say that I definitely came to that through my lifelong reading of Marcus Aurelius meditations. Marcus Aurelius was a woman emperor who was a disciple of stoic philosophy which is experiencing resurgence now is it has many times throughout history. And he thought very deeply in his journal, which is what the meditations are about. The significance of himself and his life and the work that he was doing was frequently reminding himself that when he passed, he would probably not be remembered.
Although ironically, he is by many. Um, and at the same time with whatever time we have on this planet, we should be employing ourselves to bettering ourselves and enhancing the prospects of prosperity of others. And that is what legacy is. And at least here in the United States, we often complete legacy with the money that we leave behind are the buildings and the monuments to our own greatness that we leave behind. And I think that that’s unfortunate. Um, and uh, is not helpful to future generations, which is what legacy really is really about. So it’s an idea that I came to very early on in the development of my grand creative on purpose. And it’s that idea of living your legacy is at the heart of my most recent handbook, which is called onward. Well, regarding stoicism, it’s just something that I really wanted to talk to you a bit more about.
There’s one principle that I learned from Darren Brown and it is about worrying. So, you know, if there’s an external sort of variable that you have to deal with, then, if it’s within your control, you can do something about it and it’s not, it’s not within your control, then there’s no point in worrying. Is there some principles that you main principles that you would talk about regard, in regard to stoicism. Yeah, but first, just Darren Darren’s book is fantastic. Happy is a book. I’ve read him both physical copy and listen to him whisper in my ear on audible. It’s a really great practical application of ancient disciplines from stoicism. Very approachable, very engaging. And again, very pragmatic. So onward is actually constructed on the three stoic disciplines. First put forth by Epictetus, the discipline of perception, the discipline of action and the discipline of will and all of that alliance very much with.
But you were just describing, which is another rephrasing of Epictetus. Opening of the discourses, which is some things are within our control and others are not. The discipline of perception allows you to see what is actually happening as opposed to your biases and prejudices and judgments based on your own selfish needs, wants, dreams and desires. it’s a way of disconnecting your strong emotional attachments to aspirations for the future or stories. We’re telling yourself about the passes very exercise that allows you become very present and what’s really going on and start working the problem. Instead of letting the problem work you. The discipline of action is just about making a decision based on the choices that are really in front of you and stepping into that with integrity and intention and taking action. Then the discipline of will is what it’s really all about.
So we control, we have the ability to control, how we see things and what we decide to do next. Everything else is actually completely outside of our control. Now, it used to be that we believe if we went to us what the school of dr Grace, we could go to a good college if we went to a good college and did well, we could get a good job and everything would be hunky dory for the rest of our time on earth turns out that the pandemic has taught us that actually not even that is a certainty or even a possibility for many people. So what is it all for then? Is the discipline of will. The only thing that matters according to stoicism is virtue. The cultivation of virtue, the content of your character, and you cultivate that through the quality of your efforts, not the outcomes or results that you achieve. And we conflate decisions with results and their complete two completely different things.
A decision is simply a decision that puts you into a new moment where there are no choices and pass it and make it new decision. Results are things that may or may not happen where you can maybe influence results, but you’re never absolutely guaranteed or in control of those results. So the lesson is, if you simply pay attention to the quality of your effort, you will always be able to experience a sense of thriving and joy and meaning in what you’re doing because the effort is the reward. And there’s a great quote that Stephen press field has put his own spin on from the God bob Geeta. I always say that wrong. you are entitled to your labour, not the fruits of their labour. The work itself is what’s worth it. And the results are just things that may or may not happen that you have to live with. And when things go completely a lie, you still have the ability to cultivate character through practicing the virtues of patience, acceptance, humility, and resilience, great point.
Have you found that you can use that yourself and how difficult is it to apply that? Yeah, I have found it to be immensely useful in all of my endeavours. You know whether it’s in my relationships with friends or with my wife or with my sons with the times I’ve been an employee with the times, I’ve been an employer and with the work that I do now as a coach. And I think the workshops and my creative on purpose work is it’s an approach to doing meaningful work, to deciding to do meaningful work and to doing that work. and like any approach, your attitude, you know, it’s a skill that you have to develop and practice every day if you’re going to maintain and get better at it. So, it’s a challenge for me every day to set my prejudices and my biases and my value judgments aside and to let go of my strong emotional attachments to what I want and what I desire and to do work on purpose with purpose and for a purpose that does no harm to others.
But that has made, you know, my 56 years on the planet, very rewarding. Even though I might never, I am not, will probably never be, you know, a famous author, coach, teacher or anything else. Well, I think people who are famous basically say that you feel exactly the same way as you did when you weren’t right. So yeah, so I have, uh, I spent most of my adult life being a professional musician and all been operated a guitar studio up until just December of last year while I was on the circuit. I never was a celebrity or famous, but I definitely got to place shows and have conversations with people who most of your listeners would agree are celebrities and famous. One of them. Um, in the blues world, is a gentleman named Paul Michelle who is a fabulous blues guitarist and singer was at the time that I was on the scene, one of the more popular acts on the acoustic blues scene.
And I remember when he got on Prairie Home Companion, which for a lot of acoustic musicians would be like, oh, a dream come true. And I was like Paul, you know, we were doing a show together. We’re hanging out and I said, Paul, congratulations on Prairie Home Companion. What a what an amazing thing. It must have really, you know, just done so much for your career. And he said, yeah, you know, same bullshit, different venue was his response. I just thought that was hilarious because it impacted his career in no discernible way. He didn’t suddenly make more money or get more gigs or better gigs. It was just another thing that he got to do where for the three minutes that he and anyways were live on the air, you know, a few more people than normal would have got to hear. I mean, that was something that really stuck with me, like, oh, actually it doesn’t matter if I never get that gig or appear on that show or get to work with that artist. Um, again, the work is I get to do this.
I get to be a musician to make a living and support a family doing this. What a gift! That’s enough. I don’t, I don’t need anything else ended. If anything else comes, it’s just a cherry on top of a really delicious Sunday. Well, and if you’re using your stoic philosophy, you’re going to be enjoying it anyway, right? Exactly right. I mean, that’s the promise of stoicism, is that you can experience equanimity and enjoy in any situation, even in the midst of a pandemic, even in the midst of immense global suffering and struggle, uh, and racial strife and financial instability. We can continue to be experiencing equity, equity committee and joy. And for me, that has been true throughout these times. But all the time that I’ve been on the planet, Is that right? You’ve written a book, one stoicism, what have I got that wrong? My very first book was called The stoic Creative, which actually was the name of my brand.
Um, and it does very intentionally and very, um, very pointedly bring in stoic principles and practices to creative pursuits. Um, something I learned from that experience is that very few creatives are interested in stoicism and very few Stokes are interested in creativity. Uh, and so all this stoicism has informed and inspired every publication. Everything I’ve published, whether it be a blog or a book, I now don’t waive my stoic flag so overtly, in fact, an onward, I don’t share a joke, the punch line that my entire book is a repurposing of three historic disciplines until the very end. And that’s just so that for someone that may have collided with stoicism somewhere in the past and see, you know, like, oh no, this was a great book.
And it’s actually attached to the stove thing. Maybe I’ll investigate that a little bit more. Um, then like stoicism, chocolate covered broccoli. Well, stoicism doesn’t have the, hasn’t cornered the market on the importance of cultivating virtue or the importance of not attaching yourself to results or to ego concerns. It’s just, you know, a lot of people when they learned about star systems say things like, oh, this reminds me a lot of Buddhism, reminds me a lot of that wasn’t more or what have you. And you know, there was a time when there was this awakening happening across the globe and a lot of disciplines, philosophies and spiritual practices were arriving at the same truth. Um, the quality of your character and the qualitative decisions and the impact that you have on others matters. Um, if you’re going to be a version healthy, happy human being, and is it right?
You’ve written seven books. All right. I guess so, um, there maybe if there’s seven on amazon with my name on then yes, it was just declare. Yeah. So yes, I have written many books. I would actually qualify that by saying handbooks. One of them is literally three pages long. Um, the longest is only 130 40 50 pages long. Um, again, as a disciple of stoic philosophy, I found Marcus’s meditations and I think in this handbook literally just called it or his student area who shared the teachings of it. He just called it the handbook. I found that format to be immensely useful. I’m not, I don’t need to capture reader’s attention for um, hours and hours or days and days or pages and pages what I want to do with my handbooks is deliver actionable information and inspiration in as few words as possible and then encourage you to take what you learn and put it uh, to you some of the world, one of the victims is more famous quotations is learning that does not lead to action is useless and I have taken that to heart and the way that I present, you know what I want to share with people who might benefit from colliding with it.
Well, it’s impressive, nonetheless. Although having said that you’re not focused on the outcome, right? You’re focused on the writing. So maybe it’s not impressive for you, but I found it impressive and you mentioned your coaching. I saw, I thought initially that you were business coach, but on the, one of the videos, it also sort of reference to relationships. Would you say that you’re a life coach and a business coach or qualifications? Yes, I think just the word coach in this day and age is so such a fraud title because it requires nothing. You know, you don’t have to have a certification in if you want one, you can get it for free in a couple of minutes. Um, and for a long time I avoided even adopting the title or you know, the role.
Um, what, what I have come to learn is that we’re all coaches, whether we want to place that title next to our name or not. We all are in our lives, we have relationships and our conversations where we’re helping people identify where they are and where they want to be and doing our best to help them navigate the challenges and make their way towards into whatever possibility is set for themselves. Some people do that as teachers, some people do that as employers. Some people do that as co-workers. I am very focused on people that are already deeply engaged or ready to deeply be engaged with making a difference through meaningful work. And so that’s why some people think of me as a career coach. I also believe that there’s no such that that work life balance is a delusion and an invitation to shame and suffering because there’s no such thing that healthier response is to become a fully integrated human being who is in touch with who they are and what they’re good at and where they belong and to show up wherever you show up in your life as a fully integrated human being prepared to do the best you can with and for the people you find yourself with.
And so it’s very based, very heavily on identifying your about your core values and guiding principles. Your hard and soft skills and talents and identifying people who share your values that need your accounts to enhance their lives. We can do that in our career, whatever that is in our occupation or job, whatever that is, we can do that in our roles and relationships you know, whatever they are and so, you know, life coach is not, is maybe almost the best modifier because I want to help people experiencing greater flourishing and joy in their entire lives, not just in one specific segment ish or domain of their lives. In fact, I think look dividing your life into buckets can be a very unhealthy exercise, Barry and just make your life more difficult to navigate And one often influences the other anyway.
Right, absolutely, absolutely. So you, you mentioned, you do some workshops for Seth Godin. What does that look like? What do you, what’s your activities there? I might, the trajectory of my life changed when I graduated from or during Seth Godin’s Alta NBA six program, which I was just been up in August of 2016. you know, I was invited to go through a coach training for the NBA and desperately wanted to do that and what wasn’t invited into to coach in the next session, I fell into becoming a coach much later, not much later on, several months later. I have, you know, I don’t know why I was invited to do that, but I am incredibly grateful that I was because coaching in his programs helped reveal that coaching is, was my next endeavour after I graduated, I entered the all the NBA wanting to level up in my career as a musician and a Guitar, the owner and operator of the guitar studio? I exited the opening day and I didn’t want it to be a musician of the tar teacher anymore, but not knowing clearly what it was I was wanting to do next. And my own blogging and broadcasting and brand development alongside with the coach and I was doing in in sets programs helped me find my way and I could not be more grateful to set to the community at a kimbo. It’s which is now owned and operated by moody shot and Alex peck as a B corps, although Seth is still very present as a teacher of the programs. It’s exciting, it’s exhilarating, it’s sometimes really challenging and fraught. It’s life, but it’s a way of having an impact at a scale that I could never have. I’m not able to have in my own endeavour at this moment.
Um and I just I really love and appreciate doing that work, even when engaged in challenges and difficult conversations that necessarily are going to happen when you’re working closely with students and their pursuit of levelling up in their craft is creatives, freelancers, boots, trappers, marketers, whatever it is. So it’s just it’s immense, immensely rewarding. It’s immensely challenging, It’s immensely fun and it’s immensely frustrating on some days. It’s just you know like any meaningful endeavour. It it’s multifaceted, but that’s true of any worthwhile endeavour and I just I love doing that work. Do you have sort of strategies or tactics to go about navigating disagreements like that. Absolutely. So all the things that we’ve already talked about and, you know, as a head coach, I get to help other coaches find their way to bring, you know, their idiosyncratic perspective and skill set to this work in a way that well enhance their experience while they’re elevating the experience of students.
And one of the things that helps, I think helps us all is reminding ourselves what Epictetus, the stoic philosopher, taught, which is everybody is actually doing what they think is right? Almost all the time. I mean, we think that, you know, people that don’t agree with us around whatever beliefs or you know, ways of being we think that they’re completely nuts and just malicious and intentionally hurtful, that’s not true. everybody is doing the best they can most of the time with where they are and what their understanding is. Unless you’re a complete full blown sociopath or psychopath, which is much rarer than people would only sensibility when you accept that people, you give people the benefit of the doubt except that they’re doing the best they can, then you’re also giving yourself the ability to do the best that you can and to not be attached to any, you know our job is a kimbo coaches on my job as a difference maker coach is not to get you hold you by the hand and drag you across any particular finish line or towards any destination, it’s to witness and reflect and share perspective and questions and insights and invite you to take another boulder, you know, small, bold step into the, into your potential and the possibility that you set for yourself and then to let what happens happened and be in the next moment, if that’s the appropriate thing, you know, with a student or a cohort of students.
Um so yeah, it’s been, but I have learned at least, if not more from the experience of both the kindle coaching, the difference maker coaching than I have instructed, for sure, huh as the difference maker coaching is that your business and you’re sort of, what do you call it? Like a side job or but you can go as I am indicated I completely, so I retired from musical performance about two years, three years ago, I closed down the studio just at the end of last year, I’m now a full-time coach. I would say at this second, third of my time is dedicated to my own difference maker coaching program, which is under the creative on purpose brand. And then a third of my time is dedicated to being a head coach and a couple of the Akimbo programs, most often it’s the creatives workshop and the freelancers workshop and I’ve also coached in the marketing seminar and the boots trappers workshop, the story skills workshop, the real skills workshop, and I’m probably forgetting others.
Um so, you know, coaching is who I am and what I do at this point, but, you know, even more important than the role, it’s this pursuit of helping people fly higher than the difference only they can make has, it has very little to do with me, it just has to do with being a witness and a guide and a person that is inviting and encouraging and supporting others to step into their potential and into the possibility that they imagine and want for themselves and what you what would you say? Some of the say most common sticking points are that you see coming up time and time again with people trying to help them. Well, one of the things that I realised very quickly going through the all-NBA is that the person that is most often, or the thing that’s most often getting in my way and my pursuit of becoming developing my potentially delivering on my promise is myself and what’s amazing and what all of Seth’s programs, speeches that you are fantastic at looking from the outside in on somebody else’s situation and helping them discern all the ways that they are conspiring against themselves and pointing to ways that they can navigate themselves around through or even flip a situation that self-imposed, so that they can step into possibility at the same time that you’re a master at doing that for others.
You are the worst person. We’re doing that for yourself. And that’s just because of all the biases, all the cognitive biases, you can Google them online. There’s, you know, 7 12. It depends on who you read. But you know, we are creatures who like to confirm our own biases and beliefs. We are creatures who like to associate with people that believe what we believe in, echo what we what we believe and want to do. And the more you can put yourself in situations where you are open to and inviting others to take a look that your situation, you will see that they don’t always see exactly what you see. I’m very, very frequently they will find help you see something that helps you start working the problem instead of letting the problem with you. So that’s a long-winded answer to the short answer, which is the thing that’s standing in anyone’s way most often is themselves.
And the best way to get through that predicament is to surround yourselves with people who are empathetic understanding and willing to extend real love, which means not confirming all of your silly beliefs, but helping you see what you can’t see and inviting you to step into your potential. And when you do that, when they do that for you and you do that for them. That is how things, things get better and that’s how we navigate our way out of the situations we often are putting ourselves in. It makes me initially I wanted to say, does that mean that you can sort of use some of those principles to help yourself? So you know, I know that I might be doing this and therefore here’s what I need to do in the way that I would coach other people. But you also said the best way to do it is to get a coach. So which, which one of those to do you do?
Well, it’s, I am a coach. I have two coaches because again, I’m not the best person to see what I don’t see and to navigate my way through something I don’t yet police see and understand. Yeah, I think it comes down to two things. I think it comes down to are you ready to trust yourself? Because if you, yeah, one of my favourite quotations from Goethe is as soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live it. Again, you know, we are great at helping other people see what they don’t see and step into potential that they’re not yet ready. Haven’t figured out how to navigate and we’re allows you doing that for ourselves. So trust trusting yourself, trusting in the, you can’t trust the process until you trust yourself to be able to engage with that process and navigate the inevitable challenges at the same time.
It’s an issue of investment and enrolment. If you’re not fully enrolled in the journey of personal development and growth, um, you’re not gonna make any meaningful progress. And the best way to put yourself on the hook and deeply engaged is to invest and yes, you can invest your time and attention to valuable resources that you can never get back. and once you’ve spent them they’re gone. But the simple investment of, you know, a simple investment of money alongside with time and attention is something that we have seen works really well for human beings. Um, and so you know, the investment that anyone makes in worth in good coaching, worthwhile coaching will pay itself back so many times that it’s not even, it becomes insignificant. Um, and what I find is that most people want to do what to do it yourself right.
If you want to do that, I have a blog and I have books that are virtually free and you can, everything I’m coaching is on the blog and in those handbooks, um, the people that go to do it yourself, you are yet to meet anybody that’s made significant progress doing it on their own. What I have seen over and over and over again is people that are willing to invest in a coaching relationship. Um, and fully put themselves on the hook and be accountable and invested in the change that they want to make. They always make progress, even when the progress made is this is actually not the right thing for me to be doing right now. I need to figure out something else. I mean, it’s when you see one of the things I talk about in onwards, don’t start with, why start with who? And I’m not just taking a swipe at Simon Sinek, I love his work and I think the idea of purpose is really important but purpose is not something fixed and it’s not a destination.
You don’t find it anywhere. It’s something that you cultivate within yourself by knowing who you are, what you’re good at and where you belong. And when you do, when you know those things, purpose is a naturally occurring result as his passion of doing the work right in front of you right now with the people that you find yourself with right now. And investment is just a way to amplify and leverage making the progress that we all pay lip service to, but well, most frequently we don’t actually um, fully engaged with because we’re not willing to invest, you know, make that investment, no investment increases the urgency of action and trust and those are both required to make change happen. Well, you touched on something, which I think or at least from I’ve done some coaching and sometimes challenging to even be specific and determine what it is that you’re trying to achieve, being that simple, right?
So if people knew exactly what they wanted, they might be a little bit better achieving it. But it’s part of what you do, kind of get getting people concrete on what it is that they’re trying to achieve, definitely have a process for identifying where the work that you’re meant to do now is that the wording that we use an endeavour that makes a difference is another word that we term that we use, again, meaningful work is going to be found at the intersection of who you are, what you’re good at and where you belong, who are the people that share your values and needs your talents to enhance their lives. And, you know, it’s not one thing you don’t have one purpose, there’s not one thing that you were born to do, but if you approach any situation, any relationship with purpose on purpose and for purpose, meaning and fulfilment will be naturally occurring by products and this idea of starting with who, you know, if you get the right people together and they don’t know where they’re going.
They’re going to figure out a great place to go ahead. And even if they don’t get there, which they probably won’t, they’re going to end up somewhere great because you’ve got the right people together and you’re working together with common purpose and common cause and wherever you end up, we’ll have learned something, you will have experience and flourishing along the way. You can get, you can have the best destination in the world established. But if you get the wrong people on that bus, you’re not getting to that destination and you’re gonna suffer every step of the way. And even if you get where you want to go, it will not have been worth it. So it really comes down to starting with who and who you need to start with first as you and the clear you can get on who you are and what you’re good at and where you belong. As soon as you can start doing work and elevating your craft within that work to the point where you can experience a greater sense of prosperity alongside passion, purpose and even, you know, position or status within that domain.
There is some of the information covered in onward, it’s definitely a part of onward is in some ways. A follow up to my previous handbook, which is called Endeavor, which talks very much about that process of defining your values skills in town tribe. You know, those two books together, you know, which will cost a total of $10 on Amazon E books. We’ll reveal the entire process that I’ve crafted for leading a flourishing life. And again, all based very much on ancient philosophical and psychological principles that have been vetted by neuroscience and psychology and everything else. So you know, stoicism is not just a philosophy, it’s informed, cognitive behavioural therapy, rational, emotive behavioural therapy, positive psychology. This is not just, well I feel good. You know anecdotal wisdom, this is this is stuff that’s been proven that that science and time has vetted to be very, very effective for helping human beings experience for showing and possibility in their lives.
You do have to be in self-development. You do have to be careful of the woo-woo, don’t you? Well I always, I like to say my books aren’t self-help books that help others books, but since there’s no help other section at the library or bookstore yet, they’re filed under self-help. but that’s to me the essential component. You know, we enhance our lives most through work that elevates the others, but I did have a look and you’ve got your you got your own podcast on YouTube, you enjoy it. I do right. So I began when I left when I graduated from the all India in August 2016 again, I knew that I wanted to do something different. I just didn’t know what that was. I thrashed my way through to clarity by blogging every week and broadcasting every week and I started by having interviews with the celebrities in the modern stoicism space moved into other influencers and change agents.
You know, I’ll be interviewing Jacqueline Novogratz later today who is the founder vacuum and fund and a fantastic book called manifesto for moral revolution. Those conversations have deeply informed and inspired by my own work and so you know, I think everybody should have a blog and everybody should have a podcast because if you’re paying attention in doing the work with some degree of intention, you will learn things that you would never have learned on your own just by letting your work having musical conversations and putting the ideas out into the world to collide with people so that you can refine what your ideas are and the audience that they’re intended to help. Well, one of the interviews, which I thought was pretty cool to get was Seth Godin and he’s sort of famous for, you know, his, his blog, he advocates having a blog.
Is that how much have you picked up from him? Oh, you know, I credit Seth, you know, Seth and Marcus Aurelius are probably the 22 human beings that have influenced my journey more than any other. And I say that, as I said, I’m reminded of, you know, I had teachers in high school and teachers in college that also helped. I had friends and employers who you know, have, you know, when I look at the book back at my life, my first instinct is to say I’ve reinvented myself many, many times, but actually I’m just I’ve just, there have been these moments when I just changed the trajectory of who I’m becoming, but I’ve been becoming, you know, I’ve been moving towards something the entire time without knowing what that was being able to see it. It’ll only ever make sense in retrospect, but um, you know, for sure, you know, and it’s not really Seth, it’s the ideas and the communities and the workshops that he’s set up because what he has done is he’s put me in situations where I am doing work with other people set is barely present in any of these programs.
So, you know, there’s no mentoring or step-by-step program that has provided me. He has, you know, generously blurred with my books and he generously shared insight on the direction I’m going from time to time. Um, but you know, that that has been very, very infrequent, mostly. It’s just employing his some of his ideas and working with the communities that he’s allowed me to be a part of. That’s helping me find my own way. And I think if I had to guess, I think he wouldn’t want me to say it any other way, you mentioned changing your trajectory in terms of where you’re going, where would you say that is now about five years ago again, about the time that I was Maybe right before I was joining the Alton BA. In 2016, You know, I was approaching or just having turned 50?
Yeah, stoicism is a discipline that encourages you to meditate on your depth and to take what’s left in and do the most good you can. and that’s, that’s what I’ve been doubling down on really ever since. you know, I think David brooks speaks to this pretty inspiring lee and cogently and the second mountain, you know, we spend the first half of our life acquiring status and money and um, you know, things will spend the second half of our life trying to make an impact and trying to, trying to share rather than trying to accumulate. So wherever I am, whether it’s in a temple workshop er and the creative on purpose community or difference maker coaching program and community, I’m just doing my best to leave things better and better off things and people better and better off than they were when I collided with them and as Impact one meaningful way as I can without overly attaching at a specific result of just, yeah, it’s circling back to what we started with, living, living my legacy means making the biggest and best difference I can right now moments until my time is done. Well, one of my questions that I normally ask near the end of a podcast is what your business goals or what are your goals for any particular thing that you’ve got going on, Like for example, the book or the YouTube channel or whatever it might be. But do you see goals being in conflict with your philosophy? Oh no, um, goals are really important. One of the things, we have a program in difference, the creative on purpose called Do the work and that’s a four-week sprint where we very specifically identify a goal that a person wants to achieve in their endeavour at the end of a four-week period. The thing is there are goals that are smart goals that we can measure and we can track our progress and we can know how close or how far we came to hitting that goal. But there’s also a process goal. So I might have a goal of losing weight and I want to lose £20 by the end of, you know, three-month period or what have you.
But the process goal is, you know, the changes to my diet and exercise that I am during every single day. And again, having a point on the horizon that you’re aiming for is extremely important. But the reward is in the day to day effort toward that goal. And again, you may well find that you don’t end up exactly where intended, but you will end up somewhere great because you’ll see as you go, as long as again and, you know, the title of your podcast is speaks to this, you know, as long as you’re doing it with intention and integrity ethically. You will you’ll get, you’ll enhance yourself, enhance the prospects and prosperity of those that that you’re doing work with and poor and you’ll end up somewhere great. And so goals are important. Attachment to goals is probably harmful.
Set your point on the horizon. Do your best to make progress into that of a single day. Be willing to make adjustments as you go. Um, and you know, practice the Hippocratic oath. First rule is do no harm. Your pursuit of your own flourishing. And prosperity extends as far as it can extend until it starts to impede somebody else’s ability to do the same. You know, that’s a basic principle that I live by the and teach that, you know, we live in this period of time where a lot of people are scared that if we let others have access to the abundance, that there might not be enough for us. And that’s just that’s silly and completely not true. There’s plenty for all. In fact, the more people that get to participate in the process and the abundance that the world has to offer, the better off. We will all be because we can pay attention to things that actually matter as opposed to the silliness of trying to make sure we get as much as we possibly can at the expense of of other people.
What happened thinking very recently about the fact that I shouldn’t quite be so mentally attached to the outcome of a particular goal. So I really do appreciate the message. It’s very timely. Have you got anything else that you’d like to add as as a close, just I think people that listen to a podcast broadcast like this are probably very aligned with the people that listen to my broadcast and they are interested in the type of work that I do and this pursuit of making things better and bettering ourselves in the process, um, especially because it’s so challenging. Sometimes we can take it in ourselves a little bit too seriously. Um, you know, I really think that we’re supposed to be, it’s supposed to be fun too. And there’s a Marcus Aurelius quote that remains my favourite, love the humble work that you’ve been given and take rest of it and that the work is the work of living well.
And the rest is the appreciation for the gift of being able to do meaningful work, which includes engaging with the challenges. Um, you can be both, you can experience sufficiency. Yeah. As you strive everything is okay and you’re okay just the way you are, of course, and at the same time, we, as soon as beings always are seeking the edges of our understanding and ability and pursuing that and that they’re not diametrically opposed within, we can embody and experience sufficiency even as we continue to try to better ourselves if we just pay attention to the process and the, and the quality of our efforts and not whether or not we acquire, um, you know, the outcomes or results that we might be putting 1/4. So I guess long winded way to say, yeah, have some fun along the way.
A new experience. It’s a good answer On the, on the topic of having fun. I can see the guitar in the background. You still play? I do. I joke sometimes that it’s a relic of my musicians passed. I played, um, Rez Afanah guitars, which are brass, nickel plated grasp. Um, I was endorsed by the nationalism on a guitar company. Um, I love the instruments and I still love to play. What’s interesting is now that it’s no longer my source of income and my occupation when I do pick up the guitar, I actually do experience a lot more joy flourishing, um, and much less frustration than I did when I was doing it professionally. Um, so yeah, it’s something that it’s still a part of my identity. Um, even though I don’t do it as often as I used to. But uh, yeah, still appreciate all the lessons that I learned as a musician and, and still love what music does for not just performers, but for listeners as well.
Yeah. Well, I can certainly see that it’s probably not so attached to the outcome anymore of the of the music and therefore it’s more enjoyable. Right? Absolutely not react. Where’s the best place for people to find you, Scott?
It used to be that you could google Scott Perry and I would be the number one hit. Turns out that there’s a representative from the state of Pennsylvania named Scott Perry, and now there’s also an NBA coach named Scott Perry. Turns out that politicians in basketball stars are more popular than musicians and coaches. So if you put in Scott Perry and creative on purpose or just creative on purpose, you will bind the creative on purpose websites. Creative onpurpose.com. I’m on social media mostly just to share insight and inspiration. I don’t play around there too much. But if you put my name into any of the most common platforms, you can find it there as well.
I’ve said this before like it’s a nightmare being Thomas Green in a Google world because it’s just too common. Thank you very much for being a great guest. I loved the conversation.
Yeah, well, it was an extraordinary interview because you asked really fantastic questions. I’ve loved the conversation, appreciate the opportunity. Thank you, Thomas.