Welcome to the Steve Jobs based Join Up Dots Free Podcast Interview with Scott Barlow 

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Introducing Scott Barlow

My guest on todays episode of the Join Up Dots free podcast interview is a man who like a select band of guests have decided to return again and join up more dots.

Yes, back on episode 37 of Join Up Dots, when the show was just a baby, and I was finding my feet, he came on the show with his business partner of the time Mark Sieverkropp.

They were building the online career advice platform Happen To Your Career, and in that discussion spoke about the hustle, early mornings, and desire that it takes to bootstrap something and take it out to the world.

Happen To Your Career, is a place that is built with the owners desire, and passions being its ideal avatar.

You can see that the concept would have been something that our guest would have been looking for, so he created it himself.

How The Dots Joined Up For Scott

As he says “I have always had an unusual outlook on careers.

My wife Alyssa, who I met in high school, knows this to be true.

I have left what others considered “good jobs” turned down job offers other people would love and any time I have wanted to make more income have simply figured out a plan and acted upon it. I have to be doing something I am excited about to be happy.

Having had 8 positions in the last 10 years (including successfully self employed) has caused me to have many experiences in a short period of time.”

I have owned a successful business in contracting, led others as a people and human resources professional, coached business owners and leaders to success, and helped many people develop their careers along the way.

I have worked a variety of industries including: manufacturing, retail, government, food, construction and more. 

Everywhere I went I saw people struggling to figure out what they want to do and how to get there.”

So has he got there himself. Is the platform he created truly what he wants, or is it still work in development?

Like most things created by a desire to help the world will it ever be truly realised?

Well lets find, as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Mr Scott Barlow.

Show Highlights

During the show we discussed such weighty topics with Scott Barlow such as:

How he would love to spend sometime with Tony Hsieh, and is inspired by the big dreams and big actions that he demonstrates everyday.

How difficult it is to start a business with your wife, even though you can pay them less than anyone else you could meet.

Why the world is fascinated with the huge success of others and care little about the twenty years of stuggle that have led to that point.

And lastly….

How he recalls the struggles he had as a young man, that caused him to tackle them head-on to allow a starting point to his dreams.

How To Connect With Scott Barlow

Website

Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Return To The Top Of Scott Barlow

Interview Transcription Of Scott Barlow Interview

Intro [0:00]
Today’s show is brought to you by podcasters mastery.com, the premier online community teaching you how to podcast like a pro. Check us out now. podcasters mastery.com when we’re young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be. But somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling. Join Up Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams. This is your blueprint for greatness. So here’s your host live from the back of his garden in the UK. David Ralph.

David Ralph [0:37]
Yes, hello everybody and welcome to Join Up Dots Episode 407. Do you know that voice over man at the beginning I feel like playing it again because I actually listen to the words off the time I’m doing other stuff and as I’m sure you are, most of you thinking what weird show up I just clicked on on iTunes. I thought I was listening to Entrepreneur on Fire but no and this guy, this guy today really ties up big time to what voiceover man was saying. He is a man who doesn’t settle he is a man who’s got a dream. And he’s a man who’s building something and he’s he is a select band of guests that have decided to return again and join up more dots. Yes back on episode 37 of Join Up Dots. When the show was just a baby and I was finding my feet he came on the show with his business partner the time marks Eva crop. Yeah, they were building online career advice platform happen to your career. And in that discussion, spoke about the hustle early mornings, and desire but it takes to bootstrap something and take it out to the world. Now happened to your career is a place that is built with the owners desire and passions being its idea, avatar, you can see that the concept would have been something that our guests would have been looking for. couldn’t find it. So basically, he created it himself. As he says, I’ve always had an unusual outlook on careers. My wife Alyssa, who I met in high school knows this to be true and I’ve left what others Seated good jobs, turned down job offers other people would love. And anytime I’ve wanted to make more income I’ve simply figured out a plan and acted upon it. I have to be doing something I’m excited about to be happy. Having had eight positions in the last 10 years it’s probably more than that since he wrote that, including successfully being self employed is caused me to have many experiences in a short period of time. I’ve owned a successful business and contracting led others as a people and human resources professional coach, business owners and leaders to success and help many people develop their careers along the way. I think that’s the thing he loves doing really. I’ve worked a variety of industries including manufacturing, retail, government, food, construction, and more. And everywhere I went, I saw people struggling to figure out what they want to do and how to get there. So has he got himself is the platform he created truly what he wants? Or is it still working development and like most things created by desire to help the world would it ever be truly realised Teams let’s find out as we bring onto the show to start Join Up Dots with the one and only Mr. Scott Barlow. How are you, sir?

Scott Barlow [3:08]
I am doing really well. I am I am so happy to be here. I am looking forward to this. I think I sent you an email the other day that said, Hey, I saw this on my calendar and it it made me smile. So I’m glad to be back. Thanks for having me on. Again.

David Ralph [3:20]
It is lovely to have you back Mr. Scott Barlow, because you are somebody that on the Join Up Dots timeline of my own. You you really were you were one of my first dots. You were literally maybe not the first but about the second person that I sent out a virtual connection to and that was at the time when I thought nobody would ever respond. Why would they respond to me? And I sent out an email to you I can’t remember what I said. And you responded back and I was amazed by the virtual world isn’t virtual? It’s just a load of people. But you can’t see if that makes sense, right.

Scott Barlow [3:53]
I think you told me that you were going to buy me a beer at animax. Or maybe that was several emails later. I don’t remember All I remember is beer and David Ralph. Yeah, don’t

David Ralph [4:03]
start with beer straight off. No, no. Yeah, that’s like, I’m pretty sure is that pint though? Yeah, well, yeah, we always have a pint always have a pint. So yeah. Did you remember sort of having that thrill right in the early days of strangers connecting with you because by like your work and like what you’re doing.

Scott Barlow [4:22]
That was, you know, honestly, when we started the podcast and you mentioned that, you know, when we started happening to your career, Mark was with me at the time. And it blew us away. It just absolutely blew us away that we could put something out there that we thought was valuable in the world, and people would respond to it. And they’d send us like you they’d send us emails, but that since then, I’m still amazed every single time I get like a 10 or 14 page equivalent email and it just absolutely blows me away that you can impact people in that in that way through the stuff that that you know, And through your own story. So that just is so amazing to me, honestly.

David Ralph [5:06]
But the thing about you vo and not blowing smoke up you, but you are the same on your podcast as you are in real life. And you’re the same on your blog, you get a good feeling of what Scott Barlow is all about. And that kind of that builds that connection much quicker, doesn’t it? When people feel that this is just a normal guy, he’s a normal guy doing extraordinary stuff. It’s more powerful somehow.

Scott Barlow [5:30]
Yeah, you know, I think it is. I think that, you know, as I like, as I’ve listened to your podcast, and as I have listened to other podcasts, I think the ones that I connect with the most are the ones that just like you said, you feel like it’s a normal person or somebody you can relate to maybe it’s not even so much normal. It’s somebody that you can relate to. And it’s not somebody that is, I don’t know, massively out of your league or whatever you want to call it. But yeah, I think that there’s there’s a certain bit of Magic and that to that, that helps quite a bit.

David Ralph [6:03]
Is anyone out of your league though? Because I think that’s a mindset that certainly is the newbies struggle with Why would this person respond to me? Why would this person, you know, help me out and stuff, but do you in your heart apart? Do you see people out of your league? But you think, no, they’re never gonna contact me, they’re never going to allow me to minutes of their time.

Scott Barlow [6:25]
I think that from time to time that I’ve, I’ve really struggled with that. But I’d say compared to the normal person, like, okay, so when, you know, when I was working for a company over here to an HR company called target, and it target would have their higher ups visit all the time. I mean, that would that would happen on a regular basis. And I was one of those guys who I would just go over and I would talk to them and strike up a conversation and talk to them about their family and anything else. So I would say that compared to the average person I really haven’t let that bother me throughout my life. But there’s certainly been times where, you know, somebody who I’ve been enamoured with, if you want to call it that, you know, I wonder, are they going to return my email? Or, you know, would they would they actually talk to whatever it happens to be? I would be totally lying. If If I said, I haven’t had those times, but yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s a mindset piece. You know, realising that really, everybody is human, and everybody has the same basic set of needs and wants and desires for the most part, and

David Ralph [7:32]
so on. I’m gonna set out a virtual connection. It doesn’t matter who you’re thinking of, they will respond to you. Who would you go for? If you could have one half hour conversation or even 10 minute conversation with somebody and they will guarantee make time for you Who would you have?

Scott Barlow [7:52]
I am trained to figure out a way I would absolutely love to spend some time with Tony Shea.

David Ralph [7:59]
I’ve never heard So I am What’s that? I’ve never

Scott Barlow [8:02]
heard of him who’s Tony? Never heard of them. So he founded zappos.com.

David Ralph [8:08]
Never heard about sold.

Scott Barlow [8:10]
sold to Amazon. Are we getting closer?

David Ralph [8:13]
I’m with you on Amazon. That’s the first one. Okay. Yes, I’m with you.

Scott Barlow [8:17]
All right. So he’s since that point in time since he sold it for I don’t know, like some like $800 million, or whatever it was, I can’t quite remember. But he, he has done some pretty amazing things. So he’s revitalised the entire downtown of the original downtown of Las Vegas or at least been in the process doing something called the downtown project, and just done some very, very innovative things taking a taking a city that really is very, very much spread out and the downtown isn’t the isn’t the central hub in that particular city. And you know, he has, he has taken 350 million bucks of his own money to literally re engineer that so that it creates entrepreneurs Ship type opportunities in order to make the rest of the city very, very strong.

David Ralph [9:05]
So he killed episode I don’t know of CSI Las Vegas, that’s never gonna happen again.

Scott Barlow [9:11]
It’s it’s possible it is possible. So is that does that cut right? Right to a nerve or something?

David Ralph [9:17]
I think that there’s my wife would be devastated if CSI Las Vegas doesn’t occur. She likes the shady areas of all towns. That’s what my wife frequents. And so if this man spending 350 million making all lovely and industrial, I’ve got a very upset woman on my hands.

Scott Barlow [9:37]
Maybe Tony Shea is not for her. I you know, that’s a possibility.

David Ralph [9:43]
So well, what would he give you then? What what what is the spark in Tony Shay’s armoury if you can have a Sparky armoury that really excites Scott Barlow.

Scott Barlow [9:54]
He’s just this fascinating individual I mean, he very much is very down to earth. And at the same time, he just looks at life in a completely different way than what most people do. And that fascinates me. He’s very much from some of the things that I admire, like, you were just reading the bio that I don’t remember road writing that sounded really, really good. But he, you know, one of the things that I heard in there was this whole concept of just going and happening to it. And, you know, that’s that’s very much what he’s done to the nth degree throughout his entire life. So I think that that is just amazing. And he’s he’s continually looking to create solutions for problems that are much bigger than what people would consider solvable.

David Ralph [10:47]
Yeah, but you’re doing this same thing, aren’t you? You know, Tony Shea, I’m going to look him up because as I’ve never heard of him before, he will have a network of support that he can only do these big things because he has He’s gone down that timeline, you’re on the same timeline. It’s just that you’re further behind him somehow you started late or whatever, so that the problems that you’re solving are just as big as he’s with the potential of your network, but you’ve got at your support.

Unknown Speaker [11:16]
I would agree. That’s why I’m good.

David Ralph [11:18]
You say that’s why I am good.

Scott Barlow [11:23]
accurately assessed Mr. Ralph. Yeah,

David Ralph [11:25]
you didn’t have to you didn’t agree with that comment? You just went with the first one. But as a host of a show? Do you feel that you have got the power to change lives? Are you very aware with your podcast? Is that the bigger platform than the actual platform itself? How do you get more interaction with your your listeners and your customers?

Scott Barlow [11:48]
I get on the phone with a lot of people. So like, we don’t have the most massive podcast in terms of downloads or numbers, anything like that, like, you know, I look at some of the other just amazingly large podcasts out there. And, you know, we’re we’re not close to that, but what we do really, really, really well is we make it very, very, very personal. And, you know, I mean, you reached out and contacted me. But we have a very, very high percentage of of our listeners that reach out and contact me and I get like those, those 14 page emails again and again and again and again, you know, people detailing out what their situation is and what they’re struggling with. And, and I, I regularly invite people to do that one because that’s really what I’m interested in. Because I think that changing people’s lives really starts with one person at a time. I mean, that sounds very trite and very cliche, but it really is you can you can’t change people’s lives like groups at a time so much when it’s something so personal and individual that we’re working with, which is, you know, how do we help people connect what they want in their lives, to their to their career, because that’s really, really what we do. To some degree, it’s like you’ve heard the very popularised term and in the business, podcasting space now lifestyle design, right? So we almost do like lifestyle design for normal people, I guess you could say they don’t want to be working on working on an island or, you know, whatever in their laptop, we help them identify, here’s exactly what it is that I want out of my life. And here’s what I want to focus on, here’s how I want to be able to spend my time and then we help connect them back to their career, and then answer your question. You know, the way that that we get that all started most often is through our podcasts people hear us on the podcast they hear, you know, my continual request to you know, join our join our eight day course helps people figure out what they want for free or they hear it you know, say hey, email me contact me reach out, whatever whatever it is, and then they do at some point they they do They’re ready. And then we from that point, offer very, very, very personal attention regardless of whether they turn into a paying customer or not. So people seem to like that sort of thing.

David Ralph [14:13]
But I do I do. But how is it totally scalable? that the person who ends up on their knees, isn’t you? How do you not exhaust yourself by having so much passion for helping people But literally, it brings you to your knees?

Scott Barlow [14:32]
I’m not sure that I fully understand question. I haven’t spent a lot of time on my knees lately.

David Ralph [14:38]
Well, there’s an opportunity boy and straight away. But if you were spending so much time giving personal attention to somebody who’s not even paying you before they become a paying customer. How does that become totally scalable? How do you not just exhaust yourself? How does your energy become more focused on helping people as almost a missionary And not a businessman because at the end of the day, no matter how big your dreams of helping people are, you have your family, you have your health, you have your happiness, you have all that kind of stuff to care for first. And doing it your way seems to me that almost be a waiver takes away the scalable aspect. And the fact that you will be once I say, back on your knees again,

Scott Barlow [15:23]
huh? Okay, I understand what you’re saying. Now that that is a great question. And I don’t know that I fully have the answer. At this point. What I have figured out is that every single step along the way I have had to adjust you know as as it’s it’s grown from, you know, nothing 00 listeners on the podcast, zero customers, you know, just starting out to first customers and, and going and getting, you know, our paperwork to make our business legal and all those types of things. And then to now where we have customers and people interact With us every single day, you know, and I’ve got I’ve got an email box full of full of people that have emailed me right now that I haven’t gotten back to yet. Yeah. And so I totally think that that’s a that’s a real world problem. But what I’ve also figured out is that every step along the way, I’ve been able to adapt to it. I don’t necessarily always know exactly what the next step is. But we’ve been able to get very, very creative for so far, and you’ve been able to help me with some of that, too. You know, one of the things that I was really struggling with is, man, I type so slow, it’s ridiculous. So I’m, I’m trying to answer all of this, this email, and I typed terribly slow, I analysed to death, everything that I write because I want to write stuff that’s truly helpful to people. And you know, I sent send it off and it’s like, this is not scalable. So I went to went to my mastermind group, one of my mastermind groups and and one of the guys in there Actually, you know, Mark Seaver Crapo, as we’ve already mentioned him, he’s like, Hey, you know what David Ralph does, you should drop him an email and find out exactly how he’s doing this. Yeah, he does a bunch of stuff through audio. So, you know, dropping the email, find out what’s going on there so emailed to you and found this cool little service where I can then instead of spending all this time agonising, and I can I can really just talk for a minute and a half or two minutes, get a much better quality answer, and also a much more personal answer, that’s an audio form and be able to send that over to, you know, my, my audience who’s taken the time to email me so I think that’s so cool in the first place. I don’t want to ever undervalue that. They’ve taken the time to email me. And they’re typically in a place of a lot of pain. Like they they come to my show, when they don’t really like their job, or even if they like their job, they’re really having this. This urge and feelings of wanting to do something more and not feeling fulfilled and in some cases, feeling very overwhelmed. And not sure how to work through it and, and all these other other things is typically an emotional time by the time they get to me. And, you know, I, again, don’t really want to undervalue that. So as

David Ralph [18:11]
you’ll put on those go, I think I think you’ll you care too much. And I can see that you like a big heart with a smiling face on it walking around. And he’s almost you’ve got to detach yourself somehow to bring the power of what you want for happened to your career to the fore, can’t you? It’s the the big things that will make the difference to more people than the tiny little things, unfortunately.

Scott Barlow [18:35]
Yeah. And I think one of the things that we’ve done to be able to do more of that detaching is, I detach myself in the ways that don’t matter as much like it really doesn’t matter. If I am doing the show notes. Like it really doesn’t. Nobody’s gonna be like, Oh my goodness, Scott, you put so much love into the show notes. I can’t even believe it. It’s dripping, you know? So we’ve expanded out our team and you know, if Got a couple wonderful people that really helped me run the business and produce the show. Three in particular, you know, one is one is my wife Alyssa and she’s just downright amazing. She keeps everything organised. She runs all the finances. She is like my personal coach.

David Ralph [19:17]
She always is going, Oh, does she do it? Oh, hi. She does

Scott Barlow [19:21]
get I mean, all the money goes into her checking account and like she, she’s, she does the finances. It’s got all the money actually do you pay

David Ralph [19:31]
her slave labour wages with somebody like Taco Bell be earning twice as much as your wife?

Unknown Speaker [19:39]
That is a possibility.

David Ralph [19:41]
You’re Batman, Scott, you’re Batman.

Scott Barlow [19:44]
I really think it’s the other way around. So I’m the one earning the Taco Bell wages and she’s the one reaping all the rewards because she gets all the money wherever whatever source code from

David Ralph [19:56]
so when you work with your why because this this is fascinating because so many People have an idea for a business. And so many people and I was talking about this with a lady on the previous show, and they will look around at the people that sit around them and think, ah, Jim’s a nice bloke or my wife’s a lovely lady. That’s who I should work with, that’s going to be easier. Is it easier? Or does it have its own problems as well? Is it better to have like a virtual connection of VA where you literally ask him to do a task? Or is it? Does it have more power to you personally, by having your wife on board?

Scott Barlow [20:33]
It’s really so first of all, the direct answer is it’s much harder. It’s much harder for both of us. It really truly is. And I think that because it’s harder, it forces us to, I don’t know, it’s kind of disruptive in a good way. Because it breaks up the norm of some of the patterns. I think you can fall into it in marriage, and it forces us to work together as a team in a different way. But no I’d be totally lying to you if I said, Oh, yeah, it’s easy. And like we were totally made to work together in that particular way. It’s been, it’s been very much us learning to do that. And also, you know, coming from the place where initially she was just helping me out, because we didn’t have any money. We were trying to run, we’re trying to put the business entirely off itself, like, we didn’t want to put money into it, except for money that was coming into the business. So that was, that was the goal. So we didn’t want to take a bunch of our own money and then invest it into a and you know, that’s not always the right way to go for everybody. But that’s the way that we wanted to do it. So you know, she was she was helping out initially just because it was getting overwhelming real real quickly. And we were getting starting to get all those emails that we were talking about and things like that. And, and it she said, Hey, I can I can help. So that’s, that’s where it started. It wasn’t like, Hey, this is Scott and Alyssa working together. It was just Hey, I’m gonna help you out for a little bit and She’s continued to do that. And she’s continued to take on more and more pieces of that she does a lot of our scheduling now. So like, she already runs our calendar at home, like I pretty much I just look at my phone and where it says to go, I go. But she’s amazing organizationally like that. So that that suits are really, really well. And then, you know, I mentioned the finances and then several other aspects too, but it’s, it’s no, it’s been totally hard. It’s been. It’s been growth, I think, really, really good for us, but really, really hard for us.

David Ralph [22:33]
Because you start obviously listening to Episode 77 or into your career, and it was your career versus your finances revisited. And I went over it because our friend I’ve I want to keep on naming him But Mark Seba crop was interviewing you about your journey to get out of debt. And I looked at him Whoa, this is interesting. I didn’t know this about Mr. Barlow. But you literally were up to your eyeballs in debt. Everything from car payments to mortgage debt student loans to the tune of over 133,000. I’m reading that off your site at the moment. Now, I didn’t realise that and that’s sort of a fascinating journey. But you can obviously bring in your own experiences when you help people come through happen to your career. So when you look back on that, what’s that a series of bad choices? Or was that just lifestyle that took you over? Would you do the same things again? Would you get yourself into that position of 133,000 debt?

Scott Barlow [23:31]
You know, I’m glad that it happened because it paved the way for so many things other so many things afterwards, it really really truly did. Like, like, for example, my wife and I been able to band together as a team and and pay that stuff off because that wasn’t wasn’t easy at all. It was man that was a ridiculously tough three and a half years but but yeah, if I could do it over again. I would I would totally not take on that stuff in the first place. And I don’t know I, for the longest time really thought that I had to like go earn it all. So I don’t know, I thought a lot of things about the way life was supposed to be. And I mean, I know that everybody learns those types of things and goes through it. But, man, I thought that so first of all, I was running a business back way back when, when I was in college, and it was it was successful. I mean, for a college student, like I thought earning 40 grand a year was awesome. It You know, when I was only working nine months out of the year and the rest of the time scheme and taco or other places along those lines or whatever. So I thought that was awesome. But then I thought, well, I’m getting married, and married people have to go get jobs. Right. So the job that happened to be right in front of me was it was a job that I really knew from the very beginning wasn’t going to be good. It It wasn’t going to enjoy it that much. But it was it was there, it was in front of me. And so I took it I basically lied to myself and, and did the easier route. And I took it. And then I went and from there to try and make myself happy with the job that I really wasn’t all that interested in, in the first place that I took, even though I knew I shouldn’t. I bought lots of stuff, lots and lots of stuff. I went bought my dream car, we bought a really nice house and, and all kinds of other things along those lines. And we weren’t, I mean, we weren’t making bad money by any means we’re making more than than what my parents were at the time. So I thought that was downright amazing. But we were not making just phenomenal money either. So very, very quickly, we got this massive amount of debt accumulated. And then the market fell out onto the bottom of us. And we were trying to move at the same time and it’s like, oh my goodness, How on earth did we get here? So I think really, truly the thing that I would have done differently the catalyst A lot of that is really, I would stay clear away from what I think I’m supposed to do. Yeah, that societal type of expectation, I ended up wasting a lot of a lot of, well, waste in regard that if I could do it over again, I totally wouldn’t do it that way. But it taught me a lot of lessons for how I live my life today, a lot of hard lessons. In fact, one of the things that that happened was, you know, as as we bought that house, and as we decided, hey, we’re going to move and then at the exact same time, you know, I took a took another job in another city, and then the market fell out the bottom and then, you know, we’re totally in this place where we’ve got all of this debt, we are trying to figure out how we’re going to pay for the house and, and all of these other things. We, we eventually were able to sell it but we had to bring $72,000 to the table to be able to sell the house which is just nuts. So I have on My wall I’m looking at it right now to

David Ralph [27:01]
ask Mark see for a loan DJ because he’s got he’s got no idea when he could cheaply in record

Scott Barlow [27:08]
I didn’t even know Mark at that point otherwise I might have anyhow like I I ended up taking these two checks to the bank two different two different loans that so I mean it wasn’t well actually a part of it was a completely cashed out we took all the savings that we we had cashed out my 401k and everything along those lines which wasn’t very much at the time at all. And then took these two checks to the bank one for 30,500 bucks and one for $41,751 and and sold the house and we were happy to do it. Like as silly as that sounds we were thrilled to pieces because we knew it meant the end of having to worry about all the all the stress that goes along with it and that was that was just after the point in time we were well on this journey pet get stuff paid off and not have that stress hanging over you anymore.

David Ralph [27:58]
And was that the key thing Why when you created happen to your career, it was going to be self funded. There wasn’t going to be any loans attach. We don’t be the learning curve that you bought into that.

Scott Barlow [28:10]
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like that’s, we just weren’t gonna do that anymore. You know, and I know that some people might look at that as extreme. I looked at it from the perspective of it allows me to have the headspace to do what I want and create the business in the way that I want, without having other things tugging at me. So that was that was very much the intention from the beginning. Because I think what a lot of people don’t realise and I know that you know, from chatting with you in the past, I think that you’ve done a really, really good job with with finances. So I know that you’re totally going to understand this. But I did not realise how much headspace I had consumed by all of this debt and some of the worries and stuff and I didn’t feel like I was worried on a daily basis. A lot of the time. or hourly basis or minute basis. But man, the second we got all this stuff paid off all of this mind space, this extra space that was consumed by all these other things just opened up and it’s like wow, all of a sudden out of this creative space, it was super weird. Like I started cooking I started doing all these other things that I didn’t do because I had to like consume all this creative space that was previously occupied by I don’t even know it was occupied by worry so. So yeah, so that very much shaped some of those later decisions to be able to be able to run happen to your career the way that I wanted to run it.

David Ralph [29:33]
Well, let’s play some words. Now. She’s cheese lady. She’s an American lady, and she’s done rather well for herself. But she says in a fantastic speech about not knowing your next move, but just doing something. Business, Oprah

Unknown Speaker [29:47]
the way through the challenge is to get still and ask yourself, what is the next right move? not think about, Oh,

Unknown Speaker [29:57]
I got all

Unknown Speaker [29:58]
of this stuff. What is the next Next right move. And then from that space, make the next right move, and the next right move, and not to be overwhelmed by it. Because you know, your life is bigger than that one moment, you know, you’re not defined by what somebody says, is a failure for you, because failure is just there to point you in a different direction.

Unknown Speaker [30:19]
Pretty spot on, don’t you think, Scott?

Unknown Speaker [30:22]
I really do. I really do.

David Ralph [30:24]
That. the fascinating thing about that, that I like, it ties in very nicely with the Steve Jobs theme of the whole show, but you’ve got to have faith, you got to have trust. But everyone can do that caught my eye. Everyone can do something and have a look to see if it’s worked or not, and then do something else and keep on moving. And if you know anything about Oprah, she is the benchmark of every single one of us listening, have got more of a head start. Every single one of us have got an apple player, mp3 player and internet connection. We’ve got cars, loans, whatever this woman had. laughing and she’s now a billionaire for four years running or what ever. It really does sort of send out a message. I think this is what you and your wife did. You could have gone Oh, we’ve got all this debt. Oh, but you kind of got to a point where you went, Okay, we’ve got all this debt. How do we deal with it? What’s the first thing we deal with? and it moves you on? But all the time you’re learning, aren’t you? And you can take those learnings to the next level, which you’ve seen with your own career.

Scott Barlow [31:26]
Yeah, in you know, it, that’s, that’s all completely true. And I really think something that helped us do that too. Because I mean, yes, we absolutely had to be focused on that. What is the next thing, not what is not how are we going to attack these things all at once, it was literally one. I mean, $1 at a time, put towards one particular source to be able to continuously pay off that one thing. And it was that built over three and a half years that caused us to pay off six figures worth of worth of debt and debt. It that is exactly how we had to look at it. But we also had, I mean, in fairness to something that really helped us We had a great system. I think we became quickly fans of a guy called Dave Ramsey and oh, that that that podcast episode that you’re talking about, one of the things we did is we played at the end of that our trip we took a trip to Nashville, Tennessee, in in the states and and went over there and got to meet Dave Ramsey and go on his his radio show and which gets turned into a podcast and everything else two and a half

David Ralph [32:34]
plays. I am looking at an image of you standing next to Dave Ramsey, and he’s standing there with his hands in his pockets in a kind of cowboy mosey way. Your wife is standing to the left looking very professional, very personable. You’re looking a bit camp mate, you’re standing there with a slightly camp position. Have you realised but you’re standing next to probably the most cowboy friends motivation or money, man, and you’re looking camp.

Scott Barlow [33:04]
I don’t even know what camp means. But

David Ralph [33:06]
what you don’t know camp camp means slightly go.

Scott Barlow [33:11]
I did not know that. You’ve learned something. That’s actually how I probably look there though.

David Ralph [33:16]
Yeah, you do you look, he looks like you look like a gay man that’s just walked into a straight pitcher.

Scott Barlow [33:26]
That’s probably accurate. That’s funny.

David Ralph [33:29]
Well, what does Dave Ramsey have, but others don’t when when you meet him, obviously he’s supremely successful? Is it because he’s been around longer than others because there is there is a certain time and space but if people get there first, they get the attention quicker. And then they can grow their platform from that point. And obviously, in the podcasting environments, he was sort of around that. Ricky Jabez time when there was hardly anyone podcasting. Is that what he brings to the table now is it one of those things but people just trustee, because he’s been around for so long.

Scott Barlow [34:03]
I really think for him, it’s just it’s been similar to Oprah. It’s been built over the course of 20 plus years. And every year, he’s done a phenomenal job of pushing forward and moving along on his mission to really help people remove themselves from debt and expand their lives and give them back hope. And that’s what that’s what his mission started out to be. And really he’s I’ve met a lot of members of his team. I’ve been over there a couple of times since and actually just recently chatted on the phone with his team again, but they now have expanded into all different other kinds of areas they you know, into something they call entree leadership and, and leadership for small businesses and and all these other things, but it’s all been done over the course of 20 years, which is how those things get get done just tiny bits at a time and, and at this point, you know, he I think the biggest thing that is awesome on his side as he didn’t he didn’t give up. He kept pushing for 20 years where lots of people are not going to do that. I mean, take podcasting, right, what’s the isn’t like the average number of episodes before somebody gives up? Seven or something? Yeah, I just be making that up. No, he’s on the stat. Right. Yeah. So like, how many episodes are you in now? 415. Yeah. So, like, you’re rapidly becoming steps and steps closer to I don’t know, Dave Ramsey, or whatever

David Ralph [35:29]
happened to your career? That’s what I’m benchmarking against.

Scott Barlow [35:32]
Well, it was a long time ago. Could you back it up a long, long time ago? I can’t keep up. I’m at like, at, let’s see. I’m always uh, we’re working ahead all the time. So I can never remember exactly which ones released this week. But I think we’re like on 81 or something.

David Ralph [35:51]
Well, one of the things that we found doing this show and it tied up with our platform that we now coach people, we’re podcasters mastery is where you absolutely right Did the show on the cheap. And I think doing things on the cheap is great because it teaches you ways to really be streamlined and productive. And van allows you to spend money on stuff that you think is valuable to it instead of just throwing money at things left, right and centre hoping that things yeah. And I found that with myself because I was trying to do it with a self funding before you even had any money coming back. What I learned was incredibly powerful ways to edit and record really, really speedily. So when people say, Oh, you’ve done 415 episodes, ah, that must take you forever in a day. It really doesn’t only because of those 400 episodes previously, but I’ve learned a better ways to do it. And I look back on it now, as you probably do. And I think those times when I was literally on my knees thinking, ah, can’t bear this. This is taking every second of every day, I wouldn’t change at all. Now I’d look back on it and I go Thank you For that, because if I’d started off on an easy path, I wouldn’t be anywhere near, but I am now. But my whole editing of a show literally takes about two and a half minutes afterwards. By the time I sort of say goodbye to you, and you’ve wound up your microphone lead, I’m done and dusted with a show. And I hear stories where people take two hours a show and all that kind of stuff. So it is the tough times, isn’t it that really move you through as long as you’re willing to move through as long as you’re willing to do But Dave Ramsey, and just stay on that path working toward something.

Scott Barlow [37:31]
Yeah, it really is. And I mean, continue to innovate to and that’s one of the things that I’ve seen you do, like I’ve seen you, I’ve seen you tweak the show, like at the very beginning it It sounded completely different yet in different intro, it looked different. I think I even remember giving you feedback on like, iTunes cover type thing and like, Hey, I glossed over it in iTunes several times before I actually found it. You know, here’s what you might consider and, you know, I don’t I know you ended up with a different thing. I don’t know how much My feedback was in there. But the point being is you continued to figure out what was working and innovate on that and continue moving forward. And that’s, that’s the thing that I think so many people miss is they think about, especially entrepreneurship, especially small business, especially podcasting, they think that it’s going to be much easier and the shorter duration before you have continued success.

David Ralph [38:28]
Well, I think what we found no I, I went into it thinking, I am going to do this for two years, three years, four years and not earn a penny from this because I just knew there was a learning curve I had to do. It was common sense. You go into something new, you can’t expect to be an expert. And yes, I had 25 years of public speaking, totally different ballgame. It is I can stand in front of 5060 100 400 people, and you use different skills than you do on the mic when I became a guest on other people’s show. I thought this is gonna be a breeze, I suddenly realised that’s another skill. So all those kind of skills you have to build up over a period of time, and it’s not gonna happen overnight. But what I see with people, and it’s the biggest problem is that they benchmark themselves against the Dave Ramsey’s, they benchmark themselves against the Johnny do missus and all these people and the beauty of being in the online environment if you’re willing to dig around a bit, you can go back and see the origins. You can go back and listen to john Lee Dumas first episode and go, Oh, he wasn’t very good. And he actually admits it himself. Go back to my episode one. It’s all right, but I’m very muted. I’m a sort of a haven’t got a competence that I’ve got now, go check out 37 which was Scotland marks first appearance on the show. That was the first episode and I’ve mentioned this numerous times when I started being I think I’m starting to relax here. And then you start sort of moving on again. But that’s the big problem. And I don’t know if you know if we can overcome How people will always benchmark themselves against somebody who’s already out there. But we don’t want to know but 25 years of work, but it’s got them now.

Scott Barlow [40:10]
That that, first of all, I mean, yeah, totally, absolutely agree. But the backtrack for half a second, I did not realise that was the first episode that that really was the case was 37. Because I remember talking to you about it after the show, like after we turned off the record button, or maybe we didn’t, I don’t know. But I remember telling you that it’s like, hey, like, this is this is what you were meant to do. This is what you were supposed to do. Clearly you’re going to be fantastic at it. And, you know, going on record saying, look, this show is gonna grow. And it sort of sounded like you halfway believed me at the at the time, but I didn’t realise that was the first first one where you had

whatever you want to call it, you called it like sort of that

David Ralph [40:57]
I took the Mickey out to view that that was the first time that I, leading up to that point, I was very aware that people were giving their time up to come on a show that wasn’t a show. It was just me saying I wanted to do a show. And so I think I was very respectful. Totally, you know, in in the first 30 episodes, I would never have said to somebody, you look a bit gay in that picture, that that, that would never have happened in a million years. But you get to a point when you realise that the power is, is when you’re being yourself, and you’re not trying to be a diluted version of yourself. You’re not trying to appease the audience, you’re just being yourself. And that’s when the loyalty of the tribe really comes on. Because the people that love you really love you and the people that hate you just don’t want to know and they sort of go off and you sort of start building momentum into your life. But yeah, I listened back to the show the other day, funnily enough, Episode 37. And as I say, I was a much more muted, very sort of low in competence, but everything that you said I wanted to jump on because I thought it was a bit stupid, you know, in the nicest way. And I think that was me finally relaxing and trying to become myself. And then I think it took me another maybe 40 episodes before I hit the next benchmark. And then another one, you know, and Utah just keep on moving on moving on moving on. But I do salute you know, you, you really did push me on you and Mark were a benchmark for what has made Join Up Dots what it is, and I couldn’t do it without you, sir.

Scott Barlow [42:26]
Well, well, I appreciate that. We got to play even even a small part like this. I I don’t know if I’ve told you this or not. But I’ll, I’ll typically listen to in about every 20 episodes or so just because just because it’s David Ralph, just because it’s David Ralph. And I have been amazed because every time I listen, like it is funnier, it is more engaging. It is and even like, I don’t know, 100 plus episodes ago, I thought it was really really, really good then, and then I pop back on and it’s like oh my goodness. He’s He’s taking it to a new level. So I think that’s so cool. So I salute you right back, sir.

David Ralph [43:05]
Oh, we’re saluting whistle

Unknown Speaker [43:07]
like mainly we are saluting.

David Ralph [43:08]
Wait a minute tree here.

Scott Barlow [43:13]
But seriously though, I think that that is so cool. And I think that that’s such a great example because that’s that’s what people that’s the lie that gets perpetuated again and again and again.

David Ralph [43:24]
So how do you do that with your career? What happened to your career? How do you because in your heart of hearts, you know what you want, you you you’ve got this vision, this dream, aspirations whatever, but of course, it’s taken time to get to where it is now. How do you keep them stopping yourself? I suppose going, Oh, if only I could do this. If only I had a million dollars I could throw at it. If only I If only I can only How do you stop yourself doing that and go the Oprah route. Okay, we just do one more thing.

Scott Barlow [43:56]
One of the biggest ways that I do that you Is every single week? Well, there’s several different ways and they work in tandem with each other. And I had to work it out for myself, because not the same thing for everybody. But I’m in a couple of mastermind groups and mastermind, I don’t know how familiar your audience is with, with what that is. But essentially, it’s a group of folks that get together that are very committed to one another’s businesses or to to each other’s development or whatever it is. And then they they help provide feedback in a group type form, to really cause the individuals in that group to be successful on on their own right. And I’ve been very fortunate to be part of a couple of great masterminds. Mark’s been in one of them for a long time. And that’s, that’s one way so I use that as a way to identify what those most important next steps are that one more thing, and I get very, very unedited, blatant feedback. From from those groups sometimes, and I use that also in tandem with working with Alyssa because she she’ll do the same thing because she is she’s very much a how person and she’ll be like, Okay, so how are you going to do that? Like, I don’t know what it sounds really good but like how I don’t know how I’m going to do that. Okay, now I have to figure out how I’m going to do that. And then and identifying what that next step is. And then the other thing I do is every single week, we both sit down. It’s late at night after the kids have gone to bed. It’s usually about 8:30pm Monday night, and we spend an hour planning out the entire week and we do two different things. It’s taken us a we’ve done planning for years at this point. And that started way back when with when we’re doing budgeting and and you know, we’re living really, really specifically to get everything paid off and blah, blah, blah, all that good stuff. But then, now what it looks like is we we help budget our time, I guess you could say we are putting in there time that we’re gonna play with the kids time that I’m going to do stuff for the business time that and you know, at this point, I still have a day job, I’m getting ready to leave here shortly. But yeah, all the time for the things that are most important to us, because that’s really what makes people happy at the end of the day, is being able to spend your time in a way that you value. So that’s one way that we take control of that time and try to be very intentionally we’re not always great at it. In fact, a lot of the time we’re not but but we take that step every single week to be able to say, Okay, if we don’t put it on the calendar, then we’re going to miss plane time with the kids because something will come up something will seem more important or if we don’t put it on the calendar, then this thing, this big thing that’s going to move us forward in the business might not get done. So that’s that’s really important to us and then on a daily basis. This is where it gets a little bit more micro. I am typically identifying what is the most efficient One thing I’m going to do today for my business, and then I don’t always do it, but I try and do that first. Before I Well, you know, before I get, I don’t know, before I make up an excuse in my head to not do it, whatever it is.

David Ralph [47:14]
Because my my thing is not to have anything on the calendar, my benchmark of success I’m working towards is the ability to do stuff when I want to the fact that you know, if somebody says to me, I’ve been in Thursday’s I know, Thursdays, it’s my recording day. So I’m always going to be structured on Thursdays, but the rest of it can just sort of take care of itself. That’s where I’m working towards. And for me, personally, my Y is not a squillion pound a month. Yes, it would be nice, but it would be the ability to go. Yes, we do that on a Monday afternoon just because I can and once I got my y I realised that I was moving away from that I was starting to accept opportunities, just because they were money based. And I’m doing that little quota keeping with my fingers. Have I ultimately did I want the money? Yes. But would I prefer to have the control more? Yes. So can you see a point when that calendar is going to be ripped up and you are literally creating your environment to fit around your requirements, your lifestyle, the fact that the kids might just want to be with you on a Monday morning? And you could just say, Yeah, okay, I won’t do anything today.

Scott Barlow [48:26]
I think that, for us, in particular, I don’t know if the calendar will ever be ripped up. What we’ll do is, instead, we’ll just say, you know what, this is more important today, and we’ll, you know, scrap, what was what was scheduled. And I think we do that now. I mean, I think when people hear things like budgets, or they hear like calendars, I think that sounds really, really restrictive. But what I’ve found is that it’s very, very freeing because well for a variety of different reasons. I can block out space on my calendar that says, Look, I’m gonna do nothing. But whatever I want during this, you know, this four hour block, like this has relaxing time or this easy

David Ralph [49:10]
when it’s like forced on you. It’s like, you know, you want your favourite dinner when you want it not when somebody else wants it. Is that the same thing? When you’re saying yes, I’m gonna relax when maybe you don’t want to relax, it might be you, you’re quite into work mode.

Scott Barlow [49:25]
I think it can be changed, but I found time and again, that usually if I’m creating a plan and taking the time to do that is usually the right thing that that needs to happen more often than not, we’re getting it right when we take the take the time to be able to plan and be intentional, versus in the moment, I’m so much more subject to emotions. I’m so much more subject to whatever I’m feeling at that particular time. And, you know, I think it’s important to be able to spend time that way to where you can just appeal to your emotions and you can just appeal to you know, whatever is You want in the moment. So the way that we handle that is we’ll literally block that type of thing out on the calendar and say, Look, that’s, that’s that time. And that is I found very, very freeing. It really is because it allows me to still get all the stuff done overall, like throughout the week that that I need to be doing. But then it also allows me not to feel guilty when I’m playing with my kids and thinking, oh my goodness, I’ve got all this stuff that needs to be done for the business and whatever else and that was it. That was a struggle, in fact that I don’t know if you know them or not. Do you know Shane and Jocelyn Sam’s over at

David Ralph [50:40]
flip lifestyle. I related to Tony Shea

Unknown Speaker [50:45]
how do we not know any of the same? I know none

Unknown Speaker [50:48]
of these people know a lot of the same people. I just don’t see the crop. That’s

David Ralph [50:51]
the only person I know.

Scott Barlow [50:54]
Well, he’s the most important one, so that’s good.

Yeah, well, anyhow, you know, my wife and I I got on I got on a call with them and actually went on their, their podcast. In fact, it’ll, they’re usually scheduled, you know, three or four months out or whatever, but but I think it just aired or something along those lines I don’t quite remember. But the point being is that, you know, they gave us that advice because we were saying they’re further ahead than we are much, much further ahead than we are in, in this business and, and they gave us the advice like, Hey, are you are you guys, you know, plan on on that for your family? It’s like, what why don’t you just put on the on the calendar because we’re already doing planning and everything else along those lines or what why don’t you just put play time on the calendar? It’s like, Oh, well, that would work. Because then that releases that really truly releases all these guilty feelings for my wife, you know, if she’s looking at a stack of laundry or something like that, or whatever it is that that she feels she has to do in her head. And for me, a lot of times it’s a business related. Oh, you know, I I need to get this audio recorded or I need to get You know, back to the seven people or I need to be able to try and contact you know, these these couple of people or I need to write whatever it happens to be, that can consume my headspace. And then when I am, you know, just trying to do what I would actually want to do or play with my children or whatever else, then I’m not actually there and I’m not actually present and that’s a problem for me.

David Ralph [52:22]
Because I see you Scott Barlow, and I’m gonna say this to you. I see happen to your career disappearing and the true branding will become Scott Barlow, in a way like the Dave Ramsey’s, and pat Flynn’s have kind of risen beyond what they have originally started to create because I think you are strategically moving yourself to a position where your team will be operating happened to your career and you will be the figurehead and I think it will work very well because you are a great speaker. You are a moderately attractive looking guy. And module. Yeah, I don’t want to follow that.

Scott Barlow [52:57]
And I appreciate you saying my moderately attractive If

David Ralph [53:00]
I was being kinda I don’t mean anything but I say on this show, and you’ve got that heart that passion, you are the figurehead of this company. And I see there a time not too far down the line where literally you will whip up that calendar because you will breeze into the office and people will be doing what you do so that you’ve got that free time to blue sky think and create the next part of what becomes up happened to your career.

Scott Barlow [53:29]
I don’t know that I agree entirely on the fly. Ladies, Please

David Ralph [53:34]
agree, please.

Scott Barlow [53:36]
You’re the host. I know it’s polite to agree with the host and whatever. But we just talked about how like I you know, I shouldn’t be doing what everybody else thinks I should be doing right.

David Ralph [53:46]
I agree with Mr. Barlow. That’s what I’m saying. I’m

Scott Barlow [53:48]
gonna respectfully disagree. You know, I think that what will happen and what I see happening and I could be wrong, I totally reserve the right to be wrong and I typically learn a lot when I’m wrong. But what I happening is to have more and more larger chunks, where they are, they’re scheduled, but they are not scheduled with anything in particular is not scheduled where I’m taking tonnes of phone calls at this particular time. And that’s like my entire week or whatever, much, much larger chunks where it’s like, Hey, I’m gonna go read some books or do whatever I want and run it and relax and be able to just have a particular focus and, and that’s how I see it happening. And that’s, that’s how I want it to happen to like, truly, like, let’s put, put some of the, what just naturally happens aside and say, that’s, that’s how I really want to live my life to and that’s I mean, that’s a lot of what we teach is really identifying the things that are important to you, and being able to do that. So like for you, you feel it’s really important. Like we’ve had several conversations and emailed back and forth a bunch and in whatever else and and I know that it’s important to you to be able to get to that point where you just don’t have it on yourself. Calendar and that’s cool. That’s exactly what you should do. Like you’ve got, you just have nothing on the calendar. And it’s different for me, I want slightly different things. And that’s, it sounds like a small distinction. But I think that that is really, really critical. And that’s really truly the core of what we help people do is identify what is important to them, and then work their life, and especially their career around what’s important to them versus the other way around, which is allowing your career to happen to you. Right,

David Ralph [55:31]
brilliant, I can see your logic. And I will say that on episode 1000, I’d like you to come back and we will start it with the words they beat. You was right. Can you do that? Will you come back

Unknown Speaker [55:42]
on episode 1000. I would love to. I would love you kind of showed 1000

David Ralph [55:48]
Yeah. And if you’re not there, I’ll get marks even tease you and we would just do the whole show as a sham. I need any justification of my knowledge. You see, that’s what I’m trying to do.

Scott Barlow [55:59]
All right. That that is awesome. That sounds like a deal.

David Ralph [56:02]
Well, before we send you back in time on the show, what I want to do is just play the words of Steve Jobs, which is the whole theme of the show. And I will be interested to send you back in time because the last time you was on you didn’t want to do it, you you handed over the reins. So this is the words that Steve Jobs said back in 2005. And I’m going to ask the key question, and it’s the question that I asked every single day. This is Steve Jobs.

Steve Jobs [56:26]
Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path and that will make all the difference.

David Ralph [57:01]
So I’m going to ask a question before I ask the big one. But where did you dots actually start? When you look back on it now to where you are now Can Can you see the sort of path that you’ve been on?

Scott Barlow [57:14]
I think truly It started when I was a kid, but the most recognisable dots were when I was really struggling in college to try and figure out exactly what it was that I wanted to do. Like I was I was really struggling because, like, there’s so many options out there, I didn’t understand what a lot of them were, I was feeling pressure to be able to choose I, you know, all the things that people go through when they go to college or university or whatever. And for me, I I started looking at all my friends and what they were doing and, and realise that okay, a whole bunch of them. Were getting internships and things like that and things that you’re supposed to do and I didn’t want to do that. So I’m like, if I’m going to get an internship, I’m going to do something that’s actually going to take me somewhere or give me some experience or give me some, you know, something more to more to life. So that’s, that’s where I guess it’s the case of Be careful what you wish for a little bit because that that’s where I ended up coming home with my first small business and doing that as an internship, which you can get credit for apparently, at the college. And even though that was my first dot, and even though that I had glimpses of, Hey, this is, this is right for me. I still chose to deviate from that. And I still chose to ignore what was right for me. Immediately after that, like three years later, when I graduated from from college, and like I mentioned earlier, my you know, my wife and I were getting married at the time and I’m like, Oh, well, yeah, married people just go get jobs right. So I went and got one of those stable jobs. And then the other big wake up point for me was I was there for a year hating life. driving into into into work every day Sunday nights, I’d turn into the biggest Jerk because I was so stressed out about what was going to happen the next day and I’d stay up late and worry about it. I somehow thought, David that if I if I stayed up later and watch TV like that maybe the next day wouldn’t come Monday morning Morning, come convinced that myself of that every single week, so then, you know, drive into the office and I feel terrible in the pit of my stomach. And at some point, I finally got up the gall to tell my boss that maybe this wasn’t right for me. And, and then he fired me from that stable job.

David Ralph [59:36]
Different for you quick, quickly afterwards.

Scott Barlow [59:39]
Three weeks later, yeah, it was. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, and also one of the worst times ever.

David Ralph [59:48]
And when he said it to you, did you kind of think I’ve given everything for this company, or did you kind of go Yeah, fair enough.

Scott Barlow [59:56]
I felt really embarrassed. And I also like Because, I don’t know, I like part of the reason I made the decision to go and take that job in the first place was, I think, a little bit of ego and a little bit of going to what society expects you to do and what I thought my parents expected me to do, and, and friends and all these other things. So I was still very, and I still, to some degree, have lots of egotistical moments, but it was really, really bad then. So I, I felt like I was horribly embarrassed and, and my ego was damaged. And it was, it was painful. And the way that they did it, too, was not they called my entire team there and told them they were there for a training and and instead I got the news, right, like as people were setting up in the other room, and I had to go tell my team like I’m pretty much in tears at that point. And because I was thinking of what I was going to have to go and tell my wife and we had had this massive mortgage and all these, you know, in our dream cars and all this other junk and no Way to pay for it cuz we didn’t have a savings at the time and, and so yeah, I’m nearly in tears and now I have to go tell my team that hey, guess what I’m leaving? So? So yeah it was it was very, very painful and it was very much one of the best things that ever happened to me because the very next feeling was relief that it is astonishing

David Ralph [1:01:22]
isn’t it is astonishing that the bad times the real bad times and I’m almost like a scratch record because I say this all the time, but I see it now that the bad times in life are you great stuff. That’s the real learning. That’s the bits that move you forward to the next point. That’s the ones that change your direction. Good stuff is good, but it doesn’t move you on does it?

Scott Barlow [1:01:44]
Absolutely true. Absolutely true. And I try and not get more of the bad stuff. But I get more of the stuff that I’m uncomfortable with every single day now because that’s, that’s I mean, I got to practice what I preach and that’s a lot of what we teach is that the great stuff happens. When you are continuously and intentionally improving yourself and exposing yourself outside of your comfort zone and and that’s, that’s where I mean, that’s where steal another cliche. Like that’s where the magic happens, right? Absolutely.

David Ralph [1:02:13]
Yeah, I remember just before we send you back on the Sermon on the Mount, I remember a conversation after we recorded Episode 37. And you were saying, you know what she downloads like, what’s your downloads light? And I said, Oh, I’m getting about 50 a day and you went well. 1000 Yeah, 50,000

Unknown Speaker [1:02:29]
or 1000 or so?

David Ralph [1:02:30]
Yeah, and said, No, 50 a day and you went, Oh, but even at that time, even it was bad because I just thought it was gonna take off really quickly. In my heart I just bought. There’s a story here that there’s a story when it takes off. disappea an interesting story. And I’ve shared it on many shows now and it proves that the dark times are the ones that are really countable. Were the ones that give you flesh and bone to your towels, aren’t they?

Scott Barlow [1:02:56]
Yeah, they really are. I mean, those are the those are the times When you’re learning and then in my opinion, it makes any any kind of success that you have later so much more sweeter and so much more. You identify with it a different way is probably, I don’t know, I’ve never exactly thought about it. And in that same same vein, but yeah, I I think it makes it more. I think it makes it sweeter.

David Ralph [1:03:25]
I think so. And I think you’ve written the title of the show bear. Scott Barlow making the world sweeter. That’s nice isn’t

Scott Barlow [1:03:33]
perfect. But

David Ralph [1:03:35]
well, this is the end of the show now. And this is the bit that you didn’t do last time because you sent our friend once again, Mark Seaver crop. Are we breaking a record of mentioning his name? Probably no. But getting I don’t know.

Scott Barlow [1:03:44]
Like, yeah, I feel like it’s like the equivalent of anybody who seems super troopers is like, can you get out of the carb meal?

David Ralph [1:03:51]
Well, I think we had Matt Matt Williams on the show. And I think we managed to say Mark Seaver crops name 18 times, which was pretty impressive. We’re getting close to it. There we go. Let’s do another wonder mocks Evo mock saver grill.

Unknown Speaker [1:04:04]
I’m pretty sure that’s 24

David Ralph [1:04:05]
mock save up there we go, we’ve won, we’ve worse no record. Well this is the part of the show where we’re going to send you back in time to have a one on one with your younger self. And if you could go back in time and speak to the young Scott Barlow, what advice would you give? And what age would you like to speak to as well? I’m gonna play a theme tune and when it fades you up. This is the Sermon on the mic.

Scott Barlow [1:04:47]
Not really sure what I was gonna do. So I guess just on the fly, we’ll just go with something. I guess. Get

Unknown Speaker [1:05:04]
ready for this open mic, because

Unknown Speaker [1:05:08]
you might not like it. Let me tell you and show you how it’s done talking to you, Scott back when you were 21. so distracted your future you don’t even see the game in front of you.

Unknown Speaker [1:05:20]
The simple things that you would miss that happen in the now

Unknown Speaker [1:05:23]
I want you to focus on the present, and future how

Unknown Speaker [1:05:26]
don’t get caught up with what other people might be thinking.

David Ralph [1:05:29]
That’s a waste of

Unknown Speaker [1:05:31]
time before you’re blinking. Don’t accept what’s in front of you the way it has to be. Doesn’t matter no matter what you see, oh,

Scott Barlow [1:05:38]
do what you want and a lot of times Oh, yeah. And learn how to drop some rhymes.

David Ralph [1:05:49]
No, it reminded me vaguely of the Terminator wrapping. I don’t know why I had that image.

Unknown Speaker [1:05:55]
But that’s because it was. It

David Ralph [1:05:58]
was a master class. And it leaves me just to say, Sir, how can our audience connect with you?

Scott Barlow [1:06:05]
You know, I think the the very best way is happened to your group Comm. And you know what, in fact, we’ve spent a whole bunch of time talking about living your life intentionally. And I had I’d mentioned that a day course earlier, but that’s one of the that’s one of the best things in happened to your career that I’ve found. It’s, it’s, it’s our eight day course that helps you figure it out, figure out what it is that that you want, and get out of that overwhelm and really get clear on what you should be doing in your life. So here’s, here’s what I think we’ll do. We’ll, we’ll set up a a special page where people can go and they will take advantage of that eight day course and some other bonuses too, so they can figure it out. And I found that and I think you found the same thing that once you get clear on what it is that you want, it becomes so much easier to get what you want in your career in your life. Spend your money and everything else. So we can set that up. I know this will sound odd, but we can go happen to your career.com slash Join Up Dots. And people can find that. And if it’s a good thing for them, they can, they can join it for completely free, and start to figure out what they want and what they should be doing with their career, whether that’s, you know, business or job or whatever else are. And I think that’s, that’s probably the very best way and then you get some of the best interactions that that we have.

David Ralph [1:07:31]
Well, I have, oh, by the links on the show notes. That sounds fantastic. And I hope you get those and those are people coming from the dots over to the career. That’s the way to do it. Scott, thank you so much for spending time with us today. joining up those dots, looking forward to having you back on that thousand show. So you can say those special words start practising now you can put music to it, whatever you want to do, because I do believe that by joining up the dots and connecting our past is the best way to build our futures. Mr. Scott Barlow, thank you so much.

Scott Barlow [1:07:58]
Thank you. Really pretty This is as always kind of fun.

David Ralph [1:08:05]
Thanks for listening to today’s episode of Join Up Dots brought to you exclusively by podcasters mastery.com. The only resource that shows you how to create a show, build an income and still have time for the life that you love. Check out podcasters mastery.com. Now,

Outro [1:08:24]
David doesn’t want you to become a faded version of the brilliant self you or wants to become. So he’s put together an amazing guide for you called the eight pieces of advice that every successful entrepreneur practices, including the two that changed his life. Head over to Join Up dots.com to download this amazing guide for free and we’ll see you tomorrow on Join Up Dots.