I’m Better Than That with Scott Philips | Elite Performance Podcast #2

Itamar Marani:
Welcome to today's podcast, everyone, with a good friend, Scott Phillips from Scott Phillips trading, Scott has been a client for almost two years. But also honestly, Scott is someone I love much beyond the client as a friend. And I love having you as part of my life. Now, the reason for that mainly is, and why you guys will see through this podcast is Scott's pretty amazing. And this unique blend of 100% Honesty and vulnerability, but also this tenacity about going after what he really wants in life in a very intentional and very aggressive manner. Let's call it and we're gonna get into a lot of things today. And a big part of it, you'll see is like what I think creates greatness. Scott is a phenomenal example of that. Because when we did the last episode, and the old podcasts and leave foundations, everybody just asked to hear more from him. And in that podcast over a year ago, we covered how he went from 10k a month, over 3 million a month with his business. And now we're going to be going back to some of those things. And also, what's changed since then and how it's grown. Happy to have you here, man.

Scott Phillips 1:06
It's always a great pleasure and all of the growth that I've experienced in in my business and my personal life and my capabilities. I did the work, but not one bit of it would have happened without you like you were the architect it was your plan. It was you keeping me on track the whole time. It was you constantly making me cry. Like, just heard, 

Itamar Marani 1:33
It doesn't happen much anymore, though.

Scott Phillips 1:36
Can I challenge you on that?

Itamar Marani 1:42
Yeah, doesn't happen anymore, though, I have to say, well,

Scott Phillips 1:46
you know, the great pleasure of going through this process with you as being that the real benefit isn't what I thought it was, it wasn't when I went from being a total mediocre human being to someone that I was actually proud of, is that when I established a base of competence and a base of high performance in my life, the effects of compounding. And now for me achieving one audacious goal, like like calling my shot, and I'm gonna go and do that. And then actually doing that, it sort of freed me up to say, I'm actually the type of guy who goes and achieves incredible things that are impossible for the current version of myself. So now it gives me the freedom to say, Well, what, what's an impossible thing for my current increased capabilities? And how can I go and call my shots, we're gonna shoot for that. And be really, really intentional about what I want. Like, not just like, like, I used to go through life, just randomly accepting the semi random results in hoping it was going to be okay, and just, you know, muddling through and chasing pleasure and running from pain and, and doing my best and working hard and not wondering why I didn't get the results that I wanted from life. And now I get exactly the results that I want out of life. And it's in every area to like, I've got exactly the relationship with my two year old daughter that I want. got exactly the relationship with my wife that I want. I've got this beautiful, beautiful family life. It's like top shelf family life, that I've really, really that we set out together and said, Well, what do you want it to look like? And how do I make it that way? Yeah, and it wasn't that way. I had a very average marriage and an average family life and I was very not present and very disconnected. And, and now I'm in a stage of not just how do I grow the business and grow myself personally? How do I pull money out? Like, how do I create wealth, pull that wealth out, get that wealth working for me, so I can live the life that I want to live?

Scott Phillips 3:42
Now. Okay, so let me sorry, read.

It's exciting. It's thrilling to me.

Itamar Marani 3:49
It's exciting to see you go but so let's let's break this down from the start. So how you said first, you felt like this, you were kind of mediocre? And wasn't

Scott Phillips 3:59
I felt like it was I was I was objectively I was a guy who had moved to Bangkok because it was cheap. And, and, you know, because living is relatively easy. And I could coast and I was earning, you know, five to 15 grand a month most months. And, you know, for someone with my skills and my intelligence is just drastically underperforming you know, and I gravitated out of my whole circle of friends. I just magnetically gravitated towards other people that were doing that as well. So I didn't even notice that I was just circling down the drain wife and I was just on a glide path it just just not even not going downhill just like gliding down. Yeah.

Itamar Marani 4:43
Alright, so where I really want to get started is where it all began. But you remember we said you weren't doing mediocre you weren't happy with where you were but you were around a lot of people that didn't make that seem like a problem because they were on the same level so to speak are lower

Scott Phillips 4:59
but I think the root cause was that I was feeling bad about myself. And so as an avoidance mechanism, the facing reality, I just naturally, I gravitate, you know, I had friends who were high level people and friends who are low level people, I just started spending more and more time with the lower level people. Just because that was you know, water was finding its own level, you know. And especially in Bangkok, there's a lot of people who are here in Bangkok, just because they can't cut it where they were.

Itamar Marani 5:29
Yeah, it's very easy to find people to make you feel good about yourself. In Bangkok.

Scott Phillips 5:34
Oh, there's a lot of losers and foreign is in a worse than the tightest by far.

Itamar Marani 5:39
Yeah. So remember what I said to you, that really pissed you off. But then you're like, Yep, that's true. The whole I'm better than that. Like, I was like, Scott, you're better than that. Be better than that, man. Come on.

Scott Phillips 5:53
Yeah, I was, I was and you know, you were the only person who actually said it to me, like my other high level friends who were just sort of naturally distanced from me. So it didn't bother them as much but but you were the one who actually said, you know, you can be doing better you should be doing better than this. Like it's not okay. It's not okay, that you living your life this way. It's not okay, that you've got an average marriage. It's not okay, that you're just paying your bills every month. It's not okay. That jujitsu is that, that everything is average?

Itamar Marani 6:26
Yeah, I can just see you for I can see you for who you were. That was the thing that I could see that you were 10 times more of a human than a lot of these people around you a better higher level person. And I could also say, See that you wanted more? So you just got comfortable with it.

Scott Phillips 6:42
What was really weird was I really paid what people thought about me, right? Like, like giving up. Giving up not just a lot of friendships, which just naturally fell away. Like, I didn't go and tell everyone oh, we're not friends anymore. anything stupid like that, like that. Just when you start improving yourself, it pokes people that don't want to be around you anymore, because it makes me feel bad about themselves. Right? Yeah.

Itamar Marani 7:07
So can you discuss that a little bit, because I know that was that was very difficult for you. And that was a big part that we have to realize that if you're going to keep this environment of friends, it will definitely hold you down in a way. And this is not something you can afford right now.

Scott Phillips 7:20
It was extremely difficult at first. And, and at first. It was really painful. And I spent a lot of my internal time thinking about, you know, being you know, ultimately resentful of friendships. Because as you start to, as I started to get better at my life, they started to sort of back away from me, because I was making them feel bad. And it made me feel like oh, well, we weren't really that good of friends. Well, we like him. Like you guys don't really want much to do with me anymore. And then when I reached, it reached a tipping point where it was like, actually, I want to lean into that. And what I've noticed is I've come back to Australia for the first time in, in three years, because Australia shut in COVID, you couldn't get in, you couldn't get out. And a lot of my long term friends, when I meet with them now, it's like a well I chose, I selected my really close inner circle friends for qualities that don't serve me anymore. Like, particularly I would I would select people for absolute loyalty, like, like, I'm an extremely loyal person, I would select my friends loyalty. But really, the root cause of it was that I always knew that I'd fuck up in the future and that I wanted people who weren't gonna judge me and would just going to treat me the same if I would, you know, end up sticking needles in my arm or, you know, go do some crazy shit or, you know, beat someone up and end up in jail again, for like, the millionth time, or all the stupid stuff that I used to do. I wanted people who would still be friends with me through all that stuff and not judge me. Whereas now I'm like, Well, no, actually, if, if I walk out today, getting a road rage fight with someone and put them in a hospital and ended up in jail, I want you to judge me as a friend and say, Dude, the hell is wrong with you? Yeah.

Itamar Marani 9:15
It's loyalty to how you should be living your life who you can be not just to no matter whatever.

Scott Phillips 9:21
Yeah, and and I had a lot of friendships in my life that were just like

I read this interesting book by Aristotle on on called Nicomachean Ethics on friendships. And he was talking about there's a particular type of friendship, which is the friendships of shared experience of youth, like we've been through all this stuff together. And then you reach a point where you've just known this person for 20 years and you've done you've had great times with them and your friends, that those friendships don't actually serve you. And those friendships are meant to fade, like, like hanging on to those friendships is painful. And I worked on an awful lot of that, like, people I bring people I've been friends with As for for more than 20 years, I had to let go you know, people who I've you know, fought back to back with in prison in a prison riot, let go like people that that I relied on for my own safety at one point, they're not part of my life anymore. Just because I gotta have the humility to know that that doesn't serve me like the sort of friendships that I need people who are holding me accountable to the highest standard of behavior. And, and I never realized before I started working with you just how plastic we are like, like, when I was young, the idea of me caring what people thought of me would have been just so ludicrous. It would have just been like Scott caring what people thought like the crazy like, he really authentically doesn't even notice other people. You're just non playable characters. And because I was insane. And then I reached this point, like 15 years later, where I really cared what everyone thought about me in a way that was profoundly unhealthy and you can become whoever you want whoever you need to be. And a big, big part of that is who you're hanging around with, if I hang around, if I hang around, like I, when I got clean off drugs, I got clean through the Narcotics Anonymous program. And they have a really strict set of sort of ethics about helping people and being really nice to people and, and really being your brother's keeper. And if someone starts to get off track, you've got to go out and, and help that person. And I bought all the way into that. And was great for helping me get off drugs. And I'm really grateful to that, but completely incompatible with massive business success. And I have one

Itamar Marani 11:41
hour. Scott, I want to just interject here a little bit because and this is really important. That was a big part of the process about you be able to say this serve me then it does not serve me now though, and therefore I need to let go

Scott Phillips 11:54
of the guilt about it. And at first I wanted to do it with it like this is shit and it's fucking with me and but it's not shit. It was like, you know, not doing the Narcotics Anonymous program was wonderful for me to get clean. And then it reached a point 10 years later, where, you know, I'm standing up in these meetings, and people are clapping me and telling me how inspirational and how great I am. But I don't feel inspirational and I feel don't feel great. And they're reporting me for something I did 10 years ago, like, and what it made me feel like was that my past was bigger than my future. And I had this feeling that all my great achievements are in the past all the big, big, big successes I had were in the past. And my future was a diminished. And I don't feel that way. Now I feel like my future is so much bigger than my past. And it's irrelevant.

Itamar Marani 12:38
Do you think that's what helped you let go of these because I know a lot of people really struggle with it with letting go of people, they they know they should be letting go with these all of these old acquaintances? And they don't? Why do you think that is? From your perspective?

Scott Phillips 12:50
Well, it's, it's really hard for stop. And I think part of it is you know, we get attached to our personality and like this the story in our heads, I am this person and I you know, if I'm not this pseudo if there's, if I'm not this version of Scott that behaves this way, then who am I and would I even like that person. And, and, and it's really tremendously frightening, to evolve so rapidly that you don't even know who you are. And you can become, I can become whoever I need, like, like I like. Whoever I'm going to need to be, you know, I wasn't a particularly good husband, or a good father, I'm a great husband, great father. And I have. And I wasn't a very organized person, I'm really organized now. And I wasn't a good CEO, and I'm a phenomenal CEO, now. I can become whoever I want. And it's not just about, you know, a shortcut is instead of going and learning these pilot skills and practicing them for 10 years, you just kind of shape shift and go, Okay, now I'm that person that I need to be.

Itamar Marani 14:08
So what allows you to do that, because you're saying that the big and I hear you and I agree with you that you're saying that the big thing is fear.

Scott Phillips 14:15
I had success in, in changing my personality into being a certain way. So it was really that getting that first big, big win on the board with you gave me that big success. And then and then I realized that the ad 20 of that success wasn't any of the stuff that we did, it wasn't any of the goal setting or the why it was just the the the ad 20 was the ability to for me to change to a totally different person. And what sort of person did I change into I changed the sort of person who would achieve the sort of success that I was trying to achieve. And it's just as massive shortcut. Instead of you know, I want this morning routine and his daily routine and, and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that and he's gonna get I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna do shit. He fucking beats you're not gonna do it. You're gonna do it for three days and then you get for wealth, because like everyone does, like you've always done before, instead of that you just become the person who does that. Like I haven't even thought about, I wake up every day and I meditate for half an hour. First thing I'd rain handle is shine like doesn't matter one. And I haven't thought about it, there's absolutely zero willpower involved. I'm a guy who really values, my mental health, and I wake up and I make a cup of coffee and I meditate. That's what I do. Like.

Itamar Marani 15:27
Yeah, I want to expand this. This is where a lot of people what you're saying is a lot of people advocate for external fixes that hopefully they'll have external stuff, the morning routines, the this will seep into the quote, yeah, well, you're saying we just changed the core. And then because the core was different, all worked well, because he didn't have to try to patch on these external things and fight against your court

Scott Phillips 15:47
will perish. So finite laters, I tried to, I used to shoot up in the crystal meth, right. And I used to shoot up crystal meth, and I couldn't stop. And I'm trying to stop it with willpower. I know, it's, I remember exactly how it felt like, and the feeling is that you're in the backseat of a car. And you've got explosive diarrhea, and you just pass a sign on the side side of the road that says, next toilet 1000 miles, and you're just sitting there trying to like, hold on until the next toilet, that's what, that's what doing stuff that's hard with willpower feels like, it just feels like every second is hard. And I'm not gonna make it like, like, you're just not gonna make it. But even if you make it two days or three days, you're not going to get there. So. And the only success I had with drugs was when my identity changed to be the sort of person that was not not a drug user. And how did my identity change? Well, first of all, I hung around with a bunch of people that didn't use drugs. So I want it to be like them. Because we're, so there's easy hacks, if you hang around a bunch of people, that are the sort of people that you want to be like, you're gonna become like them without any effort at all. In fact, you couldn't even stop them. You couldn't stop it if you tried. Like, if you want to be if you wanted to be great at jujitsu, and you went and turned up two classes a day at dinner, his gym, you couldn't even stop yourself getting good. Honestly. There's just, it's just so much, so much easier to do it that way. And you know, you have to be really careful with identity, identity level change, because identity makes you anything you seep into your identity makes you automatically stupid. Like, what do you mean by automatic? I'll give you me. So I did Kung Fu for a long time, I am a high level kung fu fighter. I absolutely did not notice that Kung Fu has no answer to any sort of wrestling or ground fighting. And even a beginner grappler can beat any kung fu guy in the world, I did not even notice. Because it was my identity.

Itamar Marani 17:53
So you're saying, it's the way that makes you stupid, it just makes you unable to really assess the world from an objective lens anymore.

Scott Phillips 18:02
Correct. And, you know, when I was when I when my identity was, I'm a recovering addict in Narcotics Anonymous, it was a fixed identity. I'm still a drug addict. And you used to set up in these meetings and say, Hi, my name is Scott. I'm still a drug addict. And I'm not a fucking drug addict. Now. I reject the idea that there's anything fixed about my personality, if everything about me can change, or how come I'm stuck with that, that's a ship thing I'm not sticking with, I'm not accepting that I don't, I don't agree with that. There's nothing about me, that's still a drug addict. And also, I don't want I don't have the time or energy to get into it. I've got a lot of friends who are still in that program. And they would be this is heresy. Like they would be horrified if they will know now. And it's just explodes their brains. Like, they don't know, it's not even that, like I told one of them the other day, I said, bro, I don't even believe there's any such thing as the disease of addiction. And it's, you almost started hyperventilating. It's like, what do you mean, the foundation of my identity is a lie in your opinion. I might Yeah, but I don't want to I don't want to argue with you about it. I don't care. Like, like, it's not my circus, not my monkeys, like, keep doing it if it's good. But to me, I could not achieve high performance in my life. While most of my friends and the people I spend every day with were people whose dreams were to be able to hold down a job and one day have a mortgage. Like that, to me is a big dream for mediocre people. And, and it's beneath me. And and, you know, in their context what I would what I'm saying there is that's the grandiosity of addiction and it's huge ego and, and you know what, I actually am just better than that. Like, like I really am,

Itamar Marani 19:47
you are in like, so. I know you are, you know, you are for the people out there. I want you to explain like, I would love for you to walk through the results you got so they can understand how this internal stuff actually going. NFS externally. So if you could walk people through the where you started, and it's all about the middle ground and where you are right now. And the shift you're going through right now,

Scott Phillips 20:09
when we started was that I knew my way around internet marketing, I would have considered myself an expert, but I was kind of like had what we call in jujitsu blue belt items. Like, remember when I first thought use some stuff about marketing, you thought

Itamar Marani 20:27
I was blown away. I was blown away.

Scott Phillips 20:30
And I didn't really know as much as I thought I did. Yeah. And so you told me? Well, the first thing you said was, we got to get you in a room full of Black Books. And so I joined a marketing mastermind where I was literally the worst person in there that I knew nothing. And eventually, it got to the stage where I was the top, one of the top people there. And then I had to leave that place. Because unhealthy to stay in a community where you're at the top. The next thing we did is set some goals. And the goal that we had was until you get a funnel working on cold traffic, you're nowhere and I need to be, I need to be earning 1 million a month gross from YouTube ads, scaled on cold traffic by first by 31st of December 2021. And that was our goals. And I think Michael, and I did it in a bit over a month early. And I did it exactly the way that the plan said I did it from scaling YouTube ads to cold on cold traffic. And I had this thing on my wall that said until you get something scheduled on cold traffic, your business, there's no way. And I just kept looking at that every day. And I had a singular goal. So having a singular goal is really, really important. Because what I've come to understand is that the universe is structured in a way that you can have anything that you want, as long as it's just one thing was one thing. And it's a devil deal. Because you don't get if you want that one thing you don't get the right to have. How do you feel about vaccines? You don't get to have an opinion? How do you get to feel about fucking Kardashians? Or Elon Musk or Anna hurt or fucking Johnny Depp, you don't have the right to have an opinion, you can't even read the news like this is that is all stuff. But normal people normal people lives, you don't get to do that. You don't get social media, except as a business tool. You don't get you don't get to follow sports. You don't get to have it all sorry, you

Itamar Marani 22:23
have to make the choice. Figure out what your priorities are and make the choice.

Scott Phillips 22:27
How bad do you want it? Do you want to stay mediocre, you can have a normal life. If you want, you know, the results that you're getting now are perfectly calibrated for the person that you are. If you want better results, you have a better person, you actually have to be better. Yeah. And we all know that we should do things differently.

Itamar Marani 22:48
And I think you had something very different there. It's not that you just have to be better, and you have to do more. It's like you have to make sacrifices, you can't just do more on top of what you're already doing and wasting energy on that. And that's the biggest.

Scott Phillips 23:00
And the biggest gains have been really negative, like form subtraction. Yep. But all of the biggest gains that we've made together have been from taking shit out of my friendships that don't serve me mental loops that that chew up a lot of my my thinking time, or emotional time, friendships where there's conflict involved, like we all have friendships, where periodically, that person, you know, blows up and starts some sort of weird conflict, and then you sort it out. And then you go on for another couple of years, and they do it again, those friendships are all gone out of us. Like if you even if you even look like bringing drama into my life, you're out of my life, like, and that's and that's true, whether you've been in my life for 30 years or 30 seconds,

Itamar Marani 23:45
we've really created a platform where there's no there's no friction for you to constantly need to overcome, both on an internal level, where are we talking about, about emotional stuff, the fears, all the issues that you had, previously from all that experience in your past and also externally, like your environment, both as far as like, old friendships, and also honestly like employees and stuff like that in your company that are causing friction. And that was a big thing. Boy,

Scott Phillips 24:10
it was huge. And, you know, I would choose employees for my old values, which were mainly I'm looking for loyalty. Yeah. And it was you pointed out to me that, you know, if you're in a counterterrorism, say, loyalty doesn't come into it. Like, like that, like loyalty is a value of low level organizations like the mafia. Not surprisingly, I was a criminal and, and loyalty was a really important thing. To me. Loyalty is important for low level people. It's not important to high level high performing organizations.

Itamar Marani 24:41
It was a really interesting kind of mental reframe where we had to remind you like Scott, what are you doing these days? What what are you what are you doing? Are you building something that requires loyalty? Or are you building something that requires a player's actually keep you accountable or just tell you the truth and be able to stand up to you in a good way?

Scott Phillips 24:57
Right, you see different for me, and this was only like two was three months ago, right? Yeah. And I would have, I would have said, the bedrock of my personality is that I'm loyal that I'm loyal to my friends.

Itamar Marani 25:10
How would you define loyalty? Like, let's let me ask you a big question here. What do you think? Is your old our definite, outdated definition of loyalty? And what's the more evolved definition of loyalty that you're aspiring to nowadays?

Scott Phillips 25:23
The old definition is no matter what. I don't judge now.

Itamar Marani 25:29
And what's the new, more evolved definition you have these days?

Scott Phillips 25:33
I want the best for my friends. And I want to hold on standard hold them accountable to a high standard, right? Yeah. Meet.

Itamar Marani 25:44
Loyalty requires a lot of uncomfortable conversations, because you're slipping up, what are you doing? Yeah, why aren't you being the person you want to be? That's true loyalty, when it's very uncomfortable for you do not have to do that. You know, I mean,

Scott Phillips 25:57
there's nothing loyalty, there's nothing loyal about, you know, hanging out with your buddy who's cheating on his wife and getting high every day. And I'm not saying anything like that. That's not loyal.

Itamar Marani 26:08
That's enabling. That's it. The difference between being an enabler and being loyal to a friend and good day. I want to move on to a bit of a different subject. Let's talk about how your mindset has to change all the time with different goals in order for it to be effective, how there's no such thing as a good or bad mindset. But it's all about effective or not.

Scott Phillips 26:31
This has been huge for me, because I thought I had good mindset for a while I've done this, I'm achieving good results. I've got good mindset. And then there's no such thing. Like there's actually no such thing as good mindset, the mindset that I needed, because I went through a stage when I first started working that I had no business, I had to go from zero to one witching night, which, which was by definition, I needed to be able to work 6070 hours a week, for a while. Now, I rarely work more than four hours a day now. And much more. Like, there's no there's no perfect mindset, there's the mindset that you need to be to accomplish the thing that you need to do right now. And you have to be willing to chop and change that as as required.

Itamar Marani 27:18
Yeah, I think it's really the big thing is like I call it, there's no such thing as a good or bad, it's effective or ineffective mindset. And what that requires in order to have an effective mindset is to be clear on what you're trying to optimize for these days. And unless you have an intense intentionality about that, you're not going to be able to achieve that. And I think for us, our good part was that you were able to we were able to see together like, Okay, we need to pause this mindset, this isn't a goal anymore. This has been achieved. What are we onto next? How do we optimize for that?

Scott Phillips 27:45
So let me flesh that out a little. So in the last in the last six weeks ago, we tried to seize the old mindset of optimizing for growing the business and scaling the business. So everything was all about scale. And the language I used was about scale. How do I get to this many million a month in blah, blah, blah. Now the language is about profit. How do I get wealthy out of this business? How much can I not just how much can the business make I can pull out? How much can I pull out. And last month, we're not earning 3 million bucks a month anymore, we only did 1 million a month, last month, but I put more in my own pocket than I ever have before. Which is a big change. Nice. So now I'm going to now claim now, now the shift is like not the vanity once not a vanity metric. But but not how much money is the business making? How much wealth Am I generating for myself? That's the metric. That's what I'm optimizing for. And not just how much wealth Am I generating, generating for myself? I've earned the right to optimize for happiness in my own life.

Itamar Marani 28:45
That was the big one that was a hard road for you to buy into. Do you remember what

Scott Phillips 28:49
was really is really hard for me to get buy in on that. Yeah, you know, not gonna be hard for me. So I didn't think I'd, I would take holidays. But I would work until until my brain turned and mashed potato. And then I would do like three days of like no internet on the beach. And and just enough to recover the machine that the machine was functional again. But it was the driver behind it wasn't because I deserve to have a nice life and be kind to myself it was just because you just got it the machine's not working. You just got to make the machine go again, like, like come on, like kick the television kind of thing. And now it's like I really enjoy the way of that sort of Novelle working like Alliance, and so we've organized everything into six weeks sprints, and then three weeks and then three week risks. And I'm just finishing up a rest now and I am so excited to go into the sprint like the next. The next sprint for me is going to put so much money in my pocket. It's just ridiculous. And, you know, our next our next live event which I'm working towards on the 16th of June. Was it today 23rd of My three weeks away, I'm going to crush it. And so I'm looking at at, you know, the goal is for me to put a million dollars in my pocket by then, and pull it out of the business and put it in an investment and I don't touch and, and we've had to generate wealth over time. And if I don't have to do that too many times before I hit my number, and then I've, if I've got my whole wealth working for me. Times that compounds very, very quickly

Itamar Marani 30:34
does. So what are you optimizing for now, you've talked to us a little bit about this wealth as wealth number and all that because if you remember, we talked a lot, and I can see you, this is very interesting, I can see you getting very attracted to this notion of being a world class CEO. That was something that your ego was like, oh, I want to do that.

Scott Phillips 30:54
And it was and it was really just the same way that people latch on to built to martial arts. It was just, you know, we're monkeys basically, you give a monkey a ladder to climb and a bit of climb that fucking ladder. And you know, I've lived I'm learning to be a CEO, I'm a possibly good CEO. And and I have this opportunity. Well, fuck other people have done it, why can't I go out and you know, bust down some walls and go and achieve some world class things? Do I want to I'm 48 years old? What am I thinking? I want to own a cash out 10 or 20 million in the next in the next two to five years. And enjoying that one? Yeah.

Itamar Marani 31:34
You always have that opportunity. Exactly. Like if you're if you still want to go and build the big unicorn, you can still do that as well.

Scott Phillips 31:40
But I tie like, who am I doing? Well, for like, what have I got to prove? Yeah, you know, the things. All my validation is internal now like, I don't tell people like how I'm going, like, like, how are things for you? Like things are great, like, internally, externally family wife. Yeah, you know, the last, the last big rock to knock over is my health and I'm well on track there. I go in for surgery next week, I get a double hip replacement. So I've been waiting on for years. I'm excited about I'm excited about being healthy again. Excited about working towards my jujitsu black belt, which I'm definitely going to get met. And I'm not just going to like be one of those consolation prize black belts. We get it because you've been over 50. Great Black Belt. Yeah, I crush people on the mats now. Like I just, and people that I thought were were amazing people that I just recommend, like just Rick.

Itamar Marani 32:46
That's very nice. Yeah, it's really good. It's honestly, it's like, I'm just smiling, because it's so great to see you. You're just excited period about life. And I remember when we like, what was it two years ago that that was not the case at all, you just didn't,

Scott Phillips 33:00
I had this feeling like I couldn't stop. Like, if I stopped even for a weekend, this whole business was gonna fall apart.

Itamar Marani 33:07
I'll say this beyond the business what I saw two years ago with somebody who was very unhappy with how he actually was because if you knew you were underperforming what you really could be doing and you had that, like, all I can put on this guy is everything's okay. And I can be happy and I can be around these people. But like deep down inside, I could tell you a deeply unsatisfied with how things were

Scott Phillips 33:27
unsatisfied with. And now I've got a little bit of taste of what authentic success is like, success is not having an external thing, success is becoming becoming a person that you're proud of.

Itamar Marani 33:40
That's great. Could you Okay, so I would love to expand upon this a little bit more. If somebody out there right now is listening to this. And like, I'm not really sure what success is or how to achieve it. What would you advise them? What's the process?

Scott Phillips 33:54
If you want to have self esteem, you probably have to do some streamable acts, you probably have to do some things that are that are going to be almost by definition beyond you. Like, if you're choosing goals, what should I do? What should I do with my life, most people choose goals that are like, goals that they could achieve themselves. Now, if they really knuckle down, straighten up and fly, right. And that's a terrible idea. That's just that's just the wrong way to go about it. The way to get some self esteem is to choose a goal that the current version of you just it's ludicrous to even suggest, like the median of two years ago, it's ludicrous to suggest I'd have 50 people in my company and they'd all think I was a phenomenal CEO like ludicrous. And what I'd be doing my job at at a high level, will ludicrous. So for me to get to that goal. I have to fundamentally change who I am in an undeniable I have to become a better version of me. And I think that's the trick is to take whatever goal you had. And then and then just turn it says Oh, and it, it kind of tricks you into going. Like, if you want to lose five kilos by the end of the year like, like there's no real pressure, you know, if you have to cut weight for a fight, it's like, well, fuck, we're going to knuckle down now like, like if you choose a really difficult goal, like, like it's all.

Itamar Marani 35:19
So basically, if your goal, if you can't see that your goal will actually force you to completely change who you are, then it's not a good goal. And even if you're achieving that goal, you're not going to really feel that internal sense of success and really accomplish real accomplishment.

Scott Phillips 35:33
It doesn't do anything for you. It'll be fleeting, and and, you know, deep down, you've chosen a goal that anyone can achieve. Yeah, like, I don't want to achieve things that anyone can achieve. I want to I'm an outlier. I'm a freak, I want to do things that other people can't do. Because I'm better than that. Yeah, that's the way I want to that's the way I want to go through the world is achieving a series of more and more audacious challenges to myself, not I don't want to drive Ferraris or on boats or any stupid shit like that. I want to be a better and better and better version of myself. For no other reason other than it thrills me. It's the most enjoyable thing I've ever done in my life by far. And and I shut up hard drugs every day. Like I know what where's your where's your nothing comparable satisfaction of achieving, achieving audacious goals with yourself? And it's all internal. I don't I don't need a plaque on the wall. I don't need someone to tell me. It's like like, I wake up in the morning, and I do my morning meditation. And I feel like fuck yes, Scott. Killing it. Doing good.

Itamar Marani 36:54
Yeah, we talked about this, there's levels of emotions is like, satisfaction, there's sorry, that's called happiness or enjoyment. And then at the very top above those things, just pride and satisfaction, I don't think there's so much bigger and so much more, more true, more deep.

Scott Phillips 37:11
And yeah, I never used to, I never used to think, you know, having a lack of personal integrity really mattered as much as as it did like, like, I moved through the world in a way that I had a profound lack of personal integrity. And thankfully, but by discovering how fluid Your personality is, if I want to become a person with towering personal integrity, that's really, really simple. I can become whoever I want.

Itamar Marani 37:40
Now, let me ask this, if the person out there is going to be thinking he's gonna be listening to the singer, this is really inspiring. But how did you actually do that? What are the steps? Give me some steps.

Scott Phillips 37:48
Okay, so what you and I did is start with a why

Itamar Marani 37:57
that's an intentionality.

Scott Phillips 38:01
Well, more than that, what? Why is no other result other than this particular thing? Why is that? Why is that the only thing that's going to work for me, like he could do anything you could be on, and there's all kinds of ways you could spend your life. And what's interesting to me is that, coming back to Australia, there's a lot of people who aren't living their life in a high performance kind of way, that think what I'm doing is insane and crazy. And they don't need to be living their life like me to be happy. And the sort of mode of this mode of living your life is unusual, even for unusual people. Like it's not, I wouldn't recommend it for everyone.

Itamar Marani 38:44
Yeah, you found but we were able to clarify, that's what usually wanted, that was the first step getting clear on what you want, is that correct?

Scott Phillips 38:52
What do I really want? And then why do I want it? There has to be a really strong reason. And then what are you willing to? What are you willing to do to achieve that? I'm willing to do anything. You know, that kind of resonated with me, like when when I choose this goal, now, I'm just approaching it, like, no matter what I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get what I'm going, where I'm going, because I've got a solid reason for it. And that's not about like, how much money I'm gonna make or how much I'm going to be worth or any of that sort of stuff. It's just, I have to become the best person I can. I need wasted most of my life. I nearly ruined my health, ideally, became a person that that I really didn't like. And now I've got limited time. I'm starting from WebVR mind. I'm kind of get this, I gotta get this going.

Itamar Marani 39:42
I love that. So would I be correct. I say that in a nutshell. You tell people decide who you want to be. That's the first step. Take a step back and really decide like, what do you want for yourself? What kind of person do you want to be and you're going to look back and say, I'm proud of this or I'm not proud of this,

Scott Phillips 39:56
right? That direction is more important than than the speed right? And first, yep, and then what? And then why, and then start pulling the things out. So the easy games are all just pulling the shit out that doesn't serve you. The frame, the easy ones.

Itamar Marani 40:15
I think it's the simple stuff. It's not necessarily easy though, for a lot of people that are included, it's the simple stuff that we can all see. And I absolutely agree with you, that's the first thing to do is to figure out what is the stuff that's weighing you down before is a expression I love from. From racing, this basically says, If you want to go faster on the streets, add more power, if you want to go faster, everywhere, remove weight. And I think that's a big part in life. Like if you first remove the weight, it's much more challenging to do, but it's much more simpler to do and it makes a bigger effect overall. And I agree with you 100%. Like, that's what we always work on that that's the first thing you always look for.

Scott Phillips 40:53
The friendship stuff was hot, like that was the, you know, coming like coming back to Australia, I've been back for three years, my message has blown up with people who want to see me. And I've just told them all because this trip is really just about family and friends. Because I'm looking at it every every acquaintance that I go and spend time with, if I could be spending that time with my sister, or who I don't have a close relationship with, or my sister's kids who I don't know very well, or one of the you know, I've got like five friends who really really matter to me, and their friends that really do matter for me. And when I see those friends, like I sat down with my old kung fu teacher a couple of days ago and just said, Look, you know, we spent 1000s of days sparring together and it's inspiring. And it was it was so much fun and and I said to him now we've got a look at it. Like this is probably one of the last 30 or 50 times we'll ever see each other. Like the last one of the last times ever. That you know he's getting he's getting old like he's he's in his mid 60s. And he could still kick my ass and stand up in a way that I couldn't stop it. Like I couldn't stop him putting his hands on my face couldn't stop it. Like a phenomenal Mr. Miyagi stuff. And at will he hit me at will like dozens of times. And no one does actually. Yeah. And we're talking afterwards. It's like, this is one of the last times that we live that we'll ever get to experience. This is so much fun. Like, like, if I say yes to some things, I have to say no to that.

Itamar Marani 42:36
Yeah. Yeah. And that's it. Yes. And I think it also becomes so much simpler and easier to see what those things they need to say no to are Once you're clear on who you want to be and why that's,

Scott Phillips 42:51
that's very important. I put a lot of mental energy at first into having boundaries, especially with, you know, my friends in our jujitsu team and in Bangkok, your old jujitsu team. They're mostly pleasure seeking degenerates, who I love dearly, but they're mostly happiness and degenerates and, and what have you. And I, I put a lot of mental strain into keeping those boundaries solid. But it's a far easier and more efficient way to have very clear goals. And then the boundaries become a downstream effect of those. And no one challenges those boundaries. Like, I'm like, I still enjoy my friendships with those guys. And I still love and care about them. But no way in hell would they invite me out on their Bangkok benders anymore. They just like, I wouldn't fit in, they wouldn't invite me it just wouldn't. Like it's just like we have

Itamar Marani 43:40
it's clear what you want it that it doesn't fit for you anymore. And we have a really

Scott Phillips 43:44
we have really nice in the gym friendships now. Like we've like put it in the box. Like go to the gym. I love these guys hanging out with him trying we fight together with great sparring partners. We've been sparring together for years. And, and then and then we slip hands and go home. Yeah, and it's in a beautiful little box. And it works for them. And it works for me. And no one's resentful of anyone and, and no one's stepping over anyone's boundaries that they didn't assert like it's just not difficult. There's no and I've got another friend who's struggling with that now in that same situation and he's always having his boundary stepped on and always getting butthurt about it. And it's just a big deal in his life. And it's not a big deal in my life.

Itamar Marani 44:28
I always say this clarifying. clarifying your boundaries is the worst way to go about this and trying to assert your boundaries is the worst way to go up.

Scott Phillips 44:34
I'm kind of boundary here like like, that's not even just about to happen like Yeah.

Itamar Marani 44:39
When people see people see through it. And if you can have a blink test where people are so clear on like, what this guy is trying to do with his life and US offering this just doesn't make sense. It's not going to fit in for him. People just end up not offering. They're just respecting that boundary. They just see what you're interested in. It's very clear, and they just recognize it's not going to be a fruitful attempt to try to steer them away from this.

Scott Phillips 44:59
Yeah, I mean, can you imagine you being at a training at our jujitsu gym and, and one of the guys come up to us saying, hey, Itamar, we're just gonna go get a few beers. And, you know, it's literally what happens when we get an iPhone blow, and you know, like, maybe go to a brothel somewhere and see if we can get a room and do that blow well, and then just see what happens. What do you say the more you use, no one's gonna ask you to do that. Like, it's just you don't need you never need the boundary. Yep.

Itamar Marani 45:32
So Scott, let me ask this is there anything else before we go that you want to say are you want to expand upon that you think is important?

Scott Phillips 45:41
A couple of things. So first of all, having someone I doubt, you could do it by yourself, you need to, you know, whether it's a performance coach or performance psychologist and mindset coach, like you need a coach. And I think that's a shortcut in every area of your life. And what sort of coach should you get, you should get someone who's got the exact same results that you want to achieve. And you should get someone who's got a track record of achieving those results for other people. And then should pay for you shouldn't want to try and get it free, because you and I used to work on like a Swapsies basis, I told marketing, he told me this, and our relationship went to the next level when you started charging, and the results that we got out of it, I took it more seriously, you took it more seriously. You felt like you had to deliver me an ROI on the money I spent and you did. Your benchmark is to deliver a 10x ROI on every dollar that I spend with you. And you have and you've continued to do that, even as our performances has gone up. So this, the other thing is, this is not for everyone, if your goal is to earn a decent if you if you want a lifestyle business, if you want to be like a digital nomad, doing a little bit of affiliate or a little bit of SEO, or a little bit of whatever it is, and earning a good life, in Bali, or in somewhere else that's cheap. Like this probably isn't for you like this is almost certainly not for you. This is for someone who wants to do something remarkable with their lives, something that really, really tests you and stretches you out, like stretches you and and that you're not capable of right now. So I would say it's not for it's not for most people even

not. So that's the

sales pitch right away.

Itamar Marani 47:45
Appreciate it. appreciate the kind words, is there anything there'll be on that and I do appreciate it that you want to tell people because we covered some really big things here first, and I'm going to take my biggest takeaways from it. And to summarize this, this has helped me but first off, you got to clear get clear on what you want and why. Most importantly, and once you do that, a lot of other things will become irrelevant, trying to set boundaries, trying to figure out Oh, should I do this? Or should I do that as far as your mindset because it will make that Northstar, very clear. Is there anything as far as that that you want to add to the people that are that are out there? And just kind of silly because looking at journey saying wow, he got from 10k to 3 million a month? And then he actually took it down? Because he wants to get more profit over? That's amazing. And how do I start that?

Sorry, so okay. I was saying so beyond the stuff that you said about me, which I really appreciate, and I really greatly appreciate you for it. Is there anything that you want to say to the people that have heard what you said so far that Okay, first, you got to decide on what you want. And then why. And if you do that, a lot of other things will just kind of fall into place. And they're hearing this from a person who went from 10k to 3 million a month and then took it down so we could get a lot more profitable. And you're very intentional about things, is there any parting advice that you give these people on how to really get started. But

Scott Phillips 49:02
honestly, if you've been thinking about making radical changes in your life, and you haven't made them, that's because your current level of success, your current level of results are perfectly attuned to the level of character that you have, you need to change and you need to change in a way that's absolutely going to be frightening to and is going to challenge you and you probably need help with it. Because you're going to be lost. Like like without without the anchor of I Am. Itamar is or Scott is a certain way this is my personality and this without that anchor when you become fluid and you're changing. You need a guide. You really do need a guide through this process. And you know, that guy doesn't have to be you obviously it could come from a number of places. It doesn't even have to be a mindset coach really, but I wouldn't have thought it's possible to achieve achieve by yourself. Okay,

Itamar Marani 49:56
thank you very much, Scott. I really appreciate you doing this man. Anytime My friend All right see you guys on the next episode My