Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Scott Simon on How to Harness Courage for a Limitless Life EP 300

Episode Date: June 1, 2023

From panic attacks on a transatlantic flight to embracing the power of courage, Scott Simon's journey took an unexpected twist that transformed his life. Discover the mantra that pushed him to face his fears and find fulfillment as we explore the inspiring story of a once-fearful child who became a courageous warrior. Scott is the author of Scare Your Soul: 7 Powerful Principles to Harness Fear and Lead Your Most Courageous Life. Scott Simon's Guide to Harnessing Courage for a Limitless Life Are you tired of being told to just be brave without any real guidance? Feeling stuck and frustrated with ineffective advice on how to cultivate courage? It's time to ditch the empty platitudes and take actionable steps toward building a fearless, fulfilling life. Join us in this episode as we explore practical strategies for incrementally building courage, embracing wonder and inquisitiveness, and shattering self-imposed limitations. Say goodbye to apprehension and hello to an impassioned, daring existence. Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/scott-simon-how-to-harness-courage/  Brought to you by Nom Nom. Nom Nom is healthy, fresh food for dogs formulated by top Board Certified Veterinary Nutritionists, prepped in their kitchens with free delivery to your door. Get 50% off and unlock a two-week risk-free trial at https://trynow.com/passionstruck. --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/  Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! --► Prefer to watch this interview: https://youtu.be/iG3M2WLazMo  --► Subscribe to Our YouTube Channel Here: https://youtu.be/QYehiUuX7zs  Want to find your purpose in life? I provide my six simple steps to achieving it - passionstruck.com/5-simple-steps-to-find-your-passion-in-life/ Catch my interview with Marshall Goldsmith on How You Create an Earned Life: https://passionstruck.com/marshall-goldsmith-create-your-earned-life/  Watch the solo episode I did on the topic of Chronic Loneliness: https://youtu.be/aFDRk0kcM40  Want to hear my best interviews from 2022? Check out episode 233 on intentional greatness and episode 234 on intentional behavior change. ===== FOLLOW ON THE SOCIALS ===== * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m  Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/  Passion Struck is now on the AMFM247 broadcasting network every Monday and Friday from 5–6 PM. Step 1: Go to TuneIn, Apple Music (or any other app, mobile or computer) Step 2: Search for “AMFM247” Network

Coming up next on Passion Struck, so many people who are probably listening to this right now think that courage means jumping out of airplanes or quitting jobs and moving to other countries and making these massive shifts. When really sometimes it's the might grow challenges, the might grow aspects of courage that first of all are sometimes the hardest, but they can also move the needle even the most. Welcome to PassionStruck. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people, and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors,

CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello, everyone, and welcome to a very special episode of PassionStruck, because it is Episode 300. And when I started this journey just over two years ago, I never imagined that we would already be at 300 episodes and have provided so much inspiration as so many millions throughout the world.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting this show and everything that we're trying to accomplish to help you live better, be better, and impact the world. And if you're not aware, this show is now also syndicated on the AMFM247 National Broadcast, and you can listen to it every Monday and Friday from five to six PM,

we put different content out on that show than we do on the podcast. I will place links in the show notes. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here. You simply want to introduce this to family or friends. We now have episodes starter packs, which are collections of our fans favorite episodes that we organize in the convenient topics to give any new listener a great way to get adjusted to everything we do here on the show.

Just go to passionstruck.com slash starter packs or Spotify to get started. And in case you missed it earlier this week, I had a very special interview with Seth Godin, where we released his brand new book, The Song of Significance. I'm sure almost every one of you know who Seth is, but in case you don't, he's an entrepreneur, bestselling author, and acclaimed speaker. In addition to launching one of the most successful blogs on the planet, he has written over 20 bestselling books, including The Dip, Linchpin, Rupel Cow, Tribes, and What to Do when a Cheer Turn. His book This Is Marketing was an instant bestseller in countries throughout the world. Please check that episode out, and if you liked it or today's,

we would so love it if you could provide us a five-star rating in review. It goes such a long way in bringing more people into the passion-struck community, where we can teach them how to live a limitless life filled with hope, meaning, and connection. And I know our authors love to hear from you as well. Now let's talk about today's interview. Being courageous, let's face it, is a challenging feat, as fear and uncertainty. Often hold us back. However, what if you could find the courage to act despite these emotions?

How would this empower you to change your current reality into the life that you dream of? The great news is that courage, like a muscle, can be strengthened through practice. My guest today, Scott Simon, in his new book, Scary Your Soul, offers guidance on exercising your courage and taking small, but boundary-pushing actions to expand your comfort zone, ultimately reducing fear and increasing confidence with each step. In our interview, Scott discusses how we went

from a fear warrior to a fear chaser and found that when he took on more challenges to test himself, that it was the daily moments and choices in his life that made the real impact. Scott guides us through a process of identifying your soul traits, required to combat fear, and resist control even when fear is overwhelming. It is often assumed that we can simply suppress fear by being told not to be afraid, but Scott dispels the Smith by sharing real-life narratives that instill confidence in the ability

to build a reservoir of courage. This notion of courage encompasses the strength to be vulnerable, hopeful, patient, and to believe in a tomorrow that can bring positive change. Scott's guidance is both practical and insightful, offering relevant tools to cultivate courage in your life. Scott Simon is an acclaimed author, speaker, and visionary behind the scarier soul movement. His passion is centered on helping people discover their inner courage, amidst a world

that is often riddled with fear. Having delivered speeches worldwide, Scott has inspired people in schools, corporations, and conferences, including his TED Talk. With science's work in scarier soul, Scott is also a coach who specializes in creating fulfilling lives after divorce. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your hosting guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin.

I am absolutely thrilled to have Scott Simon on Passionstruck. Welcome, Scott. John, thanks so much for having me. Great to be with you. Well, today we're going to discuss your incredible book, which I'm holding up right here, Scare Your Soul, Seven Powerful Principles to Harness Fear and Lead Your Most Courageous Life. And I will just start off by telling you,

would I told you before we even got on the air that oftentimes I pick up books and they have a lot of great information, but it's not really applicable. And when I started reading the reviews about your book, again and again, people would say, it's a book you not only read, it's a book you end up living. And I found it so true when I picked it up myself.

Oh, I'm so glad. Yeah, I really wanted to make this book very much of a conversation between me and the reader and anybody that has listened to your podcast knows that when it comes to happiness and flourishing lives and leading a courageous life, there's no top ten list that you can get accomplished in the next week.

So it's really about the work, the self-awareness, the passion, and I hope that the book really becomes that workbook, that Bible, that people can go back to over and over again to reconnect with their best selves. Well, one of my favorite sayings and a friend of mine, Rory Vaden, is the one who I first heard say it is, we are most positioned to serve the person that we once were. And our parents and our entire upbringing greatly influence who we become and create some of the biggest hurdles that we have to deal with. I understand you faced many hurdles and challenges when I was hoping that you could talk about that because I think it's a great starting point because regardless of what you went

through other people face, the stumbling blocks that get them stuck in life. Well, first of all, I think that's absolutely true. We all have our own journey, our own path, and our own stumbles. And for me, it really was the fact that I grew up, first of all, in a very loving family, very lucky to have great parents and grandparents, but I was shy. I was short and, and I was the victim of bullies. And that led me to want to lead or to feel that I needed to lead a very small life, really in fear.

And that stuck with me through my entire childhood. I couldn't speak in front of more than five or six people at a time. Certainly couldn't raise my hand in class and answer a question. So I struggled in school, I had to switch schools. And really the bullying was the worst. That was what really made me feel unsafe, unsafe to be myself in so many ways.

So when I look at who I am today, the kind of things that I get to do, the things that we're doing right now where I get to talk about the things that I went through. I really believe that it's a mirror to what everybody else has gone through in their lives. I just want to make sure it doesn't hold us back. That we somehow can take action in fun and lively and powerful ways that we can actually overcome those things that used to hold us back. And for me, boy, did I feel held back? Well, I find that many of our destructive behaviors take root in an emotional void and

emptiness that calls out for something to fill it. Is that how you felt when you described yourself as wanting to be invisible? Absolutely. To me, it felt like a huge void. I wasn't able to speak. I wasn't able to communicate for myself. And really showing up in any kind of real way just felt unsafe for anybody that's been bullied. The more you speak out, the more that you fight back, the more unsafe you might feel, whether it's true or not as a kid. And for me, I was 8, 9, 10 when I was getting tossed around in circles and thrown off into the bushes in front of everybody in my grade. Really tough stuff for a young child to go through. And yes, it was a void of purpose. It was a void of feeling like I just didn't have a voice.

Yeah, and I wanted to keep going down this path just for a little bit longer. What are some of the ways that people blind themselves to the truth about their fears? Oh, gosh. I think there are so many ways that we all feel like we can help other people, is we have this clarity of vision when somebody else tells us their problems. But trauma and negative past experiences sometimes are so deeply buried in our subconscious that we sometimes don't even remember or quickly. It happens so quickly and our body reacts. So we think that it's normal. We literally think that the reaction that we're having

is exactly the reaction that we should be having. When in looking at somebody else in their life, we're able to have a sense of perspective. So much of the work that I feel like I do helping people become more courageous, and certainly as we create courage, challenges that we do every single week and scare your soul, it's about slowing down, paying attention to your body, paying attention to what's happening in your body,

and making decisions about stepping forward into maybe a moment of discomfort, maybe a moment of being scared, but doing something that at the end of the day will in live in us and lead us to a more flourishing life. but doing something that at the end of the day will in live in us and lead us to a more flourishing life. Yeah, and on those lines of flourishing life because that is exactly what I'm trying

to help guide people do on PassionStruck, how do our fears lead us to live a life that is less fulfilling than the one that we dream is possible? Because I think our fears are one of the biggest stuck points that inhabit our being and prevent us from taking those steps. Absolutely. So let me frame fear this way.

Let's look at fear in two different ways. In one regard, fear is meant to keep us safe. It's one of the most critical and primal emotions that we have. Anybody that has a child and you counsel them very vigorously not to cross the street, you understand why they need to be afraid to walk across the street.

Fear has a deep survival impulse within us. But there are so many fears that are self-generated based on society, the impacts that what we see on social media or what people say to us or tell us what authority figures have told us in the past or past experiences. And those lead us to be afraid of things like rejection, abandonment, failure, sometimes success, change the unknown. All of those things that I think we approach every single day. And what I hope to do, and what I hope that I've done in this book, is to really help people map out in their own lives, which fears are keeping them safe, and which fears are holding them back.

And when we remove that barrier, and we say, you know what, it may feel a little uncomfortable. For example, one of our famous challenges that we've done hundreds and hundreds of times is buying a cup of coffee for a stranger and having a conversation with that stranger for 30 seconds. It's a very simple challenge. It's fairly low cost, but it puts you in that moment of uncertainty and unknown. And I know you've spoken on your podcast about this many times before, that sometimes those conversations on airplanes

in line at the coffee shop, they may be some of the most important conversations we will ever have, and we just don't know it unless we push through that barrier. So I really believe in so many ways that courage is the key that unlocks so much of what you've talked about with so many of your other guests. The things that make us happy and the things that lead to flourishing lives, courage to me, if we can get past that moment of uncertainty, leads us

into a garden of opportunity. And that to me is, I couldn't think of a better way to leave life than to consistently push that edge. It's what motivates me every day, and I think it motivates all the people that are involved in our movement. Well, I always like to ask this question. We all have moments that define who we become. And I guess that I had on last year, Cara Chammerlane, was 16 years old when she was kidnapped by what turned out to be a serial killer. And I asked her during the interview, how that moment defined her. And I loved her response because she said,

that moment hasn't defined me. I can influence so many others because of that, but I don't let it define me. In your case, you decided to jump on a plane to Tel Aviv speaking about flights, and during that flight, you discovered eight words that ended up changing your life and leading you from being consumed by fear to chasing fear.

And I was hoping you could talk about that experience because similar to Kara, you ended up making the choice to not let your early upbringing define the rest of your life, you made the choice to change it. Absolutely. And that moment is something that I will never forget. So I had graduated from college. I had, as I mentioned, a really rough road to get there, even switching colleges because I wasn't doing well and struggling socially, etc. And I was back working the alternative music aisle at Camelot Records, selling vinyl at 21 years old and staying as safe and invisible as

I possibly could be. And I was given an opportunity to travel to Israel for a year as a volunteer to teach English to elderly Holocaust survivors. And I have to be honest with you, I do not know to this day why I said yes, because it was so out of the norm for me to literally get on a plane and go to a country where I didn't know the language or anybody and to do something so crazy.

But I said yes, and I packed my bag, I gave my parents a big hug, and I hopped on this plane, and I literally had a panic attack. As the flight took off, I started to think to myself, how can I possibly land and turn around? I just literally didn't think I could do it. And in one moment of complete just literally didn't think I could do it. And in one moment of complete breakdown, I pulled out this little spiral notebook that I had in my backpack and a pen, and I will never forget it.

I opened it up and words tumbled out of my pen and I wrote, do one thing every day that scares you. And I sat there and I looked at it and I knew what it meant. And for me, what that meant was, for the next year, not only would I stay and not turn around, but that I would do one thing every day that pushed my comfort zones. It was almost like my year of yes. It was saying yes to all of those things that scared me. And it ended up being the best year of my life. It changed everything for me.

And sometimes these things arise out of crisis. Sometimes they arise because we're practicing and we have intention. For me, it was a panic attack on a transatlantic flight that taught me that enough was enough I had to stop living invisibly and start making choices to push through fear every single day. And that literally changed my life.

Yeah, it's interesting. And I'm going to have you talk about some of these here in a second. But last year I got to interview Victoria Humphries who at the age of 50 developed a 50 at 50 challenge where for the next year she was going to give herself 50 challenges that she had to do. So one a week. So not too far different from you. But I asked her which challenges ended up becoming the most difficult for her. And she said, it wasn't what you expected. The challenges such as jumping out of an airplane became the easiest choices to make. The challenge to go up and talk to a homeless person

and serve them or to do a selfless act for her became the more challenging ones. And I wanted to ask you, did you find in yourself the same sort of things happened? Honestly, I could not agree more. I'm so glad you raised that point because so many people who are probably listening to this right now think that courage means jumping out of airplanes or quitting jobs and moving to other countries and making these massive shifts. When really, it's the micro challenges, the micro aspects of courage, that first of all are sometimes the hardest, but they can also move the needle even the most.

And for me, that was exactly the case. I remember landing and every day seemed like it presented a challenge, moving in with the new family that I did not know. Beginning to speak a language that I didn't know, going to a post office for the first time, connecting with somebody on a bus that I didn't know before. And these little things started to aggregate.

They started to, as Alex Corbett said, there was an upward spiral from a feeling of stuckness to a feeling of, wow, I get to do something else like this today. And those, every single day, started to impact me. And to this day, so many of our participants in our scariest soul movement, and really just people who reach out to me

after they've read the book, say to me, and I literally just got this email this morning, I went to a movie by myself because of you. I cannot tell you how powerful a statement that is to me because it is these little moments of stepping out of our comforts out that end up changing our lives. Not these big, gaudy actions. Yes, I've jumped out of airplanes with a fear of heights, but I will tell you very quickly, I honestly believe that getting on a ladder for six straight days and cleaning out your gutters, we'll do more for a fear of heights

than jumping out of an airplane at 14,000 feet. Because it's all about practice, consistency, intention, and I live that life. I'm in some ways a very fearful person because I flirt with my fear every day, but I also, I welcome it every single day. And I think that is what I learned that year in Israel, that year of yes.

I wanted to share something with you in the audience. A really good friend of mine who lives right up the street from me here in Tampa Bay area is a retired Navy Steel Captain named John Doolittle. And he and I were talking about purge and fear as we were getting into this. And you think in a 30 year career like John has had where he has served all over the world, he is the only seal who's ever done the English channel, swimming that all alone.

You can imagine all these things. And he said, people think when they look at seals or they look at people who are out there, they equate fear to physical challenges. And he said, that's where so many people get it wrong. He said, when you look at me, the thing I was most fearful of as I was going through my career was actually speaking.

It was getting in front of a group and talking to people. And he said that what you really have to do is focus on mindset. And that comes not through these physical challenges. It comes through everyday challenges and living to your values and living to the fullest, the energy force that you can have. And I found so much of what he was saying resonated with so much that you can have. And I found so much of what he was saying resonated

with so much that you have in the book. Thanks, first of all, I love that story. It absolutely resonates. And in the book, I share dozens of stories of everyday people who have done things, just one small app that ended up changing their lives. But I'll tell you one quick story of mine. When I was nine years old,

my idol was my older cousin, Stephen. And an event rocked our entire family. He was crossing the street locally here, and I live in Cleveland, Ohio. He was going to build a tree house with friends and a car came up over a hill, and he was killed. And it affected me very deeply, especially about crossing streets.

I just became a nighacle about the safety in crossing streets. I now have my own children. And one day after implementing all of my courage practices, doing one thing every day that scares me as I began to do for years and years. I had a bunch of young kids over for dinner as I always did every weekend. And I heard a scream outside my front door and I ran outside to find that one of my

daughter's seventh grade friends had been hit by an SUV crossing our street. It was that thing you never wish will ever happen. And all I can tell you is, I sprinted barefoot out my front door down my street and into the main street where she was laying and I stood over her body with my arms outstretched because traffic was coming in both directions. because traffic was coming in both directions. And I said to myself, this is not going to happen again. And I cannot tell you what it meant to have a courage practice in that moment because I knew that whatever it took,

I wasn't gonna move. And I stood over soapy spotty, waited, held off traffic until the ambulance came, got the other kids into the house, went to the hospital. I had to call her parents until her parents, what nobody wants to tell another parent that their child was hurt while they were on your watch. They came to the hospital and gave me a huge hug. And I'm happy to report that Sophie is a vibrant college sophomore now and is completely healed.

But that moment was my clarion call to courage. And it was only I believe that I had years of practice of stepping into my own courageous power that it allowed me to stand over her with my arms outstretched and making sure that it wasn't going to happen again. Well, thank you so much for sharing that very powerful story and as a parent myself and a dog owner, that is one of the biggest fears I think a parent has is a kid losing sense for a moment, going and chasing a ball and not thinking

about what's behind them and running out in the street or the same thing with your pet. But what a courageous act that was. One of the other events that I was hoping that you could talk about was something that happened that led you to creating a Facebook post that ended up going viral worldwide and led others to picking challenges that were meaningful to them. Sure. So I would ask all of your listeners as I'm telling this to maybe think of one moment in your life when an authority figure told you something that stuck with you. life when an authority figure told you something that stuck with you. So here's my story. I was 10 years old and I don't know if you remember holiday choir concerts when you were young, but when I

went to school, it was a really big thing. The entire grade participated. It was December. I was 10 years old. And we were practicing for our holiday concert and our substitute choir teacher gave me a solo line in a song. The song was 76 trombones from the music man. And I was standing there front row, shortest kid, little cardigan sweater on and 10 khakis. And the song came around to me to sing my solo line and I got choked up. I was so nervous and I couldn't sing the line. And instead of just moving on, he literally started the entire grade over again. I had to endure it again and the same thing

happened. He did it actually one more time and I was bright red standing like a statue. one more time and I was bright red standing like a statue and he stormed towards me and said to me, clearly you can't sing. Why don't you just mouth the words for the rest of the year? Now I will tell you I don't have a great voice but what he said to me that day stopped me from singing for 35 years. I would go to concerts with friends and they'd be singing at the top of their lungs and I would be mouthing the words because what somebody told me when I was 10 years old had an imprint on my soul. And I had gone and gotten a degree in positive psychology and had done some work and gave a TED talk about happiness and I was really passionate about what does it mean to take our power back and to be courageous in our lives. So I decided one main morning in my mid-40s to bring a guitar and to sing in front of a busy restaurant on a Sunday morning.

It was a restaurant that had a huge line out front and it was one of the most terrifying moments of my life grabbing that guitar and walking to this plaza. I opened my guitar case and I began to sing. And first of all, everybody looked insanely annoyed. They were like, why is this guy doing this, but they rallied around me and they saw that I had some enthusiasm. And within five, six minutes, it was over. And I put the guitar and the guitar case. And the feeling that I had was a feeling that I had never had before. It was like pure joy and freedom and passion all at once. I came back home and I wrote a Facebook post about it because I thought maybe one or two of my friends might do something the following weekend that pushed their comfort zones in some way. And that post went viral, as you mentioned, it was shared hundreds of times around the world. And the next week I had dozens and dozens of people from countries around the world asking me to help them become more courageous. And that became the basis for what is now an organization called Scare Your Soul, which is this

grassroots free open movement that just encourages people to do things every single day that push their comfort zones and then we applaud each other as we do it. It's super simple, but I think the fact that it went viral was my message that this is something that's so needed out there. It's so simple, but in some ways, we don't do it. And it shocked me that for 35 years, this was something that held me back. And in six minutes, I was able to quell it. And I was able to take my power back. And to me, that felt like a really strong statement. So, Scarier Soul now was all about helping people do just that

in their own lives and the ways that feel important and meaningful to them. And it was all about me grabbing a guitar and spending six minutes singing in front of a busy restaurant. I'm going to tell you something very ironic. I, as anyone who knows me, I'm not a very good singer either. And I'm not sure what possessed me to take on this challenge, but my freshman year in high school, I decided to try out for the school play music man. And I actually was given the role of Winthrop.

So I know that song that you were asked to sing extremely well. That's amazing. Because I had to sing it in front of hundreds of people. Well, clearly that song is meant to put young kids through their faces. I've told this story obviously many times and it's in the book and I cannot tell you

how many people have come up to me and say, I had a choir teacher tell me the same thing, or I had a priest or a rabbi or a faith leader tell me something about how I couldn't do something, or I wasn't good enough to do something, or I should not even try to get into medical or to become a nurse or to travel and write because they just don't have the goods. And what I love about this work is that we take our power back. And again, it's on some level very simple and very actionable, which I love. And on the other hand, because there's a community around it, you're not alone. People are sharing things on social media,

and they're applauding and joining our Facebook page and our WhatsApp groups where we share one thing every day that scares us. And when you have what my dear friend Maria Sirwa, who's a resilience expert, talks about having a choir, your choir are those people around you that have your back and that always support you. I really look at the scarier soul community and now all the people that are reading the book as shared members of this choir because life is hard, life is challenging, living it together every day. And if we can do these things together and support one another, even if it's different, even if your flavor is a little different than mine, then we're really creating massive change, both in ourselves and in our communities. And I really think across the world.

and in our communities, and I really think across the world. Not sure I've ever even talked about this on the podcast before, but when I was a junior or senior in high school, I was having a one-on-one session with my English teacher who, if you would go to my classmates and ask them even now, who was one of your favorite teachers you had in high school, it was her. But I remember being in this discussion with her and she ends up telling me that I am never going to amount to anything, that I do not have any potential, that I am not going to do anything in life that's fulfilling.

And I remember coming out of that experience, one just being completely humiliated because this was someone I had looked up to so much, but as the weeks went by, it really created this fire inside that I have even today that I'm never going to let someone tell me something I can't do. So I'm glad you brought that up because I think it's an important lesson for people to hear because I think so many of us encounter people like this who try to limit our potential and we just Cannot allow that to happen and influence us. So thank you for bringing that up I love your concept and agree with it wholeheartedly that sometimes our greatest challenges and oftentimes our greatest challenges become that fuel And I've had so many people come up to me and say I'm so sorry for what happened to you when you were young that sometimes are greatest challenges. And oftentimes are greatest challenges become that fuel.

And I've had so many people come up to me and say, I'm so sorry for what happened to you when you were young. I'm so sorry that those kids dislocated your arm three times and you didn't tell anybody about it. And I say to them, actually, it was a huge gift. It didn't feel like it then. But now it fuels me. And it gives me the empathy

to actually want to help other people. And I think empathy is such an underrated virtue in our world. And when we go through challenges, this is one of those things that most people just don't talk about. When we go through challenges hard times, I went through a divorce and had to become a single parent.

I've had many struggles in my own life. And those are the things that make me and fuel me now. And I have so much empathy for other people that are going through them. It makes me want to help, to connect. And that to me is, that's the kind of world that I want to live in. I don't want to live in a world

that feels fearful and polarized. What I want are people to connect with one another because we're all going through this together. We're all part of this life together. And I really do believe that this whole sense of connectedness through challenge is something that is, as I said before, the key to happiness and flourishing lives. This podcast, as I talked to you before the show, is all about the intentional choices that create positive behavioral change that leads us closer to the dreams we dream of. And you write in the book, and I love this.

It is the intentional choice we make to walk into the fire of fear with the hope of growing from its discomfort that creates a flourishing life. I loved it. And I have to say so many behavioral scientists who've been on the show say the same thing. Why is it that these seemingly mundane choices we make during the transition points in our lives that come between the big mega events

have the biggest impact on who our future self becomes. Oh, that's such a great question. So I often use the metaphor of somebody who wants to run a marathon or a triathlon. It's a great goal. It's a goal that takes us mentally and physically to a new level, but you don't do it in a day and you don't do it in a week. What you do is you lace up your shoes every morning and you go out. Is it sleeting and you don't do it in a week. What you do is you lace up your shoes every morning and you go out, it's it's leading and snowing or it's raining or it's cold and some days it's warm and sunny and easy, but it's through the consistent practice

that you end up finally making it that one day to the starting line. I know that metaphors seem simplistic, but I think the best metaphors and the best are realizations in life are sometimes the most simple. I think if we lead our lives, pushing ourselves in our mindfulness practice, pushing ourselves into a sense of awe, pushing ourselves to be grateful, pushing ourselves to forgive, and for a lot of us, some of the most challenging work we can do is actually to take a step back, to not push and strive every single day, but to actually allow us a sense of rest and

a sense of comfort and a sense of resilience. I love the whole concept of putting out these challenges and opportunities for people because it is through those consistent actions that we build the muscle, just like you're building a muscle or stamina as you're practicing for your triathlon. And at the same time, I feel like it's this incredible double benefit while we're building the muscle on one side, on the other side, we're benefiting by all of the conversations and connections and learning that happen when we do these things. For me, to take that to a concrete point,

when you walk into a coffee shop and you buy a cup of coffee for the person behind you and have a conversation, you're stepping into this moment of discomfort, but you're also stepping into a moment of service. You're doing something for somebody else and you're connecting with them in a way that feels really authentic and real. And I cannot tell you and I put some of these examples in the book. We have had scarier soul participants who have found business partners doing this. We've had participants who have connected with people who grew up in small towns at the same time or whose mothers grew up in small towns together. We've had people make connections that have created

lifelong friendships all through that little push through the barrier So I really think like many of your listeners may have a meditation practice or gratitude practice or a health or nutrition practice If your listeners just adopted a very simple courage practice Find one thing every day that scares you. Those eight words I wrote on the airplane that fateful day, that I cannot tell you the riches that can come from that. And once you do it, you again start to build that muscle and it's not the big things, jumping out of planes. It's the small things. It's the smiling at a stranger. I was with my son the other day and we left a restaurant. We had wanted to go to a special pizza place. And he had three slices of pizza.

And he was so excited to take them home and we walked out and there was a homeless man standing right outside the restaurant. He looked at him, walked up to him, said hello, and handed him the pizza that we had just walked out with. Tiny moment, right? Tiny, but beautiful and powerful. And I'm just so passionate about the fact that this is a way of life that will create such it a lot, but my long-term mentor is former astronaut Captain Wendy Lawrence.

And she loves to talk about the concept that we have to give ourselves permission to dream our dream. And she finds, as she was an astronaut going out and talking to so many youth across the world, that so many people today give up at the first impact of negativity or fear or adversity that comes across them. And she likes to tell her story that she watched the astronauts landing on the moon, and that was the impetus for her wanting to become an astronaut.

And from that time forward, she took daily actions all throughout her life. And that's what people always ask her, how did you become an astronaut? She said it was the thousands, upon tens of thousands of choices, of taking herself closer to the things that she knew were necessary to get her to her end goal that allowed her to accomplish it. And it's what so many people felt to do today. And I'm not preaching here. I've done it myself. is we run into things and instead of allowing ourselves to get over that hurdle,

we end up giving up or taking an easier path. And I think it's through these challenges as you talk about and taking these steps that we end up having the courage to get to the end destination that we aspire to be. So I'd love to tell you just on the topic of dreams and on the topic of stepping through fear, especially when it really is its most intense. I'd love to tell you just a quick story about one of our first scarier soul participants. Her name is Johanna. She grew up in Beverly Hills, California. Her dad was an agent and her mom was a writer, and she loved to perform. She just absolutely loved to make people laugh,

and she has this incredible laugh and incredible energy just an absolute delight to be with. And when she would go to Lakers Games with her dad, he would watch the Lakers make sense, and she was enthralled with cheerleaders. She just thought they had so much enthusiasm and energy and talent. And she really made a commitment to herself at a really young age to be a cheerleader. She has told me this story many times and I know it well. She did not have

the body type in those days that was conducive to being a cheerleader in her school. She was not allowed to be part of that group and then moved to a school where there were no chair leaders. When I met Johanna, she was 53, a cancer survivor, a mother of three, and a nurse and was going through it terrible times. She had achieved a success over cancer, but she was tired and exhausted. And she came to me and said, I need to do a scarier soul challenge.

I need to do something that is going to help me bounce back, help me to be happier. And I said to her, I want you to think about something that would light you up, that would unlock something. And she called me back and said, I am freaking out. I called the athletic director of the largest high school in our town. And I asked him if I could be a cheerleader for a day with the 17 and 18 year old cheerleaders. Fortunately for her, he loved the idea

and so did the girls. And she spent a week practicing tumbling, learning the cheers. And here's where I think the crux of this story exists. The day of the homecoming game, which was the game that she was gonna cheer her up. She was pinning her hair up in the bathroom and had an absolute crisis of confidence.

She thought to herself, I literally, I can't do this. Who at 53 years old becomes a cheerleader? But there was something in her that said, just do it. Just push through. And so she ran out onto the field with these other girls, 2,000 people in the stands, and she turned around at midfield to see a standing ovation. All of the people in the stands had been told about her scarier soul challenge, and people were in tears supporting her. It was maybe one of the best days of her entire

life. It just required her to push through that fear. And I will tell you that she has good days and she has bad days. But the photo that is most prominent on her phone is the photo that shows two football players who asked to take a photo with her after she had done her chair leading routine. It inspires other people and it inspires us when we push through fear like this. What a tremendous accomplishment, but it was something that changed her life in a positive way and it changed all of our lives because we heard all about it from her. And that I think is so much of the magic of this work is when you share courageous stories with one another,

there's this huge burst of inspiration and connectedness that occurs. And I will always thank Joe Hannah for sharing that experience and sharing that story with us. Well, speaking of courageous, I love the fact that you brought up Abraham Lincoln. When you discuss the topic of courageous action.

And I love it maybe not for the reason that the listener is going to think of initially, but because of the fact for much of his life until he was in his mid-30s, President Lincoln was actually devoid of meaning, self-described himself as a piece of driftwood moving aimlessly through life. And it was that desire to push for growth that led us to remember him the way that we do today is the greatest

president of the United States. My question to you is, why must we like President Lincoln and the woman that you just brought up, choose courageous action towards growth again and again. Sure, I was speaking the other day at a large bank and I was waiting beforehand to go in and I was sitting at their cafe that they have in this huge skyscraper and talking to the woman who is behind the counter. I ordered a cup of coffee and we were chatting.

I said, how long have you been here? And she said, oh my gosh, 30 years. I've been here for 30 years. And it seems like it has gone by in a day. It has flown by. That concept, I think, is something that should motivate all of us. Life flies by.

Any of us who have kids and have seen them grow or pets and have seen them grow. Sometimes we look back at our photos and we say I cannot believe that was nine years ago or ten years ago. What I want for myself and what I really want for everybody else is not to have a life that flies by. I want a life that is full of intense adventures and memories and hard times and joys. I want the friction and I want the tension and I want the grit that comes along with leading a passionate life. And to me, it is something that only occurs when you enter that growth zone. When we stay in our comfort zone, and I give so many tools in the book about how to push out of that comfort zone, and really,

why the comfort zone exists in the first place, which is to keep us in homeostasis and to keep us safe and to keep us comfortable and out of danger. But for many of us, we're not in danger on a daily basis. We're really just holding ourselves back with those fears. So if we can push forward, as you said, Abraham Lincoln, again, and again, we're not going to have that conversation where we have to say 30 years has gone by in a flash. We can actually say, oh my gosh, do you know the week I've had? I cannot tell you the things that I did this week. I did this and I did this and this was hard. And this was a great outcome.

And I met this new person, I learned this new idea. Wow, don't we all want that life? And to me, you could go out and buy 600 books and listen to 2,000 podcasts and get great ideas. But the basis for it all, I believe, is can you push out of your comfort zone every single day, push through those fears that you think you need to pay attention to, but really are just holding you back and lead that life so that you can look back and say, maybe I was

an Abraham Lincoln, but I was the best me that I possibly can be. And I don't want anything less than that. I really don't. I want to live that life and can be. And I don't want anything less than that. I really don't. I want to live that life and nothing less. Well, thank you for sharing that. And I thought it was useful that we might go through a couple of tools that you recommend in the book. One of them that I liked came in chapter three where you talk about the power of dreams and what they tell us. Can you discuss the challenge you do called a dream table? Sure.

So in scarier soil, we're both virtual and we're physical and every once in a while, we have a number of ambassadors and I join a couple of our ambassadors and we set up a table in front of a coffee shop. And we normally have the coffee shop, give us a bunch of free coffee coupons, which we put on the table. And we normally have the coffee shop give us a bunch of free coffee coupons, which we put on the table. And we wait until people walk by and we smile and we say, hello, and sometimes they come up to our dream table. And what we ask them is the following.

We say, what is one dream that you've always had, but has not been fulfilled. And you see this incredible look on their face. Most of them look upwards into the sky, and they start talking about things like, I always wanted to start my own company. I always wanted to take six months off and travel through Europe. I always wanted to study to become a nurse, and it's amazing to see what people say say and it's lively and it's positive.

But then we ask the following and we say you get a free cup of coffee when you answer the second part. What is one thing that you can do today that would move you towards that goal? And I have had some of the richest conversations with people who start off by saying, I have had some of the richest conversations with people who start off by saying, oh, I can't do that. No way. Don't have the money, don't have the time, don't have the education. I have too many people around me that wouldn't allow me to do it. I'm not good enough, I'm not fast enough, I'm not thin enough. The obstacles, the fears begin to arrive. And what I like to do is to take it one step further, and I'll give you just a quick example. I had a young woman approached me and I said to her, what is the one thing that you've

always wanted to do? And she said, I want to be a philanthropist. I would love at some point to just give away money to people who need it. And I said, great, so what's one thing that you can do today? And she said, well, I can't. I'm a struggling student. I don't have the money. Philan philanthropist need money. And I will never be that. And I said, actually, you are, you're going to start right now because I'm

going to hand you this stack of coffee coupons, free coffee coupons. And I want you to walk down the street. And I want you to hand them out to whomever you like. Because you don't need to let your own fear or your own reticence or your own self-talk stop you. Being a philanthropist isn't about the dollar amount, it's about the intent, it's about where it's coming from in your heart. And all of a sudden, I handed her these coupons and she typically walked down the street and I could see how nervous she was and finally someone coming the other way she handed them this coupon and they smiled and she ended up I think having one of the best days that she had that year. It is these small actions. Can you get past that first feeling of can't do it,

won't do it, not allowed to do it, afraid to do it, to actually say going to do it. And that to me is the key. That's what these dream tables are all about. Yes, I often say that the hardest choice we ever have to make is the first choice. And that is to take that first action that leads us to chasing that dream we want to go. And so often it's at hesitance before taking that step that curtail so many dreams from becoming real. So thank you for sharing that. Another challenge I was hoping you could talk about

is earlier this week, I happened to interview Hal Hirschfield who some people may know he's a professor at the Anderson School of Business at UCLA. And we discussed his new book coming out called Future Self. And one of the challenges he says that helps us get us closer to our future selves is writing a letter to our future self. I understand in the book you have a similar philosophy but you suggest writing it about feelings and values. I do. First of all, there are so many wonderful benefits of writing a letter to yourself.

And it clarifies so much. Very few people say, dear self, I hope you have that new Ferrari. And I hope you got that title that you were looking for. And that salary bump, I hope you got it. We don't write about those things. It's almost like David Brooks talking about the difference between resume, values, and ula-ji values that do you lead your life based on the kind of things

that are going to contribute to your resume or do you lead your life based on the kind of things that someone's going to say about you at your funeral? I would much rather lead my life in the way that people are gonna talk about me at my funeral. To me, values are the key to the action that we lead in our lives. And so many people say to me, you've got all these, you have so many courage practices in this book and ways for me to commit myself to a courageous

life, where do I start? And to me, it always starts with values. It's the understanding of what drives us internally. What do we value most as an individual, and then letting our actions flow from that. So I do have a part of the book where I walk people through how to write a letter to yourself. It's actually the last part of the last chapter. And my hope is that they had done enough work through the course of the book that they really feel aware, they feel positive and active, and they're ready now to look off into the future. I have done this every single year. These letters actually become almost like treasures. It's the kind of thing that if you had to grab one or two things, leaving your house, this may be something that you would grab because it is you at your essence. It's you planning

the things that are most important to you. And when we do that and we kind of look often to the future, it honestly allows these small challenges to not seem so big anymore. These things that we do every day, all of a sudden, they seem like, aha, I can do that because I have a larger goal in mind. When you write yourself a letter, it actually concretizes those views and those wishes that we have for ourselves. I love that. Another way I've heard that you can do this is I had a gentleman who is one of my first guests named Trav Bell, who calls himself the bucketless guy,

but he has an exercise that he calls the reverse bucket list. And sometimes people don't feel the courage to move forward in their lives. And so what he suggests you do is you look back on all the things in your life that you've accomplished, that you never thought you possibly could, and write yourself a letter about them and how they made you feel. Because when you look back and you see all the insurmountable things that you've done, it really helps to give you a foundation to do the things that you want to accomplish further on in your life. So I think both of those are great techniques. This whole sense of looking back and looking forward is so

powerful. There's a part of the book that I call a lifetime line, and it actually says year by year, what was one milestone in that year where you really did something courageous. And most people think, oh, I'm not going to be able to fill the sound. Too many lines, too many years, and the reality is once you get started and you realize, oh my gosh, I did this or I went here, I created a new life here. I had this thing that happened to me. I was so resilient and I did this. And then you start to see it compounding and compounding and you take that and you combine it with a little a value-based look into the future. Oh my gosh. That add to me is a recipe for confidence. It's a recipe for courage.

And it really sets the stage for leading this kind of life that I really advocate in the book. Well, Scott, we can't get to the end of this interview without you talking about the seven principles for leading a scarier soul life. Can you please just go over them for us? As I've done, worked in scarier soul now for so many years, and tried to figure out what are the areas of courage that are the most powerful, the ones that I have found that most people see the greatest amount of growth in as they are moving forward.

And I chose seven, and I chose them because I believe they're the things that if we consistently do them, they are really going to lead to this flourishing life. The first is one that I refer to before and that is gratitude. I've had a gratitude partner for seven years. Every night we text each other five graditudes have been doing it for seven years.

And there is something that requires a ton of courage to be grateful in this world. And I go deep into gratitude in this book is one of my favorite topics, and I'm sure a favorite topic of many listeners, but to approach gratitude from a position of courage. What does that look like? What does it feel like? The next is adventure. What is it like to lead an adventurous life, even if we're leading lives where we don't hop on a plane and fly somewhere? What does it mean to lead an adventurous life by walking out of our own front door. Where's adventure in nature in relationships?

What does it mean to lead a vibrant adventurous life? The third is all about energy. That's mind body. What does it mean to be courageous with our own bodies, taking care of ourselves, and taking care of our own brains and mindsets? The next one is Curiosity, which is in my mind, one of the greatest keys to connection, but Curiosity in many ways requires courage. Do we have the courage to listen? Do we have the courage to connect on a deep level? I go through in the book a long and hopefully powerful story about Arthur Aaron's 36 questions and an experience I had on a second date that led me to a lifelong friendship by being curious with somebody else. It was an amazing experience. The fifth principle is all about awe. Can we be courageous in how we see ourselves related to nature, related to God

or transcendence or the universe? What does that look like and how can we be courageous in doing that? or the universe, what does that look like and how can we be courageous in doing that? And then the last two, I think, are two of really the most essential. One is about forgiveness. And many cases, I believe, that this may be the toughest set of challenges in the book. Can we be courageous enough to forgive a critical issue as we are moving towards a happier and more flourishing life? And then finally, an issue that many of us deal with, and that is how to be courageous in our work, or our volunteer life, or our level of creation. When we create things, or when we work,

and create things in the world, how can we be courageous as we enter or live that work world? How can we ask for a raise? How can we speak up for ourselves? And how can we create things in this world more courageously so that everyone benefits? Those are the seven principles, and each one of them in the book has writing prompts

and real challenges, and I tell stories in each chapter, both for my life and for others' lives that I hope will help provide extra inspiration so that people can really dig in, do these challenges, and really start leading a more courageous life in these seven areas. Yes, and I wanted to touch on the forgiveness one, because I think one of the most important things for people to understand, if you're wanting to forgive others, you first have to

forgive yourself. And I think it's one of the hardest things that people go through is showing themselves self-kindness because there are so many things that transpire in our lives that we hold an internal grudge about. And until we're able to let those things go, let those stuck points out, it becomes very difficult to forgive others unless we do that. So I think that, as you brought up, is an extremely important one. My dear friend and mentor, Professor Tal Ben-Shahar, who is a leading authority in the field of positive psychology, always talks about the permission to be human.

Can we allow ourselves the grace and the permission to feel emotions, to make mistakes, to do the kind of things that we all do every day, and really make us human, that to allow our perfectionistic tendencies to drift away, and to really just allow emotions to flow through us. That allows us, I completely agree, to be able to move to a place of forgiveness. And I think that in many ways, for those who are listening who feel that they're a little mired in anger or bitterness, something has happened to them. They've been wronged in some way. I hope that I give some tools to be able to allow us to forgive those people that have wronged us, even in a way where they don't need to be present and part of the conversation, which I think is a really intriguing part of forgiveness. We oftentimes

think that we have to sit next to somebody and tell them face to face that we forgive them and have a conversation about it, that there are ways to forgive in our heart and to take our own power back. And to me, that is outrageously courageous. Well, as Scott mentioned throughout the seven areas, he brings up different challenges. He's talked about a few of them here already under adventure. He talked about the exercise of lifeline under curiosity. He talked about engaging in coffee conversations and energy. There are exercises around how do you create and

energized, weak, etc. So they're very sound steps that you can take that will allow you to help take action on this course of leading a more courageous life. Scott, I recently interviewed Dacker Keltner and if you're not familiar with him, he's a fame professor at Berkeley who's been studying human emotion and compassion and awe for most of his career. And through his research, and he recently published a book, but he believes that awe is the thing that brings us the most fulfilled or self-realized life. And I did want to ask you a follow on question about, and that is, what is the power of getting awestruck?

Oh my gosh. All I think is one of those things that gets short shrift when we think about the kind of work that we can and should be doing in this world. We are so focused on our phones, we're so focused on things that have instant gratification that we oftentimes lose sight of just the power of walking in nature, of going to a museum and seeing a beautiful work of art, of listening to a powerful piece of music. Dacker has done literally, I think some of the greatest

work in the world on this topic. And in all, has this kind of duality of it where we feel in one way very small, there's something that is so much larger and more significant than us. So it takes us out of our person centered, ego centered viewpoints, which is very powerful, but it also connects us. So it has this incredible duality. I'm sure he talked about this, of feeling small and feeling a sense of awe, but at the same time, feeling deeply connected to nature, to other people, to history, to our ancestors and to the people that will follow us. What an incredibly powerful way to walk in this world, to have a sense of awe. It's almost like we're turning back to a child where a child will run outside at recess and look around and just smile and run that when we have and cultivate that sense of awe, we're leading our lives

that way. And boy, what an incredible way to lead our lives who doesn't want to walk outside and just marvel. So can we cultivate that practice? Absolutely. Does it take some practice and sometimes some courage? It does. But boys, it worth it. And it was interesting because out of all those ways that you can find, those were things that we talked about. But he said that the simplest way and the most common way that people find awe is when they observe others doing acts of empathy, acts of courage, or acts of compassion to others. And I found that so powerful because that's something that each of us can feel awe in, each and every day as we observe others perform those acts.

It's almost like a multiplier effect when you see people, when you have a passion for a courageous life, and other people doing it the same, they are inspiring you and you're inspiring them. There's this beautiful sense of awe in somebody and we all see this right? We've seen people step up into moments of truth and moments of courage and of course it inspires us. It gives us a sense of awe and it gives us a sense of possibility and to me that is such a huge part of this work. There's so much energy around it. We just have to pay attention and we have to take action. have to pay attention and we have to take action. And Scott, I'm going to end on this question. We've talked a lot today and you've given some incredible examples and information.

If you're a listener sitting on this podcast today and you've reached this far in the interview, what do you think is the most important choice a listener can make today if they want to change their current predicament? It's exactly what I wrote in my Mead spiral notebook on that airplane. Do one thing every day that scares you. Find one moment, not 10, not 20, and they can be micro. They can be so small, But one moment where you feel some butterflies in your stomach or a tightness in your chest or your shoulders, and you know that something is going to push you. If you can start leading your life with a hosted note on your mirror that says, do one thing every day that scares you. You will start to achieve levels of connection, of joy, of learning, of growth. You're going to succeed. You're going to fail. You're going to do it all, but you're

going to be leading a flourishing life. So eight words do one thing every day that scares you. Okay. And then lastly, if a listener wanted to become part of the scarier soul movement, where's the best place for them to go? Sure. Our website is scariersole.com. We have a free weekly challenge that comes out in our newsletter. We share stories, we share prompts. I love quotes. As you so I always share quotes.

I hope that are inspiring of courage. And the book, which just came out, and I'm so proud of, is available at bookstores everywhere. Well, Scott, thank you so much for giving us the honor of coming on today. I really enjoyed this conversation and it hits right in the bull's eye for what we try to do on the podcast. Thank you so much. Thank you, John, it is a pleasure. What an incredible interview with Scott Simon. And I wanted to thank Scott and Hashat Books for the honor and privilege of having him appear on the show.

Links to all things Scott will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature on the show, all proceeds go to supporting the show. Videos are on YouTube at John Armiles or PassionStruck Clips. As I mentioned at the beginning, you can now listen to us on the AMFM247 National broadcast.

Every Monday and Friday from 5 to 6 p.m., links will be in the show notes as well. Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals. I'm on LinkedIn where you can sign up for my newsletter or you can also find me at John R. Miles on all the other social channels. You're about to hear a preview

of the PassionStruck Podcast interview that I did with Dr. Gloria Mark, who is the Chancellor's professor of Informatics at the University of California Irvine. She is the author of the book, Multitasking in the Digital Age, and we also discuss her latest book, Attention Span, Finding Focus and Fighting Distraction. We let our goals slip. That's the main thing. Our goals have slipped, and when our goals have slipped, we're open to any kind of distracting force in the environment. The way to stay on track is to be goal-oriented,

and then you can be in control. We can all be in control of where we direct our attention. That's the real challenge for us in this digital age. The fee for this show is that you share it with family or friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know someone who could use Scott Simon's inspirational message, then please share this show with them because the greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you love and care about. In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear in the show so that you can live what you listen.

Now go out there and be PassionStruck. you