00:00:08:15 – 00:00:28:01

Nick McGowan

Hello and welcome to The Mindset and Self-mastery Show. I’m your host, Nick McGowan. And on this show, my guests and I unpack the stories that shape us and the lives we lead on our path to self-mastery. Today on the show, we have G. Scott Graham. Scott is an author, a career coach and a business coach in Boston, Massachusetts.

00:00:28:18 – 00:00:52:06

Nick McGowan

He’s driven to help clients follow their true azimuth, which is different from True North. It means coaching clients to identify the true focus of their life, something that spoke individually to them. It means recognizing the forces that push our lives off course and adjusting to them. So you get to exactly where you want to go. It means that when you are 90 years old, you can look back on your life and have a sense of pride, accomplishment and meaning.

00:00:52:06 – 00:01:00:28

Nick McGowan

No regrets. So let’s not wait any longer. Let the games begin. Scott, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

00:01:01:24 – 00:01:06:00

G. Scott Graham

Really great. It is really a privilege to be here on your show, Nick.

00:01:06:18 – 00:01:21:09

Nick McGowan

And I appreciate you being here. I know we recently connected. I was looking at a little bit your background, so I’m excited to get into this just from the handful of minutes that we were kind of shooting the shit before we hit record. I feel like we’re going to have a pretty damn good conversation. Typically how it goes at this show.

00:01:21:10 – 00:01:29:02

Nick McGowan

We’ll get into some wild stuff. But Scott, why don’t you kick us off with what you do for a living? And one thing that most people don’t know about you.

00:01:30:11 – 00:01:53:04

G. Scott Graham

Boy, there’s a lot of things that people don’t know about me, but I try to make it known all these little pieces about me. Let’s see. I work as a coach. I’m working on numbers 16 and 17 of books that I’ve written. I am an EMT. I am a volunteer firefighter. I’m actually an EMT instructor. I teach Taichi for the elderly.

00:01:53:04 – 00:02:13:26

G. Scott Graham

I run a nonprofit for a farm animal rescue, and I am getting ready to do a Tough Mudder. And I do. You know what a Tough Mudder is? Oh, yeah, yeah. Electric City, mud wires, shit like that. I’m getting ready to do a Tough Mudder again after a two.

00:02:14:04 – 00:02:15:04

Nick McGowan

To.

00:02:15:06 – 00:02:38:18

G. Scott Graham

Knee replacements. Total knee replacements. And I’m doing this this Tough Mudder. I was I was somehow hoodwinked into it. And I feel like I’m like the I’m like the grandpa of the Tough Mudder. I don’t know how I feel about that. I don’t know if that’s good. I don’t know if that’s bad. But but everybody else is like in their twenties and thirties.

00:02:38:18 – 00:02:59:17

G. Scott Graham

And, you know, I’m 59. I’m like, wow. They’re like, don’t worry, we’ll help you get over the obstacles. I’m like, I don’t need help getting over the God damn obstacles I need. I just want you to know I’m not running. They’re like, Why? I’m like, Because that I have to knee replacements and the doctor was really clear since I got them replaced at a young age.

00:03:00:06 – 00:03:22:12

G. Scott Graham

If I do things like running, I might I might wear them out. I might not, but I might. And I don’t want to have a knee replacement surgery. I mean, they’re new right there. And it’s not like we’ve been replacing knees since 1855. And I can say, oh, they were slaughtered in 50 years. So they’re like, Oh, they’re supposed to last for the rest of your life.

00:03:22:12 – 00:03:38:26

G. Scott Graham

But they don’t they don’t last for football players. So all the doctor said to me, as he said, you need to avoid things that go like this with your knees. He said, You can do this. You can do. He said, If you can do a triathlon line, as long as you don’t run and you find someone to sub for you on the running section, you can bike and swim.

00:03:40:15 – 00:03:43:04

G. Scott Graham

So. So I’m not running on the Tough Mudder.

00:03:44:01 – 00:03:46:05

Nick McGowan

Are you going to do, like the fast kind of jog?

00:03:46:20 – 00:04:09:03

G. Scott Graham

Well, you know, I’m not even going to. I’m not even going to do I have to be careful so that I you know, that I’m that I’m not impacting that thing on my knees. So it’s even when I hike now I’m having a difficult time because I have no trouble going uphill. But coming down I you know, when you come down, you usually land on your skeletal system, right?

00:04:09:03 – 00:04:30:28

G. Scott Graham

It’s the stick. Your leg is extended and straight and you got your skeletal system takes the full brunt of that force. But I’m so I’m working on this kind of going downhill with my legs bent. So it looks like I’m taking a dump when I’m going down the hill with my legs bent because I am I’m like 59.

00:04:30:28 – 00:04:46:20

G. Scott Graham

I haven’t just been doing this. Walking down with my legs bend forever. That’s why I to get through knee replacements. So it’s weird trying to learn that. I look, it’s, it’s, it’s people are like, are you okay? I’m like, yes. I just don’t know how to walk. I’m fine. I’m fine.

00:04:47:16 – 00:05:11:03

Nick McGowan

Just lean into the story, be like, come down. I’m actively taking shit. Leave me alone. What? What are you looking at me for? Can a man walk down a mountain and take a shit? Man, oh, man. All right, so there’s all of that. The I want to kind of jump into the empty in the fire fighter thing because I can relate to that kind of pretty quickly.

00:05:11:16 – 00:05:30:09

Nick McGowan

My dad and brother, firemen, my brother’s an EMT. He’s kind of a superhero in many different ways. But that shit just jumped completely over me, completely over me. I see fire and I’m like, Shit, somebody’s got to come put this out and I’ve got to maybe help people that are close and get out of here. My dad and brother will.

00:05:31:04 – 00:05:42:21

Nick McGowan

They don’t care where they are. They’re stories of my father being outed, you know, having a couple beverages at places and then ending up with an ax in his hand at some point, just helping out the local crew. And they’re like, right.

00:05:43:05 – 00:05:45:29

G. Scott Graham

You survive. You know, they both volunteers.

00:05:46:11 – 00:05:47:17

Nick McGowan

And they’re really in pain.

00:05:47:23 – 00:06:15:10

G. Scott Graham

Okay. You know, so for for that, for your listeners out there, here’s a fact for you to know. Most of the firefighters and EMT is in the United States are volunteers. Very, very few of. I’m a volunteer and I get paid a penny. A very, very few people who are out there jumping into fires, running around in traffic, pulling people out of cars, doing CPR, covered with blood there.

00:06:15:10 – 00:06:40:04

G. Scott Graham

There’s very few people that are paid because who can pay them. Especially in rural America, you can pay them in the big city. If you have a big city with a big tax base, then you can pay them. But if you don’t have that, if you want to have coverage in your station, 24 seven. Right. That’s it’s not like emergency or say, you know, fired apartment, New York, all these shows that we see on television, it’s not like that, you know?

00:06:40:29 – 00:07:05:06

Nick McGowan

Yeah, it’s funny. I am. So I’m originally from Philadelphia. My family still in Philadelphia. I live in Florida now, but I go home every so often, every handful of months, and I’ll be shooting the breeze. My dad will be hanging out watching TV or something. So short version of this over the summer, we’re shooting the shit and watching some baseball game or something and some 911 or 911 episode popped up.

00:07:05:06 – 00:07:20:16

Nick McGowan

Like, now that I’m on one show and craziness, I was like, Hey, Pop, you watch this. And he instantly was like, Fuck, all of that. That is so wrong. It’s fake, blah, blah, blah. So he’s not on the podcast, but can you give his perspective about like why people will look at to be like, fuck all of it’s not right.

00:07:21:02 – 00:07:42:27

G. Scott Graham

Because they, they, they, they put all this stuff in for drama like, I mean, firefighters do it. It’s it’s exciting. But we are airing on the edge of of safety and we never, ever, for example, you see firefighters on TV going going around burning smoldering buildings without their air mask on because you have to see their face. Right.

00:07:43:02 – 00:08:05:28

G. Scott Graham

And who wants to watch a TV show where there is a multi-million dollar star going, oh, ooh, because they have something over their face. So they they don’t have that on. They don’t have, you know, they’re not fully in the fire gear because you have to see their flowing hair and their blue eyes or whatever. And I mean, lots of times they even have their fire hand on backwards.

00:08:05:28 – 00:08:34:13

G. Scott Graham

But beyond that, you know, the the the interesting thing is I see this in every single movie and it’s hysterical. Fire hydrants do not, you know. You see, when a car runs over fire hydrant and it goes like that, they don’t work. That’s not how they work. That’s not how they work. Fire hydrants are not under pressure. And anybody who has been in the city where you have to get the fire hydrant going knows you have to and open the fire and then you have to actually turn a valve.

00:08:34:19 – 00:08:59:11

G. Scott Graham

So if you run over a fire hydrant, it is not going to go straight up in the air all the time. That’s completely fake. It’s completely fake. So I just become, you know, Nick, I just became a firefighter instructor, not a fireman. So I became a as fire instructor a few years ago. And I just became an EMT instructor.

00:08:59:11 – 00:09:30:01

G. Scott Graham

And part of my mission is to, you know, this is about mindset and self-mastery, right? So part of my mindset is service and and really trying to have a ripple effect on the world. And I am part of that piece of me being an EMT instructor is to get more people trained in EMS so that at least they can show up and do CPR and help their neighbors or bleeding while the ambulance is on the way.

00:09:31:03 – 00:09:51:08

G. Scott Graham

Because it’s we it’s it’s even with our advancements in in technology and our advancements in communication in and our advancements in in vehicles, it’s still like 20, sometimes 30 minutes before help arrives. Be nice. If it was 5 minutes before help arrives and then they can hand it off to the big boys. So that’s part.

00:09:51:08 – 00:09:57:28

Nick McGowan

Of it is in the TV shows, you know, it’s 5 minutes in the show. So come on, guys, tell all of us to.

00:09:58:07 – 00:09:59:20

G. Scott Graham

Yeah, right.

00:10:00:10 – 00:10:04:15

Nick McGowan

Totally kidding. Totally kidding. Firefighter friends and best friends don’t kick my ass.

00:10:04:21 – 00:10:13:26

G. Scott Graham

You can get a bunch of hate mail. Yeah, that whole email. I love you. Forgot to email him.

00:10:13:26 – 00:10:29:16

Nick McGowan

Oh, man. So where did that all come from, though? Like, why? Why get into the spot where service is important to you? But that not only has it been important over the course of your life, but as you’ve already stated a couple of times, you’re close to six years old. So now you’re actually helping the next generation of people.

00:10:29:24 – 00:10:36:20

Nick McGowan

That’s a separate sort of deal. But what has led you to that point where you’re like, I want to do all of these things to now create other leaders?

00:10:36:28 – 00:10:54:00

G. Scott Graham

I think a part of part of that is I’m Reed, I’m running out of gas. So I guess. Right. And so I, you know, one of the best ways that I can be of service is to help kind of help other people carry that on. That’s one of the reasons I write all these I’m writing all these books.

00:10:54:09 – 00:11:14:26

G. Scott Graham

I have this goal which some say is audacious, but I have this goal that I want to write 100 books before I die, so I’m not even halfway there. I’m not even a quarter of the way there because I’ve only written 15, but I have a lot to say. And I think that that’s that’s the same drive to like have an impact.

00:11:15:25 – 00:11:43:00

G. Scott Graham

It is so many people live with live it’s it’s know it’s really a fucked up world that we live in in so many ways because people think that success is about having the biggest car, the biggest jet, the biggest house, the most vacations, the yacht, the this that it did it. And and and then maybe once you’ve accumulated that, I’m going to set up a foundation that’s going to help give money.

00:11:43:00 – 00:12:02:06

G. Scott Graham

It’s just so it’s just really the best thing that we can do is to really help each other. When you when it really comes down to it, what else is there? Right. You want to look back at your life and say, oh, yeah, look at that. Look at the nice motorcycles. I have a collection of historic motorcycles, 50 of them in my garage.

00:12:02:26 – 00:12:19:03

G. Scott Graham

That’s an achievement. But to be able to say that, you know, I’ve I’ve trained in and and I’m a I’m going to have an impact on people after I’m gone because of people that I’m trained. That’s pretty cool.

00:12:20:03 – 00:12:40:20

Nick McGowan

That’s pretty cool. I mean, yes, that totally is pretty cool. Now, as a mindset show and about self-mastery, which is basically discipline, would you say that some of that comes from the ego or is there an innate pool to always serve people like, I know the people that just serve because if they didn’t, they would die. That’s their water.

00:12:41:10 – 00:12:45:27

Nick McGowan

And you feel some of that’s ego or do you feel that some of that is like, I just need to do this.

00:12:46:28 – 00:13:13:08

G. Scott Graham

It can be ego. And that’s a risk. That’s really a risk because we get attached to that ego just as much as we can get attached to the motorcycles, the yachts and this. Right? It’s like I have an endowment to the school and now they have the G. Scott Graham School of Psychology or whatever with big gold letters printed across them.

00:13:13:08 – 00:13:39:09

G. Scott Graham

I spell it correctly too, by the way, that really is the driver of the ego. You get invited to be on this board of directors and that board of directors and then, you know, it just it just puffs you up when then you can get attached to that same type of stuff and want to have that just it can be it’s just like the motorcycles or the yachts or whatever or the or or string of achievements or having, you know, your name up in lights.

00:13:39:21 – 00:13:59:03

G. Scott Graham

And that’s that, that’s a, that’s a risk. But for me, that’s not that way. I’m Niemi. I’m talking about it here on the podcast, but and I talk about it with people because that’s who I am. But it’s not a driver as of, you know, being them. Look at who Scott Graham is. I’m really just a guy.

00:13:59:17 – 00:14:27:23

Nick McGowan

Yeah. And, you know, people look at celebrities, they look at athletes, and they forget that they’re just people for the most part. Some of them are just geeks, nerds or whatever, just like the rest of us, like their little quirks and things that they get into with any sort of success, no matter what level you could be, Jeff Bezos level, or you could be somebody who’s having a little bit of success in their little cubicle at work, whatever that looks like, that ego, that ego can still kind of creep in.

00:14:28:13 – 00:14:34:24

Nick McGowan

So how do you manage your mindset in those sort of moments and how do you help other people? Do it? Like what sort of advice would you give for that?

00:14:35:19 – 00:15:01:05

G. Scott Graham

I think I think that the first of all, recognizing that there’s an attachment to that ego and who I am. And that’s that’s a really big piece. So once you’ve and that’s true for any issue that you’re having with your mindset recognizing that piece and then the other the other aspect around that is being aware of your foibles that you’re not perfect, right?

00:15:01:05 – 00:15:22:28

G. Scott Graham

We could you know, if you want, I could talk about all the all the dastardly things my shithead brain says to me, you know, like you probably have an evil neck that, like, says, you know what? My brain says things to me that I would never, ever, ever tolerate from another human being. Like I would never let anybody get away with the shit that my brain there’d be.

00:15:22:28 – 00:15:24:27

Nick McGowan

A restraining order and all this.

00:15:24:27 – 00:15:53:13

G. Scott Graham

Other shite. And so, you know, not not purposely ratcheting that up, but, you know, looking at the things that I still have to do to develop and grow and, you know, and and and move forward because every single person has challenges. And the second, we move away from that piece and and don’t appreciate that we lose a touch of our we, we, we, we lose touch with our humanity.

00:15:56:06 – 00:16:20:08

Nick McGowan

And that that thin line of the humanity and the pursuit of perfection, where everybody’s trying to be better and better and better and better and better, you’re trying to pursue this perfect life same time people at times and they’re like, Oh, I don’t know, I’m only human. But there’s such a difference from that. I’m aiming for perfection and then, you know, fucked up and I’m only human, right?

00:16:20:10 – 00:16:25:13

Nick McGowan

But there’s no accountability unless it’s like right in the middle with that. Right. So how do you find balance your life?

00:16:26:01 – 00:16:59:21

G. Scott Graham

I think it could I address another piece because I actually have some guilt about this. And this is a piece that I think is inherently screwed up in the coaching field, whether it’s career coaching or life coach. Life coaching is the worst and I coach people, right? And I and so this is my confession to folks in that, you know, one of the things that you hear from from coaches, especially life coaches, but you hear from career and business and other, is that your life’s going to be magical from coaching and they want to want you to develop your vision.

00:16:59:27 – 00:17:22:06

G. Scott Graham

And the more clear your vision is, the more clear as like Simon Sinek says, your why is you’re going to then build this life that is just utopian and blissful and happy, and you are just I mean, there’s going to be rainbows coming out your ears. You’re going to be fighting butterflies and puppy dogs, and it’s just going to be you’re going to be high all the time.

00:17:22:16 – 00:17:50:12

G. Scott Graham

And and we talk to that. I’m obviously I’m parodying that with I am in this conversation. But, you know, there is this push to be better and more and happy and this bill of goods gets sold. And inherently that makes people more unhappy. We think that the clearer our vision is, the better it is. But you don’t hit it.

00:17:50:21 – 00:18:16:04

G. Scott Graham

And how do you feel? Unhappy. You don’t get it. It goes away. And how do you feel unhappy? And so the real key mindset is not about happiness, it’s about equanimity. Equanimity is key, and that’s probably a word your listeners have never even heard before. They’re like, What is that? I and look it up on Google. What does that mean?

00:18:16:06 – 00:18:43:18

G. Scott Graham

That’s a 50 cent word. It’s and it’s not a 50 it should be a word that everybody is familiar with because unlike other emotions like happiness or anger, equanimity is a feeling. But equanimity is also a skill set and they kind of go hand in hand. You really can’t you know, happiness is a feeling, but happiness isn’t really a skill set.

00:18:44:03 – 00:19:09:09

G. Scott Graham

I mean, you can work to try to be happy, but it’s not really something. It’s a how you work. I’m working on my skill of happiness, but you can actually work on in, in, in expanding your skills to be economists with things. I was talking to a friend today and and then I’m going to shut up and let you ask your other question because I’m probably off on some tangent.

00:19:09:09 – 00:19:11:18

G. Scott Graham

You’re like, Shut up. I was talking to a friend.

00:19:11:18 – 00:19:12:11

Nick McGowan

I work at a point.

00:19:12:11 – 00:19:41:08

G. Scott Graham

That was talking to a friend today, and she said to me, she’s struggling with some dynamics going on in her life. And she said to me when we were talking, we’re both familiar with this. She said, Utah, Bhutan, which is a Tibetan Buddhist poly term, which said which translates to as it is a taboo to as it is, not as you would like it to be.

00:19:42:02 – 00:20:15:19

G. Scott Graham

And if we are able to cultivate a mindset where we embrace yet taboo Thai as it is and that skill to stay that way when we’re feeling sucked in by the ego or cars or this all stay that way when we’re sucked in by everything going to hell in a handbasket. Right. To have that balance. That’s really the key.

00:20:16:13 – 00:20:36:04

G. Scott Graham

That’s really the key. And that’s really accepting things as they are. And that doesn’t mean, you know, I don’t give a shit about anything. I’m just going to get high and waste it and. Well, and it does it doesn’t mean that it’s not indifference, it’s equanimity. It’s not indifference.

00:20:36:04 – 00:20:55:02

Nick McGowan

I think the American version of that is it is what it is. But a lot of people take that and we’ll kind of fall back to the but I’m only human sort of thing. Like I don’t know because it’s just a throw away almost. So how do you suggest that people would hold themselves accountable with it is what it is and understand the contentment of that and the equanimity of it.

00:20:55:05 – 00:21:32:19

G. Scott Graham

The the interesting thing about that is that you cannot say it is what it is and expect that that’s going to bring that mindset about. Because, you know, there I, I have a friend who who was recently gone through some struggles and she says, you know, all this all the time. It is what it is very similar are yet taboo to us and I’ve pointed out I’m like, you know, just because you say it doesn’t necessarily you know, I can see that you really don’t appreciate now what’s going on here.

00:21:32:23 – 00:22:03:08

G. Scott Graham

There’s like imbalance, right? You can be like, fuck them. I don’t give a shit about that asshole. It is what it is. Well, clearly, if it is what it is, you would not say fuck them. I don’t give a shit about that asshole right? It wouldn’t be that way, you know. And so how do you develop that peace and the the most powerful way to develop that peace is through a technique called Vipassana meditation.

00:22:03:29 – 00:22:27:18

G. Scott Graham

There’s lots of things you can do at the surface level and all this sort of stuff. But the passion of meditation and sitting down and practicing that skill set builds that skill and the micro level without any interruptions, without any, without any distractions, without any other things going on in your head. It’s just focusing on accepting things as they are.

00:22:28:01 – 00:22:47:26

G. Scott Graham

And you, if you practice that piece of it and you can do it at home, you can do it in the subway, you can do it. It’s hard to do in the subway. You can do it in the grocery store. It’s hard to do in the grocery store. It’s better to do it when there’s no distractions but to just exist with life as it is.

00:22:49:19 – 00:23:24:02

G. Scott Graham

That’s that’s the skill set that comes. And then that skill set builds to these bigger things. The bigger mindset is you cannot. One of the mistakes I think people make all the time you’ve probably heard of cognitive behavioral therapy or affirmations, which is which is a piece of cognitive behavioral therapy. It’s such bullshit. And you probably have had somebody who’s on before me or someone’s coming after him is going to say, affirmations are great, and so you’re going to be like, Oh, there was this guest a couple of weeks ago.

00:23:24:04 – 00:23:47:03

G. Scott Graham

It was all bullshit. What do you think of that? Someone say bullshit and this is why. This is why because you can go in because it’s because of that evil voice in our head. Right, is that you can look at yourself in the mirror and say, I’m a loving person, I’m a joyous person, I’m a giving person. I love myself, I love my body.

00:23:47:08 – 00:24:12:05

G. Scott Graham

And every time you say that, that voice in your head is saying something, it’s like it’s saying something totally opposite. It’s like, what’s that superhero show with with the black goo? Tom Hardy was the character of Venom. It’s like having that thing in your head, that Venom thing in your head that’s saying, No, let’s go this, right. That’s exactly what it is.

00:24:12:09 – 00:24:35:23

G. Scott Graham

And so you say, I’m going to be a nice person. And then the evil thing is saying, Oh, no, you’re not. You’re not a nice person because of this and this and this and this and this. And who’s going to win that argument? And then you say, I love myself and I have a I cherish my body. And then the evil thing’s going to say, I accept your fat ass and, you know, your saggy balls or your tits or whatever.

00:24:35:23 – 00:25:09:04

G. Scott Graham

It’s good. It’s just it’s it’s it’s pre loaded and it knows every single button to push on you so we can say, Oh, yeah, after the technology about affirmations, it’s great. But it overlooks the fact that in our mind is, you know, this steaming spawn that is just waiting to argue the opposite with us. So the best thing you can do is just say, shut up.

00:25:09:04 – 00:25:35:04

G. Scott Graham

Literally. I mean, literally you say to yourself, you know, it’s like having a kid who’s arguing with you in the grocery store. They want this and they want that. They want that. And you’re like, Shut up, you’re not getting it. We’re going, period. No, no, I’m not even talking about it. We’re going and that’s and and seeing it silently to yourself doesn’t work as long as you’re not on a subway in in some bus station or airplane.

00:25:35:05 – 00:25:53:29

G. Scott Graham

Definitely not a grocery store airline is sitting next to somebody. You should not start saying this out loud, but if you’re private, if you’re in the privacy of your own home or you go for a walk in the woods and that voice is going on, it is much more effective than affirmations to say out loud, Will you just shut up?

00:25:54:05 – 00:26:12:18

G. Scott Graham

I’m not listening to you. Shut up and cut it off because you win. We will never win the argument no matter what the cognitive behavioral people want to brainwash us to think, you know, that people know that inherently because we’ve argued with that thing in our head for years and we’ve not won.

00:26:13:26 – 00:26:34:19

Nick McGowan

I think people look for the thing that they can sink their teeth into where they can go, Oh, this is the thing. I actually had a conversation with somebody recently talking about addiction and they’re like, I don’t really believe that it’s a disease because those people actually chose to do those things. It’s now a this is within their system, but it’s not something you can just lean a crutch on.

00:26:34:22 – 00:26:53:03

Nick McGowan

And to some people that’s fucking wild. They’re like, Oh, totally, it’s a disease. Other people are like, Oh, I think you’re on to something. So I think it’s all kind of the package of the thing, how even religion they go, here’s the package of this thing that is really just faith based to help you be a better person and make smarter decisions.

00:26:53:25 – 00:27:07:25

Nick McGowan

But you need this box because people are like, Wow, I don’t know what it is. Oh, it’s a box. I could sit my ass in that box, right cigarets in the bunks. Other people can look at the box, they can inspect the box, they can look around it. They can ask other people, okay, what is what is this box to you?

00:27:08:18 – 00:27:14:27

Nick McGowan

So I think there are those little activities in those moments where the affirmation. Yes, you’re just saying words and in the back of your mind.

00:27:15:08 – 00:27:16:00

G. Scott Graham

Exactly what.

00:27:16:25 – 00:27:40:29

Nick McGowan

You know, then you’re like, What the fuck? But at the same time, I realized going through affirmations and all that, there’s a depth that you can get to where the body feels it. You have that sensation that it starts to actually get into the subconscious, but it’s hard for people to get to that point, even sitting there doing meditation of just understanding it is what it is and having that feeling of just being content in that moment.

00:27:42:02 – 00:28:00:04

Nick McGowan

There’s that gray area when people start something and then they go, It’s not really working now and it’s pull the fuck out or they get through it and go, Huh? Because you’ve experienced that feeling, I’m sure of it, where you just embody something even to yourself. Are you like you’re going to be confident y second, right? And you own it and you walk.

00:28:00:04 – 00:28:17:05

Nick McGowan

Then people have to attach all that together, but it might take a level of intelligence or wondering, you know, at least to go there multiple pieces here. So how in simple terms would you explain to somebody to go ahead and do that for themselves, to combine those pieces to help them?

00:28:18:13 – 00:28:49:29

G. Scott Graham

The best thing you can do if if you’re working to combine pieces is to get it out of your head and get it written down on a plan. It doesn’t make it an end. And and handwriting is better, in my opinion, than typing it up because we just feel so detached from the keyboard. But you sit down and and scribble out some plan on what you need to do and what you’re going to what efforts you’re going to make to move in that direction.

00:28:50:04 – 00:29:25:18

G. Scott Graham

And then if you can have an honest conversation with somebody and find somebody to hold you accountable around those pieces, then you can really move forward that might be a coach, that could be a friend. It could be, you know, a colleague. You were talking about addiction earlier. I mean, that’s one of the strengths of AA. If you have an honest relationship and you’re open and exposed to your sponsor, your sponsor can hold you accountable to all those demons that they know are there because they’ve had it themselves.

00:29:26:05 – 00:29:37:26

G. Scott Graham

And but that only happens if you’re honest and and and bring a bring integrity to that relationship. If you don’t, then everything is going to go. Everything’s going to fall apart.

00:29:38:19 – 00:29:48:15

Nick McGowan

I think that goes for all relationships, no matter what. If you walk into something and you’re not with integrity, you’re not being honest, how can you expect any of it to be.

00:29:48:22 – 00:29:49:06

G. Scott Graham

Right.

00:29:49:06 – 00:30:02:26

Nick McGowan

Successful at all? Right. And I find that there are times where I have conversations with people where I spend a lot of time to help them break through on their own, to be able to go, fuck it, fine, I’m here.

00:30:02:26 – 00:30:03:09

G. Scott Graham

Right?

00:30:03:19 – 00:30:10:11

Nick McGowan

I’m here. Yeah. Let’s do this thing right now. I’m ready. You’re like, good. Now you can actually learn. Now you can actually make the change.

00:30:10:11 – 00:30:43:15

G. Scott Graham

We spent we spent so much time. Nick, thinking about because we have attachment, because we don’t have equanimity. We’re thinking about the outcome that we want and speaking in a way that totally lacks integrity because we have some goal in mind. It’s really manipulative and skeevy when you think about it. We do that with our friends, we do that with their spouses, we do that with their kids, we do that with our parents and everybody else does the same thing with us because we’re all and then they’re like, Oh, I got to take a class on emotional intelligence so I can be better.

00:30:43:15 – 00:31:10:03

G. Scott Graham

And really, all emotional intelligence is, is be have integrity and don’t be so skeevy with your communications and, and, and your approaches to other human beings. You have to be able to break through those those parts so that you have authentic relationship. And recognizing it and recognizing that you do it is the first step. It’s like we were talking about AA.

00:31:10:03 – 00:31:33:22

G. Scott Graham

It’s like recognizing you have a disease is the first step to fixing it, right? It’s like once you’re aware that you have a disease, it’s like it’s like I’m aware I have I have high blood pressure. Well, I have now two choices. I can continue to have Cheetos and ice cream. Ice cream. Vanilla ice cream sprinkled with Cheetos and.

00:31:35:19 – 00:31:38:17

Nick McGowan

You’re going to say seven times because that sounds like a Frosties in.

00:31:38:17 – 00:32:06:21

G. Scott Graham

The evening. Or I can eat healthy and work on my diabetes. I have a choice there. I’m a disease and I end and I now have a choice on how to treat it. The same thing with alcohol. I have a disease I can continue to drink or I continue to shoot heroin or any of these other pieces or I can, you know, embrace, you know, sobriety and figure out a path, whatever that means for me to move forward in a whole sober life.

00:32:06:29 – 00:32:29:00

G. Scott Graham

And the same thing is true with integrity. Once you once you have that, if you can break through with another person without the games, I was lucky to be able to do that with one person in my life. I was really and we had a great relationship and were able to really call each other out on those games.

00:32:29:19 – 00:32:37:02

G. Scott Graham

I let him do it to me. I did it and he did it and I did it with him and it was really, really helpful. And there’s not many other people I do that with.

00:32:37:02 – 00:33:00:28

Nick McGowan

Oh yeah. It can definitely take a lot to allow people in to whatever your inner circle is and to allow those sort of people that’s a right tighter circle because you sometimes need to allow those people actually into your space. And if that is a coach or an accountability friend or colleague or whatever, I think it’s a matter of being able to pick those people properly.

00:33:02:02 – 00:33:26:02

Nick McGowan

But it takes both people to be open. So I think at the core of it, people need to be aware of what they what their problems are. If you think of the diseases and things like you’re talking about, your Cheetos and ice cream problem together may not be a problem, though. It totally is. But if you think of like those people that are in those situations, it may not be just the thing in front of them.

00:33:26:02 – 00:33:42:00

Nick McGowan

That’s a problem. Exactly. The things that are behind them, the things that they’ve done. Yeah. That are the problems. So how do you work with your clients to be able to get them to unearth those things? Pass the point of just here’s a service level and actually telling you the innermost shit that they deal with.

00:33:42:00 – 00:34:05:14

G. Scott Graham

Trust takes a while to build once trust builds and, and, and you’ve established a relationship with someone that you can be honest with, then you can really open up. People come to me as a coach and they’re very surface level with stuff because one of the things we do very, very early on is we build this image that you were talking about.

00:34:05:14 – 00:34:27:22

G. Scott Graham

We were talking about Eagle earlier. We build this image of you build this image of who Nick. Nick is Nick is this Nick? Is that Nick is this that at the time? And and then the second thing we do is we want to take that image and build it, whether it’s right or wrong. Whatever that images that we’re attached to, we build that image in other people’s minds.

00:34:28:01 – 00:34:50:07

G. Scott Graham

We want other people, your spouse, your husband, daughter, your son, your mother, your father. This is who Nick is. This is what Nick’s all about. It’s like we’ve got this PR branding. It’s like Facebook on crack that we do. We’re doing Facebook long before there was Facebook and trying to give people this image of who the who the right nick is, who the good Nick, Nick, Nick.

00:34:50:08 – 00:35:12:25

G. Scott Graham

This is who Nick is. And anything that and it’s like it’s like having at the altar and and Church of Nick and we want people to praise that idol and we want people to love that, you know, we want people to cherish that idol. And so part of part of the shift comes recognizing that that image of Nick is not who you are, really you.

00:35:12:27 – 00:35:39:18

G. Scott Graham

It’s created in your mind. And you’re putting that out there for other people to worship and praise and enjoy and love and and then the second thing that the other piece, the other factor that happens with this, it’s closely related to this image of of me and I. And that my and mine. So my car, my son, my daughter, my parents.

00:35:39:18 – 00:36:02:09

G. Scott Graham

Right. You see something happened to somebody else’s son or daughter and you’re like, no, whatever, you know? But if my son does that or my daughter does that, that’s a different piece because it relates back to this this the Church of Nick and you’ve created because this is not how people act in the church of Nick. Right? Not my son, not my daughter.

00:36:02:11 – 00:36:23:18

G. Scott Graham

Not my that. Right. It’s right. That’s a well, that’s a pathetically trained dog. But my dog. Right. Somebody came over here and said it came here to the animal rescue a couple of weeks ago and she got this dog in her car. This dog was freaking crazy. It was she poured it out and it was going after one of the animals.

00:36:23:18 – 00:36:46:16

G. Scott Graham

It’s pulling on the leash. She goes, You know, my dog is well-trained. And I turned to her and I said, You know what? Everybody says their dog is well trained. No, there’s very few people that says my dog’s crazy or, you know, it’s it’s they’re like, oh, yeah, it’s the best dog on the planet. Right. I have. There is one person they were they were here helping out at the rescue this weekend.

00:36:47:14 – 00:37:21:12

G. Scott Graham

Emma and Emma Gaffney, she’s got a little crazy little dog named Chainsaw. And that dog is little. It’s whack. That dog’s on Prozac and all kinds of other meds and stuff. And it shakes like this when you go to, like, touch it. I mean, she’s, oh, my dog has issues. So we kept it away from all the other dogs and animals and everything while she was here, because she’s she’s the only person I know that is that has not said my dog’s the best like on the planet.

00:37:23:02 – 00:37:28:09

Nick McGowan

Sounds like she couldn’t really hide it. She was like, no, the dogs are right. You go like there’s something wrong?

00:37:28:17 – 00:37:47:11

G. Scott Graham

Yeah. The dog. The dog has an overbite like this, you know? Yeah. It’s it’s, you know, growls at you and you go, my, you know, but still still she it’s it’s my dog. If something were to happen to that dog for her, that would be a core struggle for her. Right. She loves that dog.

00:37:47:16 – 00:38:09:06

Nick McGowan

And that’s those are things the attachments that we gain throughout our life that we think make us that make us who we are. We experience at different times. And I’m experiencing this, Stephen, as of late, the folding of who you actually are and figuring out who you actually are and then showing people like, Hey, this is me, kind of take me or leave me.

00:38:09:07 – 00:38:29:17

Nick McGowan

Part of this is the fucking podcast, or as you put it, the Church of Nick, which is not associated with a podcast, completely different. They’re nonexempt, you know, whole deal. But really figuring out the stuff that you have internally that I think that aligns with you or doesn’t align with you starts with, as you were saying, it’s just that awareness.

00:38:29:17 – 00:38:51:04

Nick McGowan

You’ve got to be able to look at that shit first. And I appreciate the I’m sure there are tons of stories to get into with you that we haven’t even touched the surface on yet, but we’re about at our time. And so one of the things I definitely want to ask you that I ask everybody is on the show, what’s one piece of advice you’d give to somebody that’s on their path towards self-mastery.

00:38:51:07 – 00:39:15:03

G. Scott Graham

Live your life so that you would not have any regrets? And let me tell you what. Let me be clear on what that means. That does not mean live your life so that you are just off the deep end doing drugs, bungee jumping and all of this other stuff. That means that if you’re somebody close behind to you die.

00:39:15:03 – 00:39:33:15

G. Scott Graham

That means if you died tomorrow and you could send a message to somebody else, you should say, Don’t feel sad for me because I live the best life that I can. I have no regrets about any of the decisions I made along my life. I don’t have no regrets about any of the things I’ve said to people along my life.

00:39:33:28 – 00:39:54:13

G. Scott Graham

And if you can live your life that way so that you have no regrets or things that you say, I wish I did this. If only I had done that, I should have done that. If you can live your life so that those words and phrases don’t enter it at all, you are on your way to true equanimity.

00:39:55:09 – 00:40:05:25

Nick McGowan

Great way to pull that back around. So thank you for tying loose end with with the equanimity. So Scott, tell us where can people connect with you? Where can they find you and your plethora of books?

00:40:06:27 – 00:40:30:07

G. Scott Graham

So all you have to do is go to Google and Google G. Scott Graham. There we go. And you will see all these books just way waiting for you to go through and get. And there’s more. Those are the ones that I have floating around that are in print. And those are my props. I mean, so waiting Nick to pull in.

00:40:30:07 – 00:40:50:01

G. Scott Graham

Welcome. So I’m attached. Those are those these. These are the core pamphlets of the Church of Scott. Right? So these are this is what we sing in praise in the Church of Scott. So you can go to G. Scott Grammy.com and you will see tons of links that you’ll see this podcast there. You’ll see you’ll see links to other social media places.

00:40:50:07 – 00:40:53:02

G. Scott Graham

Just go to that and that will take you everywhere.

00:40:53:19 – 00:40:57:06

Nick McGowan

Perfect. Well, again, thank you for joining the show. We appreciate your time.

00:40:57:06 – 00:41:15:04

G. Scott Graham

What a pleasure. You really provide a great service out there to really help people be aware of how this impacts the rest of our lives. Thank you.

00:41:15:29 – 00:41:41:14

Nick McGowan

Another great conversation on today’s episode of The Mindset and Self-mastery show. I have to say the biggest takeaway from this conversation for me is equanimity. Even if you’re not familiar with the term, you’re definitely familiar with the definition because I believe it’s something you and I are both striving for. Equanimity is mental calmness, composure and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation.

00:41:42:07 – 00:42:04:15

Nick McGowan

Is this something you’re striving for? If so, how is it going? I’d love to hear about it, hear about the journey that you’re managing your mindset and striving towards self-mastery and equanimity. So what did you think about today’s episode? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the conversation we got into, and if you enjoyed the episode, please go over to iTunes, subscribe rate and leave a five star review for this episode.

00:42:04:15 – 00:42:18:23

Nick McGowan

Open your eyes and make you think or smile at all. I’m sure it’s going to do the same thing for a friend of yours, and if you really enjoyed the show today, go ahead and share it with that specific friend that just popped in your mind. Yeah, yeah, that person. Right. Then let’s go and share with them. I’m sure they appreciate it.

00:42:19:01 – 00:42:41:20

Nick McGowan

And check out the show notes for more information, contact info for Scott and check out other episodes on the Mindset and Self-mastery Show account as well as our YouTube channel to search the Mindset and Self-mastery Show. And all of those videos are going to pop up for you. And thanks again, Scott, for being real, being honest, for being funny and vulnerable with us, and for sharing some really great wisdom.

00:42:42:10 – 00:43:03:10

Nick McGowan

I’d like to also thank our The Manly Club and the powerhouse men, brotherhood men. Do you consider yourself to be a powerhouse man? The criteria for becoming one is simple Live with virtue and do good work. You see, a powerhouse man builds his life. He doesn’t settle for it. He attacks mediocrity at the root. That’s exactly what we do in the powerhouse Men’s Brotherhood.

00:43:03:10 – 00:43:21:28

Nick McGowan

Visit the Manly Club icon for more details. And with that, thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being with us. Thank you so much for showing back up. And listen to these. I hope you’re getting something out of this and I’d love to hear from you about it. With that, remember, your mindset matters and so do you.